improvements in the vielle, or hurdy-gurdy, one of which, by reducing
it to the size of a guitar, made it more convenient for performance.
He even went further by adapting it to lute and theorbo bodies,
while he and his successors gradually extended the compass, the
highest G being added by Louvet about 1773. It became for some time
a fashionable instrument, and representations of the vielle and
musette (a refined bagpipe) occur in contemporary French paintings.
But after the French Revolution the hurdy-gurdy was relegated once
more to the highways and byeways; the last popular street player in
Paris was Barbu, who, according to Mr. Louis Pagnerre, was to be
heard previous to 1870, in the Champs Elysées and other open spaces,
and occasionally in the courtyards of the houses of his patrons.
He sometimes gave concerts, for he was an artist, and had taste as
well as executive talent; he could make the instrument sing, use it
to accompany his own voice, or to take a part in combination with
guitar and violin. He disdained to ask for money, relying upon the
appreciation of his audiences to obtain his reward. Barbu had also
been heard in London, and is supposed to have been shot during the
Commune.
[Illustration: XXXI]
PLATE XXXI.
SORDINI.
The Sordino is a pocket fiddle, the "Pochette" of the French and
the "Taschengeige" of the Germans. In form it is derived from
the mediæval rebec which came from the East, and was also known
as "gigue." It was distinguished from the viol family by the
neck being a prolongation of the body of the instrument, instead
of an attachment to it. A diminutive viol, the dancing master's
kit, replaced the rebec kit, or sordino, at the beginning of
the eighteenth century. A sordino, in the Museum of the Paris
Conservatoire, with the date 1717, is believed to be unique as
the undoubted work of Stradivarius. Tarisio, a well-known violin
collector, brought it from Italy to France, and Louis Clapisson, the
violinist, composer, and collector, eventually bought it in 1858, and
employed it in his opera of "Les trois Nicolas," writing a gavotte
for it. The late M. Chouquet (author of _Le Musée du Conservatoire
National de Musique_, Paris, a catalogue _raisonné_ of the musical
instruments in that collection) has described, in enthusiastic terms,
the effect of this little instrument when a gavotte was played upon
it by Croisilles. "It was remembered," he says, "with pleasure by
the old subscribers to the Opera Comique"--a remark that would seem
to imply that the sordino, or pochette, had adequate power, and a
special and agreeable quality of tone. The instrument is provided
with four catgut strings, and _f_ holes on either side the bridge.
Two Sordini are represented in the three figures of this Plate, the
one with a negro's head in two views, the other with a termination in
ivory.
These Sordini belong to the Music Class Room, Edinburgh University.
[Illustration: XXXII]
PLATE XXXII.
CLAVICHORD.
"The claricord hath a tunely kynde
As the wyre is wrested high and lowe."
John Skelton, Poet Laureate, who was born at Oxford in 1489, and
died in the sanctuary, Westminster, in 1529, was the author of a
poem entitled "The Claricorde," from which this quotation is taken.
The true spelling is Clavichord, from the Latin "clavis," a key,
and "chorda," a string. The wrester was the tuner, who wrested or
strained the wire to the required tension. The words "wrest-pin" and
"wrest-plank" remain in technical use for the tuning-pin and the wood
in which the tuning-pins are inserted.
The Clavichord represented belongs to Mr. Gerald Wellesley, of
London: its dimensions are--length, 5 feet 8-1/2 inches; width, 1
foot 9 inches; and depth, 6-1/2 inches; width of the key-board, 2
feet 9-1/2 inches. The compass is five octaves and a semitone--from
the third E below, to the third F above, middle C.
Chinese decoration, which was much in vogue in the early part of
last century, was not unfrequently applied to clavichords and
harpsichords. As examples of the latter may be mentioned the
instrument that belonged to Queen Sophia Dorothea, until lately
preserved in her palace at Charlottenburg, near Berlin, but now in
the Hohenzollern Museum, and the Ruckers clavecin or harpsichord
in the Turin Museum. There are two music parties or concerts shown
within the lid of Mr. Wellesley's clavichord, with instruments that
are not, however, Chinese, but conventional representations of
European fiddles and guitars.
The Clavichord is, without question, the earliest key-board stringed
instrument, it having been developed from the Monochord, used for
teaching singing in monasteries and church schools. It appears to
have come into use in the second half of the fourteenth century,
but it was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century that
it obtained its full development, when, in fact, its expressive
character was brought into notice by improvements in the instrument
and the finger technique. It was the Bachs who took advantage of
this quality as the medium to express a characteristic and tender
sentiment. Its gentle, intimate tone is produced by brass pins,
called tangents, fixed in the keys and flattened at the upper ends.
Raised to the strings in playing, these tangents set the strings
in vibration, and at the same time form bridges to measure off the
lengths required for the notes. The red cloth, woven in the strings
behind the tangents, damps the sound. As far as we have met with the
clavichords, the instrument has had two, sometimes three strings of
brass wire to each note tuned in unison; the treble being, however,
occasionally of steel wire to cause a brighter sound. There were
sometimes octave strings to the lowest bass octave, after the manner
of some theorboes, to make those notes distinct. These groups of
unisons served for two, three, and even four notes according to the
point of contact of the tangent affecting them, and to clavichords
thus made the Germans applied the word "gebunden" (fretted). About
the year 1700 each key obtained its own strings; and the instrument
having become larger, it was more powerful and fitted to produce
shades of sound of varying intensity. It had the "Bebung" as well,
which is analogous to the violin-player's _vibrato_, and obtained by
rocking the finger upon the key without quitting it. The clavichord
is the only key-board instrument that allows this effect, but care
has to be used to avoid an undue sharpening of the pitch of the note
so treated--indeed, a constant equality of touch has to be maintained
in playing the clavichord, to preserve an accurate intonation.
One of the most inspired compositions ever written for the clavichord
is the "Fantasia Cromatica e Fuga," by Johann Sebastian Bach. The
figuration, the manner of slurring, the arpeggios, and much more
in this piece, are extremely characteristic of the instrument. For
a performance intended to reproduce, as far as may be possible,
the original reading, the piece should be first studied upon a
clavichord, not a pianoforte. The gentle influence of the instrument
soon makes itself felt, and both player and listener seem to breathe
another and a purer atmosphere. But such a performance demands
concentration and those quiet surroundings the old composers enjoyed.
I'm never merry when I hear sweet music;
The reason is your spirits are attentive.
SHAKSPEARE.
Music, which gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes.
TENNYSON.
[Illustration: XXXIII]
PLATE XXXIII.
THE EMPRESS HARPSICHORD.
Represents a Harpsichord of the largest size, the culmination of an
instrument that had remained in use for nearly three hundred years,
but, at the time this one was made, was about to be replaced by the
pianoforte. This fine Harpsichord bears the joint names of Shudi
and Broadwood, and was made at the house now known as No. 33 Great
Pulteney Street, London, where the pianoforte business of Messrs.
John Broadwood and Sons is still carried on. The instrument is
numbered 691, and the books of the original firm show that it was
made for the Empress Maria Theresa, and shipped on the 20th of August
1773, which happened to be the day after Shudi died. But he had for
some time retired from harpsichord-making, and this instrument is
really to be attributed to his son-in-law, John Broadwood. Burkhard
Tschudi, or Shudi as he wrote his name in England, was of a noble
Swiss family. He had established his business as a harpsichord-maker,
in Great Pulteney Street, about 1732. Through Handel's friendship he
became patronised by Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George
III., and was permitted to use the sign of "The Plume of Feathers"
for his house. He was honoured with a commission from Maria Theresa's
old enemy, Frederick the Great, to make two harpsichords for the
"Neues Palais" at Potsdam, where they are still to be seen. One of
them is described, with Silbermann's Forte Piano, in Dr. Burney's
famous tour. Some years previously, Shudi had made a harpsichord
and presented it to Frederick on the occasion of his victory at
Prague, but the present writer could not find the instrument when
he made a special visit to Berlin and Potsdam, in 1881. It may
be said of Shudi and Jacob Kirkman, once fellow-apprentices, and
afterwards competitors, that they left the harpsichord a more
powerful instrument, and more varied in effect, by means of stops and
registers, than it had ever been before.
Shudi was the inventor of the Venetian Swell (patented 1769),
which he intended for the harpsichord. When the patent expired
this contrivance was generally adopted in England, and becoming
transferred to the organ, has remained, ever since, an important
means of effect in that instrument. The figure in the Plate shows
the Venetian Swell open, as it would be when the right pedal is put
down. There are four registers and six stops in this instrument.
Taking them in their order from left to right, we find on the
left-hand side, the "lute," the jacks or plectra of which twang the
first unison string, near the wrest-plank bridge, and give a more
reedy sound than is obtained from the usual striking-places; the
"octave," which, as its name indicates, acts upon strings tuned an
octave higher, which are of shorter length, and lie below the others;
and the "buff" (sometimes called "harp") stop, which partly mutes
the second unison strings, throughout, by the contact of small pads
of leather. On the right-hand side are the first and second rows
of unison strings. The upper key-board has the first unison and
lute only, while all the registers come under the player's control
on the lower key-board. The machine stop, at the left hand of the
key-boards, permits an agreeable change to lute and buff (harp) by
using the left pedal and both sets of keys. Kirkman appears to have
arranged his left-hand stops differently--buff, lute, octave. The
dimensions of the Harpsichord here drawn are 8 feet 9-3/4 inches in
extreme length, and 3 feet 4 inches in width at the key-boards. The
great width of the key-board of the modern pianoforte renders it
impossible, in designing one, to reproduce the special grace of the
harpsichord.
Among composers, those who have best understood the genius of the
harpsichord have been Handel and Scarlatti. The former, with his
famous Air with variations in D Minor and the Presto following it,
summed up the history and technique of the instrument, as far as
it was then known. Scarlatti found such new features to display in
technical contrivance and effect, that we are still attracted by
an individuality the originality of which is, as yet, untouched by
time. The only parallel instance, although resembling it in no other
way, is that of Frédéric Chopin as a composer and performer on the
pianoforte.
With the harpsichord went out the figured bass accompaniment, or
thorough bass, that, for two hundred years, had been the foundation
of a correct musical education. By degrees the training for technique
and memory came to occupy that attention with pianoforte-players,
which had been devoted to developing the fluency of improvisation
expected from the harpsichord-player.
This harpsichord was lent by Mr. Victor Mahillon, of Brussels, to the
South Kensington Music Loan Collection, 1885.
[Illustration: XXXIV]
PLATE XXXIV.
PEDAL HARP.
A green and gold Harp that once belonged to George IV., and is now
in the possession of Mr. Edward Joseph, of London. It is 5 feet 3
inches high, 2 feet 6 inches in extreme width, and 1 foot 9 inches
wide at the base. It was included in the characteristic Louis Seize
Historic Room, in the Music Loan Collection, Royal Albert Hall, 1885.
This room, one of three, was so contrived as to display the musical
instruments in social use with such surroundings of furniture,
paintings, etc., as would be true for the period. These Historic
Rooms, suggested by Mr. Alfred Maskell, the official superintendent
of the Music Loan Collection, were arranged with great knowledge and
taste by Mr. George Donaldson. They represented an English apartment
of the time of George I., a Tudor apartment that included Queen
Elizabeth's virginal, and a Louis Seize apartment that, with the Harp
in the accompanying Plate, contained also the beautifully painted
Ruckers clavecin or harpsichord (lent by Viscount Powerscourt)
that had belonged to the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. There is
a photograph of this harpsichord in the Catalogue of the South
Kensington Collection, 1872, and a wood engraving of the Louis Seize
room, showing both harpsichord and harp, in the _Art Journal_ for
August 1885.
The first pedal mechanism was invented by Hochbrucker, a Bavarian,
about 1720; by it he rendered the harp fit for changes of key,
possible before, and that only partially, by clumsy contrivances.
By using a pedal to raise each open string a semitone, accomplished
by pressure upon the strings, he gave the harp eight major and
five complete minor scales--also three descending minor. The
Cousineaus, who were Frenchmen, and father and son, superseded the
contrivance of Hochbrucker by another that grasped or pinched the
strings with pieces of metal on either side, and also by slides
raising or lowering the bridge-pins. By doubling the pedals and
mechanism, and changing the key of the open strings from E[flat]
to C[flat], they, about 1782, produced the first double-action
harp. It was, however, left for Sebastian Erard to perfect the
harp by means of a fork mechanism of most ingenious contrivance.
He began with the single-action harp about 1786, turning his
attention to the double-action in 1801. It was not, however, until
1810 that he succeeded in producing the culmination of his various
improvements in a harp of great beauty of tone, with seven pedals
and two transpositions, the semitone and the whole tone, permitting
performance in any key without change of fingering. In spite of
these important inventions the harp has almost lost position as
a solo instrument. It has, however, been taken advantage of by
modern composers, who have adopted it, with charming effect, as an
orchestral instrument.
[Illustration: XXXV]
PLATE XXXV.
STATE TRUMPET AND KETTLEDRUM.
This silver state trumpet, with nine others, adorned with bannerets
of the Royal Arms in crimson and gold, and silver state kettledrums,
similarly adorned, belong to the collection of H.M. the Queen, in St.
James's Palace. They were both probably made in the reign of George
III., one of the trumpets in the collection bearing the maker's name,
William Shaw, Red Lion Street, Holborn. Henry VIII. had fourteen
trumpets in his Royal Band, while Queen Elizabeth, in 1587, had ten.
The bending back of the trumpet upon itself, now a well-known feature
in the appearance of the instrument, was an invention of a Frenchman
towards the end of the fifteenth century. The trumpet is one of the
oldest wind instruments used in concert with others. As far back
as 1607 a piece for five trumpets, in the _Orfeo_ of Monteverde,
was played at the Court of Mantua. It became an instrument much
cultivated, and Handel's and Bach's parts for it are of extreme
difficulty. The notes of the trumpet are the natural harmonics
produced by varying pressure of the lips in the mouthpiece. Recently
slides and pistons have been employed to augment its compass, and
render its employment easier.
The State Trumpets were sounded to announce the arrival of Her
Majesty the Queen at Westminster Abbey on the occasion of the
Thanksgiving Service for her Jubilee on the 21st of June, 1887, as
they had been on the 20th of the same month, fifty years before, to
proclaim her Accession. The Fanfare for four trumpets played at the
Jubilee Service by the State Trumpeters is here given by the kind
permission of the composer, Mr. Thomas Harper, a famous player
himself upon the slide trumpet, an instrument now not much known on
the Continent.
[Music]
The State Kettledrum of silver and draped with the Royal banner,
represents the only member of the Drum family capable of being
tuned to the pitch of the band with a clearly recognisable note. The
head is of vellum stretched upon a ring fitting closely round the
kettle of the drum. Screws, working on this ring, tighten or slacken
the head to produce the note required from its compass. The pair of
kettledrums are usually tuned to tonic and dominant, but inequalities
of tension in the head, owing to the membrane not being perfectly
homogeneous, interfere with the notes being strictly accurate.
[Illustration: XXXVI]
PLATE XXXVI.
CAVALRY BUGLE, WITH TASSELS.
CAVALRY TRUMPET, EMBOSSED.
TRUMPETS, THREE INSTRUMENTS--WITH CROOKS, GILT, AND SILVER
MOUNTED.
The Cavalry Bugle, decorated with tassels and graciously contributed
by H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, President of the International
Inventions Exhibition, 1885, to the Music Loan Collection, has an
historical interest in having been used by Trumpeter Smith to sound
the moonlight charge of the Household Cavalry and 7th Dragoon Guards,
at Kassassin in Egypt, August the 28th, 1882.
The Trumpet with crooks was carried by Sergeant-Major Webb of the
5th Dragoon Guards, Field Trumpeter to the Duke of Wellington, and
with this instrument he sounded the grand charge at the Battle of
Salamanca, July the 22nd, 1812. It is the property of a descendant of
the Sergeant-Major, Mr. Joseph Webb, who contributes the veteran's
description, often repeated to him, of the anxious moment when the
command was given to sound the charge. "I trembled all over as I
lifted the trumpet to my mouth, for I could see what the boys had
before them, but as soon as my lips touched the mouthpiece fear
left me, and I blew such a charge as I never had before or could
afterwards."
The embossed Cavalry Trumpet, with a very heavy mouthpiece, belonging
to Mr. A.W. Malcolmson, is English, and was made by William Sandbach
in the last century. The remaining trumpets belong to Mr. Thomas
Harper, the gilt one having been made by John Harris about 1730, and
the silver-mounted one by William Bull about 1680.
[Illustration: XXXVII]
PLATE XXXVII.
LITUUS, BUCCINA, CORNET,
ROMAN CAVALRY. ROMAN INFANTRY. WITH TWO VALVES.
TRUMPETS.
The Roman Lituus, the antique straight instrument with the curved
end, is drawn from a reproduction in bronze of the original, found in
the tomb of a warrior discovered in 1827, at Cervetri, the Etruscan
Caere, and preserved in the Museum of the Vatican. The lituus took
its name from the augur's staff, which it resembled in shape;
it belonged to the cavalry of the Roman Empire. It produces the
following proper notes or natural harmonics--
[Music]
the seventh being flatter than the note which occurs in our modern
musical scale. The fundamental [Music] which the length of this
tube--5 feet 4 inches--would give, cannot be produced. It was from a
minute description of the original instrument, by Signor Alessandro
Kraus junior of Florence, that Mr. Victor Mahillon was enabled to
make this interesting reproduction of an instrument which appears to
be the only antique trumpet known. The curved Buccina is from another
reproduction by him of an instrument preserved in the Museum at
Naples, and found in excavating Pompeii. It was passed under the left
arm of the executant and over his right shoulder, in a manner easily
adopted by a foot-soldier. This Buccina is in unison with the horn in
G, and has a bugle quality of tone. Its notes are--
[Music]
the seventh and eleventh harmonics not being in tune with the
corresponding notes in our received scales, and the fundamental being
again impracticable. To sound the lituus and buccina is to awaken
the echoes of the ancient past; but, whether blown by Roman or Greek
or Egyptian, we may be sure the harmonic division of a column of air
into vibrating sections knows no change, and was the same then as now.
The Cornet with two valves shows one of the earliest adaptations of
the now dominant pistons as introduced by C. Saxe of Brussels.
One Trumpet, by Johann Wilhelm Haas of Nuremberg, is of obsolete
make; the other, also by Haas, is curved in half-circles to
facilitate the production of stopped notes, and is curiously engraved.
These five instruments belong to the Brussels Conservatoire Royal.
[Illustration: XXXVIII]
PLATE XXXVIII.
TWO DOUBLE FLAGEOLETS, A GERMAN FLUTE, AND TWO FLÛTES DOUCES.
The Flageolet is the last example in present use of the "flûtes
douces," or "à bec" (German Blockflöten), bored with reversed cones,
that is to say, with the embouchure at the larger end. It is referred
to by Pepys in his _Diary_ (1st March, 1666): "Being returned home I
find Greeting, the flageolet-master, come, and teaching my wife, and
I do think my wife will take pleasure in it, and it will be easy for
her, and pleasant;" and again (20th January, 1667): "To Drumbleby's
the pipe-maker, there to advise about the making of a flageolet to go
low and soft; and he do show me a way which do do, and also a fashion
of having two pipes of the same note fastened together, so as I can
play in one and then echo it upon the other, which is mighty pretty."
The double flageolets in the Plate were made by W. Bainbridge,
London, who had a speciality for such instruments. The flûtes
douces--in Shakspeare's _Hamlet_ the "Recorders"--were made in
families like viols, cromornes, shawms, and other well-known
Elizabethan instruments, a fashion that modern instrumentation shows
a tendency to return to. Evelyn, in 1679, mentions them as "now in
much request for accompanying the voice." A bass and treble flute is
drawn, also a one-keyed German or transverse flute which, in the last
century, from its beauty and tone, although defective in intonation,
was a favourite instrument, and supplanted the flûte douce in public
favour. In the concerts of ancient music given in July, 1885, by
members of the Brussels Conservatoire in the Music Room of the
Inventions Exhibition, South Kensington, a movement from a Concerto
by Quanz (music-master to Frederick the Great) was played by Mr.
Dumon on a single-keyed ivory flute. In the same concerts, Mr. Dumon
and his pupils played a March of the Lansquenets, of the time of the
Peace of Cambrai (1519), on eight flûtes douces (flauti dolci), in
parts, accompanied by a drum. This was the military music of that
period.
The German flute is the second instrument in the Plate; the flûtes
douces are the third and fifth from left to right. These instruments
and those drawn in the next Plate are the property of Messrs. J. & R.
Glen, Edinburgh.
[Illustration: XXXIX]
PLATE XXXIX.
DOLCIANO. OBOE. BASSOON. OBOE DA CACCIA. BASSET HORN.