mother-o'-pearl, and ebony (the property of Mr. George Donaldson,
London), has ten pegs representing fleur-de-lys, and the ornament
round the rose is formed with the same emblematic flower. To this, no
doubt, it owes its romantic reputation of having belonged to David
Rizzio. The apparent age of the Guitar would agree with a supposed
gift of it from Mary Stuart to Rizzio, and the fleur-de-lys might
connect it with the French or Scotch Royal Families; but this slender
suggestion of the fleur-de-lys, to which the guitar owes its special
interest, unsupported by other evidence, is scarcely sufficient to
uphold the fascinating attribution. Mr. Donaldson, however, informs
me that this instrument was bought in Scotland, nearly forty years
ago, from an old family that had possessed it for generations with
this tradition of its former ownership.
This Guitar had ten strings, forming five notes, in pairs of unisons,
instead of six single strings, as in the modern guitar, giving six
notes. It is the lowest note E that is here wanting. The instrument
is 3 feet 1 inch in extreme length; the body being 18-3/4 inches in
length, and 10 inches across. The ribs are 3-3/4 inches deep.
This Spanish guitar may have first come to England in the reign of
Henry VIII., as there is occasional mention, at that time, of the
Spanish viol, a bowed instrument which may have been accompanied
by the true Spanish guitar. There is no doubt, however, about the
Spanish guitar having been here in the reign of Elizabeth, and it
might have been brought by attendants of Philip II. when he married
Mary Tudor. In the latter half of the sixteenth century it was
already known, valued, and highly decorated in Venice; and it was
also known in France, so that, as an instrument, it would not be
strange to Mary Stuart, or Rizzio either. The lute, however, was the
most in vogue at that time, excepting perhaps in Spain. The character
of the design of this so-called Rizzio guitar is undoubtedly
Moorish.
[Illustration: XI]
PLATE XI.
POSITIVE ORGAN.
A chamber Organ formerly in the Tolbecque Collection, and belonging
to the epoch of Louis XIII. The Positive Organ, as the name implies,
was intended to remain in a fixed place, while the smaller portable
organ (orgue portatif) was made to be carried about. The disposition
of the pipes was usually the same in both organs,--what may be
called the natural order,--ascending from the longest pipe in the
bass to the shortest in the treble, but some positive organs had the
pipes arranged in a circular disposition, perhaps for a more equal
distribution of the weight upon what is known as the sound-board.
The instrument admits of more than one register. There are authentic
representations of positives in several old pictures, one of the
best known being that in the St. Cecilia panel, by Hubert Van Eyck,
in the famous altar-piece of the Adoration of the Lamb at Ghent.
The original St. Cecilia panel, now at Berlin, was not painted
later than 1426, but the panel at Ghent is a good copy. Another St.
Cecilia panel (date about 1484), with a positive organ, by an unknown
painter, is not of such universal fame, but is nevertheless of very
great merit. It is in the palace of Holyrood, Edinburgh, and is of
equal value with the Van Eyck panel as a faithful representation of
the instrument, and of the chromatic arrangement of the keys, thus
early introduced.
The Positive Organ drawn in this volume has been intended for
chamber, not choir, use. It has three registers, and the drawstops
which control them project at the right-hand side of the case the
same as in the old Flemish harpsichords. The principal register, that
of the show pipes of gilt tin, is called the Montre; and the compass
of it is from the E below, to the third C above, middle C--three
octaves and a sixth. The second register, also of tin, is an octave
higher in pitch, but extends only from the first E below, to the
second C above, middle C; the remainder of the key-board compass is
borrowed from the Montre. The third register is the Bourdon--wooden
pipes stopped at the upper ends, an octave lower in pitch than the
Montre. The Bourdon extends in compass from E an octave and sixth
below, to the second C above, middle C. The three registers in this
instrument are consequently at octave distances, but Praetorius
(1619) describes an old positive in which the registers were in the
relation of the fifth and octave to the lowest!--a combination the
modern musical ear rejects. The boxwood natural keys with gilded
paper fronts, as seen in this specimen, were common to the earliest
known key-board instruments. The dimensions of this Positive Organ,
including the stand, are--height, 6 feet 4 inches; width, 2 feet 6
inches; and depth, 1 foot 4 inches. The paintings inside the doors
are, to the left, St. Cecilia playing upon a positive organ, while
three angels sing and a fourth blows the bellows; to the right, a
warrior crowned with laurel is in the attitude of listening; outside
the doors there are panels with paintings of a woman playing on an
instrument of the viol kind, and another playing a flute. There is a
crowing cock upon the apex of the cornice. This Positive Organ is the
property of the Conservatoire Royal, Brussels.
[Illustration: XII]
PLATE XII.
REGAL.
The Regal here drawn is the prototype of the modern harmonium, but
with "beating" not "free" reeds. The beating reed is usually employed
in the organ, and it derives its appellation from the reeds touching
the sides of their frames. The beating reed was introduced in the
fifteenth century, but whether in the simple regal first, or as part
of an organ, is not known. In England, the word "regal" has been also
used to denote a portable organ, as is shown by Sir John Hawkins's
suggestion that the stage direction to the players' scene in Hamlet,
"Enter a duke and a duchess with regal coronets," should be "with
regals and cornets." The oldest German authorities, as Virdung (1511)
and Praetorius (1619), separate them and describe the regal as a reed
instrument with key-board exactly like this one, a kind of positive
and not a portable organ. This Regal, which was in the Tolbecque
Collection, is attributed in date to the end of the sixteenth
century. It came from the Abbey of Freuenfeld in Switzerland, and
now belongs to the Brussels Conservatoire. Mr. Victor Mahillon,
the curator of the museum of that institution, records another
fine specimen of this very rare instrument in the possession of
the Community of Lady Canonesses of the order of St. Augustine, at
Brussels, to which body it was presented, by the founder of the
Order, in 1625. The regal is said to have been much used in convents
to accompany the singing of the nuns. The Belgian Government kindly
allowed a selection of the Conservatoire instruments, of which the
Regal here drawn was one, to be played in the Historic Concerts given
in July 1885, in the Music Room of the Inventions Exhibition. This
instrument, when on its stand, measures 2 feet 8 inches in height,
the width is the same, and the length is 4 feet 2 inches. The case
is of finely-carved walnut. The compass of the key-board is from the
second E below, to the second A above, middle C--about the extent of
the human voice, and the frequent compass of old organs.
The word "regal" has been derived from the inventor having made
a present of the first one to a king, or to kings having had
in their establishments special regal-makers. Rigabello, a now
unknown instrument which is said to have preceded the organ in
Venice, is also quoted as the origin of the name. I have elsewhere
(_Encyclopædia Britannica_, article Pianoforte) suggested that
"regal" may have come from "regula," a rule, the idea of gradation
being inherent in a key-board. The wooden harmonicon, when made to
play by a key-board, was at one time called regal (régale en bois).
[Illustration: XIII]
PLATE XIII.
PORTABLE ORGAN AND BIBLE REGAL.
The Portable Organ (orgue portatif, also nimfali) was a processional
instrument slung by a strap over the player's shoulder, so as to
allow the bellows at the back of the instrument to be worked by the
player's left hand, while the keys were touched with the fingers
of the right hand. From the high pitch of the pipes, the limited
number of keys, and one hand only being used for touching them,
it is possible that only one voice, or part, was played. The same
remarks may be made of the early large organs, except that, with
them, each key made several pipes of various lengths speak at the
same time, so as to give the octave, twelfth, and super-octave,
and still higher accordant intervals,--in point of fact, the large
organ was, with the exception of the front pipes, a large mixture
stop. The positive and portable organs were smaller editions of the
principal or front pipe part of the large organ. From Orcagna and Fra
Angelico, in the fourteenth century, to D.G. Rossetti and E. Burne
Jones, in the nineteenth, the portable organ has been a favourite
musical instrument for delineation by the painter of religious
subjects, and from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries no
musical instrument was more in favour in religious establishments.
Notwithstanding this fact, I know of only two as now existing, and
they are both of late date, being of the seventeenth century. The
one, here drawn, belongs to the Museum of the Brussels Conservatoire,
while the other, belonging to His Grace the Duke of Athole, is
preserved at Blair Athole in Scotland.
The Brussels Portable Organ has twenty-six metal pipes arranged in
two rows, and has as many keys, in a compass extending from the first
E to the third F above middle C. On the case are engravings upon wood
and ivory, representing a youth playing upon a harp while three
boys dance, and a woman playing upon a portable organ while a girl
and two boys sing. A woodcut of the harp-player is on the title-page
of this volume. There is a conventional lion on each key-block. The
dimensions are--height, 2 feet 6 inches; width, 2 feet; and depth, 8
inches.
The Bible Regal, drawn in the same Plate, is of the same kind as the
beating reed Regal. The pipes which enclose the reeds are so cut down
as to practically do little more than cover them. The instrument is
so constructed that it can be folded up, and, when closed, looks
like a book--whence the name Bible Regal. The key-board, hinged in
the middle, is extended for performance. In the instrument drawn
it is of four octaves and a fourth compass. The bellows are found
by reversing the book cover. The Bible Regal is said to have been
invented about the middle of the sixteenth century, by George Voll,
an organ-builder of Nuremberg. It is extremely rare; I only know of
two, one belonging to Mr. Wyndham Portal of Malshanger, Basingstoke,
and this instrument, the property of Mrs. Frederick Pagden and her
sister Miss Ferrari.
[Illustration: XIV]
PLATE XIV.
CETERA.
The instrument, in Italian "Cetera," is in French called "Cistre,"
and in English "Cither," sometimes English Guitar. It belongs to the
guitar kind because it has a flat back, but all cithers are strung
with wire, and the sounds are elicited, like those of the lute-shaped
mandoline, by means of a plectrum. This exquisitely beautiful
instrument of the early sixteenth century is attributed to the
Brescian School. Formerly the property of the Biblioteca Estense at
Modena, it has since been acquired by Mr. George Donaldson, London.
It will be observed in the drawing that a carving of a woman's head
surmounts the peg-box and resolves itself into a lizard, which serves
as a handle wherewith to hold the instrument. A mermaid is seen below
the finger-board, and there are two in the carving of the back. The
ribs are also carved. To show this exquisite carving upon a larger
scale enlargements are given of the finger-board mermaid and the
rose in the sound-hole. The extreme length of the instrument is 3
feet; and that of the body measured to the neck, 19-1/2 inches; the
number of strings is thirteen. Praetorius gives the tuning of such an
instrument as follows: [Music] the highest being the single melody
string.
This Cetera should be compared with that of Mr. Alard in Plate
XXVIII.--an instrument made by the famous violin-maker, Antonio
Stradivari.
[Illustration: XV]
PLATE XV.
LUTE.
A fine old Italian Lute, with the label "1600, IN PADOVA
Vvendelio Venere." It is not only rare, but a special interest is
attached to it from its having been the favourite musical instrument
of the late Carl Engel. When he disposed of his collection he
reserved this instrument for his own use, and probably his last
performance upon it was Handel's "Lascia ch'io pianga," which he
played to the present writer, who now owns the instrument.
It is a large lute, being 42 inches in length. The greatest width of
the body is 14-1/2 inches, with an extreme depth of 8 inches. The
body is 21 inches from the base to the shoulders; from thence to
the nut is 10-3/4 inches, and it is 13-1/2 inches from the nut to
the extremity of the head, the angle of the peg-box being obtuse.
The mean width of the finger-board is 4 inches. It is furnished
with twenty strings, which are divided into six pairs of unisons,
and eight single strings for basses. Engel tuned it in the D minor
tuning, an accordance introduced according to Herr Oscar Fleischer
in the first half of the seventeenth century, by the great French
lutenist, Denis Gaultier. This accordance ultimately prevailed not
only in France and England but in Germany; the same writer informs
us that Joseph Haydn used it. This lute, when so tuned, is thus
arranged--
[Music]
but the old Lute tuning was, in chamber pitch--
[Music]
Mersenne (_Harmonie Universelle_, Paris, 1636) places this
finger-board scale a tone higher, with the Chanterelle on A. This
change really infers the use of a lower pitch. By Gaultier's
tuning the strain is taken off the highest note--a relief of much
importance, when the high chamber pitch then customary, nearly a
whole tone above the normal French pitch, is considered. By the
twelve frets upon the finger-board for the highest notes, the melody
strings could be raised chromatically one octave, thus making the
extreme compass of the instrument four octaves and a note, from the
third F below, to the second G above, middle C. Before the year 1600
the lute was played, as the old tablatures or lute notations show
us, in single notes with occasional chords, a practice derived from
lute-playing frequently found in modern pianoforte music. There
were attempts at counterpoint, but these were limited, owing to one
hand only being available for stopping. Certain graces were used,
especially the _vibrato_, but there is reason to believe they were
used for some time by the players before the composers thought fit
to indicate them. With the growing favour for simple chords, which
were developed into the Continuo or Thorough Bass accompaniment, the
bass strings--diapasons, as they were called--were added beneath
the finger-board accordance to be tuned for basses as the player
required. At last they were attached by the contrivance of a double
neck to a higher peg-box, by which the Lute became a Theorbo. Both
varieties were superseded early in the eighteenth century by the
guitar, which was easier to play, and the immensely popular spinet,
which permitted the performance of a complete counterpoint, by the
freedom it gave to use both hands upon the key-board. A reflection
might here be made on the masterly way in which contemporary painters
drew hands and lutes. I need only name those masters of the Dutch
school, Frans Hals, Jan Steen, and Terburg, especially Steen, whose
truthful precision compels admiration. Of another school, there is a
lute-player drawn by Albrecht Dürer, that is a miracle of skill and
accuracy of observation.
A considerable literature of the lute exists belonging to the
sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Thomas Mace
(1676) writes very amusingly about it. He accounts Venice lutes as
commonly good, but gives the highest place to Laux Maler of Bologna.
Evelyn, in his Diary, also quotes Bologna as famous for lutes,
especially those of the old masters, Mollen, Hans Frey, and Nicholas
Sconvelt (_sic_), who were Germans. The first-named is probably
intended for Maler. In Evelyn's time, lutes by these makers were
fetching extraordinary prices. The most interesting modern works
of information about the lute, as well as of contemporary music
generally, are _La Musique aux Pays Bas_, Edmond Vander Straeten
(Brussels, 1867-85), from a future volume of which a monograph has
been published in anticipation, entitled _Jacques de Saint-Luc,
Luthiste Athois du xviie. siècle_ (Mayence, 1887); _Musique et
Musiciens au xviie. siècle_, a publication of the "Société pour
l'Histoire Musicale des Pays-Bas," edited by W.J.A. Jonckbloet
and J.P.N. Land, and containing the musical correspondence of the
astronomer Constantin Huygens (Leyden, 1882); and a monograph upon
the famous Parisian lutenist, Denis Gaultier, by Oscar Fleischer,
published in the _Vierteljahrschrift für Musikwissenschaft_ for
January and April 1886 (Leipsic, Breitkopf and Härtel). The first
three-quarters of the seventeenth century was a period remarkable for
a refined amateur cultivation of instrumental music. Shakspeare's
appreciation of the lute, and his graceful tribute of admiration
for the performance of his friend, the lutenist Dowland, are well
known.
[Illustration: XVI]
PLATE XVI.
THE ORBO.
The instrument here drawn was made by Giovanni Krebar of Padua in
1629, and now belongs to Mr. George Donaldson, London.
The body of this instrument is built up of ivory; the back of the
peg-box and neck is also of ivory, and is delicately engraved with
a view of Venice, showing vessels engaged in firing, and spearmen
advancing. Incised dancing and fencing figures adorn the lower neck;
there is a garden scene with numerous figures upon the upper neck. By
the pegs we find the instrument had eight bass notes or diapasons; a
single string to each note, and that there were on the finger-board
five double strings and one, the highest, single--the chanterelle
or melody string. In the true theorbo, the Paduan according to
Baron (_Untersuchung des Instruments der Lauten_, Nuremberg, 1727,
p. 131),--the diapasons were single strings. When the diapasons
were in pairs of strings the instrument was, according to Mersenne
(_Harmonie Universelle_, Paris, 1636), called (French) "Luth téorbé"
or (Italian) "Liuto attiorbato," a theorboed lute. It must, however,
be admitted that Mersenne's rule is not of strict application. The
single strings introduced, in the first instance, for basses, at
last became general throughout, and banished the double stringing
in lutes, theorboes and guitars. The lutes were, however, by this
time nearly out of use. The name Archlute is given by different
authorities to both Theorbo and Chitarrone (Plate XXI.).
The early use of only one string for the highest or melody string
may be seen in representations of lutes by Quattro Cento painters.
The theorbo, however, was not introduced until nearly the end of the
sixteenth century. A very accurate and beautiful painting of one may
be observed in a picture by Terburg in the London National Gallery
(formerly in the Peel Collection), which is erroneously named in the
printed catalogue in use in 1887 "The Guitar Lesson."
Evelyn was well acquainted with the theorbo, and took lessons upon it
in Rome and Padua. There is frequent mention of it in his Diary. It
remained in use until nearly the end of the last century.
The extreme length of this specimen is 3 feet 5 inches; the body is 1
foot 3-1/2 inches by nearly 11 inches.
[Illustration: XVII]
PLATE XVII.
DULCIMER.
We derive "Dulcimer" from the Spanish "Dulcemele" as the only
etymology to be offered with any show of certainty. The Provençal
"Lai" was in the Latin of the period "Dulcis Cantus,"--"Dulcemele"
(Lat. _Dulce Melos_) has a kindred ring, and by the change of a
liquid "Dulcimer" has become an accepted name.
The dulcimer is a variety of the psaltery or _qan[=u]n_, and bears
the same relation to it that the modern pianoforte does to the older
spinet or harpsichord. The psaltery was sounded by the fingers,
either with their fleshy ends or by covering them with plectra
adjusted like thimbles to produce a sharper sound; the dulcimer is
a louder instrument, the sounds being produced by hammers held in
the player's hands, and having elastic stems by which the necessary
rebound from the strings is facilitated. The hammers have not
unfrequently two coverings, a hard and a soft one, disposed upon the
hammer head so that the player can, by turning the hammer, use either
at will. The characteristic effect of the dulcimer, analogous to
the mandoline, bandurria and other stringed instruments played with
a plectrum, is the repetition of notes, producing by this artifice
the impression of almost sustained sound. The Italians called the
dulcimer "Salterio Tedesco," or German psaltery, but have now adopted
Zimbalon; the Germans call it a "Hackbrett," or chopping board. It
is generally an instrument popular among the humbler classes, and
in modern times it assumes its most important rôle as the cimbalon
in the Hungarian gipsy bands. The specimen here drawn belonged to
Mr. Kendrick Pyne of Manchester, and is now in the possession of
Mr. H. Boddington; it is elevated upon a stand, and is in a case,
from which it can be removed for performance. There is a picture
inside the lid of a sunset and figures habited in seventeenth-century
costumes--soldiers advancing and met by ladies apparently bearing
refreshments. On the front board, which is hinged so as to be let
down, there is painted on the right of the spectator a man fishing in
a pond and a woman near him; while in the centre is a clump of trees,
and, on the left, a man and a woman meeting. The instrument itself is
decorated with painted flowers in panels, between which are black and
white chequers. It is probably Italian. The dimensions of it are--in
the greatest width, 3 feet 4-1/2 inches, in the least, 1 foot 11
inches. The angles of the sides measure 1 foot 1-1/2 inch each. The
depth of the instrument is 3-1/2 inches. The height of the stand is 2
feet 2 inches.
There are seventeen notes of four wire strings tuned in unison for
each note in this instrument. There may be more notes in a dulcimer
and the number of strings may vary, groups of three, and even five
unisons being found alternating with four in old dulcimers. The wire
was brass in old instruments and is steel in modern ones. Owing to
increase of tension due to the upward straining of the wire by the
bridges on the sound-board, the places for the bridges cannot be
determined by observing the simple ratios of partial tones, but have
to be found empirically. As in all old stringed instruments there are
sound-holes in the sound-board, in old Italian dulcimers decorated
with beautiful arabesques or roses. In old Italian and also the
Chinese dulcimers (Yang-ch'in, or foreign psaltery) the sound-board
bridges are joined in two rows, the strings passing alternately over,
and through openings made in them. They pass over brass wires on the
summits of the bridges, and at the edges of the dulcimer over other
brass wires that form, on either side, what may be called nuts. In
Asiatic and modern European instruments the bridges are separate
studs. The longest stretches of wire pass over the right-hand bridge
and through the openings in the left-hand bridge. The shorter
stretches are reversed, passing over the left-hand bridge. In
European dulcimers the shorter stretches, struck to the right of the
left-hand bridge, are an octave above the longer stretches struck to
the left of the right-hand bridge. The shortest stretches are the
remainder of the octave strings, which, carried over the left bridge
to the left edge of the dulcimer, are so tuned as to be a fifth
above the octave series. The right-hand remainder is not used. There
are consequently three series of notes, a fundamental, an octave
and a twelfth; thus expressed in notation, the perpendicular lines
representing the nuts, and the circles the position of the bridges.
[Music]