A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Pentatonic Scale

by William Smyth Rockstro

PENTATONIC SCALE. The name given to an early tonality, of very imperfect construction, but extremely beautiful in its æsthetic aspect, and peculiar to a great number of National Melodies, especially those of Scotland.^[1]

The term is an unfortunate one, since it leads us to expect a Scale based upon five intervals of a Tone; whereas, it really means a Scale formed from the combination of five fixed sounds.

No written record tending to throw a light upon the origin or history of the Pentatonic Scale has been preserved; but the construction of the Scale itself furnishes us with a very valuable clue. The five sounds employed—Ut, Re, Mi, Sol, La—correspond exactly with those of the Hexachord, minus the Fa. Now the Fa was precisely the crux which prevented the completion of the system of the Hexachords, with their various Mutations,^[2] until the difficulty was removed by the invention of the Fa fictum^[3]—presumably by Guido d'Arezzo^[4]—in the opening years of the 11th century. It is, therefore, more than probable that the Pentatonic Scale belongs to a period anterior to that date: how far anterior, it is absolutely impossible even to hazard a guess.

The characteristics of the Scale led to certain marked peculiarities in the form of the Melodies for which it was employed; and there is abundant proof that these peculiarities were continued, as a feature of 'style,' after the invention of the Hexachords supplanted the older tonality by a more perfect system: for instance, the Melody of 'The Flowers of the Forest,' which cannot have been composed before the year 1513, exhibits, in its first strain, the strongest possible pentatonic character, while the second strain is in the pure Hypomixolydian Mode (Mode VIII)—assuming, that is, the F♮ to be genuine; a fact of which the Skene MS. leaves but little doubt.

The Chinese Melody, 'Chin chin joss,' introduced by Weber into the Overture to 'Turandot,' is, if we may trust an apparently uncorrupted copy, in the Pentatonic Scale; though some versions introduce an F♮, which would reduce it to the Mixolydian Mode (Mode VII).

[ W. S. R. ]

1. See Scotish Music.
2. See Hexachord, vol. 1; Mutations, vol. ii.
3. See Fa Fictum, Appendix.
4. See Guido d'Arezzo, Appendix.