Those who think that the bagpipe is an instrument confined to the Scottish nation are very much mistaken. It is an instrument of very great antiquity and was known to the Greeks and the Romans in remote times. Nero played it, as is shown on the coins of the times. The Romans marched to battle to the sound of it. In mediaeval times the bagpipe was a popular instrument-painters credited angels with playing it, and it is mentioned in Chaucer and in Shakespeare. It survives today in some parts of Europe, particularly in the Balkans and in Spain, and, of course in Scotland.
A good deal of music has been written for the instrument and a great number of bagpipe airs have been collected and published, especially from Scottish sources. Apart from the notes of the drones, the compass of the bagpipe is small, consisting only of an octave and one note beyond. In the Highland bagpipe there are, as a rule, four pipes, consisting of the Chaunter, on which the tune is played, and three drones, each of which produces only one note, which can, however, be tuned by varying the length of the pipe. The sound is made by reeds somewhat resembling the reeds in organ pipes. This Quartet appears, curiously enough, immediately after the playing of an excerpt from Weinberger's opera, Schwanda, the Bagpiper, which concluded the preceding programme.
Schwanda, the hero of the opera, and a player on the bagpipes so skilled that he can almost throw a spell over all who hear him, is cast as a Czech, and therefore is of the same nationality as the members of this Quartet.