' ;
50 iSOLIAN MODE
and the soundboard the draught of air is
directed.To hear the ^olian harp it should
be placed across a window sufficiently opened
to admit of its introduction, and situated
obliquely to the direction of the wind. The
sounds are so pure and perfectly in tune, that
no tuning we might accomplish could rival it.
For we have here not tempered intervals but
the natural tones of the strings, the half or
octave, the third or interval of the twelfth,
and so on, in an arithmetical progression, up
to the sixth division, the whole vibrating length
being taken as the first — we are listening to
full and perfect harmony. But the next, the
seventh, still in consonance with the lowest
note, in effect not unlike the dull sad minor
sixth, but still more mournful, is to our ears
transcendental, as our musical system does not
know it and it would be too much out of tune
: some controversy as to its original inventor
with other intervals consonant to the key-note
for admission to our scales. We
are impressed
—
with it as by a wail ^in the words of Coleridge
a 'sweet upbraiding' ('The ^olian Harp,'
—
Poems, i. 190) to be followed as the wind-
pressure increases by more and more angry
notes as we mount to those dissonances in the
next higher octave, especially the eleventh and
thirteenth overtones that alternate and seem
to shriek and howl until the abating gust of
wind suffers the lower beautiful harmonies to
predominate again. A. J. H.
^OLIAN MODE. This title occurs in the
works of some of the earliest Greek writers, who
mention the Greek modes or scales but it
; appears to have been soon forgotten.
disappears again, and the j3Eolian mode is
apparently not in question in the time
Plato, Aristotle, and those who immediately
followed them. It reappears again, however,
at a, later date, and figures, together with a
Hypo-iEolian mode, in the set of thirteen modes
attributed to Aristoxenus ; whUe at a later date
still a Hyper-aiolian mode was added. It was
however not one of those that were generally
current or of permanent importance in the
history of music ; nor did it find a place in
the mediseval system of modes. When, however,
Glareanus {q.v.) tried in his Dodecachordon to
establish the relation between the mediaeval
western and the Greek systems .of modes, he
gave the name of jEolian mode to the scale
ranging from A to a,, which was the first of
the four additional modes added by him to
the current eight, in order to make up the
number to twelve. This had been until then
universally regarded by medieval theorists as
a mere transposition of the first mode. The
theory of Glareanus was unfortunate, and his
innovation only threw into further confusion
the question, already highly confused, of the
relation of Eastern and Western music-theory
(see Modes). w. h. f.
iEOLINA. A
small and simple ' free reed
instrument, invented about 1829 by Messrs.
AERTS
Wheatstone. It consisted of a few free reeds,
which were fixed into a metal plate and blown
by the mouth. As each reed was famished
with a separate aperture for supplying the wind,
a, simple melody could of course
be played by
moving the instrument backwards and forwards
before the mouth. Its value for artistic pur-
poses was nil ;its only interest is a historical
one, as being one of the earliest attempts to
make practical use of the discovery of the free
reed. The aeolina may be regarded as the first
germ of the Accoedion and Conobetina. e. p.
.fiOLODION, or iEOLODICOK (also called
in Germany Windharmonika), a keyed wind-
instrument resembling the harmonium, the tone
of which was produced from steel springs. It
had a compass of six octaves, and its tone was
similar to that of the harmonium. There is
most authorities attribute it to J. T. Eschenbach
of Hamburg, who is said to have first made it
in 1800. Various improvements were subse-
quently made by other mechanicians, among
whom may be named Schmidt of Presburg, Voit
of Schweinfurt, Sebastian Miiller (1826), and F.
Sturm of Suhl (1833). The instrument is now
entirely superseded by the harmonium. A modi-
fication of the seolodion was the jiolsklavier,
invented about 1825 by Schortmann of Buttel-
stadt, in which the reeds or springs which
produced the sound were made of wood instead
of metal, by which the quality of tone was
made softer and sweeter. The instrument
A further
modification was the ^olomelodicon or ohora-
of LEON, constructed by Brunner at Warsaw, about
the year 1825, from the design of Professor
Hoffmann in that city. It differed from the
ffiolodion in the fact that brass tubes were affixed
to the reeds, much as in the reed-stops of an
organ. The instrument was of great power,
and was probably intended as a, substitute for
the organ in small churches, especially in the
accompaniment of chorals, whence its second
name choraleon. It has taken no permanent
place in musical history. In the jeolopax-
TALON, invented about the year 1830, by
Dlugosz of Warsaw, the aeolomelodicon was
combined with a pianoforte, so arranged that
the player could make use of either instrument
separately or both together. A somewhat
similar plan has been occasionally tried with
the piano and harmonium, but without great
success. E, p_
AERTS, Egidius, born atBoom near Antwerp,
March 1, 1822, died at Brussels, June 9, 1853 •
an eminent flautist and composer, studied under
Lahon in the Conservatoire at Brussels. From
1837 to 1840 he travelled professionally through
France and Italy, and on his return to Brussels
studied composition under F6tis. In 1847 was
appointed professor of the flute afthe Conserva-
toire, and first flute at the Theatre. He composed