THE DOUBLE PIPE.――Probably the _mishrokitha_ mentioned in Daniel. The
_mishrokitha_ is represented in the drawings of our histories of music
as a small organ, consisting of seven pipes placed in a box with a
mouthpiece for blowing. But the shape of the pipes and of the box as
well as the row of keys for the fingers exhibited in the
representation of the _mishrokitha_ have too much of the European type
not to suggest that they are probably a product of the imagination.
Respecting the illustrations of Hebrew instruments which usually
accompany historical treatises on music and commentaries on the Bible,
it ought to be borne in mind that most of them are merely the
offspring of conjectures founded on some obscure hints in the Bible,
or vague accounts by the Rabbins.
THE SYRINX OR PANDEAN PIPE.――Probably the _ugab_, which in the English
authorised version of the Bible is rendered “organ.”
THE BAGPIPE.――The word _sumphonia_, which occurs in the book of
Daniel, is, by Forkel and others, supposed to denote a bagpipe. It is
remarkable that at the present day the bagpipe is called by the
Italian peasantry Zampogna. Another Hebrew instrument, the _magrepha_,
generally described as an organ, was more likely only a kind of
bagpipe. The _magrepha_ is not mentioned in the Bible but is described
in the Talmud. In tract Erachin it is recorded to have been a powerful
organ which stood in the temple at Jerusalem, and consisted of a case
or wind-chest, with ten holes, containing ten pipes. Each pipe was
capable of emitting ten different sounds, by means of finger-holes or
some similar contrivance: thus one hundred different sounds could be
produced on this instrument. Further, the _magrepha_ is said to have
been provided with two pairs of bellows and with ten keys, by means of
which it was played with the fingers. Its tone was, according to the
Rabbinic accounts, so loud that it could be heard at an incredibly
long distance from the temple. Authorities so widely differ that we
must leave it uncertain whether the much-lauded _magrepha_ was a
bagpipe, an organ, or a kettle-drum.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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