The New Oxford History of Music:

Volume I: Ancient and Oriental Music

(New Oxford History of Music, Vol.1)

Essential Though It Has Aged

The New Oxford History of Music is a magisterial survey of classical music

from Ancient and Oriental music to 1960 in ten volumes. Each volume is
devoted to a recognized period of music history, and written by the notable
scholars in the field. Each volume includes plates and is copiously
illustrated with music examples, and aims to provide as complete a picture
as is possible of the period under discussion. The first volume published in
the 1950s, and the general editors have included a number of eminent
British musicologists, such as Jack Westrup and Gerald Abraham.

Personal Review: The New Oxford History of Music: Volume I:

Ancient and Oriental Music (New Oxford History of Music, Vol.1)
This books is of course essential to travel through the musics of humanity
from primitive music - considered as representing the music of prehistoric
men, I guess, since the chapter opens the volume - to the music of Islam,
hence up to just before European medieval time. We can note the time
scale is European. But there is something more important to say about the
book. Published in 1957, edited by Egon Wellesz and written by very
important people in their fields, from Asia to Europe up to the beginning of
feudal times, it covers the extremely important zone of the Near East and
the confrontation of three linguistic systems and three cultures: Turkic,
Indo-Iranian/Indo-European/Indo-Aryan and Semitic. But some of the most
important discoveries had not yet been made concerning the archeology of
the Middle east, or on the music of this zone in the millennia before Christ.
Two important discoveries were to be made only in 1968. For one the
Babylonian tablet on the tuning of the harp that enabled musicologists to
deduct the musical scale of this time and the whole system of musical
intervals at least 1,000 or 2,000 years before Pythagoras. The second
discovery concerns the Tiberian musical inscriptions in the Old Testament.
Officially added to the manuscript in the 9th century, the signs represent in
fact the use of an old system that is in perfect phase with the Babylonian
tablet I have just spoken of. From there a key was derived that enabled the
transcription of both prosodic and psalmodic musics. We cannot of course
criticize a book because it ignores what was to come after its publication.
The positive point then is that the book is informative about what we could
know in 1957 on the various musical systems of Asia, the Middle or Near
East, and the Mediterranean up to the 9th century, i.e. before the Tiberian
transcription. Rich and deep at times, but at the same time collecting
elements and remaining contradictory, hence open to further work and
interpretation. Thus he gives two words for "harp" (kinnôr, nebhel) with no
real explanation, and he gives two words for "pipe" (`âgâbh, habîl) still
without giving any explanation. On the other hand he gives three meanings
for the word "nebhel" (harp, lute, psaltery) without really explaining the
case. Yet he explains how the transition from Jewish synagogal (and
Temple) music to Christian music might be envisaged: direct continuation
and departure under Greek influence. A good reference on music of those
times.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1

Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

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