Egyptian musical culture impressed itself on the Greeks, and also on the Israelites, whose tone-language gained warmth and coloring from various Oriental sources.  Hebrew scriptures abound in tributes to the worth of music which was intimately related to the political life, mental consciousness and national sentiment of the Children of Israel.  Through music they approached the unseen King of kings with the plaintive outpourings of their grief-laden hearts and with their joyful hymns of praise and thanksgiving.

From the polished Greeks we gained a basis for the scientific laws governing our musical art.  The splendid music of which we read in ancient writings has for the most part vanished with the lives it enriched.  Relegated to the guardianship of exclusive classes its most sacred secrets were kept from the people, and it could not possibly have attained the expansion we know.

Music has been called the handmaiden of Christianity, but may more appropriately be designated its loyal helpmeet.  Whatever synagogue or other melodies may have first served to voice the sentiments kindled by the Gospel of Glad Tidings it was inevitable that the new religious thought should seek and find new musical expression.

In shaping a ritual for general use, an accompaniment of suitable music had to be considered.  The fathers of the church constituted themselves also the guides of music.  Those forms which give symmetry and proportion to the outward structure of the tonal art were pruned and polished under ecclesiastical surveillance until spontaneity was endangered.  Happily in the spirit of Christianity is that which ever proves a remedy for the mistakes of law-givers.  The religion that inculcates respect for the individual has furthered the advance of music and of spirituality.

Beyond the confines of the church was another musical growth, springing up by the wayside and in remote places.  Folk-music it is called, and it gives untrammeled utterance to human longings, human grief and despair, and human wondering over the mysteries of life, death and the great Beyond.  Untutored people had always found vent in this kind of music for pent-up feelings, and the folk-music of the Christian world, during the Crusades, gained a new element in the fragments of Oriental melody transplanted into its midst.  In time, through the combined wisdom of gifted composers and large-minded ecclesiastical rulers, the music of the church and the music of the people became united, and modern music was born.

Architecture, painting, sculpture and poetry possess practical proofs of their past achievements and on these their present endeavors are builded.  Modern music has been compelled to be the architect of its own fortunes.  It is the one new art of our era, and, as the youngest in the family of arts, it has but recently reached a high state of development.