Title: Musical Instruments - Historic, Rare and Unique
Author: Hipkins, A. J.
Language: English
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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.

The Queen Mary Harp has a history based upon the family tradition
of its former owners, the Robertsons of Lude in Perthshire, but
in passing through several mediums it has become unreliable. It
was long believed to have been Mary Stuart's, and, according to
the Lude tradition, it had golden and jewelled ornaments attached
to the right upper circle of the bow including her portrait and
the Royal Arms of Scotland, which were stolen about 1745. The
historical inquiry containing the information respecting this Harp
is by John Gunn, F.S.A.E., and was published in 1807, under the
auspices of the Highland Society. A paper read before the Society
of Antiquaries of Scotland by Mr. Charles D. Bell, F.S.A. Scot.,
and published in their _Proceedings_ for 1880-81, from which I have
made extracts, thoroughly sifts the facts that can be deduced from
it, and which may be thus accepted:--Queen Mary of Lorraine, the
mother of Mary Queen of Scots, gave this harp to Beatrix Gardyn of
Banchory, Aberdeenshire. Beatrix Gardyn was married to Finla Mór,
and from this marriage the family of Farquharson of Invercauld, in
Braemar, is descended. Finla Mór was killed at the battle of Pinkie
in A.D. 1547. John Robertson, the eleventh in succession
to Lude, married Margaret Farquharson, the only daughter of the
then Laird of Invercauld. He was fifty-six years in possession of
Lude, and died in A.D. 1730. The last performer on this
ancient harp was his great-grandson, General Robertson, who lent
both the Lude harps for examination by the Highland Society in 1805.
It appears to have been General Robertson's belief that this harp
was acquired for Lude by the marriage of John, the eleventh Laird,
with a direct descendant of Beatrix Gardyn, but, following Burke's
genealogy of the family, it would appear that it came to Lude with
Beatrix Gardyn herself, on her marriage with John, seventh Laird.
The Robertsons of Lude are now, in the direct line, extinct, but the
family of Gardyn is represented by Francis Garden-Campbell, Esq., of
Troup and Glenlyon.

Queen Mary's and the Lamont Harps are on loan (1887) in the Museum
of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh, and it may be
mentioned that when exhibited in the Music Loan Collection, South
Kensington, the former was insured for £1500 and the latter for
£1000.



[Illustration: III]

PLATE III.

THE LAMONT HARP.


The Highland Harp, known as the Clarsach Lumanach, or Lamont Harp,
belongs to the owner of the Queen Mary Harp, C. Durrant Steuart,
Esq., of Dalguise, Perthshire. Both harps were sent to Edinburgh in
1805 by General Robertson of Lude, who owned them at that time, at
the request of the Highland Society, and a book was published in 1807
under the patronage of the Society, entitled _An Historical Enquiry
respecting the Performance on the Harp in the Highlands of Scotland
from the earliest times until it was discontinued about the year
1734_, by John Gunn, F.A.S.E., in which they were described, and a
version of the family tradition of Lude given, compiled from letters
written by General Robertson, now unfortunately not forthcoming.
Although Mr. Gunn's story of the Queen Mary Harp is coloured in order
to attach the gift of it to Mary Queen of Scots, that of the Lamont
Harp appears to be according to the simple statement of the original
narrator, and may be thus epitomised from a paper published in the
_Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland_, 1880-81,
by Mr. C.D. Bell, F.S.A. Scot.: "The family tradition of Lude
alleges that for several centuries past the larger of these harps
has been known as the Clarsach Lumanach or Lamont Harp, and that it
was brought from Argyllshire by a daughter of the Lamont family on
her marriage with Robertson of Lude in 1464. It is said to be the
older of the two. If the probably quiet place in the house of Lude
be considered, and that it was likely to be valued and cared for
there, also that the repairs appear to be of very old date, then the
Clarsach Lumanach may have already, before 1464, been an old broken
and mended instrument with a pre-traditional story we can never hope
to hear." From Burke's _Landed Gentry_, "Lineage of the Robertsons of
Lude," we learn that Charles, fifth Laird of Lude, married Lilias,
daughter of Sir John Lamont of Lamont, chief of that clan, and
that "it was with this lady, Lilias Lamont, there came one of those
very curious old harps which have been in the family for several
centuries."

The drawing shows the harp as it is, and may have been for
centuries, but Mr. M'Intyre North, in his _Book of the Club of True
Highlanders_, London, 1880, proposes, by the substitution of a
longer bow or forearm, to bring this harp to the lines of the Queen
Mary Harp and that of Brian Boru. It is sufficient here to observe
that the present bow agrees in measurement with that of the Queen
Mary and Brian Boru Harps, and is certainly very old. Against its
originality is the fact that the Lamont Harp appears to have always
had thirty-two strings, and for the three extra treble strings a
longer bow ought to have been required.

The extreme length of the Lamont Harp is 38 inches, and the extreme
width 18-1/2 inches. The sound chest, as with other ancient harps,
is hollowed out of one piece of wood, but the back has been in this
instrument renewed, although probably a long time ago. The sound
chest is 30 inches long, 4 inches in breadth at the top, and 17 at
the bottom. The comb projects 15-1/2 inches. The broken parts of the
bow are held together by iron clamps.

As to the musical effect of a Gaelic or Irish harp when well played,
the impression of such a performance recorded by Evelyn in his Diary
is worth quoting. He says: "Came to see me my old acquaintance and
the most incomparable player on the Irish harp, Mr. Clarke, after
his travells. He was an excellent musitian, a discreete gentleman,
borne in Devonshire (as I remember). Such musiq before or since did
I never heare, that instrument being neglected for its extraordinary
difficulty; but in my judgment it is far superior to the Lute
itselfe, or whatever speakes with strings." Elsewhere he speaks of a
Mr. Clark (probably the same performer) as being from Northumberland,
and says of the instrument, "Pity 'tis that it is not more in use;
but indeede to play well takes up the whole man, as Mr. Clark has
assur'd me, who, tho' a gent of quality and parts, was yet brought up
to that instrument from 5 yeares old, as I remember he told me."



[Illustration: IV]

PLATE IV.

CORNEMUSE, CALABRIAN BAGPIPE, MUSETTE.


The Bagpipe (Cornemuse and Musette) and the hurdy-gurdy (Vielle)
were, after the thirteenth century, banished to the lower orders, to
the blind and to the wandering mendicant class. But polite society
in France resumed these instruments again in the modern Arcadia of
Louis XIV. and XV.--not the Cornemuse, it is true, for that has ever
remained a rustic instrument, as may be observed in the glowing pages
of George Sand's _Les Maîtres Sonneurs_. The Cornemuse, as formerly
used in France and the Netherlands, is derived from the Roman _tibia
utricularis_, and is provided with a bag, inflated by the mouth of
the player, while a double reed is attached to the melody pipe or
chanter. In recent times it is furnished with two drones--le grand,
et le petit bourdon, which are made to sound also by reeds, and
an octave apart. The Musette, which has practically displaced the
Cornemuse in use, is a softer, sweeter instrument, with a double reed
to a very narrow cylindrical pipe, the effect of which is to make it
sound like a stopped pipe, an octave lower. This accounts for the
short appearance of the instrument. The drones, as it will be seen,
are on a more artificial principle than those of the Cornemuse.
Another difference is that the bag is always inflated by a small pair
of bellows worked by the player's left arm. The Northumbrian and
modern Irish bagpipes are also inflated by means of bellows, and have
taken the place in northern England and Ireland of the large bagpipe
inflated with the mouth which is now regarded as distinctly Highland
Scotch. The Musette in the drawing is made of ebony and ivory with
keys of silver, and has a bag adorned with needlework. The small
bellows are made of walnut inlaid with marqueterie. The melody pipe
(le grand chalumeau) is bored with eight finger-holes, and fitted
with seven keys for the chromatic notes. To the left of the melody
pipe or chanter there is a small flask-shaped pipe furnished with six
keys (le petit chalumeau) containing the additional compass upwards.
There are four drones contrived in a barrel pierced with thirteen
bores in juxtaposition, of from 5 to 35 inches in length. The barrel
is furnished with five stops sliding in grooves and regulating the
length of the apertures for tuning the drones. Bach's musettes, the
alternatives to his gavottes, always imply a drone bass.

It will be observed the Cornemuse here drawn has a chanter and drone
fixed parallel in one stock. The former has eight finger-holes, and,
like that of the Scotch bagpipe, has a vent-hole not fingered. The
bag covered with crimson plush is furnished with a short mouthpiece
near the neck for the purpose of inflation.

The Calabrian Bagpipe or Zampogna is a rudely carved instrument of
the eighteenth century. It has four drones attached to one stock,
hanging downwards from the end of the bag: two of them are furnished
with finger-holes. The reeds are double like those of the oboe and
bassoon. The bag is large; it is inflated by the mouth and pressed
by the left arm against the chest of the performer. The Zampogna is
chiefly used as an accompaniment to a small reed melody pipe called
by the same name, and played by another performer. The quality of
the tone produced is not unpleasing. It has five holes only, and
consequently the seventh of the scale is absent, but this can be
easily got by octaving the open note of the pipe and covering part of
the lower opening of the chanter with the little finger.

The Musette, Zampogna, and Cornemuse here shown are from specimens
belonging to Messrs. J. & R. Glen, Edinburgh.



[Illustration: V]

PLATE V.

BAGPIPES.


In continuation of the Bagpipes, this Plate shows, in the instrument
with a crimson bag, the modern Northumbrian Bagpipe. The four drones,
proceeding from one stock, are mounted with brass and ivory. The
chanter, or melody pipe, has seven finger-holes in front and one
behind; also, seven brass keys. As there is only one hole open at a
time when the instrument is played, this manner of playing is called
close fingering. The chanter and drones are furnished with stops at
the ends. The instrument with a blue bag is the ancient Northumbrian
bagpipe. It has three drones, mounted with silver and ivory, of
different sizes; the longest being tuned an octave and the middle one
a fourth lower than the shortest. The chanter is of ivory, with seven
holes in front and one behind. The large bagpipe with a green bag is
the Lowland Scotch. It is of boxwood, with three drones placed in one
stock. The two shorter drones sound in unison, the long one an octave
lower, the same as in the Highland Bagpipe. They are mounted with
carved horn. The chanter has seven finger-holes and a vent-hole, also
the same as in the Highland Bagpipe, with which the Lowland agrees
in fingering and other particulars, except that it is inflated by
bellows attached to the bag by a short blow-pipe, a peculiarity that
it has in common with the other Bagpipes in this Plate. The bellows
of the modern Northumbrian Bagpipe are also drawn.

The Bagpipe is, as Mr. Henri Lavoix has justly said in his _La
Musique au Siècle de Saint Louis_, the organ reduced to its most
simple expression. It is of great antiquity, and in the Middle Ages
was generally popular in Europe. It was as well known in England as
in Scotland, in France as in Italy and Germany. Shakspeare makes out
Falstaff in Part I. of Henry IV. to be as melancholy as a lover's
lute or the drone of a Lincolnshire Bagpipe. If we may judge by the
peculiar scale of the Scotch Bagpipe, it would appear almost certain
that the instrument, in its modern forms, has come from the East, and
was most likely brought by the Crusaders. This would not of course
apply to the ancient principle of a pipe and air reservoir, which is
traced back to the Romans, but to the boring of the finger-holes of
the chanter, the reed pipe by which the melody is played. By their
position and size the intervals are so regulated that the thirds are
neither major nor minor, but give a neutral or mean interval that
is neither the one nor the other. This mean third, of a tone and
three-quarters, has not been elsewhere observed in Europe, but in
the East, in Syria and Egypt, and in other parts, it is of common
occurrence, and gives a peculiar character to the music, not to be
explained, but felt. An historical origin of the mean third is to be
found in Mr. A.J. Ellis's paper "On the Musical Scales of Various
Nations" (p. 498), published in the _Journal of the Society of Arts_,
London, March, 1885. Modern Bagpipes that have keys are, of course,
different.

As to the antiquity of existing Bagpipes, Messrs. Glen of Edinburgh
own one, carved with the initials R. Mc.D., and the Hebridean
galley, that bears the date of 1409. But this is not considered to be
the oldest existing, as the M'Intyre pipe, belonging to N. Robertson
M'Donald, Esq., of Kinlochmoidart, is reputed to have been played
at Bannockburn. Possessing one drone only, it has the peculiarity
of two vent-holes, instead of one, on each side of the chanter to
accommodate a right or left handed player; in either case one hole is
temporarily stopped. Messrs. Glen's pipe has two drones set in one
stock. The name M'Intyre, by which Mr. Robertson M'Donald's pipe is
distinguished, is derived from the hereditary pipers of the Chiefs
of Menzies and Clanranald. Both these ancient Bagpipes are figured
in Mr. M'Intyre North's _Book of the Club of True Highlanders_. The
Bagpipes here drawn are from specimens belonging to Messrs. J. & R.
Glen, Edinburgh.



[Illustration: VI]

PLATE VI.

CLAVICYTHERIUM OR UPRIGHT SPINET.


This singularly interesting and rare key-board instrument, now the
property of Mr. Donaldson, belonged to the collection of Count Correr
of Venice. There is no maker's name or any date upon the instrument,
which is of the kind named Clavicytherium by the earliest writer on
musical instruments, Virdung (_Musica getutscht und auszgezogen_,
Basle, 1511), who gives a drawing of one. It is in fact a spinet,
set upright. The internal decoration, as old as the instrument
itself, may be North Italian or South German, authorities differ,
but a piece of paper pasted over a split in the inside of the wooden
back, possibly by the maker, proves to be a fragment of a lease
or agreement contracted at Ulm, which is in favour of the Swabian
origin. The instrument can hardly be of later date than the first
years of the sixteenth century, and is probably the oldest spinet or
key-board stringed instrument existing. The earliest date that can be
given for the introduction of the Spinet must be within the second
half of the fifteenth century.

The key-board is of narrow compass--three octaves and a minor
third--from the second E below, to the second G above, middle C,
this note being the ledger-line C between the bass and treble clefs
[Music]--an extent about the compass of the human voice, which long
ruled that of key-board instruments. In Virdung's time their compass
was being extended. It is, however, more than likely that the lowest
E key was here tuned down to the still lower C, according to the
so-called "short octave" arrangement, which altered the lowest E,
F[sharp], and G[sharp], to make fourths below F, G, and A, instead
of semitones, and thus get deep dominant basses for cadences.
Examination of the plectra or "jacks" of this instrument shows
they were furnished with little tongues of wire, and not quills or
leather, as in later spinet instruments. It is in a painted pine
case, the inside being also painted. An unusual feature of the
interior is the Calvary below the narrow sound-board, in which the
sound holes, judging by the ornament that remains in one, have been
Flamboyant windows. There must also have originally been figures,
perhaps the Transfiguration or the Crucifixion, but there is no trace
of them left. The treatment of the landscape, without other evidence,
nearly determines the epoch when the instrument was made.

The stand and the paintings on the door, one of which represents a
figure holding a mirror and a serpent, are of later date.

The dimensions of this truly remarkable spinet are--height of
instrument, 4 feet 10-1/2 inches, and extreme width, 2 feet 3
inches--the key-board being 2 feet wide. The depth of the case at
base, 11 inches, diminishes in ascending to 5-5/8 inches. The table
upon which it stands is 2 feet high and 2 feet 11 inches wide.



[Illustration: VII]

PLATE VII.

OLIPHANT.


An ivory Hunting Horn belonging to Earl Spencer, called Oliphant
because it is of ivory, and bearing in the ornament the arms and
badges of Ferdinand and Isabella of Portugal, may be regarded as
belonging to the first half of the sixteenth century, the strap and
buckle being evidently an addition of later date. The beautiful
carving, so conspicuous in this horn, is supposed to have been
executed by negroes of the West Coast of Africa, who carved ivory
for the Portuguese; the arms of Portugal, with the supporters, two
angels, holding the shield upside down, often appearing on their work.

Philip II. of Spain married Mary, daughter of the King of Portugal,
in 1543. She died in 1545. The carving of the Horn was probably
completed within that interval, and when Philip came to England to
marry Mary Tudor, he may have brought the horn with him.

Besides the uses named under Burgmote Horns (Plate I.) horns were
blown to give alarm in circumstances of danger, to announce the
arrival of visitors of distinction, and, as Mr. M'Intyre North
informs us respecting the horn in Drummond Castle, for summoning the
household and guests to dinner. But horns were not restricted to
winding, there were also drinking and powder horns, often beautifully
adorned.

The extreme length of this Horn, measuring along the outside of the
curve and including the mouthpiece, is 28-1/4 inches. The greatest
circumference is 11-1/2 and the least 2-3/4 inches.



[Illustration: VIII]

PLATE VIII.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S VIRGINAL.


This beautiful Spinet is, in the drawing, placed upon a stand, which
served for its support in the Tudor Historical Room appertaining to
the Music Loan Collection of 1885. I believe this instrument to be
Italian, not Flemish or English, and Italian spinets had no stands or
legs, but when required for use were withdrawn from an outer case, as
this one would be, and placed upon a table, or some other convenient
position. They were even taken in Gondolas, as Evelyn records, for
pleasure and the performance of serenades.

We may assume 1570 to be approximately the date of this instrument.
The green and gold decoration, including a border of gold two and
a half inches broad round the inside of the top, is of later date,
perhaps by nearly one hundred years. An indistinct number on the back
of the case, inside, appears to be 1660. The Royal Arms of Elizabeth
are emblazoned on one end to the left of the key-board; to the right
a dove is seen rising crowned. The dove holds in its right foot a
sceptre; beneath it is an oak tree. This decoration, whether original
in 1660 or the copy of a former one, goes far to support the claim
for this Spinet having been Queen Elizabeth's. Her musical taste,
inherited from Elizabeth of York, and skill as a performer upon the
spinet, need no more than a passing reference.

I characterize the instrument as a spinet because a true virginal is
a parallelogram, not a trapeze-shaped instrument. The attribution
of virginal is, however, not incorrect as a generic term; for all
key-board stringed instruments with jacks were known in England as
virginals from the Tudor epoch to that of the Commonwealth.

There are in this instrument fifty quilled jacks (plectra). The
natural keys, thirty in number, are of ebony with gold arcaded
fronts, and the compass is of four octaves and apparently a semitone,
from B to C. But the lowest natural key was tuned G when the
instrument was in use. The semitone keys, twenty in number, begin
apparently as C[sharp], but this was tuned A to continue the "short
octave" arrangement. They are very elaborate, being inlaid with
silver, ivory, and different woods, each consisting, it is said,
of about two hundred and fifty pieces. The painting of the case of
the instrument is done upon gold with carmine and ultramarine, the
metal ornaments being minutely engraved. The outer case is of cedar,
covered with crimson Genoa velvet, and lined inside with yellow tabby
silk. There are three gilt locks, finely engraved. The entire case
is five feet long, sixteen inches wide, and seven inches deep. Queen
Elizabeth's Virginal was bought, at Lord Spencer Chichester's sale at
Fisherwick in 1803, by Mr. Jonas Child, a painter at Dudley. The Rev.
J.M. Gresley acquired it in 1840. It has since (1887) been obtained
from the Rev. Nigel Gresley, for South Kensington Museum.



[Illustration: IX]

PLATE IX.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S LUTE.


Stringed instruments with a finger-board, touched with the fingers
or a plectrum, may be divided, as stated in the Introduction, into
two principal types: the lute and the guitar, the former with a
rounded back, the latter with a flat back. Both are derived from
the East. According to this division, the beautiful instrument
called Queen Elizabeth's Lute must resign the name of lute and be
considered a Guitar. As a wire-strung instrument it belongs to that
species of guitar known as Cither, and from the incurvations of the
ribs, but that the bridge is not set obliquely, I should be disposed
to specialize the instrument as a Pandore or Penorcon. Praetorius
regarded the Pandore and its varieties, the Orpheoreon and Penorcon,
as of English invention. This instrument, the property of Lord
Tollemache, was made in London by John Rose, as the label bears
witness:--

  Johannes Rosa, Londini fecit,
  In Bridwell, the 27th of July, 1580.

It is infinitely more graceful than any Pandore, and is perhaps best
described by the maker's designation, "Cymbalum Decachordum," carved
on the ribs. It had, as this name indicates, ten strings, which were
of wire, to be tuned in five pairs of unisons, and played with a
plectrum.

The carving is surpassingly lovely, and bears comparison with
contemporary Italian work. The jewelled centre of the rose in the
sound-hole is so beautiful that an enlarged drawing of it has
been made to show it to advantage. The shell at the back is a
characteristic feature deserving attention.

The extreme length of this instrument is 2 feet 11 inches. The length
of the body is 1 foot 4 inches. The extreme breadth, beneath the rose
and near the string-holder, is 12 inches. The breadth, measuring
across the centre of the rose, is 10 inches. The depth of the ribs
varies from 1-1/2 to 3 inches, the greatest depth being near the
finger-board.

The traditions that attach themselves to instruments of this
character require to be carefully tested. Queen Mary's Harp, for
instance, could not have been the gift to Beatrix Gardyn from Mary
Stuart of Scots, although her portrait and coat of arms are said to
have, at one time, adorned it. The attribution to Queen Elizabeth
also of a spinet or virginal rests entirely upon such evidence as
can be gathered from the instrument itself. This so-called lute has
no doubt the support of a family tradition, and the story is thus
told in Burke's _Peerage_ ("Lineage of the Dysart Family," 1884):
"Sir Lionel Tollemache, of Helmingham, high sheriff of Norfolk and
Suffolk in 1567. In 1561 Queen Elizabeth honoured Helmingham with
her presence, and remained there from the 14th to the 18th of August
inclusive, being most hospitably and sumptuously entertained. During
Her Majesty's visit she stood sponsor to Sir Lionel's son, and
presented the child's mother with her lute, which is still preserved
at Helmingham Hall, county Suffolk, the seat of Lord Tollemache of
Helmingham." Unfortunately the dates do not fit. John Rose's Lute,
made in 1580, although it might possibly have belonged to Queen
Elizabeth, could not have been the lute given in 1561. It is the
tradition, however, that may have gone astray, and a fault in it does
not do away entirely with a plausible attribution.



[Illustration: X]

PLATE X.

THE RIZZIO GUITAR.


This beautiful Guitar of tortoiseshell, combined with ivory,
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.

THEORBO.


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]

These are the lowest notes of the three series. The scale usually
ascends from them in diatonic succession, in the lowest series with
F natural instead of F sharp. In the last century attempts were
made to tune some part of the scale chromatically, but, as far as
I have met with examples, on no ascertainable system. The Chinese
substitute sixths, and in the two lowest sevenths, for the octave;
by the sevenths the lowest semitone is missed, otherwise the scale
continues, as in the European dulcimer, in heptatonic order. The
brass wire upon the bridges is an old spinet contrivance. The
dulcimer is tuned with a hammer or key like a pianoforte, but, unlike
the piano and other key-board instruments, has no damping contrivance.

We may look for the precursor of both the European and Chinese
dulcimers in an Assyrian ancestor of the Persian Santir, or, it may
be, in a more remote Babylonian instrument. Dulcimers are represented
on Assyrian monuments.



[Illustration: XVIII]

PLATE XVIII.

VIRGINAL.


In this interesting Virginal, which belongs to the Brussels
Conservatoire, we have a Ruckers "Vierkante Clavisingel" in the
original external decoration just as it left the hands of the younger
Hans Ruckers, a master of the Saint Luke's Guild of Antwerp. The
decoration is a covering of paper printed from blocks. The stand is
also original. An untouched Ruckers virginal or harpsichord like this
rarely comes under notice, and, at this moment, I can only recall one
in England--a single key-board harpsichord in the possession of Miss
Elizabeth Twining, at the Dial House, Twickenham, made by Andries,
the brother of the younger Hans and, like him, a son of the elder
Hans Ruckers.

The combination of white naturals and ebony sharps or flats is
the oldest contrast between the lower and upper keys, with the
qualification, that the oldest existing natural keys are not of
ivory but of boxwood. As was customary in the Low Countries, Latin
mottoes, sometimes more than one, were displayed on clavecins or
key-board instruments. The one shown here reads OMNIS SPIRITVS LAVDET
DOMINVM. These mottoes, so often occurring in Flemish instruments
of that period, bear witness to the thoughtfulness and reverence of
the men who made and possessed them. Besides the one quoted (Let all
that breathe praise the Lord), we find LAVS DEO (Praise be to God),
MVSICA DONVM DEI (Music is the gift of God), MVSICA MAGNORVM EST
SOLAMEN DVLCE LABORVM (Music is the sweet solace to great labours),
CONCORDIA RES PARVÆ CRESCVNT, DISCORDIA MAXIMÆ DILABVNTVR (By Concord
small things grow, by Discord great things fall away), SIC TRANSIT
GLORIA MVNDI (So passeth away the glory of the world), MVSICA LÆTITIÆ
COMES MEDICINA DOLORVM (Music is the companion of joy and medicine
of griefs), CONCORDIA MVSIS AMICA (Concord is the Muses' friend),
ACTA VIRVM PROBANT (Deeds prove the man), SCIENTIA NON HABET INIMICVM
NISI IGNORANTEM (Knowledge has no enemy but the ignorant), MVSICA
PELLIT CVRAS (Music dispels cares), and SOLI DEO GLORIA (Glory be to
God alone). The Italians preferred longer and more poetic quotations,
as the often repeated "Viva fui in sylvis sum dura occisa securi;
Dum vixi tacui mortua dulce cano" (I was alive in the woods, I was
felled by a cruel axe; while I lived I was silent, now I am dead I
sing sweetly); or that on the harpsichord which belonged to Tasso's
sister, and is still in the possession of her descendants in the
house she lived in at Sorrento: "Tales in altis sentiunt sonos beati
spiritus opus" (Such sounds they hear in heaven, the blessed spirits'
work).

To return to this Ruckers Virginal--the sound-board is painted
with floral devices in Netherlandish fashion, the usual gilt rose
appearing in the round opening of the sound-board, bearing the
maker's trade mark, which contains his initials, I.R., and near
it is written with ink, _Anno_ 1622. Upon the rail above the
jacks (plectra) is the inscription, JOANNES RVCKERS FECIT
ANTVERPIÆ. There is a picture in the National Gallery in London,
from the Peel Collection, painted by Metsu, wherein is depicted a
precisely similar instrument, possibly his own, as he has it again
in a picture belonging to the collection of Sir Francis Cook, at
Richmond, in Surrey. At first sight it is difficult to believe it is
not the same. Another occurs at Windsor Castle, in the collection of
H.M. the Queen, painted by Ver Meer of Delft. Here, again, the first
impression formed is that the painter has represented the instrument
shown in the present drawing. Such Virginals must have been, at that
time, favourite instruments in polite Dutch Society. Pepys, in his
_Diary_, under date of September 2, 1666, has a well-known reference
to the popularity of the virginal in London at the time of the Great
Fire. "River full of lighters and boats taking in goods, and I
observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three, that had the goods
of a house in, but there was a pair of virginals in it." The word
"virginals," here used, was evidently applied in a general sense,
meaning any key-board plectrum instrument. The special virginal was
an oblong spinet, and appears to have been the "spinetta," in the
form invented by the Venetian Spinetti, about the year 1500. The
Italian oblong spinet was furnished with a lid, the instrument being
a fixture in the case. It presented to the eye the exact appearance
of the cassone or wedding coffer, and was equally an object for
decoration.

The rich sound of the Bass of the instrument here drawn, not soon to
be forgotten, serves to show what the quality of tone throughout the
scale must originally have been. It was this supreme excellence which
raised the reputation of Hans Ruckers and his sons to a level to be
rivalled only, later, by the great Cremona violin-makers; it lasted
as long as the spinet and harpsichord remained in vogue.

This Virginal represents No. 15 of my Catalogue of existing
Ruckers instruments in Sir George Grove's _Dictionary of Music and
Musicians_, article "Ruckers." London, 1883.

The woodcuts above the Contents to this work represent Sir Michael
Mercator (1491-1544), a musical instrument maker, it is said
virginal maker, to King Henry VIII. The portrait has been engraved
from a medal in the British Museum executed by Mercator himself,
for he was a goldsmith and medallist as well as instrument maker,
by Mr. John Hipkins, who has also engraved the Jewish Shophar and
the woodcut on the title-page. The legend upon the medal informs
us that Mercator was the first knight created from Venloo by the
King. He gained knighthood and other distinctions by his success in
secret diplomatic services. The researches of Mr. W.H. James Weale,
who called the attention of the present writer to Mercator, have
determined his arrival in this country to have been in 1527, when
he brought letters of introduction to Cardinal Wolsey from Floris
d'Egmont, Count de Buren and Lord of Isselstein, and others, and two
musical instruments--as he was an organ-builder, it is to be presumed
virginals. The King engaged him at an annual salary. It will be
observed in the portrait that Mercator wears, attached to his collar,
the Tudor Rose. Mr. Weale has published his discoveries concerning
him in _Le Beffroi_, an artistic and antiquarian periodical printed
at Bruges. Mr. Weale's Descriptive Catalogue of the rare manuscripts
and printed books in the Historical Music Loan Collection of 1885,
for the publication of which we are indebted to Mr. Bernard Quaritch,
may be appropriately mentioned in this connection.



[Illustration: XIX]

PLATE XIX.

VIOLA DA GAMBA.


The old Bass Viol (French _Basse de Viole_) derives its name of Viola
da Gamba (leg viol) from its having been held between the knees of
the player, whence the German "Kniegeige." Shakspeare speaks of
it as "viol-de-gamboys" in _Twelfth Night_--where Sir Toby Belch
in his panegyric on Sir Andrew Aguecheek says, "He plays o' the
viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word
without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature." Domenichino's
famous St. Cecilia is represented as playing upon a viola da gamba.
It was the bass of the chest (or family) of viols. A quotation from
the recently published autobiography of the Honourable Roger North,
who was born in 1653, aptly describes the domestic use of those
once admired instruments. He says his grandfather, Dudley, third
Lord North, when at his country seat in Norfolk, "would convoke
his musical family ... and for important regale of the company
the concerts were usually all viols to the organ or harpsichord.
The violin came in late and imperfectly. When the hands were well
supplied the whole chest went to work, that is six viols, music being
formed for it which would seem a strange sort of music now, being an
interwoven hum-drum." Roger North became himself a proficient upon
both treble and bass viols.

The splendid example here drawn is the work of Joachim Tielke, who
made it at Hamburg in 1701; it formerly belonged to the famous
violoncellist, F. Servais. In perfect preservation, it has a
beautifully carved ivory peg-box, which is surmounted by a woman's
head, with an incised finger-board beneath. There are no frets, which
is unusual with viols, as they were fretted instruments, but it would
be of course easy to attach them. The back is of rosewood alternated
with ivory; and the ivory tailpiece forms a caduceus. Two views are
given of the instrument, and a profile of the head and peg-box are
enlarged to half size. It has six strings, a favourite accordance
being--

[Music]

This was called the Harp-way sharp; when the fifth string was tuned
to B flat the tuning was called Harp-way flat--Harp-way, indicating
the facility thus afforded for arpeggios.

Bach's solemn cantata, "Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit" (God's
time is the best of all times), opens with the viola da gamba,
but, early in the eighteenth century, composers replaced the Viola
da Gamba with the violoncello. The last noted performer upon it
was Carl Friedrich Abel, who died in 1787. Of late years it has
been taken up again for its own special qualities, which should
preserve it for at least occasional use. The late Henry Webb, at the
suggestion of Professor Ernst Pauer in 1862, was perhaps the first
to adopt it again. He had to obtain instruction in the fingering
of the instrument from an old man of eighty-six. The fingering is
practically that of the lute, and, as Mr. E.J. Payne has pointed
out in Grove's _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_ (Art. "Violin"),
it was the command of the six-stringed finger-board which the
lutenists had attained by two centuries of incessant practice that
was transferred by them to the Viola da Gamba, both instruments
being thus common to the same players. Owing to this fact the bass
viol remained in use much longer than the other members of the
viol family. At the present time Mr. Payne, Herr Paul de Wit of
Leipsic, and Mr. E. Jacobs of Brussels, have reintroduced the Viola
da Gamba to the notice of the musical public. Mr. Jacobs played
upon one furnished with sympathetic strings, with great success in
the Historical Concerts given, under the direction of Mr. Victor
Mahillon, in the Music Room of the London International Inventions
Exhibition of 1885. The instrument here represented belongs to the
Museum of the Brussels Conservatoire.



[Illustration: XX]

PLATE XX.

DOUBLE SPINET OR VIRGINAL.


This uncommon instrument displays one of the expedients employed to
gain a more brilliant effect by the addition of an octave string,
before such a string was permanently attached to the sound-board
of the harpsichord itself by means of an additional row of strings
placed beneath the ordinary unison strings. Octave spinets were, as
Mersenne (1636) describes, made independent of the ordinary spinet,
and there are frequent examples to be met with. These little spinets
were placed upon the larger ones for performance, as Praetorius
(1619) says, like turrets on a tower. In this double spinet it is
a removable part of the instrument, and constitutes the left-hand
key-board, the right-hand key-board being a fixture. The maker, as
is proved by his initials, HR, and his device in the rose of the
sound-hole, is no other than the famous Hans Ruckers the elder,
of Antwerp. This Spinet is numbered 9 of the sixty-six existing
instruments by the Ruckers family catalogued by the present writer in
Sir George Grove's _Dictionary of Music and Musicians_. It can now
be extended to sixty-eight. On the jack rails of both spinets may be
read "Joannes Rvqvers me fecit." There is another double spinet at
Nuremberg made in 1580 by Martin Vander Beest, which has been figured
and is the frontispiece to Dr. August Reissmann's _Illustrirte
Geschichte der Deutschen Musik_ (Leipzig, 1881). The Ruckers double
spinet can hardly be much later. The earliest examples known to me of
the octave string attached, as above mentioned, in the harpsichord
itself, are to be found in a double clavecin (French for harpsichord)
by Hans Ruckers the elder, dated 1590, and preserved in the Museum
of the Paris Conservatoire, and in a clavicembalo (Italian for
harpsichord), made at Pesaro, and also in 1590,--lately brought to
England by Messrs. Hill, the violin-makers, and now acquired by the
South Kensington Museum. The latter is an instrument with only two
strings to each note. The invention of the octave string, as well as
of double key-board, has been attributed to Hans Ruckers. The latest
evidence, however, does not favour these attributions, although both
inventions most likely belong to the Netherlands. Ruckers and his
sons, it may be said, made instruments that were never surpassed for
quality of tone. To return to the Double Spinet--both key-boards are
of four octaves, the fixed right-hand one being from the second C
below, to the second above, middle C, and the removable left-hand one
is an octave higher throughout. The complete instrument rests upon
the original arcaded stand.

The paintings are of later date than the instrument itself. The
subjects are on the lid, and represent a contest before the gods
between Apollo and Marsyas--the former divinity playing a viol, and
the latter a pipe. The background is a hilly country with a lake and
castle, and a man in a boat. Above and below the removable spinet
are painted landscapes with figures, immediately above it children
dancing; and at the fixed key-board men and women dancing in pairs.
This pleasing instrument formerly belonged to Messrs. Chappell of
London, but is now the property of Mr. George Donaldson.

There are seven pierced arches and columns in the stand, which is 2
feet 4 inches high. The dimensions are--extreme length, 5 feet 8-1/2
inches; the length of the left-hand key-board, 2 feet 2-1/2 inches,
and of the right-hand one, 2 feet 1-1/4 inches. The width from back
to front is 1 foot 7-1/2 inches, and the depth is 11-1/2 inches.



[Illustration: XXI]

PLATE XXI.

THREE CHITARRONI.


The primary meaning of "Chitarrone" is a large guitar, but, in point
of fact, this imposing yet graceful instrument is a theorbo or bass
lute with a very long upper neck to give length for bass strings of
deep pitch. The one to the left in the drawing, which belongs to
Mr. Rudolf Lehmann, London, is Venetian, if we may judge from the
beautiful decoration. It has three sound-holes with roses joined
together in a fashion that is regarded as Roman, and is adorned
with mother of pearl. It is strung with six pairs of strings upon
the finger-board, each pair tuned in unison. Seven single diapason
strings, or open basses, are stretched from the upper peg-box clear
of the finger-board. It is 5 feet in extreme length, that of the
neck being 3 feet 5 inches. The Chitarrone in the centre, which
belongs to Mr. George Donaldson, and is richly inlaid with mother
of pearl, has also three connected roses, six pairs of unisons upon
the finger-board and eight diapasons clear of it. The length of it
is 6 feet; the neck is 4 feet 1 inch. It is also Venetian, and dated
1608. The right-hand Chitarrone, shown at the Exhibition of 1885 by
Mr. Edward Joseph of Bond Street, London, has six pairs of unisons
and seven diapasons. The neck is ornamented with chequers, and the
finger-board is bound with thirteen frets for the melody strings,
giving the player a semitone more than the complete chromatic series.

The chitarrone is sometimes called the Roman theorbo. It is of
greater length than the Paduan theorbo, with which it was introduced
towards the end of the sixteenth century,--owing to a necessity
having arisen for bass instruments of greater sonorousness than
had been used before, in order to accompany the newly-invented
recitative. About the same time there also came into use a larger
instrument of the viol family, known as the violone, the precursor of
the double bass. The heavier basses and simple harmonies, for which
the Italians had shown a growing preference, replaced, to a great
extent, the ingenious interweavings of counterpoint, and assisted
the development of the latest offspring of the Renaissance, that of
Monody--the recitativo and aria--introduced in Florence by Peri,
Caccini, Cavalieri and Monteverde, the foundation of the modern
Italian opera.

The chitarrone was used in the orchestra of Monteverde on the first
production of his _Orfeo_ in 1607. There is also mention of it in a
band of instruments as early as 1589.



[Illustration: XXII]

PLATE XXII.

SPINET.


This "Spinet," with its original six-legged stand, was made in London
about the end of the seventeenth century. "Stephanus Keene Londini
Fecit," is inscribed upon the name-board, which is characteristically
inlaid with birds and foliage. It is a transverse Spinet, the Italian
"Spinetta traversa," an adaptation of the longer bichord or trichord
harpsichord within the limitations of size of this instrument,
which, like the trapeze-shaped and oblong spinets, had one string
only to each note. The tail is extended on the right-hand side; the
key-board is placed somewhat obliquely, and the wrest-plank, with
the tuning-pins, is immediately above the key-board, instead of
being, as in the older spinets, at the right-hand side. The compass
of the key-board is from the second B below, to the second D above,
the middle C,--in all four octaves and two notes, being one note
more in the treble than occurs in the key-board diagram to Henry
Purcell's _Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinnet_. The lowest key
would, however, be tuned down to the lowest pianoforte G, the object
being to secure a dominant bass for the lowest C. Purcell's diagram
for the spinet gives the lowest key as "B B," but, in the lessons,
he here and there writes down to G G, also to A A, for which the
lowest C[sharp] key would be similarly accommodated. The two lowest
sharps of the spinet here drawn present the peculiarity of being cut
or divided, each division being an independent key. These were not
quarter-tones as has been supposed; the front halves were tuned A
and B for dominant basses like the G, and the back halves C[sharp]
and D[sharp], chromatic semitones to the adjacent natural notes,
thus combining the "Short Octave" principle, indispensable for the
performance of contemporary music, with the chromatic system then
beginning to be recognised.

Stephen Keene was a well-known maker of spinets, equal in reputation
to his great rivals, Charles Haward, and Thomas and John Hitchcock,
The earliest notice known of Keene occurs in an advertisement at the
end of the sixth edition of Playford's Introduction (London, 1671),
which announces that "Mr. George Dalham, that excellent organ-maker,
dwelleth now in Purple-Lane, next door to the Crooked Billet, where
such as desire to have new organs, or old mended, may be well
accommodated."

"And Mr. Stephen Keene, Maker of Harpsycons and Virginals, dwelleth
now in Threadneedle-Street, at the sign of the Virginal, who maketh
them exactly good, both for sound and substance."

It is proved that Keene was long in business by a name-board which is
in my possession dated 1719. Indeed, longer than the period occupied
by Thomas Hitchcock, whose autograph occurs in spinets from 1664 and
1703. The principal dimensions of the instrument drawn, which belongs
to Mr. H.J. Dale, Cheltenham, are--extreme width, 5 feet 6 inches,
extreme depth, without the projection of the key-board, 1 foot 9-1/4
inches. The key-board is 2 feet 4-1/4 inches wide, and 3-7/8 inches
deep.



[Illustration: XXIII]

PLATE XXIII.

QUINTERNA AND MANDOLINE.


The Quinterna or Chiterna, the Italian guitar, was formerly used by
the humbler order of musicians. According to Engel, it had three
pairs of catgut strings and two single strings covered with wire,
and was played guitar-lute fashion with the fingers, and not with a
plectrum. But the instrument here drawn, with its ten wire strings,
must have been played with a plectrum in cither fashion. It was
exhibited by Mr. George Donaldson in the Music Loan Collection at the
Royal Albert Hall as a Giterna, an obvious variant of the name. Two
views of it are here given. It is of tortoiseshell with arabesques
of ivory and a carved ebony head, the back being of ebony and ivory.
In length it is 24-1/2 inches, and the neck, measured from the body,
is 14 inches. The words, "Joachim Tielke Hamburg fecit, 1676," are
inscribed on the back of the instrument; the date, however, suggests
a considerable discrepancy when compared with the Quinterna in South
Kensington Museum, by Joachim Tielke, 1539. Engel supposes that this
famous maker's name was continued through several generations, to
account for the difference in dates. Evelyn, visiting Pozzuoli in
1645, says, "The country-people so jovial and addicted to musiq, that
the very husbandmen almost universaly play on the guitarr, singing
and composing songs in praise of their sweet-heartes." This guitar
would be the Quinterna. The Mandoline drawn, also Mr. Donaldson's, is
by Domenico Vinaccia, dated Napoli, 1780, and is of tortoiseshell and
mother of pearl, with a beautiful pear-shaped back or shell. It is 22
inches long, the neck and head being 11 inches.

The Mandoline (Italian Mandolino) is smaller than the Mandora, a
kind of alto lute. It is strung with catgut and wire, the bass
strings being of catgut covered with silver wire, and is played with
a plectrum. Of several kinds, including the Mandore, Mandurina, and
Pandurina, that have been used in Italy, the Milanese and Neapolitan
Mandolines are the best known. The Milanese Mandoline, with five or
six pairs of strings, preserves old cither tunings; the Neapolitan
Mandoline, which is really an eighteenth-century instrument, is
evidently of later introduction, as it is tuned in fifths similar
to a violin, which makes performance upon it easily attainable by
violin players. Mozart wrote the serenade in _Don Giovanni_ with
an accompaniment for it, but beautiful as this composition is, the
accompaniment appears scarcely characteristic of the Mandoline or
of the Bandurria either--a small kind of Spanish guitar of deeper
pitch than the Mandoline, which, for local colour, would have been
the right instrument. These instruments, like the Dulcimer, make
their characteristic effects by means of the reiteration of notes,
analogous to what is called "repetition" on a pianoforte, the
intention being to convey an impression of sustained sound, and make
the melody prominent when several other instruments are being played.

The accordance of the Neapolitan Mandoline is--

[Music]

of the Milanese Mandoline of five notes--

[Music]

of the Milanese Mandoline of six notes--

[Music]

and of the Bandurria--

[Music]

the three higher notes being here of catgut--the lower of silk
overspun with metal. The Bandurria, like the Mandolines, is played
with a plectrum, called in Spanish "Pua," which is prevented from
defacing the wood by the presence of a tortoiseshell plate, let
into the sound-board. The plectrum is usually a small piece of
tortoiseshell or quill.



[Illustration: XXIV]

PLATE XXIV.

WELSH CRWTH. RUSSIAN BALALÄIKA.


The Crwth is a rare Welsh instrument, supposed to have been the
"Chrotta Brittanna" mentioned in one of the odes of Venantius
Fortunatus, written about A.D. 617, and published under the
title of "Venantii Fortunati Poemata"; but following the analogy of
the Gaelic "cruith," and the phonetic "crot" of the Book of the Dean
of Lismore (a sixteenth-century collection of Ossianic fragments),
the British Chrotta was more likely to have been an early form of
the Celtic Harp. Of original Welsh Crwths known there are three--one
from the Engel collection in the South Kensington Museum, another
less perfect in the Warrington Museum, and the one here drawn, which
belongs to Colonel Wynne-Finch of Voelas, Bettws-y-Coed, North Wales.
They have been hollowed out of single pieces of wood, the sound-board
being glued on--a very primitive manner of structure akin to the
old Celtic Harps. The dimensions of Colonel Wynne-Finch's Crwth
are--length, 22-1/2 inches; width, between 10-1/2 and 9 inches;
depth, 2 inches. This instrument has six strings, although nearer
examination shows that it had originally only five; four are on a
finger-board played with a bow, and two are off the finger-board,
intended to be twanged by the player's thumb. These open strings are
a comparatively late fancy, adopted in the theorbo, lyra, and baryton
viols. It is said there was a three-stringed crwth (Crwth thrithant)
probably bowed, and tuned as the first, fifth, and octave, but I am
disposed to agree with the late Carl Engel (_Researches into the
Early History of the Violin Family_: London, 1883) that this could be
no other than the mediæval Rebec. From observations made, more than
a hundred years ago, by the Hon. Daines Barrington (published in the
_Archæologia_ of the Society of Antiquaries, London, Vol. III. p.
20), who had the advantage of hearing a performer claiming to be the
last upon the instrument, the accordance of the six-stringed crwth
was--

[Music]

The strings were of catgut. Another authority, Bingley, heard the
crwth played at Carnarvon as late as 1801. He gives a different
accordance, in which, however, the octave arrangement remains:--

[Music]

It would appear as if the notes forming octaves upon the finger-board
were bowed together but not all four strings at once, as has been
sometimes supposed. To effect this there must have been a peculiar
knack in using the bow. From the large openings on either side of
the finger-board it is possible to trace, through the intermediate
mediæval Rotta or Rote, a descent from the Græco-Roman Cythara or
Lyre. There are two sound-holes in the belly, and the bridge, which
is placed obliquely, has the right foot resting upon the belly,
while the left foot, as in the tromba marina, passes through the
left sound-hole to rest upon the back. The left foot then acts as
a sound-post, and sets the whole instrument in vibration. Colonel
Wynne-Finch's Crwth was found in the Island of Anglesey. It has the
following inscription upon a label inside:--

  MAID IN THE PARIS OF
  ANIRHENGEL BY RICHARD
  EVANS INSTRUMENTS MAKER
  IN THE YEAR 1742.

But it is supposed to be older, and only to have been repaired or
reconstructed by Richard Evans. It was restored very carefully by
Mr. George Chanot before being shown at South Kensington in the Loan
Collection of 1872.

The BALALÄIKA is the Russian peasant's guitar. This example
was drawn because of the ornament, but the common instrument is
usually quite plain. It came from Moscow tuned [Music] but another
in my possession, sent to me at the same time from St. Petersburg,
was tuned [Music]. The Balaläika has three frets attached to the
neck, for stopping the semitone, whole tone, and minor third on
each string. The strings are of catgut. The quality of tone is very
sympathetic, almost sad.

The dimensions of the specimen drawn are--extreme height from the
base, 30 inches; the finger-board, 13 inches; the width at base is
11-1/2 inches. The depth of the sound-chest, which is the half of a
duodecagon, 5-3/4 inches. The corresponding measures of the simple
peasant's instruments are--26-3/4, 13-3/4, 13, and 3-1/2 inches.

The peculiar triangular shape of the Balaläika is of very primitive
character, the curved form in lutes and guitars being an artistic
development. In a delightfully realistic Russian bronze shown
at the Health Exhibition, South Kensington, 1884, the performer
simultaneously holds the neck of the instrument and stops the strings
with his left hand, while he touches them, guitar fashion, with
his right hand, the instrument being free from any other support
whatever.



[Illustration: XXV]

PLATE XXV.

VIOLIN, THE HELLIER STRADIVARIUS,
AND TWO OLD BOWS NOTED FOR THE FLUTING.


This is the beautiful "Hellier" Stradivarius Violin made in 1679
and bought by Sir Samuel Hellier of Womborne, Staffordshire, about
the year 1734, from the maker himself. It remained in the Hellier
family until 1875, when it was acquired by Mr. George Crompton, who
subsequently disposed of it to Messrs. W.E. Hill and Sons of New
Bond Street, formerly of Wardour Street, London, the experts in the
violin section of the South Kensington Music Loan Collection of
1885. It now belongs to Mr. Charles Oldham, who possesses another
inlaid violin dated 1687, which was originally made for the King
of Spain, and completes his quartet of Stradivarius instruments.
This Violin is considered to be one of the perfect earlier works of
Stradivarius, and is of full proportions. It has greater breadth than
the so-called "grand" pattern of that famous maker, and is one of his
inlaid violins, of which there are not more than twelve extant. A
letter of Stradivarius, recording the price (£40) Sir Samuel Hellier
paid for it, was forthcoming until a few years ago, when it was
unfortunately lost. We are not informed why Stradivarius should have
kept this instrument in his own possession for fifty-five years--it
seems likely that it had had another owner before Sir Samuel Hellier,
and that Stradivarius had taken it back. The details of the ornament
upon this Violin have been corrected from an exact tracing taken
by Mrs. Huggins of Upper Tulse Hill, London, an earnest amateur of
Stradivari's violins. The Hellier Stradivarius was certainly one
of the most remarkable examples that appeared in the unrivalled
collection of famous violins exhibited at South Kensington in 1885.

A quotation from Mr. George Hart's well-known book upon _The Violin,
its Famous Makers and their Imitators_ (London, 1884, p. 191), justly
sums up the worth of those artificers when Italian violin-making
most excelled. He says: "The chief merits of Stradivari and his
contemporary makers were intuitive. Their rules, having their origin
in experience, were applied as dictated by their marvellous sense of
touch and cunning, with results infinitely superior to any obtained
with the aid of the most approved mechanical contrivances. When to
these considerations we add that devotedness of purpose without which
nothing great in art has been accomplished, we have a catalogue
of excellences sufficient to account for the greatness of their
achievements."

The bows that accompany the "Hellier" Stradivarius are from the
collection of Messrs. Arthur and Alfred Hill. The violin bow, the
medium by which the performer's personality is transmitted to the
instrument and its various powers are brought out, is not less worthy
of admiration than the violin itself. The gradual improvement of
the bow has followed the development and improvement of the violin,
and the settlement of its form and materials in the last quarter of
the last century by François Tourte, in reality made the violin a
different instrument from what it had been before. With Tourte's bow
came a power of expression in violin-playing previously unknown.



[Illustration: XXVI]

PLATE XXVI.

VIOLINS, THE ALARD STRADIVARIUS, THE KING JOSEPH GUARNERIUS DEL GESÙ.


The back and front views of the Violin to the left of this Plate
are taken from the "Alard" Stradivarius, so called from the famous
violinist who formerly owned it. It is one of the finest violins
made by Stradivarius, and bears the date 1715, thus belonging to his
great period, which is considered by connoisseurs to have extended
from about 1700 to 1725. The following is the brief history of the
Alard Stradivarius. Bought in Florence early in the present century
by a banker of Courtrai in Belgium, it passed at his death into the
possession of the late J.B. Vuillaume of Paris, one of the most
famous violin-makers and experts of the present century. Vuillaume
reserved it for his son-in-law, Mr. Delphin Alard, professor of the
violin at the Paris Conservatoire, and of European reputation as
a virtuoso, in whose possession it remained until he retired from
public life in 1876. It was then acquired by Mr. David Laurie of
Glasgow, in whose possession this fine instrument still remains.

It is a Stradivarius of the "grand" form, and of a very handsome
model, the arching of the belly and back being of exquisite
proportions, neither exaggerated nor weak. The workmanship is between
the earlier and later styles of the master. A careful choice of
the wood is of course presupposed, but the fine regular marking
of the back may be observed, and also the beautiful colour and
quality of the varnish. The neck is original, as it left the hands
of Stradivarius; it has, however, been lengthened by a piece added
at its junction with the upper block of the body. The letters P.S.,
which are sometimes found on Stradivari violins at the peg-box
end of the neck when it is original, are here very distinct.
These enigmatical letters have given rise to some discussion
among experts, but the conclusion appears to be that they are the
initials of Stradivari's youngest son, Paolo, through whose hands
the instruments may have passed. Paolo was a cloth merchant, not
a violin-maker, but he succeeded to his father's house after the
decease of his brothers.

The "King Joseph" Guarnerius del Gesù Violin (del Gesù on account of
his signing his violins with the device [Illustration: I.H.S.]), of
which back and front views appear to the right of the Plate, also
belongs to Mr. Laurie, who has allowed this fine instrument to be
drawn for comparison with the no less fine specimen of Stradivarius.
The differences in the construction of the instruments of these
famous makers are, to the practised eye, considerable. In general,
the violins of Guarneri are smaller than those of Stradivari. There
is a marked difference observable in the outlines of the two makers,
the Stradivarius being somewhat square in the shoulders, the C's, or
inward curvings of the sides of a violin which resemble that letter,
and in the lower part, while all those features in the Guarnerius are
more curved. The head of the latter is bolder, less symmetrical and
quaintly original. The "_f_'s," the sound-holes in violins assuming
the form of that letter as an italic, which are beautifully curved
by Stradivarius, are by Guarnerius often sharply pointed at top and
bottom. It might be expected that this peculiarity of the "_f_'s"
would be detrimental to the artistic effect, but it is not. The
arching of the belly and back is with Guarnerius less marked than
with Stradivarius. Generally speaking, Guarnerius left his bellies
thicker than those of Stradivarius. As may be expected, there is
a decided difference in tone between a Guarnerius del Gesù and a
Stradivarius. I am indebted to Dr. William Huggins, F.R.S., for the
following interesting comparison. The Stradivarius possesses, as a
rule, a brighter tone with unlimited capacity for expressing the
most varied accents of feeling, "welling forth like a spring (says
Dr. Joachim in Mr. Payne's 'Stradivari,' Grove's _Dictionary_, vol.
iii., p. 733) and capable of infinite modifications under the bow."
The tone of Guarnerius has intense individuality, it is powerful and
somewhat contralto in quality, with a superb mellow richness strongly
tinged with melancholy.

The famous "King Joseph" Guarnerius del Gesù was formerly in the
celebrated collection formed by the late James Goding. It was sold
after his decease in 1857 to the Viscomte de Janzé, from whom Mr.
Laurie obtained it. The Tourte bow, mounted with gold, tortoiseshell
and mother of pearl, shown in the same Plate, is also Mr. Laurie's.



[Illustration: XXVII]

PLATE XXVII.

VIOLA D'AMORE.


French "La Viole d'Amour" is the Love Viol, so called from the
soft and tender quality of the tone produced from it. Beneath the
catgut strings there are usually wire strings, which, being tuned
in accordance, vibrate sympathetically when the catgut strings are
bowed. This is in obedience to a well-known law of physics, according
to which a body set in vibration will cause another body having
the same frequency of vibration to sound when within reach of its
influence. In the beautifully carved and inlaid instrument here
drawn, a perfect viola d'amore in form, surmounted by a lovely head
with bandaged eyes, the sympathetic strings are absent, and if they
were ever attached the peg-box has since been altered. But it has the
"flaming sword" sound-holes invariably found in a viola d'amore, and
also the addition, not unfrequent in that viol, of a rose immediately
under the finger-board.

Meyerbeer has revived the use of the viola d'amore by writing for
it the delicious _obbligato_ to Raoul's song, "Ah! quel spectacle
enchanteur," in _Les Huguenots_. In the present day Mr. Carli Zoeller
has come forward in England as the regenerator of the viola d'amore.
He has published an instruction-book, with an historical introduction
of value, and has also composed for the instrument. The following
interesting passage occurs in John Playford's _Musick's Recreation on
the Viol Lyra-way_, London, 1661:--"The first authors of inventing
and setting lessons this way to the Viol was Mr. _Daniel Farunt_,
Mr. _Alfonso Ferabosco_, and Mr. _John Coperario_ alias _Cooper_.
The first of these was a person of much ingenuity for his several
rare inventions of instruments, as the Poliphant and the Stump,
which were strung with wire; and also of his last, which was a _Lyra
Viol_, strung with Lute strings and Wire strings, the one above the
other; the wire strings were conveyed through a hollow passage made
in the neck of the Viol and so brought to the tail thereof, and
raised a little above the belly of the viol by a bridge of about
1/2 an inch. These were so laid that they were equivalent to those
above, and were tun'd unisons to those above, so that by striking
of those strings above with the bow, a sound was drawn from those
of wire underneath, which made it very harmonious; of this sort of
Viols I have seen many, but Time and Disuse have set them aside."
This description may have referred to the Viola Bastarda, with the
invention of which Praetorius credits England. A great authority
on this subject, Mr. E.J. Payne, writing in Sir George Grove's
_Dictionary of Music and Musicians_ (article Violin), says the
principle of sympathetic vibration was applied to several Viols, even
the little Sordino. The Viola Bastarda was the Viola da Gamba with
wire strings added. In the same way the Tenor Viol became the usual
Viola d'Amore. But the latter has varied in construction, the name
being applied by Mattheson (1713) to a Viol with four metal strings
and one of catgut, which he said bore "the beautiful name of Viola
d'Amore (Viole d'Amour), in fact, for it expresses much languishment
and tenderness." This must have been similar to the Viola d'Amore "of
5 wyre strings plaied on with a bow," described by Evelyn in 1679 as
"above all for its sweetnesse and novelty."

The tuning of the Viola d'Amore was at first the ordinary viol way
of fourths and a third, but later the major common chord tuning
was given to it [Music] known as "Harp-way Sharp" (on account of
the facile arpeggio and major third). This tuning was adopted by
Meyerbeer for his graceful _obbligato_. Whether Bach wrote for
a true viola d'amore is doubtful; the compass employed in the
Johannis-Passion suggests an ordinary viola which might have been
partly strung with steel or brass. Berlioz, in his _Treatise on
Instrumentation_, writes of the Love Viol with sympathetic strings,
"The quality of the Viole d'Amour is faint and sweet; there is
something seraphic in its partaking at once of the viola and the
harmonics of the violin. It is peculiarly suitable to the legato
style, to dreamy melodies, and to the expression of æsthetic or
religious feeling." It will, I think, be conceded that when an
instrument which has gone out of fashion possesses some special
quality, such as is found in this fascinating viol, there is
sufficient justification for bringing it back into use.

The Viola d'Amore and other instruments in this work, that belong
to the Music Class Room of Edinburgh University, have been drawn by
permission of Professor Sir Herbert Oakeley, Mus. Doc., and composer
to her Majesty the Queen for Scotland.



[Illustration: XXVIII]

PLATE XXVIII.

CETERA, BY ANTONIUS STRADIVARIUS.


An interesting Italian Cither, dated 1700, that may be compared
for design, beauty, and workmanship with Lord Tollemache's English
cither known as Queen Elizabeth's Lute. It belongs to the violinist
Alard, and found a place in the splendid contribution of violins
and other stringed instruments sent from Paris, by the mediation of
Mr. E. Gand, to the Music Loan Collection in the Royal Albert Hall,
1885. It had also been lent by Mr. Vuillaume to the South Kensington
Collection of 1872. This instrument, as well as the guitar drawn in
the next Plate, show Stradivarius was not averse from making other
instruments than violins. As well as cithers and guitars, he is known
to have made a harp. Two views are given of this cetera, and one
enlarged profile of the head and peg-box. It is a woman's head, said
to represent Diana,--a satyr and nymph behind the peg-box serving to
form a crook or handle for supporting the instrument, as the lizard
in Mr. Donaldson's cetera already described.

It will be seen this Cetera differs from the Quinterna in
Plate XXIII.; it is in form one of the oldest existing musical
instruments.



[Illustration: XXIX]

PLATE XXIX.

GUITAR, BY ANTONIUS STRADIVARIUS.


This Guitar is inscribed on the back of the peg-box ANT'S
STRADIVARIVS CREMONEN'S. F 1680. It was brought from Brescia
in 1881, and was acquired by Messrs. W.E. Hill and Sons of London. It
has been supposed that this might have been the only guitar made by
the illustrious violin-maker; but another, in the Museum of the Paris
Conservatoire, is also claimed for Stradivarius.

The beautiful arabesque rose of this Guitar will attract attention.
The coat of arms upon the finger-board indicates the noble family to
which the instrument formerly belonged.

While often made in Italy, France and Germany, the Guitar is the
national Spanish instrument, and although fashion may for a time
permit its use in other countries, it is as an exotic, for the
character and traditions of the instrument attach it closely to
Spain, where it is the universal accompaniment to song and dance. The
Andalusian Seguidilla and Fandango with castanet accompaniment are
characteristic measures for dances, with which are combined vocal
performances of _coplas_ and _estrevillo_ (couplets of four short
lines and a refrain of three), partaking more of the character of
an improvisation than a set performance. In the north of Spain, the
Jota Aragonesa and Jota Navarra are accompanied by a vocal refrain
as well as castanets, hand-clapping and finger-snapping. All these
Spanish dances are in triple time with certain peculiarities of
rhythm; occasionally professed guitar players elaborate them into
compositions of special interest and beauty, astonishing the listener
with the capabilities of the Spanish guitar as a solo instrument.
But, in truth, the artist will make himself felt, however limited the
range and power of the instrument may be.



[Illustration: XXX]

PLATE XXX.

BELL HARP AND HURDY-GURDY.


The Bell Harp, although it appears in modern pre-Raphaelite paintings
and is a kind of wire-strung psaltery, cannot be classed as a
mediæval instrument, as it dates only from about the year 1700. Its
invention is attributed to John Simcock, a soldier, who, judging from
the label inside, probably gave the name of his superior officer
to the instrument. It reads as follows:--"John Simcock, in the
Right Honourable the Earl of Ancram's regiment of Dragoons, and in
Captain Bell's troop, makes, mends, and sells the English harp; also
instructs gentlemen in the best mode of playing that instrument."
Robert, third Earl of Ancram, afterwards Marquis of Lothian, was
appointed Colonel of the seventh regiment of Dragoons in 1696.

The Bell Harp here drawn belongs to Miss E.A. Willmott of Warley
Place, Essex, as well as the Hurdy-Gurdy beneath it in the same
Plate. It has four roses and fourteen notes of brass strings of four
unisons to each. The extreme length of the sides is 21 inches; the
breadth at the top is 6-5/8 inches, and at the bottom, 13-1/2 inches.
Simcock constructed bell harps with more notes, occasionally of three
unisons to each, excepting the deepest note, which was one string
only, spun over with wire. The scale of another of sixteen notes,
made by John Simcock at Bath, as given by Engel, was--

[Music]

The bell harp, like the zither, is sounded with a plectrum on each
thumb, and the performer, while twanging the strings rapidly, holds
the harp by wooden projections from the sides of the frame, and
swings it upwards and downwards, to which action Grassineau (_Musical
Dictionary_, London, 1740) attributes the name. This may have been
so, but it is certain that the swinging motion could have no
appreciable effect upon the tone. A few years ago a Frenchman played
the bell harp in the streets of London, attracting audiences by the
novelty of the instrument and the grace with which he swung it.

     THE HURDY-GURDY.

     "With dead, dull, doleful, heavy hums,
     With mournful moans, with grievous groans,
     The sober hurdy-gurdy thrums."

These lines, from an Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, are said to have been
set to music for ancient British instruments, by Arne. But they libel
an instrument that has only failed from lack of inventors to attain
to the development that has raised some of its former competitors to
the consideration they are now held in. While the organistrum of the
church became the vielle of the Jongleurs, passing into the chifonie
and hurdy-gurdy of the common folk in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, the dulcimer has been the precursor of the pianoforte.
The hurdy-gurdy, although at one time transformed to a sostenente
key-board instrument described by Evelyn, and as the "Geigenwerk"
exciting the attention of J.S. Bach, has remained what it was. The
latest improved vielle or hurdy-gurdy had the following key-board
compass and tuning of the open strings--

[Music: Tuned in C. Tuned in G.]

[Music: The open notes correspond with the long black keys of the
instrument; the black notes with the short white keys.]

The sound is produced by the vibration of the strings, maintained by
the friction of a wheel with which they are brought into contact,
the function of the rotary movement being analogous to that of the
fiddler's bow, the wheel being also prepared, like the bow, with
rosin. Sympathetic strings are not unfrequently attached.

The Hurdy-Gurdy here drawn has within the sound-body the maker's
label, "Louvet, Luthier, à la Vielle Royale, rue de la Croix des
Petits Champs, à la côté de la petite porte Saint Honoré à Paris,
1757." The length, without the head, is 19-1/2 inches; the breadth
being respectively 8-1/8 and 10 inches across the belly at the wider
measures. The carving of the head in this and many other vielles and
viols is a message to us from the past of loving care bestowed.

Baton, a luthier of Versailles, introduced in the year 1716
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.


The shawm of the English Bible is the schalmey, the treble instrument
of the old Pommer or Bombardo family and the origin of the modern
oboe. The oboe da caccia, derived from the alto pommer or Bombardo
piccolo of the sixteenth century, has gone out of use, the Italian
corno inglese (French cor anglais) having taken its place. There
being some confusion about the description by different writers
of the oboe da caccia and oboe d'amore, I fall back upon Dr. W.H.
Stone's authoritative definition that the oboe da caccia is a
bassoon raised a fourth in pitch, while the oboe d'amore is an oboe
lowered a fifth. The bassoon, the centre figure in the Plate, has
been regarded as a development of the bass pommer or Bombardone,
and the transformation has been generally attributed to a canon of
Ferrara named Afranio, a native of Pavia. This question has now been
definitively settled by Count L.F. Valdrighi, the librarian of the
Biblioteca Estense at Modena. He has proved (_Musurgiana_, No. 5,
"Il Phagotus d'Afranio"), that Afranio's invention, _ante_ 1539, was
of the nature of a corna musa (cornemuse or bagpipe), the bag being
most likely combined with soft bass melody pipes, called from their
quality of tone "Dolcisuoni," whence the dolcino bass of church
organs. This invention was improved by Giambattista Ravilio, also of
Ferrara, and thirty years later was perfected by Sigismund Scheltzer
of Nuremberg, who, rejecting the cornemuse bag, united the two tubes
into the "fagotto," so named from the fascine of beech (fagus), or
fagots. The fagotto is the same as our bassoon. This clearing up of a
disputed invention has been discovered in a very unlikely place--in
an Introduction to the Chaldee language, published in 1539, written
by the nephew of Afranio, Teseo-Ambrogio Albonesio, Professor of
Chaldee and Syriac at the University of Bologna.

The dolciano, to the extreme left of the Plate, will be thus seen
to owe the suggestion of its name to the original bassoon. But this
instrument has a clarinet or beating reed, not the double reed of the
oboe and bassoon. I state this fact upon the high authority of Mr.
Henry Lazarus, the clarinet-player, who names it "tenoroon," but Dr.
Stone has accepted this name as a synonym of the oboe da caccia, and
calls this instrument with a clarinet reed, "dolciano." Mr. Lazarus,
when in the Band of the Royal Military Asylum, played upon such an
instrument, as he informs me, made by Garrett of Westminster, at a
date that must have preceded Sax's invention, which combined the
conical tube and clarinet reed in the Saxophone. The basset horn, or
corno di bassetto, to the extreme right of the Plate, is the alto
clarinet, a fifth lower in pitch than the clarinet in C. It is said
to have been invented at Passau in Bavaria in 1770, but the name of
the inventor is not recorded. It was improved by Lotz of Presburg in
1782, and again by Iwan Müller in 1812. Mozart wrote two parts for
basset horns in his famous Requiem. The relative positions in the
Plate of the Oboe and Oboe da Caccia are indicated above.



[Illustration: XL]

PLATE XL.

SITÁRS AND VÍNA.


The Sitár is the favourite instrument of Upper India, and was
reintroduced and perfected by the poet-musician Amir Khusru of Delhi
in the thirteenth century. The name is Persian, and implies "three
strings," although the Sitár has now usually five, six, and sometimes
seven strings. Sitárs called _Taruffe_ have sympathetic strings of
fine wire attached to the side of the neck and passing underneath
the frets and bridge, to vibrate in unison with the notes of the
same pitch that are played. This contrivance, although of recent
date in Europe, is of great antiquity in the East, being mentioned
in the Sangíta Ratnâkera, the earliest known work in Sanscrit upon
music. The principal strings of the Sitár are sounded by a wire
plectrum worn upon the forefinger of the player's right hand; and
their accordance, which was noted when given to Mr. A.J. Ellis and
myself by H.H. The Rájah Rám Pál Singh, an Indian prince residing
in England, who played upon a fine Sitár now in my possession, is
[Music]. Here the keynote, or khuruj, is F. This method of tuning,
although not so common as tunings given later, is employed in the
north of India and the Punjab; and a similar employment of the
second and third for open strings may be found in the tuning of the
Sur-s'ringâra. The F string is the melody string stopped by the
frets. The other strings are occasionally struck, but are rarely
fretted, and never to produce harmony. The brass frets are secured
to the neck by catgut ties, and are movable, so that by changing
their positions different modes are obtained. The classical Sanscrit
name for the Sitár, the instrument drawn on the left, was Tritantri
(three-stringed) Vína. A form of Sitár, with a flat body, was called
Káchapi (Kacchapa, a tortoise) Vína, now known as Káchwâ Sitár. The
usual tuning of Sitárs having from three to seven strings is to these
intervals:--

[Music]

In these tunings C is the khuruj or keynote, the melody string being
máhdyamâ or F. Sitárs have usually seventeen to eighteen frets. The
five methods of arranging them, so as to produce different modes,
styled Thât, are as follows:--

[Illustration: Intervals upon the F or melody string.]

The word "Thât," employed to signify scale or mode, should not be
confounded with "Râga," the foundation of all Indian music. Râga has
no equivalent in European musical language, but may be described as
a melody type founded upon the intervals of a mode, and having a
succession of notes so arranged as to excite a certain feeling of
the mind. There may be many melodies in the same râga, differing
distinctly from each other. Methods for the Sitár have been written
in Bengâli by the Rájah Sir S.M. Tagore, a well-known amateur, and
in Mahrátti by a Brahmin musician of Poona, Anna Ghárpure, a fine
performer now in the service of H.H. the Thâkore Sahib of Wadhwân.
Besides the Rájah Rám Pál Singh, I had an opportunity of hearing
a player from Jeypur, at an exhibition called "India in London,"
in 1886. The technique and charm of his performance are not easily
forgotten. The resonance body of an ordinary Sitár is a gourd, but he
had one with two gourds, known as the "Been," or Vína Sitár.

The Sitár in the centre, with fiddle-shaped body, is the Súrsanga, or
Esrar without sympathetic strings, a bowed instrument combining the
Sitár with the Sárungí. It is a modern instrument, and is intended
to accompany women's voices. It has four strings, tuned, upon the
authority of the Rájah Sir S.M. Tagore, as given by Mr. Victor
Mahillon in his admirable Catalogue of the Museum of the Brussels
Conservatoire, [Music].

The third instrument, upon the right, attached to two gourds, is
the Mahati or great Vína--known now as the "Been." It is the most
ancient and finest Indian instrument, and is also the most difficult
to play. It is composed of a bamboo resting upon two gourds, and has
seven strings--two at the side nearest the F or melody string, four
over the frets, and one at the side away from the melody string. The
tuning, the pitch varying with the size of the instrument, is as
follows:--[Music] The string × is tuned E or A as required in the
"râga" played. In the drawing five strings have been shown over the
frets; the string, however, from the peg above and nearest to the
nut, should pass over a small ivory head, not shown, but placed on
the side of the bamboo, between the second and third frets, to the
small bridge shown at the farthest end of the instrument at the side,
and not over the main bridge. The frets, twenty-two in number, are
at semitonic intervals, and fixed. The instrument is played with two
plectra upon the first two fingers of the player's right hand; the
two side strings are struck by the nail of the little finger moved
upwards; the single side string, upon the other side, is struck by
the little finger of the left hand when required. The instrument is
held with the gourd nearest the nut resting upon the left shoulder,
while the right gourd rests beneath the right arm. It should be noted
that the disposition of strings is, in Vínas, reversed from that of
Sitárs. There is a peculiarly soft and plaintive quality of tone in
the Vína that is altogether wanting in the Sitár.

There are two systems of music in vogue in India at the present
day--the Karnâtik or southern system, and the Hindustâni or
northern. The latter is chiefly in the hands of Mahomedan
professors, who have borrowed from the Arabian and Persian systems.
The Karnâtik is more melodious, and possesses fewer traces of foreign
innovation. Instruments used by Karnâtik professors employ only the
intervals of the tonic fourth and fifth (or their octaves) upon the
open strings. Hence we find the southern Indian Vína--an instrument
with only one resonance gourd, and a wooden body like a lute--tuned
to the following intervals:--

[Music] or [Music]

the first method being known as "Pánchamâ s'ruti," the latter as
"Máhdyamâ s'ruti," from the relative intervals between the strings.

The illustrations of the Súrsanga, Mahati Vína, and three-stringed
Sitár, are from a fine Indian collection, divided by the Rájah Sir
Sourindro Mohun Tagore between the Brussels Conservatoire and the
London Royal College of Music.

For completing this information concerning Indian stringed
instruments, as well as that of the Indian Drums in Plate XLI., I am
indebted to one of the highest authorities on the subject, Lieutenant
C.R. Day, Oxfordshire Light Infantry (late 43rd), whose recent
personal experience and searching studies have been generously placed
by him at my disposal.



[Illustration: XLI]

PLATE XLI.

INDIAN DRUMS.


Painted instruments consisting of a wooden drum, one of earthenware,
and a Tam-Tam. The employment of such instruments is necessarily
rhythmic, and they occupy a place on the borderland of music and mere
noise. Mr. Rowbotham, however (_History of Music_, vol. i., London,
1885), in formulating the stages through which instrumental music
has passed, according to a development theory as applied to music,
considers the drum first responded to the nascent conception of music
in the prehistoric man, and has since been tenaciously preserved as
an adjunct to religious service among partially civilised races. The
Nautch girls, at "India in London," London, 1886, performed their
soothing gyrations to the gentle Sárungí, a bowed instrument with
sympathetic strings, accompanied by the beating of such drums.

There are many varieties of drums to be found in India, the names
varying in different parts of the country. The largest of the three
Drums here shown is not used by professional musicians, but in bands
of street music found in all bazaars, and over the gateways of
temples, etc., called Nahabat, or Nakkera Khaneh (in South India,
Perya méla), and composed of low-class Mahomedans, or Hindus of the
barber caste. Such bands consist of drums of various shapes and
kinds, and primitive instruments of the oboe kind, with drones and
cymbals. Musicians in the East are usually placed over the gateways,
nearly all of importance having galleries for that purpose.

Professional musicians and Nautch girls generally use the _M'ridang_
or _Tabla_. The Drum with the striped body and leather braces is a
kind of M'ridang. The genuine Drum bearing this name is longer in
proportion to its diameter, and has one head larger than the other.
The two heads are tuned to the tonic and fourth or fifth as required.
The pieces of wood between the braces and shell are used to assist
in the tuning, and should be noticed. _Tabla_ are small copper
kettledrums tuned similarly. Drum-playing upon such instruments is a
great art, and can only be learned by years of study. A good _Tabla_
or _M'ridang_ player will earn from 100 to 150 rupees per month. The
wrist, flat of the hand, and fingers are employed. Such instruments
should not be very noisy, the skill of the player being the first
consideration. The M'ridang is considered to be the most ancient of
Indian Drums; its origin is popularly ascribed to the god Mahadeo
(S'iva).

The earthenware Kettledrum or Tam-Tam, here shown, is used by beggars
and fakirs to attract attention as they wander from house to house.
A similarly shaped kettledrum of copper, but very much larger--about
three or four feet in diameter--is known by the name of Nagara or
Nakkera, and is much used in the bands attached to the service of
temples, and found over the gates of forts and palaces of native
chiefs. Such drums are beaten in a peculiar way with short curved
sticks; and, although when heard close the sound is anything but
pleasing, yet, when heard from a distance among the mountains, in
company with shrill oboes and deeper drones, the sounds rising and
falling with the breeze and echoing from hill to hill, the effect is
in character with the wildness of the country, and the hearer often
listens, rapt, in spite of himself.

The three Drums, here represented, belong to the Music Class Room of
the University of Edinburgh, and have been drawn by the permission of
Professor Sir Herbert Oakeley.



[Illustration: XLII]

PLATE XLII.

SAW DUANG & BOW. SAW TAI & BOW. SAW OO & BOW. KLUI. PEE.


These instruments belong to H.M. the King of Siam, and were drawn
by the gracious permission of H.R.H. Prince Narés Varariddhi, then
Siamese Minister in England, and brother of the King.

The Saw Tai, or Siamese fiddle (centre figure), has the lower part
of the neck of carved ivory, and the upper part of gold enamelled.
The back is of cocoa-nut shells, jewelled. There is a jewelled
boss on the sound membrane, which is of parchment. It is the same
instrument as the Javese Rabáb, and is of Persian origin. The
strings, three in number, of silk cord, meet at the top beneath the
pegs, and pass under a ligature, whence they diverge to the bridge.
It has no finger-board, and the length of string to vibrate is not
marked off, as is usual with bowed instruments, by pressure upon the
finger-board, but by pressing the independent string with the entire
width of the finger, which leaves the intonation a little uncertain.
The player squats cross-legged, and holds the instrument in a sloping
position.

The Saw Chine, or Chinese fiddle, is shown in two varieties, the Saw
Duang (left of centre figure) with jewels round one of the pegs, and
the Saw Oo (right of centre figure). Like the Saw Tai, these fiddles
have no finger-boards. The bowstring, as in the Chinese Urh-hsien and
Hu-ch'in, is inserted between the strings so as to play either. The
wind instruments here shown are a Klui, or flute (on the left), which
has a membrane over one hole, resembling the Basque galoubet; and the
Pee (on the right), a kind of oboe, very harsh, and resembling in
tone a very powerful bagpipe, a resemblance assisted by the peculiar
heptatonic scale of the Siamese, being not far off the Syrian scale,
noticed in the Scotch bagpipe. (See Introduction, page xv., and
Plates V. and XLIII.) The Pee is considered to be of Javese origin.

There are four kinds of Bands in Siam, the precise details of which
are given in _Notes on Siamese Musical Instruments_, a work prepared
at the Siamese Embassy and published in London, 1885. The Lao Ph[=a]n
Band, peculiar to the north of Siam, includes the reed instrument
called Ph[=a]n, mentioned in the Introduction, page xviii.



[Illustration: XLIII]

PLATE XLIII.

RANAT EK. KHONG YAI. TA'KHAY.


These instruments, like those drawn in Plate XLII., belong to H.M.
the King of Siam, and were also drawn for this work by the gracious
permission of H.R.H. Prince Narés.

Harmonicons of wood and of metal, such as the Ranat and Khong,
are the foundation of music in Siam, Burma, Java, and the Indian
Archipelago generally. They also extend into India, and even, in
another direction, to South Africa. Tuned in Siam to a heptatonic
scale, not founded upon an harmonic conception of chords, they
present, at least ideally, a ladder of seven equal steps, with which
the native ear is satisfied. The performances, some years ago, of
the King of Siam's band in the Royal Albert Hall, South Kensington,
allowed this scale to be heard, and afforded full scope to the
remarkable technical skill of the Ranat players.

The instruments drawn are a Ranat Ek of twenty-one wooden bars, in a
cradle-like stand beautifully ornamented with ivory; a Khong Yai of
eighteen metal kettles, of a kind of bronze or bell metal known as
"gongsa," in an ivory stand painted like tortoiseshell, with brass
edgings; and the very peculiar Ta'khay, or crocodile, with three
strings and twelve bridges, including the nut, to fret them. The
last-mentioned instrument is played with a plectrum, and ornamented
with a crocodile's head and ivory ornaments.



[Illustration: XLIV]

PLATE XLIV.

HU-CH'IN & BOW. SHÊNG. SAN-HSIEN. P'I-P'A.


We learn from Mr. J.A. Van Aalst's comprehensive treatise on Chinese
Music, published, it may at first sight appear somewhat oddly, by
the Imperial Maritime Customs (Shanghai, 1884), that the Hu-ch'in,
the left-hand figure in the Plate, is one of the most popular
musical instruments in Peking. The strings, four in number, are of
silk, and are tuned in pairs a fifth apart. This instrument is in
fact a double-strung Erh-hsien or Urh-hsien (Van Aalst and Dennys;
Ur-heen, Engel), and has the same peculiar arrangement by which the
bow is fixed between the strings for playing. It is of cane and
horsehair, and the rosin for it is stuck upon the body, a hollow
cylinder of bamboo, wood, or copper, through which the long neck of
the instrument is thrust. The upper end of the body is covered with
snakeskin, while the lower is left open. The Erh-hsien, which has a
similar bamboo body but two strings only, is more generally popular
than the Hu-ch'in, and is met with all over China. The Ti-ch'in,
according to Dennys the favourite instrument with blind men, is also
similarly bowed, and has half a cocoa-nut shell for the body, covered
by a thin board. These bowed instruments, it is believed, found their
way into China with the Buddhist religion.

The name for the next instrument, the reed mouth-organ, Shêng, sounds
like "shung," rhyming with "sung." From this ancient instrument have
come the modern popular developments of the "free-reed" organ, first
applied about 1780, at the instance of Professor Kratzenstein, to
organ reed-stops by a Copenhagen organ-builder named Kirsnick, who
had settled at St. Petersburg, an invention soon afterwards carried
to Germany by the celebrated Abbé Vogler. The French Harmonium
and American Organ, the concertinas and accordion, are well-known
examples of the "free-reed" principle, which differs from the Church
organ beating-reed inasmuch as the reed or vibrator of metal does not
overlap any part of its frame. The Shêng is a gourd with its top cut
off and a flat cover cemented upon it. Twenty-one bamboo pipes are
inserted round the cover, but four, being intended for convenience
in holding the instrument, do not sound. Those intended to sound are
provided with small brass reeds. By a peculiar arrangement, unique in
reed instruments, the wind, attacking all the reeds simultaneously,
at once escapes by ventages in the pipes, until stopped by the
fingers for the pipes that are to sound. The lengths of the pipes
are merely ornamental, the actual lengths required being determined
by slot-like cuttings in the pipes, not seen in front. There are
seventeen sounding pipes, as already said, but only eleven notes, as
some notes are repeated in the unison or octave. The scale, which the
_à peu près_ musicians are satisfied with, may be thus noted--

[Music]

The succession of notes in the first octave resembles that of the
ancient Phrygian mode and that church mode in which Thomas Tallis's
famous service is composed. The exact measurements of the intervals
heard at the Health Exhibition are to be found in Mr. A.J. Ellis's
Paper _On the Musical Scales of Various Nations_, published in the
_Journal of the Society of Arts_, London, 25th March, 1885.

Mr. N.B. Dennys, in his valuable notes on Chinese Musical Instruments
read before the North China Branch of the Asiatic Society, 21st
October, 1873, gives the name of the three-stringed instrument in
the drawing, with a long neck like a tamboura, as San-hsien, with
which Mr. Van Aalst agrees. The Peking musicians called it Sien-tzê
(pronounced like Shen-zy). Like the Japanese Siamisen the San-hsien
has no frets. The drum-like body is covered on the upper side with
snakeskin, the under side being left open as in a tambourine or
banjo. The three strings were tuned ascending a minor tone between
the first and second, and a fifth between the second and third
strings: the outer strings being consequently a major sixth apart.
The strings were plucked by two bone plectra extended like claws
beyond the ends of the fingers, and the player stopped a Pentatonic
or five-note scale, thus: [Music] nearly in just intonation.

The P'i-p'a, according to Dennys and Van Aalst, or Balloon Guitar
(the Peking musicians called it Phi-pe), has a body nearly a
foot in diameter, from which it takes its English name, and four
strings played usually with the fingers and tuned as fourth, fifth,
and octave from the lowest note. The large semi-elliptical frets
above the finger-board were not used by the player at the Health
Exhibition; he restricted himself to the twelve frets upon the
finger-board. The P'i-p'a is usually played by men who, in the South
of China, are hired as minstrels or ballad-singers. The stopping of
this instrument was pentatonic, as with the San-hsien, and the scale
began upon the same note, but the tuning of the fretted instrument
was less good than that noted of the unfretted one. Mr. Van Aalst
informs us that the notes are reiterated by rapidly passing the long
finger-nail or plectrum backwards and forwards across the string, to
produce an effect of sostenuto similarly sought for in Europe for the
Mandoline, Bandurria, and Dulcimer. These instruments belong to the
Music Class Room of the University of Edinburgh.



[Illustration: XLV]

PLATE XLV.

CHINESE TI-TZU, SO-NA, YUEH-CH'IN. JAPANESE HIJI-RIKI. CHINESE LA-PA.


The Ti-tzu to the left in the Plate is the Chinese flute. It is
usually bound round with waxed silk and ornamented with tassels. It
has seven holes besides the embouchure, that nearest to the latter
being covered with a thin membrane as in the Provençal galoubet,
taken from the sap of the bamboo and melted at the moment it is
applied, intended to make the quality of tone more reedy. The
remaining six holes are stopped by the fingers. According to Mr. Van
Aalst, twelve notes in a diatonic succession, beginning upon the A
of the violin, form the compass of this instrument, but with much
uncertainty of intonation, which may be as much due to the measuring
for boring by the instrument-makers as to the peculiarities of an
ideal Chinese scale. The scale played at the Health Exhibition, South
Kensington, in 1884, by a native ti-tzu player, was a B flat scale
with the third rather sharper than the minor but less than the major
third, that is, a neuter third, which, as we have seen, is frequently
met with in Eastern non-harmonic scales. However, there is great
difficulty in determining wind instrument scales accurately, from the
power the player has to alter intonation by blowing differently.

The Chinese So-na is a copper wind instrument--a kind of oboe--played
with a double reed. On account of the shortness of the reed there
is a disk below it to protect the lips of the player. There are
two small pierced copper spheres like those in the trumpets in Fra
Angelico's paintings, beneath which are the seven finger-holes
in the front and two thumb-holes behind the pipe. A loose brass
cone of considerable size covers the lower end and is fastened
to the upper by a string. This instrument is possibly the Indian
Soonai. There are nine notes, as in the Scotch bagpipe, which
the So-na somewhat resembles in quality of tone, but it is more
strident and disagreeable. The scale, as played by a native at the
Health Exhibition, gave intervals of whole and three-quarter tones
resembling the bagpipe, but as the performer succeeded in playing
with other instruments that apparently differed in scale, the
accommodation in blowing must be credited with the approximately
satisfactory result.

The Yueh-ch'in, or Moon Guitar, so called from the shape of the
sound-board, has four silk strings tuned as fifths in pairs. The
strings are struck with the finger-nails, which the Chinese wear
long, or a plectrum. The strings are sometimes of copper instead of
silk. The instrument is chiefly used to accompany the voice, and the
repetition of a note, as in the P'i-p'a, appears to be a favourite
effect.

The next wind instrument in Plate XLV. is the Japanese Hiji-riki,
a conical pipe with a double reed inserted in the larger end. From
this cause the instrument sounds about an octave lower than a pipe
that is cylindrical. The Hiji-riki is of bamboo, the interior being
covered with a bed of red lacquer. It has seven finger-holes and two
thumb-holes at the back. The scale, as given by Mr. Victor Mahillon,
from whose _Catalogue Descriptif et Analytique du Musée Instrumental
du Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles_, I have been glad to borrow,
here and elsewhere, is diatonic, with the occasional insertion of a
sharp fourth. This interval is frequently heard in Chinese music,
when there are ascending seven-note scales. The disk suspended at the
top of the pipe is adjusted, when the Hiji-riki is played, to protect
the player's lips--a precaution due to the shortness of the metal
reed.

The long trumpet is the Chinese La-pa, with a sliding tube on the
trombone principle. It gives four notes, the octave, twelfth,
super-octave, and seventeenth, but not the prime. As may be imagined,
it is a military instrument, but Mr. Van Aalst informs us it is a
privilege of itinerant knife-grinders to blow it in the streets to
announce their whereabouts. A La-pa, with the bell bent back, is used
at wedding processions.

The instruments drawn in this Plate belong to the Music Class Room of
Edinburgh University.



[Illustration: XLVI]

PLATE XLVI.

JAPANESE KOTO.


This is the thirteen-stringed Sono Koto of Japan, and a very
beautifully-ornamented specimen, lent for drawing by Mr. George Wood,
of Messrs. Cramer and Co., Regent Street, London.

The strings of the koto are, as in all Japanese stringed instruments,
of silk drawn through wax, and the accordance follows the pentatonic
system already described in connection with the Siamisen, and as
given by Mr. Isawa, Director of the Institute of Music at Tokio,
in twelve different popular pentatonic accordances, which are the
foundations for, but, as will be explained, do not exactly fix the
intervals of the koto player's performances. The strings are equally
long and thick, and are strained to one tension, the notes being
obtained by means of movable bridges, of which there are as many as
there are strings. Two strings, the first and third, are tuned alike,
at the interval of a fifth above the second or lowest note. The
tuning is generally done by ear note by note, the player pitching the
instrument to his voice, which is good if a high voice. The classical
Japanese music is Chinese, and may have come to Japan with Chinese
art, through the Corea. It is, however, only played in the Imperial
household or the Shinto temples. Both classical and popular music
are pentatonic, but the Japanese in no way avoid semitones, which
give the Chinese so much trouble when they endeavour to produce them.
The koto player, in performing, squats very low upon the ground,
and wears plectra-like wire thimbles on the right hand, terminating
in small projections of ivory, touching with them only the shorter
division of the strings. He has, however, the power, by pressing
down the longer unsounded lengths with the ends of the fingers of
the left hand, or pulling them towards the bridges, to increase and
decrease the tension of the strings, and thus sharpen or flatten the
notes and modify the tuning by intermediate tones--a licence not
used unsparingly. The Japanese pictures of koto players invariably
show this practice. The dimensions of this Koto are, approximately:
length, 6 feet 2-1/2 inches; width, 8-3/4 to 9-3/4 inches; depth,
about 1-3/4 inches at the sides. The instrument is made of strong
Kiri wood, and has two openings on the under side. The beauty of
the ornament of the instrument drawn could hardly be surpassed. The
drawing shows enlargements of the two ends, one half the actual size,
and displays the highly decorative adornment of this remarkable
instrument.

The favourite popular tuning of the Koto is called Hira-dioshi. It is
thus given by Mr. Isawa and other authorities:--

[Music]

The music-master at the Japanese Village, Knightsbridge, London,
tuned the Koto to a Siamisen (Plate XLVII.), with the pentatonic
intervals marked on the neck according to a peculiarity of intonation
referred to in the description of that instrument.



[Illustration: XLVII]

PLATE XLVII.

SIAMISEN, KOKIU, BIWA.


These are Japanese instruments. The Siamisen and Biwa were drawn by
permission of the Japanese Commission of the Inventions Exhibition,
1885. The Kokiu in the centre of the plate, and its long fishing-rod
bow in four lengths of black wood mounted with silver, belong to the
writer.

The Siamisen is the commonest Japanese stringed instrument, and is
played by the singing girls (Gesha); it has been the characteristic
musical instrument at the Japanese Village, Knightsbridge, London.
The name was there pronounced Samiseng (the _a_ as in father), and
Dr. Müller, in an elaborate article on Japanese musical instruments
in the _Mittheilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Natur und
Völkerkunde Ostasien's_, 6tes. Heft. (Berlin, 1884), invariably
writes Samiseng, but the spelling Siamisen is here adopted on the
authority of Mr. Shuji Isawa, the Director of the School of Music,
Tokio. In length it is about 37 inches, and has a resonance membrane
of parchment stretched upon a nearly square wooden body that is
7-1/2 inches high, 6-1/2 wide, and 3 deep. There is a knob on the
under side for a string holder, and the upper and under sides of
it are covered with a selected part of a cat's skin, on which the
bridge also rests. By the little black spots on this skin the value
of the instrument is determined. Four give the highest value; two
mark ordinary instruments; while those without spots are cheap.
The size of the Siamisen is determined by the singer's voice. Good
voices are high voices; consequently a good singer requires a smaller
one. For convenience in moving about, the body and neck are made to
separate. It has three silk strings and in common practice as many
accordances, viz. [Music], [Music] and [Music]. It is without frets,
but the fingered scale which the Japanese musicians at the London
"village" appeared to know only, was indicated by small marks upon
the neck, and agreed with the tuning of the thirteen-stringed koto.
It has thus five intervals in the octave, that differ, however,
from the Chinese pentatonic scale, and from that known in Java as
Salendro. The Japanese, as heard at the "village," may be described,
when descending, as a major third, a semitone, a neuter or mean third
(neither major nor minor, but equivalent to a three-quarter tone and
a whole tone), thus [Music]--the × denoting the mean third. This
was accepted as right by natives of various parts of Japan brought
together in the village whose speech dialects were not the same,
although their musical dialect was thus uniform. However, since
Mr. Isawa gives the interval as a minor third, and in performances
which I have heard the minor effect certainly predominates, I am
disposed to accept the mean third here recorded as only a widening
of the normal minor third. Great latitude has to be allowed in
dealing with scales, especially those of non-harmonic origin. Our own
equal temperament narrowing of the same interval is rarely noticed
by us, and passes as a matter of course. The Siamisen is employed
to accompany the dancing and singing women, and its tones are an
important aid to the effect of their performance.

The plectrum of the Siamisen is called in Japanese Batsi. It is shown
in the plate.

The Kokiu is a kind of fiddle, in its construction very like the
Siamisen, only that it is played with a bow (kiu) instead of a
plectrum or striker (batsi). It is usually a woman's instrument, but
is now very little played. Dr. Müller only heard one player in Tokio,
a blind man, from whom he took his description of the instrument and
the manner of performance. The whole length of the Kokiu is about 25
inches, the body being 5 inches long and broad. It is 2-1/2 inches
deep and covered like the Siamisen. Instead of the string-holder of
the latter it has a 2-1/2 inch long round metal slip to which the
strings are knotted. The bridge is long and very low, with notches
to receive the strings; three being equally spaced, while the fourth
is very near the third. The strings are tuned [Music], the two near
each other being unisons of the highest note. The bow is 45 inches
long, of four lengths as already mentioned. It takes to pieces for
transport. It is flat behind and oval in front. It is bent at the top
nearly to a right angle, and the whole rod is very elastic. It is
strung with white horsehair about 32 inches long, the horsehair being
imported, as there is no long horsehair in Japan. It is fastened with
a silken knot into a silver holder. In order to play the Kokiu the
bow is taken with the thumb, middle, and little fingers, the index
finger being extended along the back. With stretched-out fourth
finger the player strains the slack hair of the bow, then takes up
the instrument, vertically resting it upon the knees, between which
the metal string-holder is grasped. Bringing the hair of the bow to
the edge of the resonance body, the bow is simply moved horizontally
backwards and forwards, the middle part of the bowstring only being
employed. The strings are brought into contact with the bow by a
rotary movement of the instrument. Sometimes only one E flat string
is used, sometimes both. Double notes are very rarely used. The sound
of the Kokiu is very like that of the Hurdy-Gurdy, but much weaker in
comparison.

The Biwa is a lute-like instrument in the shape of a divided pear,
becoming narrower upwards. The body is about 34 inches long, of
which 7-1/2 come on to the finger-board. There are four frets on the
finger-board. It has four strings in two thicknesses tuned, according
to Dr. Müller, prime, quint, octave, tenth, like an infantry bugle,
but Dr. Isawa gives no less than six accordances. The Biwa is played
with a bill-formed batsi 6-1/2 inches long, made of horn, wood,
tortoiseshell, or ivory.



[Illustration: XLVIII]

PLATE XLVIII.

MARIMBA, OF SOUTH AFRICA.


A Zulu harmonicon in two views, the back and front. There are ten
bars, each with a gourd resonator attached to it. It is played with
drumsticks, one in each hand. This Marimba was presented to me by Mr.
John Robertson, of Durban, Natal, and he has furnished the following
details respecting it.

The Zulu name, Marimba, is varied by Izambilo; the former is the
better known. This instrument is made by the Mindonga tribe, whose
country marches with the Portuguese settlement of Inhambane on the
East Coast. The wood of the bars is called Intzari. The resonators
are the shell of a fruit known as Strychnos M'Kenii, or the Kafir
orange. The balls of the drumsticks are of native rubber. The
Marimba is played either resting upon the ground or suspended from
the performer's neck by a cord. Native gum is employed to bind the
larger and smaller shells forming each resonator. The cord used is
the intestine of the aulacodus, or cane rat. As I have remarked in
describing the Siamese instruments, harmonicons of wood and metal
are very widely spread--throughout the Indian archipelago, in Siam
and Burma, among the hill tribes of India and the Kafirs of Africa.
The natives of the little American Republic of Costa Rica regard the
Marimba as their national musical instrument. The tuning follows the
equal heptatonic division, which allows of the mean or neuter thirds,
ruling in Siam, and appreciated by many Eastern ears. In Java,
however, it is not so; and, as far as could be judged, by examining
the instruments played on by the native Javese at the London Aquarium
in 1882 (other instruments apparently gave different results), there
are two distinct Javese tunings,--the one, called Salendro, an
ideally equal pentatonic, or five interval scale in the octave, the
other, called Pelog, a heptatonic, or seven interval scale in the
octave, the law of which has not been determined. From the latter are
selected sets of five notes to form pentatonic scales, presenting
remarkable differences.



INDEX


                                       INTRODUCTION.                   PLATE.

  AFRANIO, Inventor                                                    xxxix.

  Alard, Delphin, Violinist                     xiv.                  xxviii.

  "Alard" Stradivarius Violin                     x.                    xxvi.

  Al F[=a]r[=a]bi, on Arab Music                 xv.

  Anna Ghárpure (Mahrátti), on the Sitár                                  xl.

  Archlute                                      xvi.                     xxi.


  BACH, J.S.                                             iv. xix. xxx. xxxii.

  Bach, C.P.E.                                                         xxxii.

  Bagpipe, Calabrian                             xv.                      iv.

  Bagpipe, Highland                             xvi.

  Bagpipe, Irish                                 xv.                       v.

  Bagpipe, Lowland                               xv.                       v.

  Bagpipe, Northumbrian, ancient                 xv.                       v.

  Bagpipe, Northumbrian, modern                  xv.                       v.

  Bagpipe, Bellows                                                         v.

  Bagpipe, Scale                                 xv.                       v.

  Bainbridge, W. (flageolet-maker)                                   xxxviii.

  Balaläika, Russian                                                    xxiv.

  Balaläika, Russian, tuning                                            xxiv.

  Balloon Guitar, Chinese                                               xlii.

  Bandurria, tuning                                                    xxiii.

  Baron, G., on Lutes                                                    xvi.

  Barbu, hurdy-gurdy player                                              xxx.

  Barrington, Hon. Daines,
    on the Welsh Crwth                         xxiv.

  Basse de Viole                                                         xix.

  Basset Horn                                                            xli.

  Bassoon                                       xvi.                   xxxix.

  Baton, improved the hurdy-gurdy                                        xxx.

  Batsi, Japanese plectrum                                             xlvii.

  Beating Reed                                xviii.                     xii.

  Bebung (Clavichord)                                                  xxxii.

  Been (Vína Sitár)                                                       xl.

  Bell, C.D. (F.S.A. Scot.),
    on Gaelic Harps                                                       ii.

  Bell Harp                                                              xxx.

  Bell Harp, scale                                                       xxx.

  Berlioz, H., on the Viola d'Amore                                    xxvii.

  Bible Regal                                 xviii.                    xiii.

  Biblioteca Estense, Modena                                             xiv.

  Bingley, on the Welsh Crwth                                           xxiv.

  Biwa, Japanese                                xix.                   xlvii.

  Biwa, Japanese, tuning                                               xlvii.

  Boddington, H. (Dulcimer)                                             xvii.

  Boehm, T., improved the flute                 xvi.

  Bombardone                                                           xxxix.

  Bourdon, Musette                                                     iv. v.

  Bourdon, Organ                                                          xi.

  Broadwood, John, harpsichord
    and pianoforte maker                      xxiii.                  xxxiii.

  Buccina, Roman                                xiv.                  xxxvii.

  Bugle, Cavalry                                xiv.                   xxxvi.

  Bull, W., trumpet-maker                                              xxxvi.

  Burgmote Horns                               xiii.                       i.

  Burney, Dr., _Musical Researches
    in Germany_                                                       xxxiii.


  CELTIC Harps                                   xx.                 ii. iii.

  Cenemella, Italian rustic reed pipe           xiv.

  Cetera, Italian                                 x.          ix. xiv. xxvii.

  Cetera, tuning                                                         xiv.

  Chalumeau, Musette                                                      iv.

  Chanot, George, violin-maker                                          xxiv.

  Chanterelle, melody string                                         xv. xvi.

  Chappell (Double Spinet)                                                xx.

  Ch'in (Scholar's Lute), Chinese               xix.

  Chinese Instruments                           xix.               xliv. xlv.

  Chitarrone                                     xi.                     xxi.

  Chiterna                                                             xxiii.

  Chopin, F.                                                          xxxiii.

  Chouquet, G., musicologist                                            xxxi.

  Chromatic Key-board                          xvii.                      xi.

  Chromatic Scale                              xvii.

  Cimbalon, Hungarian Dulcimer                                          xvii.

  Cistre, French                                             ix. xiv. xxviii.

  Cither, English                                 x.         ix. xiv. xxviii.

  Clarinet, Alto                                                       xxxix.

  Clarsach, Gaelic Harp                          xx.                 ii. iii.

  Clavichord                            xxii. xxiii.                   xxxii.

  Clavicembalo (Italian),
    Clavicimbalum (Latin)                      xxii.                      vi.

  Clavecin (French)                                                   xxxiii.

  Clavicytherium, Upright Spinet               xxii.                      vi.

  Cohen, Rev. Francis (Jewish music)           xiii.

  Cornamusa, Cornemuse                           xv.                      iv.

  Cornet                                                              xxxvii.

  Corno di Bassetto                                                    xxxix.

  Corporation Canterbury                       xiii.                       i.

  Corporation Dover                            xiii.                       i.

  Correr, Count (of Venice),
    Collection of Musical Instruments                                     vi.

  Cousineau, improved the harp                                         xxxii.

  Crocodile, Siamese                            xix.                   xliii.

  Crompton, G. ("Hellier"
    Stradivarius Violin)                                                 xxv.

  Cruit, Crot, Gaelic                            xx.                    xxiv.

  Crwth, Welsh                                   xx.                    xxiv.

  Crwth, tunings                                                        xxiv.

  Cymbalum Decachordum                                                    ix.


  DALE, H.J. (Spinet)                                                   xxii.

  Day, C.R. (43rd Light Infantry),
    on Indian Music                                              xlii. xliii.

  Dennys, N.B. (Member Northern Asiatic
    Society), on Chinese Musical Instruments                            xliv.

  Divided Spinet Keys                                                   xxii.

  Dolciano                                      xvi.                     xli.

  Donaldson, G. (Clavicytherium,
    Rizzio Guitar, Cetera, Theorbo,
    Double Spinet, Chitarrone, Quinterna,
    Mandolines)                                          vi. x. xiv. xvi. xx.
                                                           xxi. xxiii. xxxiv.

  Drones, Drone Bass                             xv.              iv. v. xli.

  Drums, Hindu                                   ix.                     xli.

  Dulcimer                                      xxi.                    xvii.

  Dulcimer, scale                                                       xvii.

  Dumon, flute-player                                                xxxviii.


  Ellis, A.J., (F.R.S., F.S.A.),
    on Musical Scales of Various
    Nations, etc.                               xvi.             v. xl. xliv.

  Empress Maria Theresa's Harpsichord         xxiii.                  xxxiii.

  Engel, C., musicologist                   ix. xix.    xv. xxiii. xxx. xxiv.

  Erard, S., improved the harp                                         xxxiv.

  Erh-hsien, Chinese                                                    xliv.

  Esrar, Hindu                                                            xl.

  Evans, R., Welsh crwth-maker                                          xxiv.

  Evelyn's _Diary_                                        iii. viii. xv. xvi.
                                                                       xxiii.


  FAGOTTO                                                              xxxix.

  Fanfare, Jubilee                                                      xxxv.

  Fantasia Cromatica                                                   xxxii.

  Ferrari, Miss (Bible Regal)                                           xiii.

  Flageolet, Double                                                  xxxviii.

  Fleischer, O., on the Lute                                              xv.

  Flûte à bec                                                        xxxviii.

  Flûte Douce                                                        xxxviii.

  Flute, German                               xxiii.                 xxxviii.

  Frederick the Great                                                xxxviii.

  Free Reed                                   xviii.                  xxxiii.


  GAELIC Harps                                                       ii. iii.

  Gand, E., violin-maker                                              xxviii.

  Garrett, wind-instrument maker                                       xxxix.

  Gaultier, Denis, lute-player                                            xv.

  Giterna                                                              xxiii.

  Glen, J. and R., bagpipe-makers                             iv. v. xxxviii.
                                                                       xxxix.

  Glen, R. (F.S.A. Scot.)                     xxiii.

  Gourd Resonators                               xx.                 xxxviii.

  Gresley, Rev. Nigel
    (Queen Elizabeth's Virginal)                                        viii.

  Grove, Sir George (Dictionary
    of Music and Musicians)                   xviii.              xviii. xix.
                                                                   xx. xxvii.

  Guarnerius del Gesù                           xii.                    xxvi.

  Guitar, David Rizzio's                          x.                       x.

  Guitar, Stradivarius                            x.                    xxix.

  Gunn, J., Highland Harps                                           ii. iii.


  HAAS, J.W., trumpet-maker                                           xxxvii.

  Hackbrett                                                             xvii.

  Handel                                                              xxxiii.

  Harmonicons                                     x.                     xlv.

  Harp, Assyrian                                xix.

  Harp, Egyptian                                xix.

  Harp, Irish (Brian Boru)                                           ii. iii.

  Harp, Lamont                                   xx.                     iii.

  Harp, Pedal                                                          xxxiv.

  Harp, Queen Mary's                             xx.                      ii.

  Harper, T., trumpeter                                          xxxv. xxxvi.

  Harpsichord                                 xxiii.                  xxxiii.

  Harpsichord, stops                                                  xxxiii.

  Harp-way tuning                                                 xix. xxvii.

  Harris, J., trumpet-maker                                           xxxiii.

  Hart, George, _History of the Violin_                                  xxv.

  Haydn                                                                   xv.

  "Hellier" Stradivarius Violin                                          xxv.

  Heptatonic Scale                              xxi.            xlii. xlviii.

  Hiji-riki, Japanese                                                    xlv.

  Hiji-riki, Japanese, scale                                             xlv.

  Hill and Sons, Violin-makers                                 xx. xxv. xxix.

  Hill, Arthur and Alfred,
    Collection of Musical Instruments                                    xxv.

  Hindustâni or Northern Indian music                                     xl.

  Hipkins, A.J. (F.S.A.)
    (Lute, Balaläika, Kokiu, Marimba)                        xv. xxiv. xlvii.
                                                                      xlviii.

  Historic Concerts (1885)                                 xii. xix. xxxviii.

  Historic Rooms (Music
    Loan Collection, 1885)                                       viii. xxxiv.

  Hochbrucker, improved the harp                                       xxxiv.

  Horns, Bronze and Ivory                      xiii.                  i. vii.

  Hu-ch'in, Chinese                                                     xliv.

  Huggins, Dr. W. (F.R.S.), on Violins                                  xxvi.

  Huggins, Mrs., Stradivarius violins                                    xxv.

  Hurdy-Gurdy                                    xv.                     xxx.

  Hurdy-Gurdy, scale and tunings                                         xxx.

  Huygens, Constantin,
    lute and theorbo player                                               xv.


  INDIA in London (1886)                                                  xl.

  Indian Instruments                             ix.                 xl. xli.

  Inventions Exhibition (1885)                xviii.                xii. xiv.

  Irish scale and modes                                                   ii.

  Isawa, S., on Japanese Music                                   xlvi. xlvii.

  Izambilo, Zulu                                                      xlviii.


  JACK (Harpsichord and Spinet)                                           vi.

  Jacobs, E., viol da gamba player                                       xix.

  Japanese Commission,
    Inventions Exhibition                     xxiii.

  Japanese Instruments                   xviii. xix.        xiv. xlvi. xlvii.

  Japanese Village (1885-7)                                      xlvi. xlvii.

  Javese Gambang (1882)                                               xlviii.

  Javese Salendro and Pelog                                           xlviii.

  Jewitt, Llewellyn (F.S.A.),
    on Ancient Horns                                                       i.

  Joachim, Dr. Joseph, on Stradivarius                                  xxvi.

  Joseph, E. (Chitarrone
    and Pedal Harp)                                               xxi. xxxiv.


  KARNÂTIK or Southern Indian Music                                       xl.

  Keene, S., spinet-maker                      xxii.                    xxii.

  Kettledrum, State                              ix.                    xxxv.

  Khong Yai, Siamese                              x.                   xliii.

  Kit                                                                   xxxi.

  Khuruj (Hindu keynote)                                                  xl.

  "King Joseph" Guarnerius Violin                                       xxvi.

  Kinnor, Hebrew                                                         xix.

  Kirkman, Jacob, harpsichord-maker                                   xxxiii.

  Kirsnick, put free reeds in organs          xviii.                    xlii.

  Klui, Siamese                                                         xlii.

  Kokiu, Japanese                               xix.                   xlvii.

  Kokiu, Japanese, tuning                                              xlvii.

  Koto, Japanese                   viii. xviii. xix.                    xlvi.

  Koto, Japanese, tuning                                                xlvi.

  Kratzenstein, Professor,
    inventor of free reed
    stops in organs                                                     xlii.

  Kraus figlio, A., musicologist                                      xxxvii.

  Krebar, G., theorbo-maker                                              xvi.


  LAND, J.P.N., on Arab Music
    and Correspondence of Huygens               xvi.                      xv.

  La-pa, Chinese                                                         xlv.

  Laurie, David (Guarnerius del Gesù
    and Stradivarius Violins)                                           xxvi.

  Lavoix fils, Henri, on Music
    of the Early Renaissance                                               v.

  Lazarus, H., clarinet-player                                         xxxix.

  Lehmann, R. (Chitarrone)                                               xvi.

  Lituus, Roman                                 xiv.                  xxxvii.

  Liuto Attiorbato, Theorboed Lute                                       xvi.

  Lotz, improved the basset horn                                       xxxix.

  Louvet, hurdy-gurdy maker                                              xxx.

  Love Viol (Viola d'Amore)                                            xxvii.

  Lute                                     xi. xxii.                      xv.

  Lute, tuning                                                            xv.

  Lute, Queen Elizabeth's                        xi.                      ix.

  Lyra Viol                                                            xxvii.

  Lyre, Greek                                   xix.


  MACE, Thomas, on Lutes                                                  xv.

  Mahati Vína, Hindu                                                      xl.

  Máhdyamâ (melody string), Hindu                                         xl.

  Mahillon, Victor, musicologist
    and writer on acoustics                                 xii. xix. xxxiii.
                                                             xxxvii. xl. xlv.

  Malcolmson, A.W. (Trumpet)                                           xxxvi.

  Mandoline, Milanese                            xi.              xxiii. xxx.

  Mandoline, Neapolitan                          xi.                   xxiii.

  Mandoline, tunings                                                   xxiii.

  Marimba, Zulu                                   x.                  xlviii.

  Maskell, A. (Music Loan Collection)                                  xxxiv.

  Mattheson, on the Viola d'Amore                                      xxvii.

  Mean or Neuter Thirds                          xv.                       v.

  Mee, Rev. J.H., on Abbé Vogler              xviii.                    xliv.

  Mercator, medal of Sir Michael,
    instrument-maker to Henry VIII.                                    xviii.

  Mersenne (A.D. 1636),
    on Musical Instruments                                       xv. xvi. xx.

  Moon Guitar, Chinese                                                   xlv.

  Mozart                                                        xxiii. xxxix.

  M'ridang, Hindu                                ix.                     xli.

  Mueller, Ivan, improved
    the basset horn                                                    xxxix.

  Mueller, Dr., on Japanese
    Musical Instruments                                                xlvii.

  Musette                                        xv.                      iv.

  Museum, Brussels Conservatoire                        xi. xii. xiii. xviii.
                                                             xix. xxxvii. xl.

  Museum, Paris Conservatoire                                        xx. xxx.

  Museum, South Kensington                                          viii. xx.

  Music Class Room, Edinburgh                               xxvii. xxxi. xli.
                                                                   xliv. xlv.

  Music Loan Collection,
    South Kensington (1872)                                     xxiv. xxviii.

  Music Loan Collection,
    Royal Albert Hall (1885)                  xxiii.


  NAGARA, Indian                                                         xli.

  Nahabat, Indian                                                        xli.

  Nakkera Khaneh, Indian                                                 xli.

  Narès Varariddhi, H.R.H. Prince             xxiii.             xlii. xliii.

  Nautch Girls, Indian                                                   xli.

  Nefer, Egyptian                              viii.

  Nimfali (Portable Organ)                                              xiii.

  North, C. M'Intyre, on
    Highland Musical Instruments                             iii. iv. v. vii.

  North, Roger, treble viol
    and viol da gamba player                                             xix.


  OAKELEY, Professor Sir Herbert,
    Mus. Doc. (Viola d'Amore, etc.)                                    xxvii.

  Oboe                                     xiv. xvi.                   xxxix.

  Oboe d'Amore                                                         xxxix.

  Oboe da Caccia                                                       xxxix.

  O'Curry, Eugene, on Irish
    Musical Instruments                                                   ii.

  Oldham, C. (Stradivarius Violins)                                      xxv.

  Oliphant                                      xiv.                     vii.

  Organ, Portable                         xvi. xvii.                    xiii.

  Organ, Positive                         xvi. xvii.                      xi.

  Orpheoreon                                     xi.                      ix.


  PAGDEN, Mrs. F. (Bible Regal)                                         xiii.

  Pagnerre, L., on Barbu,
    hurdy-gurdy player                                                   xxx.

  Pandore                                        xi.                      ix.

  Pauer, Professor, suggested
    re-introduction of viol d'amore                                      xix.

  Payne, E.J., on Violins                                   xix. xxvi. xxvii.

  Pedal Harp                                                           xxxiv.

  Pee, Siamese                                                          xlii.

  Peking Band (1884)                                               xliv. xiv.

  Penorcon                                       xi.                      ix.

  Pentatonic Scales                             xix.              xliv. xlvi.
                                                               xlvii. xlviii.

  Pepys's _Diary_                                             xviii. xxxviii.

  Ph[=a]n, Siamese                            xviii.

  Pi-p'a, Phi-pe, Chinese                       xix.                    xliv.

  Pi-p'a, tuning                                                        xliv.

  Playford, John, on Viol d'Amore                                      xxvii.

  Pochette                                                              xxxi.

  Pommer, precursor of bassoon                                         xxxix.

  Portable Organ or Portative             xvi. xvii.                    xiii.

  Positive Organ                          xvi. xvii.                      xi.

  Praetorius (A.D. 1619),
    on Musical Instruments                     xvii.        ix. xi. xii. xiv.
                                                                   xx. xxvii.

  Psaltery                                      xxi.                    xvii.

  Pua, Spanish plectrum                                                xxiii.

  Purcell, Henry                                                        xxii.

  Pyne, J. Kendrick (Dulcimer)                                          xvii.


  QAN[=U]N                                      xxi.                    xvii.

  Queen Victoria                         xiv. xxiii.                    xxxv.

  Queen Elizabeth's Lute                         xi.                      ix.

  Queen Elizabeth's Virginal                   xxii.                    viii.

  Queen Mary's Harp                              xx.                      ii.

  Quinterna                                                            xxiii.


  RÂGA, Hindu                                                             xl.

  Rám Pál Singh, H.H. the Rájah                                           xl.

  Ranat Ek, Siamese                               x.                   xliii.

  Recorders                                                          xxxviii.

  Regal                                       xviii.               xii. xiii.

  Reissmann, Dr. A., on
    Musical Instruments                                                   xx.

  Riaño, J.F., on Early
    Spanish Music                              xvii.

  Rizzio, David                                   x.                       x.

  Robertson, John (Marimba)                                           xlviii.

  Rose, John, maker of
    Queen Elizabeth's Lute                                                ix.

  Roses, rosettes in sound-boards                                        xiv.

  Rotta, Rote, Mediæval                          xx.                    xxiv.

  Rowbotham, J.F.,
    Musical History                              ix.                     xli.

  Royal College of Music                                                  xl.

  Ruckers, harpsichord-makers            viii. xxii.               xviii. xx.


  ST. CECILIA Paintings                        xvii.                      xi.

  Sand, George, _Les Maîtres
    Sonneurs_                                                             iv.

  Sandbach, W., trumpet-maker                                        xxxviii.

  Santir, Persian                                                       xvii.

  San-hsien, Chinese                                                    xliv.

  San-hsien, tuning                                                     xliv.

  Saw Duang, Siamese                                                    xlii.

  Saw Oo, Siamese                                                       xlii.

  Saw Tai, Siamese                                                      xlii.

  Saxe, C., cornet-maker                                              xxxvii.

  Scarlatti, D., composer
    and harpsichord-player                                            xxxiii.

  Scheltzer, S., improved
    the bassoon                                                        xxxix.

  Sê, Chinese                                 xviii.

  Shaw, W., trumpet-maker                                               xxxv.

  Shawm, Schalmey, precursor of oboe                                   xxxix.

  Shêng, Chinese                              xviii.                    xliv.

  Shêng, Chinese, scale                                                 xliv.

  Shepherd's pipe                               xiv.

  Sho, Japanese                                 xvi.

  Shophar, Jewish                         xii. xiii.                       i.

  Shophar, flourishes                           xii.

  Short Octave in organs
    and spinets                                               vi. viii. xxii.

  Shudi, B. (Tschudi),
    harpsichord-maker                         xxiii.                  xxxiii.

  Siam, H.M. the King of                      xviii.

  Siamese Instruments                          viii.             xlii. xliii.

  Siamese Scale                                  xv.

  Siamisen, Japanese                            xix.                   xlvii.

  Siamisen, Japanese, tunings                                          xlvii.

  Sien-tzê, Chinese                                                     xliv.

  Silbermann, G., pianoforte-maker                                    xxxiii.

  Sitár, Hindu                                  xxi.                      xl.

  Sitár, Hindu, tunings                                                   xl.

  Sitár, Hindu, modes                                                     xl.

  Skelton, John, Poet Laureate
    and author of a poem on the
    "Claricorde"                                                       xxxii.

  So-na, Chinese                                                         xlv.

  So-na, Chinese, scale                                                  xlv.

  Sono Koto, Japanese                                                    xlv.

  Sordini                                                               xxxi.

  Spanish Dances                                                        xxix.

  Spencer, Earl (Oliphant)                      xiv.                     vii.

  Spinet                                  xii. xxii.          viii. xx. xvii.

  Spinet, Double                               xxii.                      xx.

  Spinet, Upright                              xxii.                      vi.

  Spinetta Traversa, Spinetti                                    xviii. xxii.

  S'ruti, Hindu                                  xx.

  Stainer, Dr., on Hebrew
    Musical Instruments                         xix.

  Steuart, C. Durrant
    (Highland Harps)                                                 ii. iii.

  Stone, Dr. W.H., on
    Wind Instruments                                                   xxxix.

  Stradivarius                                    x.               xxv. xxvi.
                                                          xxviii. xxix. xxxi.

  Súrsanga, Hindu                                                         xl.

  Sympathetic Strings                            xx.                   xxvii.

  Synagogue, Great (London)                     xii.

  Syrian Scale                                   xv.

  Syrinx                                        xiv.


  TABLA, Hindu                                                           xli.

  Tagore, Rájah Sir S.M.,
    on Indian Music                                                  xl. xli.

  Ta'khay, Siamese                              xix.                   xliii.

  Tam-Tam, Indian                                                        xli.

  Tangent, Clavichord                                                  xxxii.

  Taruffe (Sitár)                                                        xli.

  Taschengeige                                                          xxxi.

  Telyn, Welsh                                   xx.

  Tenoroon                                      xvi.                   xxxix.

  Thât, Hindu                                                             xl.

  Theorbo                                    xi. xx.                     xvi.

  Thorough Bass                                  xi.              xv. xxxiii.

  Ti-ch'in, Chinese                                                     xlii.

  Tielke, Joachim,
    stringed-instrument maker                                     xix. xxiii.

  Ti-tzu, Chinese                                                        xlv.

  Ti-tzu, Chinese, scale                                                 xlv.

  Tollemache, Lord (Queen
    Elizabeth's Lute)                                                     ix.

  Tourte, François,
    violin-bow maker                                               xxv. xxvi.

  Trumpet                                                        xxxv. xxxvi.
                                                                      xxxvii.

  Trumpet, Cavalry                              xiv.                   xxxvi.

  Trumpet, State                                xiv.                    xxxv.

  Twining, Miss Elizabeth,
    Ruckers Harpsichord                                                xviii.


  URH-HSIEN, Ur-heen, Chinese                                           xliv.


  VALDRIGHI, Count L.F.
    (Modena), musicologist                                             xxxix.

  Van Aalst, J.A. (Shanghai)
    on Chinese Musical Instruments                                 xliv. xlv.

  Vander Straeten, E.,
    musicologist                                                          xv.

  Venetian Swell, harpsichord
    and organ                                 xxiii.                  xxxiii.

  Vielle, Hurdy-Gurdy                                                iv. xxx.

  Vína, Indian                                  xxi.                      xl.

  Vína, Indian, tunings                                                   xl.

  Viola Bastarda                                                       xxvii.

  Viola d'Amore, Viole d'Amour           xii. xxiii.                   xxvii.

  Viola d'Amore, tuning                                                xxvii.

  Viola da Gamba                         xii. xxiii.                     xix.

  Viola da Gamba, tuning                                                 xix.

  Violin                                        xii.               xxv. xxvi.

  Violin bow                                    xxi.               xxv. xxvi.

  Virdung (A.D. 1511), on
    Musical Instruments                                              vi. xii.

  Virginal                                viii. xxi.         viii. xviii. xx.

  Vogler, Abbé, advocated
    free reeds in organs                      xviii.                    xliv.

  Vvendelio, lute-maker                          xi.                      xv.

  Vuillaume, J.B., violin-maker                                 xxvi. xxviii.


  WAGNER                                  xiii. xvi.

  Wales, H.R.H. the Prince
    of (Cavalry Bugle)                   xiv. xxiii.                   xxxvi.

  Weale, W.H.J., Catalogue
    of rare MSS. and
    printed books (Music
    Loan Collection)                                                   xviii.

  Webb, Henry, reintroduced
    the viol da gamba                                                    xix.

  Webb, Joseph (Cavalry Trumpet)                                       xxxvi.

  Wellesley, Gerald (Clavichord)                                       xxxii.

  Welsh Harp                                     xx.

  Willmott, Miss E.A.
    (Bell Harp and Hurdy-Gurdy)                                          xxx.

  Wit, Paul de, viol da
    gamba player                                                         xix.

  Wood, George (Japanese Koto)                                          xlvi.

  Wynne-Finch, Colonel
    (Welsh Crwth)                                                       xxiv.


  YANG-CH'IN, Chinese                                                   xvii.

  Yueh-ch'in, Chinese                                                    xiv.


  ZALZAL, Arabic lutenist                        xv.

  Zampogna, Italian                             xiv.                      iv.

  Zimbalon, Italian                                                     xvii.

  Zoeller, C., on the
    Viola d'Amore                                                      xxvii.


THE END


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