Kathleen Schlesinger

“ Instrumental music was banished from civil life and from religious rites, and thenceforth the slender threads which connect the musical instruments of Greeks and Romans with those of the middle ages must be sought among the unconverted barbarians of northern and western Europe, who kept alive the traditions taught them by conquerors and colonists; but as civilization was in its infancy with them the instruments sent out from their workshops must have been crude and primitive. Asia, the cradle of the cithara, also became its foster-mother ”

“ The new instrument, the douçaine, we may imagine, by its unusual appearance provoked the satirical wit of some courtier, and was henceforth known as fagotto. Just a century later Ravilius of Ferrara made Afranio’s first phagotus from the inventor’s design.
The bassoon has been a favourite with all the great masters, excepting Handel. Beethoven uses the bassoon largely in his symphonies, writing everywhere for it independent parts of great beauty and originality. ”

“ The right hand plays the melody on the keyboard, while the left works the bellows and manipulates the two or three bass harmony keys, which sound the simple chords of the tonic and dominant. The archetype of the accordion is the cheng (q.v.) , or Chinese organ, between which and the harmonium it forms a connecting link structurally, although not invented for some thirty years after the harmonium. The timbre of the accordion is coarse and devoid of beauty, but in the hands of a skilful performer the best instruments are not entirely without artistic merit. ”

“ After the fall of the Roman empire the art of bending metal tubes was gradually lost, and although the buccina survived in Europe both in name and in principle of construction during the middle ages, it lost for ever the characteristic curve like a “C” which it possessed in common with the cornu, an instrument having a conical bore of wider calibre. Although we regard the buccina as essentially Roman, an instrument of the same type, but probably straight and of kindred name, was widely known and used in the East, in Persia, Arabia and among the Semitic races. ”

“ This explanation enables us to fix with tolerable certainty the date of the invention of the organistrum, at the end of the 10th or beginning of the 11th century, and also to understand the construction of the instrument. A stringed instrument of the period—such as a guitar-fiddle, a rotta or oval vielle—being used as model, the proportions were increased for the convenience of holding the instrument and of dividing the performance between two persons. Inside the body was the wheel, having a tire of leather well rosined, and working easily through an aperture in the sound-board. ”

“ The keyboard of the piano, on the contrary, besides its purely mechanical function, also forms a sympathetic vehicle of transmission for the performer’s rhythmical and emotional feeling, in consequence of the faithfulness with which it passes on the impulses communicated by the fingers. The keyboard proper does not, in instruments of the organ and piano types, contain the complete mechanical apparatus for directly unlocking the sound, but only that external part of it which is accessible to the performer. ”

“ POMMER, or Bombard (Fr. hautbois; Ital. bombardo, bombardone) , the alto, tenor and basses of the shawm or Schalmey family, and the forerunners respectively of the cor-anglais, bassoon or fagotto, and double bassoon or contrafagotto. The main difference to the casual observer between the medieval instruments and those of our orchestra which were evolved from them would be one of size. ”

“ Donald MacDonald, in his treatise on the bag-pipe [4] states that “the piper is to pay no attention to the flats and sharps marked on the clef, as they are not used in pipe music; yet the pipe imitates several different keys which are real, but ideal on the bag-pipe, as the music cannot be transposed for it into any other key than that in which it is first played or marked.” Mr Glen, the great dealer in bag-pipes, gave it as his opinion “that if the chaunter were to be made perfect in any one scale, it would not go well with the drones. ”

“ To the games at Delphi came musicians from all parts of the civilized world; and the Spaniards, at the beginning of our era, had attained to such a marvellous proficiency in playing the cithara, an instrument which they had learnt to know from the Phoenician colonists before the conquest by the Romans, that some of their citharoedi easily carried off the honours at the musical contests. ”

“ Among the Russians, the gusli is an instrument of a different type, a kind of psaltery having five or more strings stretched across a flat, shallow sound-chest in the shape of a wing. In the gusli the strings, of graduated length, are attached to little nails or pins at one end, and at the other they are wound over a rod having screw attachments for increasing and slackening the tension. There is no bridge to determine the vibrating length of the strings. The body of the instrument is shaped roughly like the tail of the grand piano, following the line of the strings ”

“ It would appear that the art has almost been lost of making mutes for trumpets and French horns, which should affect the timbre only, giving it a certain veiled mysterious quality similar to that of the sons bouches or hand-stopped notes, but affecting the pitch not at all. We read that when it is necessary to produce this peculiar timbre on the valve-horn, as for instance in Wagner’s Rheingold, the rise of a semi-tone in pitch caused by the introduction of the mute or the hand into the bell of the horn must be compensated by means of the second piston which lowers the pitch a semi-tone. ”

“ The most characteristic feature of the bag-pipe is not the obvious bag or air-reservoir from which the instrument derives its name in most languages, but the fixed harmony of the buzzing drones. The principle of the drone, i.e. the beating-reed sunk some three inches down the pipe, was known to the ancient Egyptians. In a pipe discovered in a mummy-case and now in the museum at Turin, was found a straw beating-reed in position. The arghoul (q.v.) , a modern Egyptian instrument, possesses the characteristic feature of drone and chaunter without the bag. ”

“ A later valuable development in the history of valve systems is the enharmonic, invented by Messrs Besson & Co., in which they have perfected and simplified the principle of independent positions tried in the registre of the fifties. In the enharmonic valve system each position has its independent length of tubing theoretically accurate, which conies into play as the valves are depressed, and there is besides a tuning slide for the open notes. ”

“ PHYSHARMONICA, a keyboard instrument fitted with free-reeds, a kind of harmonium much used in Germany. The physharmonica resembles a small harmonium, but is differentiated from it by having no stops; being without percussion action, it does not speak readily or clearly. As in the harmonium, the bellows are worked by the feet by an alternate movement, which also affords a means of varying the dynamic force of the tone according as more or less energetic pedalling increases or decreases the pressure of the wind supply. ”

“ The principles of construction and the acoustic properties are the same for the piccolo as for the flute, with the exception that the piccolo does not contain the additional tail-piece with the extra low keys, which give the flute its extended compass. As the pitch of the piccolo is so high, the highest of all orchestral instruments with the exception of a few harmonics on the violin, the music for it is written an octave lower than the real sounds in order to avoid the ledger lines. ”

“ Unfortunately, Farabi does not describe the shape of the body, being more concerned with the musical scale and compass of the instrument; but means of identification are supplied by ancient monuments. There is a tanbur on an Assyrian bas-relief of the reign of Assur-nasir-pal, c. 880 B.C. (British Museum) , on a slab illustrating camp life; the musician is playing on a pear-shaped tanbur with a very long slender neck, which would have served for two strings at the most, while two men, disguised in the skins of wild beasts, are dancing in front of him. ”

“ The quality of tone is somewhat rough and rattling in the lowest register, the volume of sound not being quite adequate considering the depth of the pitch. In the middle and upper registers the tone of the wooden contrafagotto possesses all the characteristics of the bassoon. The contrafagotto has a complete chromatic compass, and it may therefore be played in any key. Quick passages are avoided since they would be neither easy nor effective, the instrument being essentially a slow-speaking one. The lowest notes are only possible to a good player, and cannot be obtained piano ”

“ From the Persians and Arabs we learn that it was a kind of rebab or lute, or a chelys-lyre, [3] first introduced into Europe through Asia Minor by way of Greece, and centuries later into Spain by the Moors, amongst whom it was in the 14th century known as al-barbet. [4] There is a stringed instrument, as yet unidentified by name, of which there are at least four different representations in sculpture, [5] which combines the characteristics of both lyre and rebab, having the vaulted back and gradual narrowing to form a neck which are typical of the rebab and the stringing of the lyre. ”

“ The stringing of the Welsh crwth with the two drone strings still twanged, the form of the body without incurvations, the flat bridge which rendered bowing, even in the most highly developed specimens of the 18th century, a difficult task, together with what is known of the early history of the chrotta and rotta derived from the lyre and cithara and like them twanged by fingers or plectrum, all make the claim untenable. Carl Engel was probably the first to expose the fallacy in his work on the violin. ”

“ The origin of the kettledrum is remote and must be sought in the East. Its distinctive characteristic is a hemispherical or convex vessel, closed by means of a single parchment or skin drawn tightly over the aperture, whereas other drums consist of a cylinder, having one end or both covered by the parchment, as in the side-drum and tambourine respectively. The Romans were acquainted with the kettledrum, including it among the tympana; the tympanum leve, like a sieve, was the tambourine used in the rites of Bacchus and Cybele. ”

“ The instrument was for many years in great vogue, not only in England but on the Continent of Europe, and more especially in Saxony, where it was accorded a place in the court orchestra. Mozart, Beethoven, Naumann and Hasse composed music for it. Marianne Davies and Marianna Kirchgessner were celebrated virtuosi on it. The curious vogue of the instrument, as sudden as it was ephemeral, produced emulation in a generation unsurpassed for zeal in the invention of musical instruments. ”

“ Each drone is fitted with a beating-reed resembling the primitive “squeaker” known to all country lads; it is prepared by making a cut partly across a piece of cane or reed, near the open end, and splitting back from this towards a joint or knot, thus raising a tongue or flap. The beating-reed is then fixed in a socket of the drone, which fits into the stock. The sound is produced by the stream of air forced from the bag into the drone-pipe by the pressure of the performer's arm, causing the tongue of reed to vibrate over the aperture, thus setting the whole column of air in vibration. ”

“ The word barbiton was frequently used for the lyre itself. Although in use in Asia Minor, Italy, Sicily, and Greece, it is evident that the barbiton never won for itself a place in the affections of the Greeks of Hellas; it was regarded as a barbarian instrument affected by those only whose tastes in matters of art were unorthodox. ”

“ Attached to the body, which has no back, is a long neck, terminating in a flat head acting as a peg-box and bent back slightly at an obtuse angle from the neck. There are five, six or nine strings to the banjo; they are fastened to a tail-piece as in the violin, pass over a low bridge, on the body, and are strained over the nut or ridge at the end of the neck, where they are threaded through holes and wound round the tuning-pegs fixed in the back of the head in Oriental fashion, as in the lute (q.v.) ”

“ The piston seated on a spring instantly regains its normal position when the finger is removed. After the actual shape and construction of the valve and its box had been successfully evolved, it was the boring and disposition of the windways which engaged the attention of makers, whose object was to avoid complexity and sharp angles and turns in the tubing. The pitch of all tubes is determined by the length of the column of air set in vibration therein. Any variation in the length of this column of air produces a proportional variation in the pitch of the instrument. ”

“ The consul Metellus was so charmed with the music of the Spanish competitors that he sent some to Rome for the festivals, where the impression created was so great that the Spanish citharoedi obtained a permanent footing in Rome. ”

“ The Sackpfeife or Dudelsack of Germany was an instrument of some importance made in no less than five sizes, all described and illustrated by Michael Praetorius. [15] They consist of the Grosser Bock or double-bass bag-pipe, a formidable-looking instrument with a single cylindrical drone of a great length, terminating, as did the chaunter also, in a curved ram’s horn (to which the name was due) . The chaunter had seven finger-holes and a vent-hole in front, and a thumb-hole at the back. The drone was tuned to G, an octave below the chaunter. ”

“ When a key was depressed, a little tongue of wood, one end of which stopped the string, was pressed against the revolving cylinder, and the vibrations produced by friction were transmitted to the string and reinforced as in piano and violin by the soundboard. The adjustment of the parts and the velocity of the cylinder required delicacy and great nicety, for if the little wooden tongues rested too lightly upon the cylinder or the strings, harmonics were produced, and the note jumped to the octave or twelfth. ”

“ There is practically no mechanism; the system is simple, ingenious, and neither adds to the weight nor to the bulk of the instrument. There are no screws round the head of Potter’s kettledrum; an invisible system of cords in the interior, regulated by screws and rods in the form of a Maltese cross, is worked from the outside by a small handle connected to a dial, on the face of which are twenty-eight numbered notches. ”