Musical Instruments [1908] — Themes and Context

A Council of Music in Tezcuco

Engel devotes notable attention to the Mexican institution called the “Council of music,” founded by the monarch Nezahualcoyotl in Tezcuco. He describes it not as a purely musical body but as “an academy for general education” that advanced arts and sciences including history and astronomy. Engel contrasts this with the Chinese “board of music” (Yoh Pu), which he presents as a more rigid office connected with the board of rites, regulating ceremonies for sacrifices, festivals, marriages, and burials. The comparison is telling: Engel argues that the Mexican council was “planned on a more enlightened and more comprehensive principle.” This judgment, based on limited evidence, reveals Engel's willingness to rank civilizations by their institutional sophistication.

Peruvian Haravis and the Problem of Authenticity

Engel's treatment of Peruvian elegiac songs called haravi illustrates his cautious approach to ethnographic data. He notes that published tunes “exhibit exactly the form of the Spanish bolero,” casting doubt on their genuineness. He warns that “it is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty how much in them has been retained of the original tunes,” especially since harmony is “entirely an addition of the European arranger.” This skepticism extends to the haravecs (minstrels or “inventors”) who composed and recited the haravis. Engel's phrasing—"pronounced to be genuine specimens"—implies a critical distance from the claims of contemporary works.

Speculative Origins and the Lost Tribes

Engel surveys several hypotheses about the Asiatic origin of American Indians, including migration from Mongolia, Tibet, or Hindustan, Phoenician colonization, and descent from the lost ten tribes of Israel. He refrains from endorsing any, but notes that these speculations have “proved useful” by prompting ethnologists to collect more evidence about American aboriginal habits. This passage exemplifies Engel's method: he presents competing theories without resolution, using them as a framework for organizing observations. The tone is detached, yet the inclusion of such speculation in a museum handbook suggests that the boundaries between classification and conjecture were fluid in late Victorian scholarship.

Readers should approach Engel's handbook as a document of its time, where museum cataloguing and comparative ethnology overlap. The revised edition's careful attribution of revisions to specialists indicates an effort to update factual content, but the interpretive framework—ranking cultures, questioning authenticity, weighing origin theories—remains Engel's own. Pay attention to the footnotes and the appendix for further details on specific instruments, and note that the illustrations, listed separately, are integral to the work's descriptive method.

I found myself lingering over Engel's speculations about ancient melodies we’ll never truly hear, and it made me think of the modern hunt for pure, authentic organ tone in that little book about its mechanical evolution. There’s a sweetness in that shared quest, even when the answer stays just out of reach. The Recent Revolution in Organ Building Being an Account of Modern Developments — Story, Setting & Ideas feels like a quiet conversation with that same patient curiosity.