In church music, the organ is perhaps the first instrument to
be considered. In 951, Elfeg, the Bishop of Winchester had
built in his cathedral a great organ which had four hundred
pipes and twenty-six pairs of bellows, to manage which seventy
strong men were necessary. Wolstan, in his life of St. Swithin,
the Benedictine monk, gives an account of the exhausting work
required to keep the bellows in action.
Two performers were necessary to play this organ, just as
nowadays we play four-hand music on the piano. The keys went
down with such difficulty that the players had to use their
elbows or fists on each key; therefore it is easy to see that,
at the most, only four keys could be pressed down at the same
time. On the other hand, each key when pressed down or pushed
back (for in the early organs the keyboard was perpendicular)
gave the wind from the bellows access to ten pipes each, which
were probably tuned in octaves or, possibly, according to the
organum of Hucbald, in fifths or fourths. This particular organ
had two sets of keys (called manuals), one for each player;
there were twenty keys to each manual, and every key caused
ten pipes to sound. The compass of this organ was restricted
to ten notes, repeated at the distance of an octave, and,
there being four hundred pipes, forty pipes were available for
each note. On each key was inscribed the name of the note. As
may be imagined, the tone of this instrument was such that it
could be heard at a great distance.
There were many smaller organs, as, for instance, the one in the
monastery of Ramsey, which had copper pipes. Pictures of others
from the twelfth century show that even where there were only
ten pipes, the organ had two manuals, needed two players, and at
least four men for the bellows. The great exertion required to
play these instruments led to the invention of what is called
"mixtures." From the moment fifths and fourths were considered
to sound better together than the simple notes, the pipes were
so arranged that the player did not need to press two of the
ponderous organ keys for this combination of sounds. One key
was made to open the valves of the two sets of pipes, so that
each key, instead of sounding one note, would, at will, sound
the open fifth, fourth, or octave. With the addition of the
third, thus constituting a perfect major triad, this barbarous
habit has come down to our present day almost unchanged, for by
using what is called the "mixture stop" of our modern organs,
each key of the manual gives not only the original note,
but also its perfect major triad, several octaves higher.
Originally the organ was used only to give the right intonation
for the chanting of the priests. From the twelfth century, small
portable organs of limited compass were much used; although the
tone of these instruments was necessarily slight, and, owing to
the shortness of the pipes, high in pitch, the principle of the
mechanism was similar to that of the larger instruments. They
were hung by means of a strap passed over the shoulders;
one hand pressed the keys in front of the pipes (which were
arranged perpendicularly), and the other hand operated the
small bellows behind the pipes. These small instruments rarely
had more than eight pipes, consequently they possessed only
the compass of an octave. With slight variations, they were
quite universally used up to the seventeenth century. Organ
pedals were invented in Germany about 1325. Bernhard, organist
of St. Mark's, Venice (1445-1459), has been credited with the
invention of organ pedals, but it is probable that he merely
introduced them into Italy.
As the Greek modes formed the basis for the musical system of
the church, so the Greek monochord is the type from which the
monks evolved what they called the clavichord. The monochord
has a movable bridge, therefore some time is lost in adjusting
it in order to get the different tones. To obviate this
inconvenience, a number of strings were placed side by side,
and a mechanism inserted which, by pressing a key (_clavis_),
would move the bridge to the point at which the string must
divide to give the note indicated by the key. This made it
possible to use one string for several different notes, and
explains why the clavichord or clavicembalo needed comparatively
few strings. This instrument became obsolete toward the end
of the eighteenth century.
The other species of instrument, the harpsichord, which was
invented about 1400, and which may be considered as having
sprung from the clavichord, consisted of a separate string for
each sound; the key, instead of setting in action a device
for striking and at the same time _dividing_ the strings,
caused the strings to be plucked by quills. Thus, in these
instruments, not only was an entirely different quality of tone
produced, but the pitch of a string remained unaltered. These
instruments were called _bundfrei_, "unbound," in opposition to
the _clavicembalo_, which was called _gebunden_, or "bound." The
harpsichord was much more complicated than the clavichord,
in that the latter ceased to sound when the key which moved
the bridge was released, whereas the harpsichord required what
is called a "damper" to stop the sound when the key came up;
once the string was touched by the quill, all command of the
tone by the key was lost. To regulate this, a device was added
to the instrument by means of which a damper fell on the string
when the key was released, thereby stopping the sound.
We have now to consider the instrumental development of the
Middle Ages.
An instrument of the harpsichord family which has significance
in the development of the instruments of the Middle Ages is
the spinet (from _spina_, "thorn"; it had leather points up
to 1500), first made by Johannes Spinctus, Venice, 1500. It
was a harpsichord with a _square_ case, the strings running
diagonally instead of lengthwise. When the spinet was of
very small dimensions it was called a virginal; when it was
in the shape of our modern grand piano, it was, of course,
a harpsichord; and when the strings and sounding board
were arranged perpendicularly, the instrument was called
a clavicitherium. As early as 1500, then, four different
instruments were in general use, the larger ones having a
compass of about four octaves. The connecting link between the
harpsichord, the clavichord, and the piano, was the dulcimer or
hackbrett, which was a tavern instrument. Pantaleon Hebenstreit,
a dancing master and inventor of Leipzig, in 1705 added an
improved hammer action, which was first applied to keyboard
instruments by Cristofori, an instrument maker at Florence
(1711). His instrument was called _forte-piano_ or _pianoforte_,
because it would strike loud or soft.
These instruments all descended from the ancient lyre, the
only difference being that instead of causing the strings to
vibrate by means of a plectrum held in the hand, the plectrum
was set in motion by the mechanism of the _claves_ or keys. The
system of fingering employed in playing the harpsichord, up to
1700, did not make use of the thumb. J.S. Bach, F. Couperin,
and J.P. Rameau were the pioneers in this matter. The first
published work on piano technique and fingering was that by
C.P.E. Bach (1753).
With the advent of bowed instruments the foundation was laid for
the modern orchestra, of which they are the natural basis. The
question of the antiquity of the bowed instrument has often been
discussed, with the result that the latter has been definitely
classed as essentially modern, for the reason that it did not
become known in Europe until about the tenth to the twelfth
centuries. As a matter of fact, the instrument is doubtless
of Person or Hindu origin, and was brought to the West by
the Arabs, who were in Spain from the eighth to the fifteenth
centuries; in fact, most of our stringed instruments, both the
bowed and those of the lyre type, we owe to the Arabs--the very
name of the lute, _el oud_ ("shell" in Arabic) became _liuto_ in
Italian, in German _laute_, and in English lute. There were many
varieties of these bowed instruments, and it is thought that the
principle arose from rubbing one instrument with another. The
only other known examples of bowed instruments of primitive
type are (1) the _ravanastron_, an instrument of the monochord
type, native to India, made to vibrate by a kind of bow with
a string stretched from end to end; (2) the Welsh _chrotta_
(609 A.D.), a primitive lyre-shaped instrument, with which,
however, the use of the bow seems to have been a much later
invention. Mention should also be made of the marine trumpet,
much in vogue from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries;
it consisted of a long, narrow, resonant box, composed of
three boards, over which was stretched a single string;
other unchangeable strings, struck with the bow, served as
drones. Only the harmonics were played on the marine trumpet.
The principle of procuring the vibrations in stringed
instruments by means of a bow was, of course, applied to the
monochord class of keyed instruments, and was thus the origin
of the hurdy-gurdy, which consisted of a wheel covered with
resined leather and turned by a crank.
The bowed instruments were originally of two types, the first
in the form of the lute or mandolin; the second probably
derived from the Welsh _crwth_, consisting of a flat, long box
strung with strings (called fidel from _fides_, "string"). The
combination of these types, which were subjected to the most
fantastic changes of shape, led eventually to the modern
violin family.
We know that the highest plane of perfection in the violin
was reached in Italy about 1600. The Cremona makers, Amati,
Guarnerius, and Stradivarius, made their most celebrated
instruments between 1600 and 1750.
The violin bow, in its earliest form, was nothing more than an
ordinary bow with a stretched string; Corelli and Tartini used a
bow of the kind. The present shape of the bow is due to Tourte,
a Paris maker, who experimented in conjunction with Viotti,
the celebrated violinist.
By looking at the original lute and the Arabian _rebeck_
or Welsh _crwth_ (originally Latin _chorus_), we can see how
the modern violin received its generally rounded shape from
the lute, its flatness from the _rebeck_, the sides of the
instrument being cut out in order to give the bow free access
to the side strings. The name too, _fidula_ or _vidula_,
from mediaeval Latin _fides_, "string," became fiddle and
viola, the smaller viola being called violino, the larger,
violoncello and viola da gamba.
In the Middle Ages, the different species of bowed instrument
numbered from fifteen to twenty, and it was not until between
1600 and 1700 that the modern forms of these instruments
obtained the ascendancy.
Of the wind instruments it was naturally the flute that
retained its antique form; the only difference between the
modern instrument and the ancient one being that the former
is blown crosswise, instead of perpendicularly. Quantz,
the celebrated court flute player to Frederick the Great
of Prussia, was the first to publish, in 1750, a so-called
"method" of playing the traversal (crosswise) flute.
With the reed instruments the change in modern times is more
striking. The original form of the reed instruments was of the
double-reed variety. The oldest known mention of them dates from
650 A.D., when the name applied is _calamus_ (reed); later the
names _shalmei_ (_chalumeau_, "straw," from German _halm_) and
_shawm_ were used. These instruments were played by means of a
bell-shaped mouthpiece, the double reed being fixed inside the
tube. It was not until toward the end of the sixteenth century
that the bell-shaped mouthpiece was dispensed with and the reed
brought directly to the lips, thus giving the player greater
power of expression. The oboe is a representative type of the
higher pitched double-reed instruments. In its present shape it
is about two hundred years old. As the deeper toned instruments
were necessarily very long, six to eight and even ten feet,
an assistant had to walk before the performer, holding the
tube on his shoulder. This inconvenience led to bending the
tube back on itself, making it look somewhat like a bundle of
sticks, hence the word _faggot_; although it is commonly known
in this country by the French name, _bassoon_. This manner of
arranging the instrument dates from about the year 1550. The
clarinet is an essentially modern instrument, the single
beating reed and cylindrical tube coming into use about 1700,
the invention of a German named Denner, who lived at Nuremberg.
All the brass instruments of the Middle Ages seem to have
been very short, therefore high in pitch. We remember that
the Romans had trumpets (chiefly used in signalling) called
_buccina_, and we may assume that the whole modern family of
brass instruments has descended from this primitive type. As
late as 1500, the hunting horn consisted of but one loop which
passed over the shoulder and around the body of the player.
A horn of from six to seven feet in length was first used
about 1650; and we know that, owing to the smallness of the
instruments and their consequent high pitch in those days, many
of Bach's scores contain parts absolutely impracticable for our
modern brass instruments. The division of these instruments
into classes, such as trumpets, horns, trombones, etc., is
due to the differences in shape, which in turn produce tones
of different quality. The large bore of the trombone gives
great volume to the tone, the small bore of the trumpet great
brilliancy, the medium bore of the horn veils the brilliancy
on one hand and lightens the thickness of tone on the other.
The horn, called _cor de chasse_, was first used in the
orchestra in 1664, in one of Lully's operas, but its technique
(stopped tones and crooks) was only properly understood about
1750; the present-day valve horn did not come into general
use until within the last half century. Fifty years before
the principle had been applied to the horn the trumpet had
crooks and slides, a mechanism which, in the trumpet, is still
retained in England, pointing to the fact that the trombone is,
after all, nothing but a very large kind of trumpet.