[Transcriber's Note: Obvious printer errors have been corrected
without note. Vowels with macrons are represented in brackets with an
equal sign, e.g., [=a], and those with smooth-breathing marks are
represented in brackets with an apostrophe, e.g., ['a].]
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
Historic, Rare and Unique
THE SELECTION, INTRODUCTION AND DESCRIPTIVE NOTES
BY
A.J. HIPKINS, F.S.A. LOND.
AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLE "PIANOFORTE" IN THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
ILLUSTRATED BY
A SERIES OF FORTY-EIGHT PLATES IN COLOURS DRAWN BY WILLIAM GIBB
[Illustration]
A. AND C. BLACK, LTD.
4, 5 AND 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.1
1921
_First published in 1888._
_Printed in Great Britain_
[Illustration]
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION PAGE VII.
BURGMOTE HORNS PLATE I.
QUEEN MARY'S HARP II.
THE LAMONT HARP III.
CORNEMUSE. CALABRIAN BAGPIPE. MUSETTE IV.
BAGPIPES V.
CLAVICYTHERIUM OR UPRIGHT SPINET VI.
OLIPHANT VII.
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S VIRGINAL VIII.
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S LUTE IX.
THE RIZZIO GUITAR X.
POSITIVE ORGAN XI.
REGAL XII.
PORTABLE ORGAN AND BIBLE REGAL XIII.
CETERA XIV.
LUTE XV.
THEORBO XVI.
DULCIMER XVII.
VIRGINAL XVIII.
VIOLA DA GAMBA XIX.
DOUBLE SPINET OR VIRGINAL XX.
THREE CHITARRONI XXI.
SPINET XXII.
QUINTERNA AND MANDOLINE XXIII.
WELSH CRWTH. RUSSIAN BALALÄIKA XXIV.
VIOLIN--THE HELLIER STRADIVARIUS,
AND TWO OLD BOWS NOTED FOR THE FLUTING XXV.
VIOLINS--THE ALARD STRADIVARIUS,
THE KING JOSEPH GUARNERIUS DEL GESÙ XXVI.
VIOLA D'AMORE XXVII.
CETERA, BY ANTONIUS STRADIVARIUS XXVIII.
GUITAR, BY ANTONIUS STRADIVARIUS XXIX.
BELL HARP AND HURDY-GURDY XXX.
SORDINI XXXI.
CLAVICHORD XXXII.
THE EMPRESS HARPSICHORD XXXIII.
PEDAL HARP XXXIV.
STATE TRUMPET AND KETTLEDRUM XXXV.
CAVALRY BUGLE. CAVALRY TRUMPET. TRUMPETS XXXVI.
LITUUS AND BUCCINA. CORNET. TRUMPETS XXXVII.
TWO DOUBLE FLAGEOLETS, A GERMAN FLUTE,
AND TWO FLÛTES DOUCES XXXVIII.
DOLCIANO. OBOE. BASSOON. OBOE DA CACCIA. BASSET HORN XXXIX.
SITÁRS AND VÍNA XL.
INDIAN DRUMS XLI.
SAW DUANG AND BOW. SAW TAI AND BOW.
SAW OO AND BOW. KLUI. PEE XLII.
RANAT EK. KHONG YAI. TA'KHAY XLIII.
HU-CH'IN AND BOW. SHÊNG. SAN-HSIEN. P'I-P'A XLIV.
CHINESE TI-TZU, SO-NA, YUEH-CH'IN.
JAPANESE HIJI-RIKI. CHINESE LA-PA XLV.
JAPANESE KOTO XLVI.
SIAMISEN, KOKIU, BIWA XLVII.
MARIMBA OF SOUTH AFRICA XLVIII.
INDEX PAGE 117
The Woodcuts at the head of this page (from the British
Museum) represent Sir Michael Mercator, of Venloo, Musical
Instrument Maker to King Henry VIII.
INTRODUCTION.
It is claimed for this book, intended to illustrate rare historical
and beautiful Musical Instruments, that it is unique. Classical,
Mediæval, Japanese, and other varieties of Decorative Art,
Weapons, and Costumes, have found worthy illustration and adequate
description, but hitherto no attempt has been made to represent
in a like manner the grace and external charm of fine lutes and
harps, of viols, virginals, and other instruments. Engravings have
been produced, in historical or technical works; but the greater
number of these are mere repetitions continued from one to the
other, and have no specially æsthetic interest. Beauty of form and
fitness of decoration demand more than the commonplace homage paid
to simple use, and while we should never lose sight of the purpose
of a musical instrument, its capacity to produce agreeable and
various sounds, we can take advantage of its form and material, and,
making it lovely to look upon, give pleasure to the eye as well as
the ear. It is hardly necessary to say that the love of adornment
or ornament is an attribute of the human race. It is to be found
everywhere and in every epoch when life is, for the time being,
safe and the means of existence secure. Some favourite manner of
decoration is the characteristic stamp of a people, a period, or
a country. The earliest monuments we can point to that represent
musical instruments, show a tendency to adorn them or to place
them with decorative surroundings. The Egyptians, the Assyrians,
the ancient Greeks supply a record that has been continued by the
Persians and Saracens, in the Gothic age and the Renaissance, always
repeating, as it were, in an ineffaceable script, the precept that
the hand should minister to the gratification of the eye, and
satisfy it by alternating excitement with repose. And so it was,
until the marvellous mechanical advance in the present century has
not only caused us to forget, by its overwhelming power, what our
predecessors so steadfastly continued, but has induced us to regard
the ugly as sufficient if the mere practical end is served. By thus
chilling the appreciation and pursuit of decorative invention, that
faculty has been numbed for the time being, and there is danger of
its being lost altogether. It may be answered that real artistic
work is occasionally done, and there are examples of it to be
found in musical instruments; a good organ case is sometimes made,
sometimes a fine decoration for a piano case. If there is any hope
of an awakening of the love for musical instruments that finds
expression in their adornment, its promise lies in the beautiful
designs that have been, of late years, so meritoriously carried out
for pianos--the invention of Mr. Alma Tadema, Mr. Burne Jones, Mr.
Fox, and Miss Kate Faulkner. Good decoration need not be a privilege
of the rich; the old Antwerp clavecin-makers, who were all members
of the guild of St. Luke, the artists' guild, knew how to worthily
decorate their instruments at little cost, as may be seen in the
Ruckers Virginal, Plate XVIII. They painted their sound-boards with
appropriate ornamentation, and used bright colour to heighten the
effect of their instruments when open. The Italians went even farther
in richer details, and beautified other stringed instruments besides
those with key-boards. The persistence of noble traditions is shown
in the exquisite ornament of the Siamese instruments (Plates XLII.
and XLIII.) and of the Japanese Koto (Plate XLVI.). It would be
grievous if this Eastern inheritance were lost through the engrafting
of Western ideas and reception of our material civilisation. The
incentive to all such work is the pleasure found in it, and without
pleasure in work the life of the worker is aimless and sad.
In describing musical instruments we can refer to no beginnings;
those that may be discerned dimly in the glimmering of the historic
dawn present a certain completeness that marks an intellectual
advance already accomplished. The well-known Egyptian Nefer, a
spade-like guitar, or rather tamboura, invited by its long neck
the stopping of various notes upon its strings. As early as the
Third Dynasty, it had already been so long in use as to have become
incorporated in the pictorial language of the Hieroglyphics, in which
its representation presented the concept or symbol of the attribute
_good_. This stringed instrument, thus complex in its playing, must
have been already grey with age when it was cut in stone in the
monument of the beautiful Princess Nefer-t, now in the museum at
Bulaq. We cannot conjecture when it was discovered that more tones
than one could be got from a single string by taking advantage of
the expedient of a long neck or finger-board, or from a single pipe
by boring lateral holes in it, and closing those holes to produce
different notes with the fingers. Even these remote inventions,
certainly prehistoric, seem to require that there should be yet older
inventions--those which placed pipes or strings of different lengths,
or strings of the same length but of different thicknesses and
tension, side by side, as in the syrinx or Pan's pipes, or the harp
and lyre.
The late Carl Engel, _Music of the Most Ancient Nations_ (London,
1864), has formed a kind of Development theory for musical
instruments, giving the earliest place to the drum, and the latest
to the stringed instruments; those of the latter with key-boards
having been invented almost in our own time. This theory has lately
been reconstructed upon a more scientific basis by Mr. Rowbotham
(_History of Music_, vol. i., London, 1885). The drum and tambourine,
and other clashing and mere time-marking instruments, as sistrums,
cymbals, castagnettes, and triangles, are on the limit of musical
sound and noise, inclining, for the most part, to the latter. The
drum is widely used in religious services in different parts of the
world, and to play the sistrum was in ancient Egypt the prerogative
of a high order of priesthood. The various Buddhist gongs resemble
the kettledrums in this respect, that they have a more definable
musical element in them, and we find these sonorous metal instruments
widely used in China and the Indo-Chinese countries, in Java, and the
Indian Archipelago. The Indian drums (Plate XLI.), according to the
theory just mentioned, should be aboriginal, but the most ancient,
the M'ridang, is attributed to the god S'iva, and is therefore Aryan.
Her Majesty the Queen's State Kettledrum (Plate XXXV.) here adorned
with a richly embroidered silk banneret, serves to show the highest
point the drum has yet attained in estimation and use. On a much
higher level is that arrangement of wooden or metal bars in those
instruments classed generally as Harmonicons, which are especially at
home in Java, Siam, and Burma, and are known to be used from the Hill
country of India in the one direction, to Africa in the other. The
beautiful Siamese Ranat and Khong (Plate XLIII.) and the Zulu Marimba
(Plate XLVIII.) are examples of this wide distribution, and in the
latter the gourd resonators attached to the bars show the simplest
form of sound reinforcers, which, perfected in various Eastern
instruments, such as the Indian Vínas and Sitárs (Plate XL.) has in
Europe attained its crowning artistic development in the beautiful
pear-shaped Resonance bodies of the Lute and Mandoline. We find
also varieties of this beautiful form in the Georgian and Turcoman
tambouras, the Colascione of Southern Italy and similar instruments,
the migrations of which may here and there be traced along the
lines of religious movements, as in Central Asia and Hindostan,
in China, the Corea, and Japan. For instance, the shorter-necked
lutes and guitars, the rebec, rebab, and other precursors of the
viols and violins, which, borrowed from the Arabic population of
the Holy Land, actually came to Europe upon the reflex wave of the
Crusades. The Saracenic occupation of Spain had, however, its share
in the transmission of these instruments, and of a taste for the
_pizzicato_, and also of an elaboration of vocal and instrumental
ornament, which has remained in the popular airs and dances of
that country, and, an important characteristic of the music of the
Troubadours and Trouvères, has left its mark upon our modern music
everywhere. The Arab blood in Spain may have tended to preserve the
use of the guitar as a national instrument in that country. A Guitar
(Plate XXIX.) and a Cetera (Plate XXVIII.) made by Stradivarius,
as he usually signed his name, are of especial interest as showing
that he was not above making more simple instruments than violins.
The beautiful tortoiseshell Guitar (Plate X.) has a tradition that
connects it with Mary of Scots and the unfortunate Rizzio. In all
these guitar and lute instruments, the roses in the sound-boards show
a wealth of invention in design that is truly astonishing. A work of
this kind would not be without interest if it were devoted only to
these roses, and to those of spinets and harpsichords. Guitars have
flat backs, and lutes shell or pear-shaped resonance bodies, and the
former are again divided into the guitar proper with catgut strings,
and cithers with wire strings necessitating the employment of a
plectrum. The Cetera is the Italian name of the cither, and the one
drawn in Plate XIV. is of remarkable, although not unusual, beauty.
The cither to which the name of Queen Elizabeth is traditionally
attached, belongs to the English family of the Pandore, Orpheoreon,
and Penorcon; it is not exactly one of these instruments, but it most
nearly resembles the last named. As a fine specimen of English work,
in no way ceding to the Italian, this beautiful instrument, commonly
known as Queen Elizabeth's Lute (Plate IX.), cannot be too highly
extolled. The description accompanying this drawing, and in fact
the descriptions of all the drawings, must be referred to for those
special particulars that are more conveniently given separately.
The Lute (Plate XV.) is one of the finest existing examples of its
kind. It bears the label of Vvendelio Venere, Padua, dated 1600,
and marks the culmination of that once most favourite instrument.
The large bass lutes--the theorboes and chitarroni--that came into
use about that date, were rendered necessary through the weakness
in the bass of the contemporary harpsichord, which was insufficient
as a sub-structure for the Continuo, or Thorough Bass, intended to
accompany the Recitativo, then recently introduced at Florence, and
forming an essential part of that Monody that was the latest blooming
of the Renaissance, as applied to the latest art, harmonised music.
The Venetian Theorboes (or Tiorbe) and Chitarroni (Plates XVI. and
XXI.) are of great beauty and historical interest. But the lute, even
when diapasons or extra bass strings were added to it, went out,
being superseded by the more useful, although less beautifully toned,
spinet. The latest lute instruments are the pleasing Mandolines to
which fashion may possibly grant a new lease of popularity. These
instruments are drawn in Plate XXIII. Both ear and eye are equally
gratified in that culmination of qualities attained in a violin, in
which the sound and shape are so intimately and inseparably connected
that we fail to conceive the one without some mental reference to
the other. The form and colour of a fine violin are in themselves
so beautiful that it seems scarcely possible to enhance their effect
by adding any kind of decoration, but in Plate XXV. it will be seen
that Antonio Stradivari, with whom the instrument reached perfection,
has successfully inlaid one of his masterpieces with an appropriate
design. Another violin by the same illustrious master, in this
instance without adornment, is drawn in Plate XXVI. The particular
characteristics of another famous Cremona maker, Giuseppe Guarneri,
who signed himself "Del Gesù," and is accounted Stradivari's only
rival, are also illustrated in this plate. With forty-eight plates,
however, to which this work is limited, no complete scheme can be
offered of the rich varieties of musical instruments that exist, but
the pictorially interesting Viola d'Amore (Plate XXVII.) and the
Viola da Gamba (Plate XIX.) have not been overlooked.
Wind instruments, although they may be of earlier invention in their
rudimentary forms than those with strings, as in the old-world fable
of Apollo and Marsyas, are always placed second. But they have an
equal interest intrinsically and historically, and like drums and
gongs, have an especial connection with the sacred rites of various
nations. The Jewish Shophar, a simple ram's horn, a woodcut of which,
drawn from an interesting example preserved at the great Synagogue,
Aldgate, London, figures at the end of this Introduction, is the
oldest wind instrument in present use in the world. It is first named
in the Bible as sounding when the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai,
and there seems to be little doubt that it has been continuously
used in the Mosaic Service from the time it was established until
now. It is sounded in the synagogues at the New Year and on the Fast
of the Day of Atonement. The Talmud gives ten reasons for sounding
the Shophar at the New Year, which may be summed up as reminding
those who hear it of the Creation, Penitence, and the Law, of the
Prophets, who were as watchmen blowing trumpets, of the Temple and
the Binding of Isaac, of Humility, the gathering together of Israel,
the Resurrection, and the day of Judgment, when the trumpet shall
sound for all. The embouchure of the Shophar is very difficult, and
but three proper tones are usually obtained from it, although in some
instances higher notes can be got. The short rhythmic flourishes
are common, with unimportant differences, to both the German and
Portuguese Jews, and consequently date from before their separation.
These flourishes as used in the Ritual are the Tekiah (T'qi['a]h)
[Music] Shebarim (Sh'bharim) [Music] and Teruah (T'ru['a]h) [Music]
usually a tongued _vibrato_ of the lower note. The Gedolah [Music] is
the great Tekiah concluding the flourishes. The shophar is usually
a ram's horn flattened by heat, the bore being a cylindrical tube
of very small calibre, which opens into a kind of bell of parabolic
form. The notes here given are those usually produced, but from
the empirical formation of the embouchure and a peculiarity of the
player's lips, an octave is occasionally produced instead of the
normal fifth. The fundamental, if obtained, is not regarded as a true
shophar note. Through the mediation of a friend, whose assistance
has enabled me to gather this information, I have heard the shophar
flourishes played by a competent performer, and am enabled to give
an authoritative notation of these strangely interesting historical
phrases, for the final correction of which I have to thank the Rev.
Francis Cohen.
Bronze horns are also of very ancient use, and existing specimens,
chiefly of Celtic or Scandinavian origin, are frequently richly
ornamented. Their employment appears to have been for war, for
hunting, and the feast. In more recent times, their possession has
been attached to feudal customs, as the transfer and holding of
land, and at last through the growth of large cities they became
associated, as the interesting Dover and Canterbury Horns (Plate I.)
were, with municipal customs. Horns were sounded for the curfew,
and an especially characteristic example of such horn-blowing is a
dramatic feature introduced by Wagner at the close of the second act
of his Shakespearean Music Drama, _Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg_.
Earl Spencer's very beautiful ivory horn or Oliphant (Plate VII.) was
most likely intended for the chase. Of other simple wind instruments
depending upon the player's lips, the ancient Roman Lituus and
Buccina (Plate XXXVII.) are eminently interesting examples. The Roman
horse-soldier bore the Lituus, so called from its resemblance to an
Augur's staff, and the foot-soldier, the Tuba and circular Buccina.
They marched to the sound of instruments, the tones of which were
produced exactly as they are in the trumpet and bugle we are familiar
with--from the vibration of the lips, varying with the pressure and
force of wind within a cup-like mouthpiece. These tones, being from
natural harmonics, are not different now from what they were when
Cæsar first landed in Britain, or, indeed, the first notes from a
horn that were ever produced. Of modern brass instruments drawn,
there are two possessing historical interest--the Cavalry Bugle in
Plate XXXVI. which belongs to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, and sounded
the moonlight charge of the Household Cavalry at Kassassin in Egypt,
and a trumpet that sounded the famous charge at Salamanca. By way of
contrast there is the silver State Trumpet (Plate XXXV.), one of ten
that were employed in peaceful service for Her Majesty Queen Victoria
during her long and gracious rule.
The Syrinx, or Pan's pipes, has been already referred to, and may be
described as composed of a certain number of flute-pipes, the sounds
being produced by directing the breath against the sharp edge of
each pipe. Plato considered the use of the Syrinx lawful in rural
life, but he condemned the more richly-toned flute. The shepherd's
pipe belongs to the Oboe family, inasmuch as it is sounded by means
of a reed, an artifice of great antiquity. We do not know anything
about its early development, but Chaldean shepherds played upon
similar instruments nearly 2000 years ago, while watching their
flocks by night, and Neapolitan peasants still play, in memory of
those shepherds, upon similar rustic reed pipes, the Zampogna or
Cennamella, for nine days preceding the great Church festivals of
the Madonna Immaculata and the Nativity. These primitive oboes
must be of very great antiquity. It is probable, the shepherd's
pipe was at first a smaller reed inserted in a larger one, or the
larger one was slit for a reed vibrator, as boys cut them now.
The lowland Scotch shepherd's pipe is made of horn, the cover for
the reed being also horn. The principle of a reservoir of air to
furnish a supply for pipes, the primitive conception of the organ,
was known to the Romans and the original form of bagpipe was the
Tibia Utricularis. In course of time no instrument was more popular
throughout Europe than the bagpipe. Varieties of it (Plates IV. and
V.), including specimens of the Cornemuse and Musette, show the
modern forms of this now despised instrument. The principle of the
drone-bass, common to the Bagpipe and Hurdy-gurdy (Plate XXX.), must
have been of universal acceptance in Europe before the knowledge of
counterpoint became general. The peculiar scale of intervals of the
great Highland bagpipe adds much to what is characteristic in the
tones of the instrument. Its divergence of intonation may be due
to the incompetency of the instrument-maker to determine the true
distances for boring the lateral holes. If so, we must be lenient
with him, for even now, with our perfection of mechanical appliances,
the boring is not above question. But, of course, accuracy is more
nearly attained than it has been at any previous time, even the
earlier years of the present century. Another and a more attractive
hypothesis for the Highland bagpipe scale, derives its mean or neuter
thirds, neither major nor minor, from a Syrian scale, still found at
Damascus, and attributes its presence in Europe to the pipes having
been brought, like rebecs, rebabs, and lutes, by returning Crusaders,
whose wondering admiration for Saracenic Art is well known. It seems
scarcely likely that the music would not also have touched them,
possessed as it was of a special charm due to ages of Persian and
Arabic cultivation. There is abundant evidence in the present day
as to the favour shown in the East for those indefinite thirds,
which may originate from an ideally equal scale of seven intervals
of the same extent, such as the Siamese accept, instead of five of
larger and two of smaller, such as obtains with us; or they may be
due to an alteration in tuning the lute, attributed by the Arabian
philosopher Al F[=a]r[=a]bi to a lutenist named Zalzal, who changed
one of the frets of the lute to obtain it. It is not necessary to do
more than refer to the peculiarities of these Eastern divisions of
the scale or the possible survival of one in the Highland bagpipe;
the inquirer will find information carried to the limits of our
present knowledge in _Recherches sur l'Histoire de la Gamme Arabe_,
_par_ J.P.N. Land (Leyden, 1884), and _On the Musical Scales of
Various Nations_, by Alexander J. Ellis, a paper read before the
London Society of Arts, and published in that Society's Journal, 27th
March, 1885. It is sufficient to add that while the neuter third
remains a favourite interval in some Eastern countries, as far as
investigation has been possible it is known in Europe only among the
mountains and in the bagpipe music of the Scottish Gael. The latest
development of flute and reed pipes is to be found in the flute,
oboe, clarinet, and bassoon of the modern orchestra. Plates XXXVIII.
and XXXIX. represent instruments that have been the immediate
precursors of or are identical with the instruments named. One, the
Dolciano or Tenoroon with a clarinet reed, is of unusual importance
as possibly anticipating the invention of the Saxophone. It would
require a volume to describe the transformations wind instruments
have undergone in the present century, particularly that of the Flute
by the late Theobald Boehm. The clarinet and oboe have been less
altered because the completely refashioned instruments that have been
intended to replace them, the saxophone and the sarrusophone, have
not retained those special qualities of tone colour required for the
palette of the orchestral composer. But for the brass instruments
there has been as yet no halting-place. Furnished early in this
century with keys, that important revolution was succeeded by another
no less complete--the introduction of the valve or piston system, the
gain of which, now almost universally acknowledged, has been largely
taken advantage of by Wagner and other recent composers.
The familiar Organ is shown in the Positive and Portable organs
(l'orgue positif et portatif), small instruments representing reduced
front portions of the Montre, the visible speaking pipes of the
mediæval church organ, which was neither more nor less than a large
mixture register; that is to say, each key when put down sounded
the octave, twelfth, super-octave, and other notes simultaneously
with the fundamental note. The movement of the Plain Song, or of any
melody with this harmonic structure upon it, was in progressions
that no modern musically trained ear could tolerate. Not more than
one key of the large church organ could, however, be put down by
either hand, as the keys were as broad as the palm, and to press one
down required an attack with the player's fist. But the keys of the
Portable organ, a processional instrument, were narrow--one hand
manipulating the bellows while the player touched the keys with the
other. The positive was a chapel or chamber organ, intended to be
stationary, and also with narrow keys, admitting of the grasp of an
octave. The key-board shown in the Van Eyck St. Cecilia panel of the
famous altar-piece at Ghent--the Adoration of the Lamb--has already
the complete arrangement of chromatic keys, exactly as in our modern
key-board instruments. The date of this panel could not have been
later than A.D. 1426. Among the numerous portable organs
depicted in paintings of earlier date, the addition of the _ficti_,
as the chromatic notes were called, excepting perhaps the B flat,
or the B flat and E flat, does not appear. The B flat, however, was
not a chromatic, but an essential note in the ecclesiastical scale.
Another early instance in a painting by Hans Memling, preserved
in the Hospital of St. John at Bruges, is subsequent in date to
the Ghent altar-piece, but is still within the fifteenth century.
The chromatic keys are here put farther back than in our usual
key-boards, as they were also in the fourteenth-century Halberstadt
organ. The fourteenth-century portable organ drawn in _Critical
and Bibliographical Notes on Early Spanish Music_, by Don Juan F.
Riaño (Quaritch, London), 1887, p. 127, shows the B flat only, and
figured as an upper key, apparently not raised, but level with the
natural keys, which agrees with contemporary representations of the
instrument by Fra Angelico. The Portable Organ (Plate XIII.) here
drawn is of comparatively late date, these small instruments having
remained in use until after the Reformation. The Positive Organ
(Plate XI.) is of earlier date, and is so far developed as to have
registers and drawstops to govern them; in this example they are an
octave apart, but an unimpeachable authority, Praetorius, speaks of a
register in a positive organ a fifth from the fundamental one! Our
ancestors were evidently not affected by a progression of fifths as
we are.
The Regal (Plate XII., and as Bible Regal, Plate XIII.), was equally
a part of the old church organ taken out and played by itself. It is
the beating-reed register, so called because the reed overlaps its
frame, and when vibrating produces a more or less jarring or strident
quality of tone. As the free reed does not touch its frame it is less
harsh in quality. But the latter variety of reed is of very recent
introduction into Europe. Strangely enough, it has been taken from
a Chinese mouth organ of great antiquity, the Shêng! This Chinese
instrument has seventeen sounding pipes, each furnished with a small
brass or copper free reed, and is usually sounded by drawing in the
wind, not blowing, being in this respect followed by the present
American organ. The adoption in Europe of the principle of the Shêng
was due to an application of it at St. Petersburg by an organ-builder
named Kirsnick, about 1780, and the enthusiastic advocacy of the Abbé
Vogler. (Sir George Grove's _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_, Art.
"Vogler," by the Rev. J.H. Mee.) From it are derived our accordion
and concertinas, harmonium and American organ, as well as sundry
musical toys. The Shêng is drawn in Plate XLIV. It is familiar in
Japan, with some variation, as the Sho, and a larger instrument on
the same principle used in the Lao States of Siam is there called
Ph[=a]n. In nearly all instances it is retained as a solo instrument.
The Siamese musicians, whom H.M. the King of Siam very generously
sent at his own expense to the London Inventions Exhibition, and who
performed there, in the music room and in the Royal Albert Hall, had
among them a Ph[=a]n player, who always played alone.
Harp-like instruments, but with resonance bodies beneath the strings,
appear in their oldest, but a yet highly developed form, in the
Chinese Ch'in, or Scholar's Lute. The Japanese Sono Koto (Plate
XLVI.) is derived from a modification of the Ch'in, known in China as
the Sê, the difference being that while the Ch'in has fixed bridges
and a system of stopping, the Sê, and consequently the Koto, have
movable bridges and no stops. The Koto is tuned according to the
five notes in the octave system that prevails in Japan and, with a
difference in the division of the scale, in China, named, by the late
Carl Engel, pentatonic. The player kneels upon the ground beside
the instrument, and resting or sitting upon his heels, touches the
shorter lengths of the strings, as divided by the bridges, with
plectra on the thumb and first two fingers, but, at the same time,
makes constant use of the longer lengths to press upon or relieve
the strings so as to alter the tension and produce intermediate
tones. The Koto drawn is one of great beauty. The four characteristic
popular instruments of Japan are the Koto, the Siamisen, the Biwa,
and the Kokiu (see Plates XLVI. and XLVII.) The Siamisen is allied
to the Chinese San-hsien and the Biwa to the Chinese P'i-p'a (see
Plate XLIV.). The very curious Siamese Ta'khay, or crocodile (Plate
XLIII.), is of the same genus as the Koto and Ch'in, but has been
changed into its present form by Siamese ingenuity, which has found a
rich field for employment in the decoration of musical instruments,
the Siamese, in this respect, bearing the palm in the East, as the
Italians have done in the West.
As to the principle of the harp or rather of the psaltery embodied
in these parallel strung instruments, it differs from the Egyptian
and Assyrian conceptions, which placed the resonance bodies of their
harps in a curved disposition, the one below, the other above the
strings. Greek lyres had their sound bodies directly underneath
the strings. The origin of the Greek lyre is unknown, the name not
being Hellenic; it may possibly have been Asiatic, but was not
originally Egyptian. It would solve an interesting problem could we
know what was the Hebrew kinnor, the harp of the Authorised Version,
the most prominent stringed instrument occurring in the richest
collection of sacred poetry the world has known, the Hebrew Psalms.
Dr. Stainer, who has made a complete analysis of the text, has not
got beyond conjecture. It is only certain that the kinnor was a
stringed instrument. It is recorded that it was made by Tubal Cain,
played upon by Laban the Syrian and by the shepherd boy David. It is
mentioned in the Book of Job, and the captive Hebrews in Babylon hung
their kinnors on the trees. Whether with or without finger-board,
whether a lyre, a trigonon, or a harp, its tones had power over
the feelings to produce similar effects to those with which music
touches us now, as surely as that the physical law of sympathetic
vibration was as active then in Syria, or by the waters of Babylon,
as it is to-day in Edinburgh or London.
The forms of Harp drawn in this work (Plates II., III., and XXXIV.)
differ from the ancient harps which had no forearm or front pillar,
and could therefore have endured but little strain. Yet an old
Celtic monument represents a harp-like instrument with this Eastern
peculiarity. The extremely interesting Celtic harps here drawn,
the Queen Mary and the Lamont harps, have forearms or bows of a
constructive strength that would, with the rest of the framing,
bear a considerable draught of wire. The Celts and Germanic nations
appear to have long cultivated the harp. The word itself is German,
but the Celtic people of these islands have different names for it,
according to whether they are of the Gaelic or Cymric branch. The
common Gaelic name was Cruit (Crot), which comes from a root meaning
vibration, but this name has been superseded by Clarsach, which is
derived from the resounding board. The Welsh name, Telyn, implies
strain or tension. It must be remembered that the triple-strung Welsh
Harp is a comparatively modern instrument, and so also is the Welsh
Crwth (Plate XXIV.), in the only form in which it has come down to
us, as a bowed instrument with extra strings off the finger-board,
a peculiarity belonging to the theorbo and lyra-viol. The origin of
the Crwth would appear to have been the classical lyre submitted to
changes that had come with time, and, as the Continental Rote or
Rotta, it was a very common form of instrument in the Middle Ages.
It had to give way before Eastern stringed instruments, such as the
rebec and lute. The Vína (Plate XL.) is the characteristic Hindu
stringed instrument, and has a great antiquity attributed to it. The
string is theoretically said to be divided into twenty-two small
intervals in the octave, of equal extent, called _s'ruti_, by which
the tones and semitones are determined; but recent observation shows
that the Hindus are satisfied with a division of twelve semitones
in the octave--in fact, our chromatic scale. Smaller intervals are
only used for grace notes, and are produced by deflecting the string.
Gourd resonators have been mentioned as of probably very ancient use,
and the employment of sympathetic strings, in vogue in Europe only
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, may be added as also
of remote origin in India. The Hindus and Persians have both used
gourds attached to the Vínas and Sitárs (Plate XL.) for resonance. In
Southern India, where the use of the original Hindu Vína prevails,
although the scale now used is at least heptatonic, there is still
a leaning towards pentatonic forms of melody. The accordances are
in fourths or fifths and octaves. The Sitár of Northern India and
greater use of the interval of the third may be attributed to Persian
introduction; but throughout India, and more intensely in the south,
music is felt as a poetic art, and has a development in its own way,
that still remains unrecognised in Europe, although we now have
scholars from whose researches and zeal this ignorance may be in
time, at least partially, dispelled. Music is acutely felt as a means
of expression in India unknown in China or among the Indo-Chinese
races.
The vexed question of the introduction of the bow to stringed
instruments, upon which the most eminent authorities are not yet
disposed to agree, is one that needs only to be mentioned here.
Whether of Asiatic or European introduction, it would appear at first
to have been only one of the ways by which sounds could be drawn from
strings, and that it gradually became victorious over the plectrum,
with instruments of the viol kind, which thereby gained a great
development. It is even now permitted to use the fingers to a bowed
instrument in the _pizzicato_ of the violin and violoncello.
The Psaltery was a plectrum instrument derived from the Arab
Qan[=u]n; it is rarely absent in paintings of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries where musical instruments are represented. The
same instrument, increased in the weight of stringing to resist
the impact of hammers, is the familiar dulcimer, which, like the
hurdy-gurdy and the bagpipe, has seen better days. What was once
thought of the dulcimer is shown by the painting that adorns the one
drawn in Plate XVII. It seems almost vexatious that we do not know
who first adjusted a key-board to a psaltery, and thus constructed a
spinet. It was not earlier than the fifteenth century, but the name
of the meritorious inventor has not come down to us, or where he
lived. It seems most likely from the earliest name, clavicymbalum,
being Latin, that the instrument was first contrived in a monastery.
But we have, fortunately, in Plate VI., in an upright Spinet or
Clavicytherium, one of the earliest existing specimens of the kind.
It is a question not yet decided whether this rare instrument is
of South German or North Italian origin. The reason is given for
the former attribution in the description accompanying the drawing.
Yet the Mantegnesque feeling is so strong in the decoration of
the interior that we pause before accepting the Swabian origin as
conclusively settled.
Queen Elizabeth's Virginal (Plate VIII.), which has at last found a
resting-place in the splendid collection of old musical instruments
in South Kensington Museum, is not a virginal proper, but apparently
an Italian spinet. It has been gloriously decorated, and it awakens
an intense feeling of interest to reflect upon who may have played
upon it and who may have stood by and heard the pleasing tones of
an instrument once so much cared for. The Spinet was at that time
beginning to gain upon the Lute. The power to perform part music
with two hands, which the lute-player, having only one hand to stop
with, could but imperfectly approach, was an endowment there was
no gainsaying. We may see the contemporary prosperity of the great
Venetian republic in the lutes, theorboes, and spinets that are
now dispersed throughout Europe; and almost at the same time such
instruments as the Ruckers Virginal (Plate XVIII.) and the Ruckers
double Spinet (Plate XX.) bear witness for Antwerp as to the favour
successful commerce has ever shown the Arts. The great English
spinet-makers belong to the second half of the seventeenth century,
and the first quarter of the eighteenth. Among them, Stephen Keene
was in the foremost rank, and his work will still bear examination in
the spinet drawn in Plate XXII. The eighteenth century was marked by
a great advance in making the expressive Clavichord, which although
perhaps the oldest key-board stringed instrument, had always had to
give way before the louder and more graceful-looking spinet. Plate
XXXII. displays the clavichord at its culmination, and the Chinese
Lac decoration shows that, in this specimen at least, its intimate
charm of tone, capable, as no other key-board instrument was, of the
_vibrato_, was deemed worthy of an elaborate setting.
The latest improvements of which the Spinet genus was capable,
including the Venetian Swell, are founded in the Double Harpsichord
(Plate XXXIII.) made by Burkat Shudi (Burkhard Tschudi) and John
Broadwood in 1773, for the Empress Maria Theresa. It is a question
whether some musical instruments of special character should not
be retained for use or be made again when that character cannot be
expressed by any existing instrument. If this were done the Viola
d'Amore, the Viola da Gamba, the Harpsichord, the Clavichord, and
the old German flute, in the last instance with some concession to
defective intonation, would find their places and be sometimes heard
with pleasure.
With regard to the selection and drawing of the subjects represented
in the following Plates, it may be mentioned that the present writer
had the important advantage of a free use of the remarkable Loan
Collection of Musical Instruments exhibited at the Royal Albert
Hall, Kensington, in 1885. Extraordinary facilities for drawing
the selected subject were obtained through his official connection
with the Music Division of the Exhibition, and through the gracious
permission of the respective owners of the instruments, including
H.M. the Queen, H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, H.R.H. the Siamese
Minister, and the Japanese Commission. He has also utilised some
sketches of instruments selected and drawn by Mr. Robert Glen of
Edinburgh, to whom belongs the credit of originating the idea of this
publication.
The pictorial representation of the subjects was undertaken by Mr.
William Gibb, and the plates in this volume have been successfully
reproduced from his admirable drawings. The book gains, moreover,
a special and unexpected value from the fact that no illustrated
Catalogue Raisonné was compiled of the Music Loan Collection of 1885,
which combined the most beautiful and valuable Manuscripts, Books,
Paintings, etc., as well as Musical Instruments, which were ever
brought together. There were no funds available, nor was there time
to permit of such a work being carried out before the Collection was
dispersed. By those who deplore the loss of that opportunity, the
illustrations of this work may be regarded as a valuable memento of
that unrivalled Collection.
A.J.H.
[Illustration: JEWISH SHOPHAR.]
[Illustration: I]
PLATE I.
BURGMOTE HORNS.
Beautiful horns of hammered and embossed bronze belonging to the
Corporations of Canterbury and Dover. The right-hand one is from
Dover, where it was formerly used for the calling together of the
Corporation at the order of the mayor. The minutes of the town
proceedings were constantly headed "At a common Horn blowing" (comyne
Horne Blowying). This practice continued until the year 1670, and is
not yet entirely done away with, as it is still blown on the occasion
of certain Municipal ceremonies. The motto on this horn is:--
JOHANNES DE · ALLEMAINE · ME · FECIT ·
preceded by the talismanic letters A·G·L·A, which stand for the
Hebrew [Hebrew: atah gibor l'olam Adonai] and mean, "Thou art mighty
for ever, O Lord!" The horn, which is 31-3/4 inches long, with a
circumference at the larger end of 15-1/2 inches, is of brass, and
is deeply chased with a spiral scrollwork of foliage chiefly on a
hatched ground. The inscription is on a band that starts four inches
from the mouth and continues spirally. The maker's name is now nearly
effaced, but the inscription shows that he was a German, and the date
is assigned to the thirteenth century. A paper in the _Antiquary_
(vol. 1. pp. 253-55), written by the late Llewellyn Jewitt, F.S.A.,
of which some use has here been made, states that there are on the
obverse of the oldest Seal of Dover, said to have been made in 1305,
two horn-blowers in the stern of a ship, each blowing a horn similar
to this example.
The left-hand Burgmote Horn belongs to the Corporation of Canterbury,
and records of its use for calling meetings of the Corporation are
extant from 1376, down to the year 1835. The chord measurement of the
arc of this Horn is 36 inches.
The antiquity of horns, whether natural or of metal, as instruments
for sounding is well known. Their employment in some religious
services points to customs that were already old when the oldest
historical monuments we possess were raised. The Hebrew formulary
upon the Dover horn reminds us of the Jewish Shophar, referred to
particularly in the Introduction (page xii)--a ram's horn, usually
straightened and flattened, which is not only the solitary ancient
musical instrument actually preserved in the Mosaic ritual, but is
the oldest wind instrument known to be retained in present use in the
world. It is still sounded by Jews on the New Year and on the Fast of
the Day of Atonement.
In England, horns have been used amongst the various methods of
transferring inheritances. They were adopted for instruments of
conveyance either in Frank Almoigne, in Fee, or in Serjeantry, and
from this cause have been often preserved.
[Illustration: II]
PLATE II.
QUEEN MARY'S HARP.
This venerable instrument, the least impaired Gaelic Harp existing,
is known as Queen Mary's Harp, and belongs to C. Durrant Steuart,
Esq., of Dalguise, near Dunkeld. Of Gaelic Harps we can only reckon
seven that may be dated earlier than the eighteenth century, the
oldest being the Queen Mary and Lamont Harps, now in Edinburgh, and
the harp named after Brian Boru (Boromha), preserved at Trinity
College, Dublin; these three dating anterior, perhaps long anterior,
to the fifteenth century. The Queen Mary and Brian Boru Harps are
the two most nearly resembling one another. They are small, the
Queen Mary Harp being only 31 inches high and 18 inches from back to
front. They were played resting upon the left knee and against the
left shoulder of the performer, whose left hand touched the upper
strings. The comb is from 2-1/2 to 3-1/4 inches high. It is inserted
obliquely in the sound chest, and projects about 14 inches. The sound
chest, in shape a truncated triangle hollowed out of the solid, is 5
inches wide at the top and 12 at the bottom, the depth being 4-1/2
inches. The bow or forearm measures in a straight line 27-1/2 inches,
the chord of the arc of the inner curve being 23 inches. The front
of it is expanded so as to form a convenient hold for the hand; it
tapers slightly above and below, and ends both ways in boldly carved
heads of animals of a symbolical character. The strings were of brass
and twenty-nine in number, and were made to sound by the player's
finger-nails, which were allowed to grow long for the purpose. The
Queen Mary Harp has had another (the lowest) string attached later.
This string measured 24 inches, the highest treble string 2-1/2
inches; what compass the harp had it is now impossible to decide,
but, following the tradition of Irish harpers, the accordance was
based upon the old diatonic scale with the minor seventh, sometimes
replaced by the major seventh. We learn by the lectures of the late
Dr. Eugene O'Curry that the ancient Irish had three modes in their
music, the "Crying," the "Laughing," and the "Sleeping." Whatever
these tunings were, and probably the Highland Scotch had the same,
their secret is locked up in the wood of the harps that once
responded to them. In this, and frequent instances in these Plates,
the instruments are not represented as strung. It is impossible to
keep old instruments with that strain continually upon them, and to
string them only to have them drawn would have been attended with
many disadvantages.