We are equally ignorant of the nature of the Egyptian musical system. A well-defined system they had, without doubt--they systematized everything. The evidence seems to point to the fact that they used a diatonic scale, and the representations of their musical performances would indicate that they were acquainted with harmonic effects. A concert of eight flutes, for instance, in unison, or even in octaves, without other instruments of any sort to vary the monotony, would hardly have appealed to a taste as cultivated as theirs must have been. Fétis is of the opinion that the Egyptians possessed a system of musical notation, and sees in the resemblance to demotic characters of the musical notation used by the modern Greek Church evidence of the fact that it belonged to ancient Egypt.[31] The presence of a system of musical notation is no proof of the coincidence of an harmonic system, but it is _prima facie_ evidence of a stage of artistic development which included a sense of something more than primitive and haphazard concords. Such a stage of development we may probably credit with safety to the ancient Egyptians, and, whatever their music may have been, we can surely conclude that it had acquired at least the elementary proportions of an art. W. D. D.
[20] Antiphonal is here used in the sense that one part of the chorus answered the other.
[21] Carl Engel: 'Music of the Most Ancient Nations.’
[23] Translated from a summary by Jules Combarieu In his _Histoire de la musique_, Vol. V, Chap. XIV.
[24] Concerning the influence of the temple and synagogue on the liturgical music of the early Christian church, see Chapter V, p. 157 ff.
[26] 'The Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient World.’ (1862-67.)
[27] _Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Ethiopien._
[31] F. J. Fétis: _Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique_.
CHAPTER IV THE MUSIC OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS
Significance of Greek music--Greek conception of music; mythical records--Music in social life; folk song; general characteristics of Greek music--Systems and scales--Pythagoras’ theories; later theorists: Aristoxenus to Ptolemy--Periods of Greek composition: the nomoi; lyricism; choral dancing and choral lyricism; the drama--Greek instruments; notation.