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The
Music Lover’s Library

CHATS ON VIOLONCELLOS

The Music Lover’s Library

CHATS ON VIOLINS
OLGA RACSTER

STORIES FROM THE OPERAS
First Series
GLADYS DAVIDSON

STORIES FROM THE OPERAS
Second Series
GLADYS DAVIDSON

CHATS ON VIOLONCELLOS
OLGA RACSTER

CHATS WITH MUSIC LOVERS
ANNIE W. PATTERSON, Mus.Doc., B.A.

THE ARTIST’S WIFE.
A. van Dyck.

CHATS
ON
VIOLONCELLOS

BY
OLGA RACSTER
AUTHOR OF “CHATS ON VIOLINS”

With 18 Illustrations

LONDON
T. WERNER LAURIE
CLIFFORD’S INN

TO
MY FRIEND
Mrs Blackett of Arbigland
THIS VOLUME IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY
The Authoress

London, 1907

PREFACE

No prefatory remarks are necessary to introduce the reader to the following pages. They emanated, in the first place, from a desire for personal instruction, and what the French term le soulagement du cœur, a combination—according to Vauvenargues—calculated to prove useful to one’s fellows, car personne est seul de son espéce. Those who live on my plane of thought will welcome this volume, and those who do not, will easily find a way out of the difficulty presented to them by their attempted perusal of its pages: most modern houses are now provided with wastepaper baskets of ample proportions!

My true reason for allowing myself to wander into the paths of a preamble, springs from a desire to thank my friends and colleagues for their assistance in supplying me with many interesting facts.

In particular I am indebted to Sir George Donaldson for permission to reproduce his Duiffoproucart Viol; to Dr William H. Cummings for the use of his interesting old engraving of Benjamin Hallet; to Mr W. E. Whitehouse for notes concerning Signor Piatti; to Mr Edward Heron Allen for courteous admittance to his valuable library, and for permission to reproduce the handsome carved violoncello by Galli; to Mr John Bridges for his photographs of “The King” Amati, and for supplying me with many points relating to its history; and to Miss Gertrude Roberts for helpful research at the British Museum.

Also I waft hearty acknowledgments to that great host of musical historians—my predecessors—to whose various records from century to century we owe our present knowledge.

Olga Racster.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Opening bars of the Chant of Ab’oo Zeyd

Chats on Violoncellos

CHAT THE FIRST
Introduction

Fog—The South Kensington Museum—The Ravanastron—Arabia—The Kemangeh à Gouze—Egypt, and the Rabab

Is there any city in the world that can—metaphorically speaking—hold up its head beside this place of mystery—London in a fog? Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St Petersburg, New York—what can they do in the production of a bilious-green, murky-yellow species of hyperphysical abomination? Nothing! Yet we English are not in the least proud of our prerogative. Perhaps elation is impossible among such depressing surroundings, or, perhaps the true British spirit of being satisfied with everything that is British, because it is British, predominates too utterly to admit of any other emotion.

From whatever cause our inertia springs, the clue is too deeply locked away in every Cockney’s heart to be revealed. The effect, however, is plainly seen in the total lack of epic poetry, or chromatic musical depiction of the thing. Our literature does not teem with such lines as:

“The ’cellist stood in the empty hall,

Whence all but himself had fled,

‘’Tis the fog,’ he sighed, ‘that has tired them all

And sent them so early to bed!’”

No! genius ignores the subject, and fills in the weary hours of darkness with sighs, and gasps, and chokes, like ordinary mortals.

What an outlook greets us this dull November day! Misty bricks and mortar emerge and disappear like swiftly buried cities. Hazy, indefinite, dubious figures loom upon us out of the darkness, like ancestral ghosts; dull thuds, faint cries, strange stampings and gratings are transmitted to our ears with telephonic minuteness; and all the while our throats are aching, our eyes are streaming, our noses are smarting, the motor bus is useless, and—we don’t know where we are.

Perhaps in all the gamut of human sensibility there can be no more creepy sensation than that of being lost in familiar surroundings. The ruler of Hades himself, or Jupiter with his thunderbolts, could not invent a more refined torture than that consummated in the paradox: “Here I am!—Where am I?” Yet, how ordinary has this impression become to the dweller in London.

“Here, boy! can you tell me where I am? I thought I was near the South Kensington Station, but—I begin to be horribly puzzled. That great thing opposite looks just like the Parthenon!”

“Parth yer on!” exclaims a little urchin, apparently emerging from nowhere, and brandishing a torch as big as himself—“Parth, did yer say? Yer on the parth roight enough! Want a loight, loidy?” he adds, reserving further information until he is sure of a customer.

“Yes, yes, to be sure! Don’t leave me whatever you do! Where am I?” distractedly. “What is that place opposite? I saw it a moment ago, but—it’s gone again!” A pause—similar to that which precedes each new slide at a magic-lantern show—follows this speech, then out of the darkness comes the excited exclamation: “There! there it is! Now, what is it?”

“That there?” hoarsely mutters our impish guide with a grin. “Why, that there’s the Kensin’ton Mooseum.”

“The Kensington Museum! Surely it can’t be! Why, it is the very place I have been looking for for hours past. Do you think you can get me across?”

“Git yer across!” with an accent of scorn, “o’ corse I can git yer across. You just keep close alonga me, loidy, and we’ll git over in two ticks.”

With torch held aloft and a hopeful heart he makes a start and—returns to the comparative safety of the pavement. Then he makes a second hoppy trial—with the same result. We begin to feel nervous, and search in our memory for some battle-cry or epic poem with which to fortify our courage, and drop upon Montrose’s lines:

“He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small,

Who dares not put it to the touch

To gain or lose it all.”

“Now then, ’ere you are, look sharp!” shouts our familiar urchin, utterly ignoring our poetic mutterings. Straight away he plunges into the chaos like an arrow shot from a bow. We follow blindly, breathlessly, with the grace of a polar bear after a gadfly, and in an incredibly short space of time reach the safety of the Museum doorway.

What a transformation scene greets our eyes when we enter! Here is a little Paradise indeed: food, warmth, light, and all the treasures of the Universe besides. Without—we know—are horrors worse than Bluebeard’s dungeons or the Underground Railway at Gower Street. But what matter to us now if the sky rains salt herrings and the streets be full of roaring bulls, for we are safe from the great Babel, although we can see its stir if we will.

Come! sober scholar, gay flaneur, or ignoramus (it is all the same), rest, and drink in the fascinations of these armies of priceless china, silver, glass, pictures, and furniture which shine, and glint, and sparkle, and peep, in tantalising invitation! Here are rare editions: historic relics: miniatures, lace, statuary—in short, a banquet to suit all tastes; and here, more particularly, in the least prominent position, is a unique collection of musical instruments, hiding their heads in remoteness. It is regrettable that many of these interesting relics of the past are placed in such dark corners that a good deal of nose-flattening and eye-straining is necessary to see them at all. Still, one is well rewarded for any slight personal inconvenience sustained in viewing them, for, apart from their special interest, do they not stand before us as the mute historians of the past?

Look at this old virginal, encased in what was once rich red velvet, but now faded and worn with the touch of many a vanished hand! Behold those keys, brown with age! Yet these were once white and responsive to the taper fingers of that most consummate diplomatist, Queen Bess. Surely it was just here, on this side, that my Lord of Leicester stood bending his proud head to eagerly plead an answer to his oft-repeated suit! Or perhaps it was impulsive Essex plucked and twitched the thing, while he sued for the pardon of an elderly, capricious coquette!

A little to the left of the historic virginal is the harp of the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, brave owner of that empty title, Reine de France. What has been the history of the graceful thing since that short space of calm when its tones resounded in the Queen’s Salon at the Tuileries? Was it also dragged after the poor lady by a cruel infuriated mob, like the harp of her friend, Mademoiselle de Lamballe? Who knows! The tumbrels seem to rumble by us as we gaze, and the sickening refrain:

“Madame Veto avait promis

De faire égorger tout Paris;

Mais son coup a manqué

Grâce à nos canonniers.

Dansans la Carmagnole

Vive le son,

Vive le son,

Dansans la Carmagnole

Vive le son du canon”

rings in our ears.

Close beside this melancholy relic is the cheering cast of Brian Borroimbe’s harp, which was played on by that versatile King of Ireland during the eleventh century. A little farther—in an obscure corner—is the fiddle said to have belonged to James I. of England, and almost beneath it is a cast of the beautifully carved violin which is generally supposed to have been given to the Earl of Leicester by Queen Elizabeth. Facing this is Handel’s harpsichord, a plain, workmanlike little instrument of neutral tint, and, and—can it be? or—is it only the shadow of that pillar there that deceives us into imagining that we see a misty outlined figure near the keyboard?

At first it appears to take the form of a little child, stretching his small fingers with loving patience from note to note, while now and again he glances timorously round, as though fearful of detection.

Surely now it is Mr Handel himself: this man before us, in full bob-wig and handsome habiliments, can be no other than the successful favourite of the highest in the land. There he sits, with an expression of “Vat de tevil do I care!” on his face, hammering out “The Harmonious Blacksmith.” Not the man to trouble himself about women, or succumb to the tender passion, yet women were ever helpful and friendly to him. As he plays, a strange medley of figures gather round him: there is handsome Sir Robert l’Estrange, smarting under the indignity of being called “Cromwell’s fiddler”: Cuzzoni—at a distance—for she has not forgotten Handel’s threat to throw her out of the window at the last rehearsal. Also there is the poet Gay, and Lord Burlington: Her Grace of Chandos, with her shadow, Mr Pope: Hogarth, Smollett, and that rogue, Colley Cibber, bursting with some merry squib, which must be bottled up until the end of Mr Handel’s piece, for fear of rousing that gentleman’s fiery temper.

Then quite suddenly the crowd fades away, leaving the lonely figure at the harpsichord. The outline has grown very faint, yet one can discern that it is the master still; older, gentler, feebler, with eyes that gaze, but cannot see. Genius is still the dominating power, neither age nor infirmity can destroy it. The groping fingers continue to pour forth that exquisite flow of music, which is with us now and will remain always, for his name is

One of the few immortal names

That were not born to die.

Turning away from the many interesting memories revived by the old harpsichord, we discover that we have turned our backs on a case of Asiatic instruments clustering round a double-bass of such ample proportions that it is impossible to ignore it.

“The Giant”—as the monster is aptly called—is massive in every way. It is tall—nearly ten feet—it is broad, stout, and, in addition to its bulky proportions, exercises a strange magnetic influence over the gazer. So forcible is its power, that one is compelled to stay and meditate beneath its shadow as though it were still part of the parent tree from which it was ruthlessly torn some hundred years ago. As we settle down to view this mighty example of the perfected form of the violin, stray facts concerning this instrument and others of its kind come to us in a hap-hazard fashion. Our memory is whipped into various whimsical recollections of big things and fat people. Irresistibly a reminiscence of the great Lablache is wafted to us. This gigantic singer was a humble double-bass in the orchestra of a theatre, in a small Italian town, before his glorious voice brought him renown. One evening, as he was preparing to finger his part in the orchestra, he heard that the principal bass singer was too indisposed to sing. Here was the chance of Lablache’s life, and—he took it. He filled the vacant bass singer’s part himself and gained such an instantaneous success that he forsook the double-bass for ever. Yet, although he discarded it, he could not quite get rid of its memory, for his very voice was reminiscent of its tones. No one noticed this resemblance more than Weber, who, hearing him a few months after his début, exclaimed involuntarily: “By heavens! he is a double-bass still!”

As for the biography of the big bass before us, it is short but honourable. Made in Italy—that happy land of lutherie—it was once the property of Domenico Dragonetti, who came to England in 1794 and gathered victorious laurels in this country until the day of his death. Amusing anecdotes are said to have flowed incessantly from the lips of this whimsical artist, yet nothing he said surpassed his ridiculous habit of making up a “no-language” out of several tongues. Although Dragonetti resided in London for upwards of forty years, yet until his dying day he could not converse for ten minutes without running into several different languages, and when he exchanged opinions with his bosom friend, Lindley, who stuttered frantically, the effect defied both description and imitation. There is a story on record that Dragonetti and Lindley were one day lounging down Wardour Street, which was then—as it is now—the haunt of the connoisseur, when they came upon a shop where, among other attractions, a parrot was put out for sale. The friends contemplated the bird for some time without speaking, until they attracted the attention of the shopman, who at once came out to them. Lindley began stumbling out endless questions to him, for the bird had taken his fancy, and Dragonetti poked in a query now and again in his own curious jargon. How old was the bird? What did it like to eat? Where did it come from? Was it a clever bird? Was it tame? and so on, ending, with a tremendous effort on Lindley’s part: “Ca-ca-can-can he-he-e et-t-t-talk?” The salesman, impatient of having been kept so long to no purpose, felt he would lose nothing by a little outburst of temper, so he turned upon his heel with the sarcastic reply: “Talk! I should think so, and a jolly sight better than either of you, or I’d wring his blooming neck.”

Dragonetti had no rival in his day, though Bottesini, about half-a-century later, could accomplish all that Dragonetti did. Indeed he did more, for he proved what wonderful effects could be produced by utilising the double-bass as a solo instrument, whereas Dragonetti was more particularly an orchestral genius. It is said that in private, however, he frequently amused his friends with wonderful flights on one string, or jocularly played a second violin part in a Quartet on his bulky instrument. Like Paganini his disproportionately long knobby fingers gave him a wonderful command and grip of the fingerboard, and he produced a tone like the great rolling pedal notes of an organ. So vast and penetrating was its quality, and so spirited his leadership of the double-basses, that his absence invariably called forth a comment from the audience on the weakness of the bass at such-and-such a concert.

Like Paganini, and many other famous artists, Dragonetti also possessed a cherished instrument, from which death alone parted him. The tone of this beautiful Gasparo da Salo is recorded to have been immense, and many were the occasions when its sonorous voice was the means of providing Dragonetti with the material for perpetrating one of his practical jokes. On the very day that the good monks of the monastery of St Pietro, near Venice, presented him with the double-bass, his high spirits led him into all kinds of pranks. Mad with delight at the possession of such a treasure, he carried it home and seated himself in the hall, with the bass planted before him. In response to a few strokes of his bow the bulky instrument emitted such thunderous rolling sounds that all the china and glass, even the pots and pans, began to rattle. Up from the kitchen department came the frightened inmates, hardly knowing what to expect, and they found nothing but—a slim lad, playing a big fiddle.

Returning to the double-bass before us, we must admit that the numerous large basses made in Italy and England, as well as during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was surprising. The conventional mind of the English can rarely create anything for itself in art, but must for ever imitate. Thus when they discovered that the Italian players who came to England used much larger double-basses than they were accustomed to, the order went forth at once: “Make ours large too!” The arrival of Gariboldie in London, in the reign of King George III., was the signal for much agitation amongst the King’s musicians, for it was understood that he was accompanied by an unusually large double-bass. Mr Nilbone, the principal bass, was in particular most anxious, and wrote the following letter to the eminent maker, William Forster, upon the matter[1]:—

Windsor, July 4th, 87 [1787].

Sir,—By his Majesty’s order you are to form a plan for a new double-bass; it is to be at least four inches wider, if not more, than that which you made and the depth according. You are to make it as well as possible—so as not to let any exceed it in England—as Gariboldie has sent to Italy for an uncommon large one both in goodness and size by the performance at the Abbey next year....[2]

For what exact purpose these monster instruments were used it is difficult to surmise, unless for the amusement of some “Giants of mighty bone and bold enterprise.” Perhaps some descendant of Anak, Og, or Goliath was the first owner of this monster; some colossal virtuoso who made his fellow-artists tremble—like jelly in a bowl—when he arbitrarily forbade them to take their encores. Certainly the advertisement columns of The Daily Advertiser some two hundred years ago contain so many announcements of giants, that one might easily be led to suppose that they were a drug in the market at that time.

An account of a bass which must have been quite as massive—possibly larger—as the one before us is given in his “Memoirs” by the Baron de Pollnitz, an Austrian nobleman, who visited many courts during the latter part of the eighteenth century. He received a particularly gratifying reception at the court of Duke Maurice of Saxony, whom he discovered to be an enthusiastic collector of musical instruments, and more especially of bass-viols. In the following passage the Baron describes his visit to the Museum where they were stored:—“The Prince conducted me into a hall which was hung with bass-viols from the bottom to the top, in the same manner as an arsenal is with helmets and breastplates. In the middle of the hall was a viol which was distinguished from all the rest. It reached up to the very ceiling, and there was a ladder set, which such as had the curiosity to take particular view were obliged to ascend, for surely it was the most stately instrument of the kind that was ever made. The Duke made me take particular notice of it, and was pleased with the admiration I expressed of it.”

In an interview with one of the Duke’s gentlemen-in-waiting which followed the reception at the palace, the Machiavelian-like use to which this double-bass had been put is revealed with startling clearness: “As for my august master,” remarks the garrulous courtier, “his fancy runs only on bass-viols, and whoever solicits him for employment or any other favour cannot do better than accommodate his arsenal with one of these instruments. That large one which you saw in the room where all the viols are kept was presented to him by one who wished to be a Privy Councillor. His petition was granted, and had he asked for anything else he might have had it.”

Another huge double-bass is described by Mr William Gardiner, of Leicester, in his delightfully chatty book, “Music and Friends.” He recounts coming across the monster in his native town in 1786, and says: “It was of such a height that Mr Martin [the maker] was obliged to cut a hole in the ceiling to let the head through; so that it was tuned by going into the room above.”

If either of these instruments had by chance found its way to the East, what a sensation it would have created! The Oriental in all generations has cherished a fine reverence for bulk, apparently measuring the intellect by the dimensions of the body, and this is no doubt his reason for constructing his gods in such awe-inspiring proportions. Not only does he make them large, but he also carefully preserves the traditional history of his country with which they are intertwined, and it is interesting to observe what a goodly part music plays in these annals. For instance, to the assumed founder of the Chinese Empire, B.C. 3000, the God Fohi, called “The Son of Heaven,” is assigned the invention of several stringed instruments, while their musical scale—distributed in the manner of the black notes on the piano—was derived from a miraculous bird rejoicing in the name of Foung-hoang.

The Brahmin traditions of the Hindus inform us that the God Nareda invented one of their most popular instruments now in use—the vina—while speech and musical sounds were the creation of Brahma’s amiable and intellectual consort, Saraswati. Turning to the legendary history of Ceylon, we again find allusion to musical invention. The most ancient myth of this island concerns the doings of Rama—a physical incarnation of the God Vichnou—and Ravenan, the giant king who is credited with the difficult achievement of inventing the first stringed instrument played with a bow, five thousand years ago. This Ravenan, besides being of great strength and rejoicing in several heads, considered himself such a sweet and virtuous soul, that he established himself as a divinity, and invited his subjects—like a hot-pie man—to “gather round.” The request—if an arbitrary command can so be called—met with a speedy response. They not only “gathered round,” but they worshipped, and the foolish giant became exceedingly puffed up. Indeed, so great was his exaltation when he saw the growth of his proselytes, that he at length conceived the plan of making conquests farther afield. But—to borrow from Mr Bernard Shaw—“You never can tell.” You start scaling the Alps with a high heart, and a conviction that you will reach the top, when a nasty avalanche descends upon you and you are extinguished as easily as a farthing dip.

This was the case with the many-headed Ravenan. Whether the strain of thinking with seven heads at a time destroyed his judgment, or whether he did not think at all but allowed his conceit to get the better of him, we do not know, at any rate the avalanche was at hand in the form of his enemy, Rama. The moment that God heard of Ravenan’s intentions, he cried aloud with Jovelike fury: “By Brahma, it shall not be!” and there and then bore down upon Ravenan with his army. A great battle ensued, but alas! to no purpose as far as Rama was concerned. He was not only routed by the Cingalese soldiers, but his consort, Sides, was carried away to the enemy’s camp. Other encounters followed the first, but still Ravenan’s army conquered. Probably they might have gained the final victory had not Rama assumed a Siegfried characteristic. He appealed to Brahma and obtained from him a magic spear, with which he ended Ravenan’s despotic reign.

Of course in these so-called enlightened days, the Oriental tradition of the ravanastron (Ravenan’s invention was named after him) is laughed down. But after all one must own the truth of the saying: “There is no smoke without a fire,” and also allow that even the most poetic fancy must have some species of realism to give it birth. Possibly this instrument attributed to Ravenan was but the “rushy Zampogna” alluded to by Sir Roger North[3] as employed “to stir up the vulgar to dance.” Call it by what name you will, specify the fingers that made it to be dusky or white, there is no doubt that our grave and learned historians of the subject give evidence of the existence of a stringed instrument played with a bow in India at a very early date. The first duty of all historians—as we know—is to be truthful, therefore, when they reiterate the statement that the fiddle-bow is mentioned in Sanskrit characters which cannot be less than two thousand years old, we must believe implicitly. And then again, we are told that the description of India’s musical instruments found in Sanskrit treatises, reveal that the forms of the instruments there mentioned, have scarcely altered during the last thousand years. Here is another point in favour of the ravanastron’s Indian origin. Finally, Monsieur Pierre Sonnerait—the oft quoted—in his “Voyages aux Indes oriental” (Paris, 1782), records that this identical instrument was then in use among a religious sect called the Ponderons.

Fig. 1.—RAVANASTRON

A description of an instrument bearing a great similarity to the ravanastron, which is depicted on a tall, handled cup belonging to the collection of Greek and Etruscan vases made by Lucien Napoleon, Prince of Caneno, is to be found in Mr J. M. Fleming’s “Violins Old and New” (London, 1883). His authority is a reproduction of the instrument, which he states to have found in an illustrated catalogue of the Prince’s valuable collection, published by subscription at Milan, in 1836. The scene in which the instrument figures is printed in red on a black ground, and reveals a man reading to a couple of youths who lean upon knotted sticks, while they listen with great earnestness to the narrative. On each side of the principal figure is an object which is technically termed, by authorities in these matters, “thecæ”—indicating the profession of the reader. It is the form of one of these “thecæ” that closely resembles the ravanastron, and, in addition, has a bow placed across the strings startlingly modern in appearance.

Fig. 2
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN GUITARS

Looked at from a conjectural point of view, one might hazard that this picture perhaps furthers the cause of the Indian ravanastron’s antiquity, when we bear in mind that the music of the Sanskrit period closely resembles that of the Ancient Greeks. The Greeks in their turn—it may be remembered—borrowed their music from Egypt: the Arabs from Persia: the Chinese from India: Japan from China: and so on in a merry-go-round of reiteration. This borrowing system has originated numberless theories of derivation, but one cannot get away from the fact that Egypt was the mother country of musical instruments with stretched strings and possibly (?) of the bow also. The resemblance between the ancient Egyptian guitar (Fig. 2) and the ravanastron (Fig. 1) has easily led to the supposition that those most accomplished instrumentalists of ancient times must have discovered the art of producing sound by friction, although they have left no proof of any such invention. But—we live in an age of discovery—the most effete origin of the bow may yet be unearthed, for the world’s dust heaps are far from being completely ransacked. Only the other day a contemporary newspaper announced that “Dr von Lecoque, a scientific emissary of the Persian Government, has arrived safely at Srinagar [Kashmir], after a journey through remote parts of Asia. He has brought with him a quantity of highly interesting paintings upon stucco, the background in many cases being of gold-leaf, as in Italian work, and a number of manuscripts in ten different languages and one wholly unknown tongue. Dr von Lecoque’s discoveries probably constitute the greatest archæological find since the days of Layard and Rawlinson.”

Pending the appearance of further revelations concerning the origin of stringed instruments played with a bow, there is no harm in quoting the following Oriental tale which to some extent tends to strengthen the invention of the bow and gut strings in India. The story is to be found in a Persian work entitled the “Tute Nama”[4] (“Tales of a Parrot, or Parrot Book,”) written by a Persian author named Nakhshabi, A.D. 1329, who adapted the romance—be it noted—from a Sanskrit work, now extant. The frame or leading narrative of the book deals with a merchant who had a beautiful wife, but, desiring to increase his wealth by establishing trade with other countries, he resolved to travel. His wife, with sweet and womanly affection, clings to him, and endeavours to dissuade him from his purpose. But for reply, he expatiates to her upon the evils of poverty and the advantages of wealth in a manner that would delight the heart of “Major Barbara’s” cynical father “Andrew Undershaft.” “A man without riches,” says he, “is fatherless, and a home without money is destitute.” Again: “He that is in want of cash is a nonentity, and wanders in the land unknown.” Other similar aphorisms greet his gentle wife’s persuasions, and at length the matter ends in his departure. Before leaving, however, he goes to the bazaar and purchases, at a great cost, a wonderful parrot that can discourse eloquently, and a species of nightingale called a “sharak,” which can imitate the human voice in a surprising manner. These he presents to his spouse as a parting gift, charging her that she shall consult the birds and gain their joint consent before transacting any matter of importance.

Time passes; the merchant’s wife has bemoaned her lord’s absence and conversed with the birds, until, one day, a handsome foreign Prince goes by the beautiful lady’s residence, and chances to meet the glance of her languishing eyes. In true Persian fashion, they instantly fall in love with one another, and the usual female Mercury of such romances is employed to arrange a lover’s meeting. Before keeping her appointment with the Prince, however, the merchant’s wife seeks the counsel of her two birds, as in duty bound. The “sharak” forbids her to see the Prince at the first suggestion, and is rewarded for her vigilance by getting her neck wrung. The parrot is next questioned, but seeing the fate of his companion he prudently temporises, and commences to tell a tale of such flattering interest that his mistress forgets to be angry, and listens, eager and absorbed.

Night after night, the parrot—in the manner of Sharazad, who narrated stories for “A Thousand and One Nights”—eloquently romances, thus cutely preventing the lady’s contemplated intrigue, until the merchant’s return makes it impossible. On the fourteenth night the clever bird entertains his mistress with the following ingenious theory of the invention of musical instruments:—

“Some attribute ... the discovery to the sounds made by a large stone against the frame of an oil-press, and others to meat when roasting, but the sages of Hind [India] are of opinion that it originated in the following accident. As a learned Brahmin was travelling to the court of an illustrious raja, he rested about the middle of the day under the shade of a mulberry-tree, on the top of which he beheld a mischievous monkey climbing from bough to bough, till by a sudden slip he fell upon a sharp-pointed shoot which instantly ripped up his belly, and left his entrails suspended on the tree, while the unlucky animal fell breathless upon the dust of death. Some time after this, as the Brahmin was returning, he accidentally sat down in the same place and, recollecting the circumstance, looked up and saw that the entrails were dried and yielded a harmonious sound every time the wind gently impelled them against the branches. Charmed at the singularity of the adventure, he took them down and, after binding them to the two ends of his walking-stick, touched them with a small twig by which he discovered that the sound was much improved. When he got home he fastened the staff to another piece of wood, which was hollow, and by the addition of a bow which was strung with part of his own beard he converted it into a complete instrument.[5] In succeeding ages the science received considerable improvements. After the addition of a bridge purer notes were extracted; and the different students, pursuing the bent of their inclinations, constructed instruments of various forms according to their individual fancies; and to this whimsical accident we are indebted for the tuneful ney, and the heart-exhilarating rabáb, and in short all the other instruments of wind and string.”

If we would see this rabab mentioned by our Persian author, we have but to look on the right-hand side of the big bass before us, and there behold the identical thing suspended from a hook, like a misfit in a tailor’s shop. But before we begin discoursing upon its history it would be as well to glance at the Chinese fiddle, called the Ur-heen, hanging to the left of the bass. In shape it is almost the counterpart of the ravanastron; the same broomstick neck and fingerboard combined, the same round minute body. Here, however, the resemblance ends, for the body of the Chinese instrument is made of half a cocoanut shell (curiously enough the monkeys’ favourite repast), covered with gazelle skin, while the body of the ravanastron—as though desiring to accentuate its relationship to the violin family—is constructed of a cylinder of sycamore wood hollowed out. It may be remembered that M. Fetis, in his “Notice of A Stradivari,” makes a very decisive remark about the ravanastron: “If we would trace a bow instrument to its source,” says he, “we must assume the most simple form in which it could appear, and such as required no assistance from an art brought to perfection, and such a form we shall find in the ravanastron.”

Fig. 3.—RABAB

Accepting this theory then as our basis, we must behold in this insignificant-looking construction (Fig. 1), devoid of classic line or Stradivarius curve, the progenitor of the violin family—or, shall we say: “The Violoncello family”? There is certainly some foundation for giving the deeper instrument precedence; first: the earliest pitch was low, and, second: if this is doubted, evidence comes to hand in the primitive stringed instruments played with a bow being too insecurely constructed to have borne the pressure of a tight—and consequently high-pitched—string. Another significant testimony is also to be found in the tuning of India’s fiddle, the sarange. Its highest string does not exceed middle C, and, besides this, it is held vertically, like the violoncello.

But we have hung over this thrice-told tale of India’s supposed contribution to the history of the violoncello overlong, we must turn our attention to the waiting rabab (Fig. 3). Comparing this with the ravanastron, a glance is sufficient to realise the development made in the right direction. Here the length of neck is curtailed, and more attention given to the sound arrangement. The outline of the body partakes no more of the American “meat-can” type, and there is an attempt at assuming those drawn-out corners and exquisite curves which, under the masterly touch of Amati and Stradivarius, finally developed into unassailable perfection. According to the Persian parrot’s story, we might be led to suppose that this was also a Hindu invention, but it is probably more correct to conclude it to be the Arab development of the ravanastron, for truly:

“... all Arabia breathes from yonder box.”

Yes! Not only does it breathe, but also whispers of that stalwart race of warriors, awakened from the lethargy of years and thrilling to Mohammed’s sublime cry: “There is one God alone!” speaks of the majestic growth of civilisation and chivalry among them, which emanated from the Prophet’s teaching: tells of the conquest of Persia in the seventh century, from whence they gathered wealth and culture, and of the subsequent subjugation of the whole of Egypt, Assyria, and India under one vast Empire. In this manner did the more advanced knowledge of the vanquished become disseminated among the conquerors and—keeping pace with the newly kindled spirit of progress—receive impetus at their hands. The Persian system of music was taken by the Arabs en bloc; likewise their musical instruments, and those of India and Egypt, consequently they became possessed of a a numerous and varied assortment. Of their prime favourite el oud (lute), alone, they are said to have counted thirty varieties, and of stringed instruments played with a bow they had fourteen different types. At the present day, only two out of this array exist from which to draw conclusions: the Persian kemangeh à gouze (ancient place of the bow[6]), and the Arabian rabab, which was possibly derived from the Indian ravanastron through the kemangeh.

Fig. 4.—KEMANGEH A GOUZE

In the eighth century, the Arabs enlarged their dominions still further by the addition of Spain, and it was there more particularly, amid the bewildering wealth, the luxurious self-indulgence and unrivalled magnificence, that music—“the language of love”—became indispensable. Mahommed might frown upon the art: might decry it as a device of the devil; might thunder that it caused “hypocrisy to grow in the heart like as water promoteth the growth of corn,” but to no avail, the placid Moslem found some means of reconciling his love of sweet sounds to the teachings of his religion. In Cordova, which was then the capital of Spain, “from every balcony in the evening time sounded the tinkling of lutes, and the melody of voices, so that the city seemed wreathed in musical airs after the bazaars were closed and the evening recreation had begun. The Caliph, secluded from public curiosity in his voluptuous retreat of Zehra, passed his hours of recreation amid scenes that may well recall the description of fable. The ‘pavilion of his pleasures’ was constructed of gold and polished steel, the walls of which were encrusted with precious stones. In the midst of the splendour produced by lights reflected from a hundred crystal lustres, a sheaf of living quicksilver jetted up in a basin of alabaster and made a brightness too dazzling for the eye to look upon. Amid the decorations of rare and stupendous luxury was a musical tree—a similar construction is said to have existed at Constantinople and one at Bagdad—the branches of which were made of gold and silver. On eighteen large branches and a number of twigs beneath them sat a multitude of birds shaped out of the same precious metals. By an ingenious mechanism inside the golden tree the birds were made to sing in a most melodious chorus, to the delight and amazement of the listeners.”[7]

In Bagdad, Cairo, and Damascus there was the same lavish grandeur, the same magnificence, and, amid the culture and poetic romanticism, which was the wonder of all Europe, the prime instigator to the development of music and musical instruments—the minstrel—sprang into life. Not only were bands of minstrels kept at the palaces of the caliphs, princes, and viziers, but companies of wandering minstrels roamed the country from city to city and house to house, everywhere receiving welcome and creating a fine taste and criticism among the people. No man was accounted a good minstrel unless—besides being able to play sweet melodies, and jingle bright tunes—he could utter clever things with point and clearness of diction: repeat endless poetry, both grave and gay: have a fluent command of speech, and, when singing, enunciate with perfect purity. All these attributes they attempted to display and cultivate in their playing of the dulcimer; their singing to the accompaniment of the lute; their story telling, and their chanting to the rabab on the eternal theme—love.

Alas! princely race of poets and musicians, your greatness has vanished like a cloud of dust. Vanquished and overcome in your turn, your grandeur, your literature, your science is a thing of the past, and your dignified minstrel is to-day but a beggarly sha’er (poet) who frequents Egyptian cafés, and, for a paltry remuneration, chants to the accompaniment of the rabab. Go to that most cosmopolitan spot on earth, Cairo, where Greek, Turk, Egyptian, Persian, and Arabian rub shoulders, and present an incessant kaleidoscopic vision of brilliant colours, and there you will meet this minstrel, remnant of “Arabian Nights’” wonders. Down the street he comes, stops at a café, seats himself on the mus’tub’ah, or raised seat, which is built against the front of the coffee-shop—rabab in hand, while another performer on the rabab seats himself beside him to play certain parts of the accompaniment. The auditors occupy the rest of the sha’er’s platform,[8] or “arrange themselves on the mus’tub’ahs of the houses on the opposite side of the narrow street, and the rest sit on stools or benches made of palm-sticks; most of them with pipe in hand; some sipping their coffee, and all highly amused, not only with the story, but with the lively and dramatic manner of the narrator.” After invocating the Prophet’s blessing the sha’er, who both recites and chants par cœur, plays a few introductory notes on the rabab and then begins to relate the popular and ancient story of the adventures of Ab’oo’ Zey’dee, which is full of dramatic possibilities for one gifted with histrionic talent. The first part of the tale deals with the childhood of the hero who—owing to his mother praying before his birth that he might be brave like a blackbird whom she saw attack and vanquish a numerous flock of birds—was born as black as night. On account of his sombre hue the helpless infant is cast upon the world in his mother’s arms by his father, who is the chief of the great tribe of Ben’ee Hila’l. One of the many situations in which the tale abounds is the manner in which the mother keeps the knowledge of his father’s name from her son, and incites him to war against his own tribe. However, everything ends well: the dusky hero is restored to his own, and the humble sha’er, having come to the end of his narration, again asks the Prophet’s blessing. The proprietor of the café gives him a small recompense for attracting customers, and he departs on his way, taking with him the feeble glimmer of wonders faded and gone.

Besides the one-stringed rabab used by the sha’er, there is also an identical two-stringed instrument called rabel ab monghun’ee, or singer’s viol, reserved entirely for the accompaniment of vocal performances. Both are constructed of wood, and the resonant body is made by stretching skin over the four-cornered body frame. Some of the sounding boxes have no back, while others have another piece of skin to form that part.

The charms of the rabab have so completely usurped our attention that we have neglected to speak more fully of that undoubtedly ancient instrument, the Persian kemangeh à gouze (Fig. 4). As there is perhaps no more delightful or authentic description of this instrument than that given by Sir William Ouseley, we will quote the whole extract from his: “Travels in the East, particularly in Persia,” just as it stands:

“My desire of hearing what the Persians considered as their best musick, could only be gratified it is said in the chief cities. Meanwhile a kind of violin called kemáncheh (or, as pronounced in the south of Persia, Kamoncheh) and found in almost every town, afforded me frequent entertainment. That which I saw first was in the hands of Mohammed Caraba’ghi, a poor fellow who sometimes visited our camps. His kemáncheh was of tut or mulberry-tree wood; the body (about eight inches in diameter) globular except at the mouth, over which was stretched, and fixed by glue, a covering of parchment; it had three strings (of twisted sheep’s-gut) and a bridge placed obliquely. A straight piece of iron strengthened the whole instrument from the knob below, through the handle or fingerboard to the hollow which received the pegs. It was carried hanging from the shoulder by a leather strap; in length it was nearly three feet from the wooden ball at the top to the iron knob or button which rested upon the ground. The bow was a mere switch, about two feet and a half long, to which was fastened at one end some black horse-hair. At the other end this hair was connected by a brass ring with a piece of leather seven or eight inches long. The ring was managed with the second and third fingers of the performer’s hand and by its means he contracted or relaxed the bow, which was occasionally rubbed on a bit of wax or rosin stuck above the pegs....

“The performer generally combined his voice with the tones of his instrument. At the house of a person in Bushehr, I one day heard another minstrel sing to his kemáncheh a melancholy ditty, concerning the ill-fated Zend dynasty which became extinct on the murder of Luft Ali Kha’n in 1794, when the present King’s uncle, of the Kajar tribe, assumed imperial authority. The Zend princes were much beloved.... The elegy on their misfortunes abounded with pathetic passages, and the tune corresponding drew tears from some who listened.” Later the author informs us that the kemáncheh is made of various materials: “I have seen one of which the body was merely a hollow gourd; and another of which every part was richly inlaid and ornamented. Some,” says Abd-ul-cadir, “form the body of this instrument from the shell of a cocoanut, fixing on it hair strings; but many are made from wood over which they fasten silken strings.”[9]

But! ... but! ... but, surely it is lunch-time! The sight of the big double-bass and its Asiatic satellites is becoming very irksome, and—the American’s “silent sorrow” is overcoming us. In plain words: “We are hungry!”

Was it not Schopenhauer who said to a German officer, who watched the philosopher’s mighty appetite with astonishment: “I eat much, sir, because I have a great mind,” adding that thought required vigorous nourishment? Of course! Then let us enter the spacious restaurant, guarded by two of Flaxman’s chefs-d’œuvre; seize a white-robed table; beckon to a black-robed waiter; and take the food of thought, à la Schopenhauer.

A Bass-Viol of 1584

“While cleaning the attic of the house of Dr John I. Orton yesterday, workmen found an old church bass-viol. Inside the viol is engraved the name of the maker and the date, ‘G. Billini-Onna, 1584.’ Experts place its value at at least $1000. The viol has been in the possession of the Orton family for three generations but for a number of years has been missing.”—Newhaven Register, 1902.

Extracts from Anthony Wood’s Diary

“The 25th December 1656, Th. I paid young Mr Bishop 3s. for mending my base violl.

“February 18th, 1658, to Bishop for mending my viol 1s., to Rich for my shoes and spent 1s.

“25th, for violl strings, 7d.; the same, for my musick meeting, 9d.”

Epitaph said to be on Johan Jenkins’ Gravestone

“Under this stone rare Jenkyns lye

The Master of the Musick Art,

Whom from the Earth, the God on high

Called up to him to bear his part

In Anno 78, he went to heaven.”

—John Jenkins was an extraordinary

player on the Lyra viol in the time of

Charles I.

CHAT THE SECOND

Lunch, and the Emperor Albinus—The Crwth—The immature Bow Instruments which preceded the Fifteenth-century Viol—M. Coutagne and Gaspar Duiffoproucart

While under the shadow of the friendly double-bass, we were particularly favoured and aided by the punctuating poke of a finger at the instruments mentioned. Now, however, isolated in that inartistic invention—a Restaurant—we have no such aid. There is no inspiration to be gained from knives and forks, plates and spoons, unless one be a cutler, a potter, a chef, or rejoices in the voracious appetite of the Emperor Albinus. This monarch—says our classical dictionary—thought nothing of devouring 500 figs, 100 peaches, twenty pounds of dry raisins, 10 melons, and 400 oysters for breakfast. What the heavier meals of the day were composed of is a matter upon which we are left to cogitate.

There is no necessity to dwell upon the many immature bow instruments which preceded the fifteenth-century viol, but, for the sake of context, they must be allowed a passing interest and a glance at these pictures of them, which we have here upon the table. The Welsh crwth we will not mention, for it has already been effectually cast out of the fiddle family’s ancestry by an eminent authority in such matters. Likewise, for the same reason, we will pass the rote or rotta, with a vacant stare.

Fig. 5.—REBEC

The rebec,[10] however, we will welcome, for here we tread upon safe ground. Lying uppermost upon the table before us is a sketch (Fig. 5) of this little pear-shaped instrument which was the parent of the viol, and the darling of the minstrel’s heart. Its progenitor was the rabab of Arabia, and it derived its Frenchified title through the rabab’s Spanish equivalent “rabel,” or “arabel.” Owing to its commodious size, and consequent utility, this little instrument diffused itself rapidly over Europe. To sunny Provence; to France; to Normandy; and lastly to England it went in the hands of Troubadours and Crusaders, and so great was the charm of its coarse strings and rotund form, that mankind cherished it for many centuries. In England it became quite habitual to look upon the violin and the rebec as almost the same instrument; so much so, that the term fiddle became as synonymous with the rebec as with the violin. Thus we find Fletcher, in his “Knight of the Burning Pestle,” putting the following speech into the mouth of one of his characters: “They say ’tis present death for these fiddlers to tune their rebecs before the Grand Turk,” while “Golding,” in Thomas Shadwell’s Comedy of “The Miser,” speaks of the Fiddler’s Violin.

The first instrument played with a bow in France, the rebec survived longest in that country, and in the first half of the sixteenth century we find woodcut representations of it in complete “sets”—i.e. soprano, alto, tenor, and bass—in Martin Agricola’s “Musica Instrumentalis Deudsch.”

Fig. 6.—SPANISH MINSTREL (Eleventh-century MS.)

Underneath our rebec picture is quite an ornamental drawing of a man dancing upon stilts (Fig. 6), which comes from a Saracen’s pencil. This gentleman is a minstrel, and we ought to admire him, yet the cast of his countenance has been a severe shock to our cherished dreams of the romantic silky haired troubadours of the past. The picture is taken from a Spanish MS. of the eleventh century, one of the most valuable of its kind in that Aladdin’s cave—the British Museum—and is considered to be the work of a monk of the monastery of Silos in Bourgos (Old Castille). The instrument held in the minstrel’s left hand, while he nimbly trips upon a “light fantastic toe,” is curious and interesting, for it is in the nature of a freak. So equivocal is its appearance that as one looks one might easily be led into paraphrasing Shakespeare by exclaiming: “Is it a rebec that I see before me?” Certainly the form resembles that instrument, yet it has none of its three-stringed simplicity. More properly speaking, it appears to be a combination of the guitar and viol system, for, while the fingers twang the string above, the bow rubs a drone accompaniment beneath. How much of this arrangement is due to the fancy of the artist, and how much to truth, it is impossible to surmise, but certain it is that this is not the only specimen of a combination musical instrument to be found amongst the Arabs. The learned and industrious Michael Prætorius, in his “Theatrum Instrumentorum” (Wolfenbüttel, 1620), gives two views of an Arabian instrument which he calls a Monocordum and pipe. In form it is identical with the rabab (Fig. 3) but the neck serves the double office of fingerboard and reed, so that the performer could play both instruments at one and the same time. One cannot help regretting that this invention has passed out of use, as it would surely be welcome to those weary hosts and hostesses of modern times who ceaselessly strive to “cut down” the expenses of the inevitable music at the inevitable “At Home.” The artist would play solos upon his combined flute and viol among the clattering tongues and tea-cups, and the fee for his services would work out in the following satisfactory manner:—One artist + two musical instruments = One Fee. Excellent!

Beneath the minstrel in his elaborate stockings lies a picture of a comfortable, pleasant-looking old gentleman wearing a crown upon his head, and scraping what looks uncommonly like an attempt at the Stradivarius model. This figure (Fig. 7) taken from a bas-relief which was once in the Chapel of St Georges de Boscerville, Normandy—built in 1066—and now preserved in the museum at Rouen, is perhaps the oldest known representation of such a shaped viol extant. Monsieur Fetis, speaking of this figure in his “Histoire General de la Musique,” describes it as a “two-stringed rubebe held between the knees of the person who plays upon it with a bow.”

Fig. 7
FIGURE FROM ST
GEORGES DE BOSCERVILLE
(11th century)

Now the archæologist who seeks for truth among the relics of ancient musical instruments is greeted with serious difficulties. He finds on one side of him a “mountain of names,” and on the other side of him a “mountain of musical instruments.” In his hand he grasps bewildering allusions to these in poetry and prose, while sculptural representations, pictures, and drawings flit before his eyes. He holds a bit here, in his endeavour to unite the mountains, snatches a fragment there, and thus it is that we find so many contradictory assertions among authorities on the subject.

Fig. 8
BAS-RELIEF FROM COLOGNE
MUSEUM (12th century)

Monsieur Laurent Grillét asserts that this Boscerville instrument is not a rubebe, as Monsieur Fetis says, but a rote, while the latter’s theory that the rote was a direct descendant of the lyre, and was played by plucking the strings, has been borne out by Mr Heron Allen. An authority of the period, Jerome of Moravia, who wrote his “De cæntiâ Artes Musiciea” in 1274, and dedicated it to Gregory X., speaks of the rubebe as a two-stringed instrument played with a bow and tuned thus:

Unfortunately he does not illustrate his text, but the depth of pitch given by him would indicate an instrument of larger proportions than the one held by the Boscerville figure. In any case, whether this be the instrument indicated by Jerome or not, he has distinctly described the existence of a bass species of viol at that date, and our next picture might certainly be taken as an illustration of his description, giving licence of course, to the third string. This bas-relief in marble (Fig. 8) is preserved in the museum at Cologne, and, looked at with a twentieth-century eye, is wonderfully replete with omens. Observe the bridge and its position: the sound holes in their approved place: the manner in which the sounding-board joins the neck: the excellent fingerboard and tailpiece. All these items, combined with its size, might easily allow it to be the rubebe of Jerome de Moravia and if one supposes this to be so, it is not amiss to suggest that the Boscerville instrument is also a rubebe, which experience enlarged in the following century to the size before us.

It is hardly necessary to add further examples, as these three give a fairly broad idea of the progressive attempts at a definite form, from about the eleventh to the end of the fourteenth century. During this period there were doubtless no hard and fast rules for tuning. The minstrel adapted the pitch of his instrument according to whim, or the compass of his voice. He danced and sang to his own improvised accompaniments. Thus we hear in 1391 of: “Un nommeé Isembart jouait d’une rubèbe, et, en jouant, un nommé Le Bastard se print à danser,” and again in 1395, “Roussel et Gaygnat preurent à jouer, l’un d’une fluste l’autre d’une rubèbe, et ainsi que les aulcuns dansoient.”[11] The minstrel’s person and attainments were undoubtedly of a genial character, yet with all due deference to his merry ways, and the good service he rendered to poetry and music, one cannot help observing that his dancing and warbling were the means of retarding the development of musical instruments to a certain extent. If you roam the country with your musical equipment upon your back you naturally require something of a portable size. “A fiddle under my cloak?” says the indignant Sir Roger l’Estrange in defending himself against Mr Bagshawe’s insinuations that he frequently solicited private conferences from Oliver Cromwell with a fiddle under his cloak; “Truly my fiddle is a bass-viol, and that’s somewhat a troublesome instrument under a cloak.” The minstrel of the Middle Ages was certainly of the same opinion, and was careful that his fiddle should not assume alarming proportions. He was content so long as he could carry it about with ease like “Gervais de Nevers” who:

—“donned a garment old

And round his neck a viol hung

For cunningly he played and sung.”

Another obstacle to the progress of stringed instruments was placed in their way by the early contrapuntists who expended their genius entirely upon vocal music. Thus it was that no one appeared to realise that a resonant bass-viol, answering to the pitch of the bass voice, could be constructed by enlarging the rebecs and embryo viols then in use. Not until the middle of the fifteenth century did anything of the sort appear, and when it did, it came at the imperative call of the part-songs then coming into vogue. The singers of these compositions demanded to be kept in tune just as much as the warblers of sweet melodies had required, and it was the desire to do this to the best advantage that led eventually to the construction of complete sets of stringed instruments played with a bow and answering in pitch to the treble, alto, tenor, and bass voices.

And now, if you have finished your coffee, shall we return to our case of Asiatic instruments? There is to be found amongst them a mongrel species of bass instrument, which certainly acted in no mean way as a factor in the development of low-pitched instruments played with a bow. We allude to the trummelscheit, known in England under the ambiguous title of marine trumpet. It carries one short gut string tuned to CC, and when correctly played—i.e. harmonically—gives out a scale corresponding in pitch to that of the high soprano voice.

This trummelscheit before us is rather undersized. Its form and construction are of an advanced type, for besides the short gut string it has the additional sympathetic wire strings piercing the body like a delicate bundle of nerves. Broadly speaking, this instrument was probably made in France in the days when aristocracy prospered, and danced stately minuets at the court of “Le Grand Monarch”: when that cultured son of tapisier, Molière, wrote his immortal comedies for the amusement of the haute monde, and Jean Baptiste Lully’s impudence and genius placed him upon the highest pinnacle of fame. The intriguing Jean Baptiste—whom Boileau denounced as a coquin tenebreaux, a cœur bas, and a bouffon odieux—was possessed of talents which quite equalled his gifts as a composer of operas. He could write such divine inspirations as “Bois Epais”: could revolutionise the “ballet de la cour” by the introduction of the pirouette and sprightly allegro: could play the fiddle to perfection, and conduct his band of “Petits Violons” in a manner to make them quickly famous. He could pen mischievous verse; take advantage of court squabbles and turn them to good account, and used his histrionic gifts to the most satisfactory ends. Many a time did Lully’s impersonations of the exquisitely comic situations in which Molière delighted to place his characters, obtain for him the King’s pardon when his Majesty had been fairly exasperated by the unscrupulous actions of his “Surintendant de la Musique.” The polygamy scene in M. de Pourceaugnac was one of Maître Lully’s most effective parts for this purpose, and it is easy to imagine how the ludicrous perplexities of M. Jourdain in Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme[12] must have been interpreted by a man who had himself risen from obscurity to wealth and fame. It is in the latter witty comedy that we hear of the trumpet marine and its position at that time. Bewildered M. Jourdain’s music-master is advising him to give concerts twice a week at his house.

Le Maître de Musique

Au reste, monsieur, ce n’est pas assez; il faut qu’une personne comme vous, qui êtes magnifique et qui avez de l’inclination pour les belles choses, ait un concert de musique chez soi tous les Mercredis ou tous les Jeudis.

M. Jourdain

Est-ce que les gens de qualité en out?

Le Maître de Musique

Sans doute. Il vous faudra trois voix: un dessus, une haute-contre et une basse, qui seront accompagnés d’une basse de viole, d’un téorbe et d’un clavecin pour les basses continues, avec deux dessus de violon pour jouer les retournelles.

M. Jourdain

Il faudra mettre aussi une trompette marine. La trompette marine est un instrument qui me plaît, et qui est très harmonieux.

Le Maître de Musique

Laissez-nous gouverner les choses.

In spite of Molière’s just, or unjust ridicule, the marine trumpet figured in the royal band of Louis XV. Several names of artists who played this instrument at the French court are recorded in the État de la France for 1702, and among them we find Danican Philidor, a favourite musician of Louis, “le bien aimé” (?) and as rampant a chess player as was his contemporary Diderot. Whether from motives of economy or because the marine trumpet was looked upon as “no great shakes” (as our Yankee cousins say), all players of that instrument at the French court were also performers on a species of hautbois—now obsolete—called the Cremorne. How these virtuosi managed to juggle notes out of both instruments at the same time, history does not relate, but in the face of such a feat as that achieved by Don Jumpedo, who nightly jumped down his own throat at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket some hundred years ago, all things seem possible.

England was not behind France in her use of the marine trumpet. Gay King Charles would have all things at court in accordance with the French fashion, and the marine trumpet doubtless found its way to the British coast in the company of truffles, perruques, pirouettes, and long-ear’d puppy dogs. Whether it was bundled in with the Cremorne, as was its fate in France, or ignored, as in Italy, is not recorded, but its advent was apparently announced in the following stirring advertisement published in The London Gazette for 4th February 1674:—“A rare concert of Trumpets Marine, never before heard of in England. If any persons desire to come and hear it they may repair to the Fleece Tavern near St James’ about two of the clock in the afternoon every day in the week except Sundays. Every concert shall continue one hour and so begin again. The best places are one shilling and the other sixpence.” The marine trumpet was not only a means of drawing the public, but it apparently had a market value of its own, for we find in Thomas Shadwell’s play, The Miser, of that period, that a certain loan includes a “Bolona lute, a roman Arch lute, 2 gittars, a Cremona Violin, a Lyra Viol, 1 Viol da Gambo, and a Trumpet-Marine, very fit for you if you be a lover of musick.”

Fig. 9.—MARINE TRUMPET

But it was in Germany—the scene of the trumpet marine’s birth—that it found its real vocation. In that land of sausages and romance, beer and love sonnets, it was known under the double title of “Trummelscheit”—from its resemblance to a sword sheath—and “Nonnen-Trompett,” for the reason that the nuns themselves employed it in their convents. The delicate lips of the fair religeuses were unable to cope with the mouth-distorting horn; yet they required an instrument of that type to add vigour to their heaven-sent praises. Their difficulty was in reality not unlike that of the German bassoon player, Schubert, when Baumgarten commanded him at rehearsal to sustain a certain note. “It is very easy for you, Mister Baumgarten, to say, hold out that note,” replied he quietly, “but who is to find the vind?” The wind instruments must have their human bellows, but these being weak, the marine trumpet became a substitute for the horn, and every German cloister was furnished with, and employed, a nonnen-trompett or nonnen geige. Until almost the end of the eighteenth century, this quaint custom continued, after which the nuns apparently grew bolder and fearlessly attacked double-basses and violoncellos and whole orchestras of instruments. Kastner, writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century, says: “All who go to Lichtenthal near Baden can hear the nuns of the convent of this name sing divine service with an orchestral accompaniment in which many of them took part,” which proves that even at that date the custom of supplying their own music had not been excluded from convent life.

How the marine trumpet or trumpet marine came to be so called is a riddle that possibly finds its solution in the form of the instrument itself. The shape in its earliest form resembled the long speaking-trumpet familiar to sailors. Thus we can account for the nautical touch which is given to this instrument by the first half of its title, while the trumpet part must be engendered by the timbre produced by the ingenious arrangement of the bridge. One does not often find the correct bridges on the existing marine trumpets. To be accurate, the bridge should be made of wood in the form of a shoe. The heel part should be attached to the table of the instrument and the gut string passed over it, while the toe part should rest unattached upon a little square of inlaid ivory or glass. The toe acts like the bâton of the chef-d’orchestre; each throb of the pulsating string is faithfully translated by a tap upon the ivory or glass when the player sets the string in vibration with his bow. It is this ingenious arrangement that contrives to give a sonorous burring—associated with the sound of brass instruments—to the harmonies of the marine trumpet. Mr E. J. Payne, who wrote the able article upon this instrument in Sir George Grove’s “Dictionary of Music and Musicians” (first edition), there says: “The facility with which the marine trumpet yields its natural harmonies is due to its single string and its lop-sided bridge. Paganini’s extraordinary effects in harmonics on a single string were in fact produced by temporarily converting his violin into a small marine trumpet. As is well known, that clever player placed his single fourth string on the treble side of the bridge, screwing it up to a very high pitch, and leaving the bass foot of the bridge comparatively loose. He thus produced a powerful reedy tone and obtained unlimited command over the harmonics.”

Michael Praetorius, writing in 1620, gives a good deal of interesting information about the marine trumpet. He says that its ancient origin is undoubted: that the roaming musicians played upon it in the streets; and plasters it with faint praise by remarking that, “its tone was more agreeable at a distance than close to it.” Marin Mersenne, most exact and careful critic, scribbling in Paris sixteen years later, discusses this instrument lengthily. In the course of his remarks—which are full of interest—he mentions that the marine trumpet was very difficult to play for the reason (oh! mark this, ye modern violoncellists of the dexterous digits) that it was necessary to move the thumb or another finger with swiftness. “I have no doubt,” he adds, “that one could not play it perfectly until one had studied it as long as the lute or viol.” Mersenne’s allusion to the thumb movement of course speaks for itself, still, it is interesting to note more particularly that the movable thumb was employed by marine trumpet virtuosi long before it was ever included in the technique of the violoncello. The genius of Berteau was the means of introducing thumb movement as a special aid to the high positions on the violoncello, in the first half of the eighteenth century; until then the fingerboard over the belly remained unknown. Truly there is nothing new to be discovered! Here was the modern violoncellist’s particular recourse in use probably a century or so before he became slightly acquainted with it as a novelty, at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

To make a long story short, and end the tale of the marine trumpet, we will briefly outline its origin. In ancient times it was nothing more nor less than the monochord, an instrument, as we know, invented by Pythagoras of Samos, for measuring musical sounds, B.C. 530. When he departed this life, this learned Greek exhorted his disciples to “strike the monochord” and thereby rather inform their understandings than trust to their ears in the measurement of intervals. His followers and pupils not only hearkened, but performed, and thus from century to century the monochord was preserved. It acted as bass to the rebecs of the Middle Ages; it replaced the horn in the German convents; it originated the thumb movement; and eventually suggested the big “Geiges” which came into vogue in Germany in the first half of the sixteenth century. From the pictures and descriptions of these “Geiges” given by authorities of the period, the earliest were made in two kinds—i.e. those with bridges and those without. Both appear in complete quartets, and both were provided with six or more strings. With the bridgeless “Geiges,” or viols, we may adopt Toole’s remark about China in one of his inimitable impersonations. “China,” said he, “is divided into two parts, China proper and China improper. With the latter we will, of course, have nothing to do.” As a matter of fact we don’t want to have anything to do with these bridgeless viols or “Geiges,” because in our heart of hearts we feel very dubious as to their existence. Though we may tremble when we say it, we instinctively assign their creation to some facile artist long since passed away. Either this erring gentleman forgot to sketch the bridge or else these—so-called—bridgeless viols were nothing more nor less than big guitars beside which the officious delineator added a bow. In any case we will dispense with them and hasten to that immediate predecessor of the violoncello, the viola da gamba, a leg viol, which was known all over Europe by its Italian name.

To begin with the makers of these and their kind, we find the earliest known names are those of Hans Frey, and Jean Ott, who worked in Nuremberg in the first half of the fifteenth century. It may be remembered that Nuremberg was at that time one of the most active commercial centres in Europe, and in addition fostered all the talent and intellect of the day. Within its precincts dwelt the poetic cobbler, Hans Sachs, penning his four thousand master songs, his numberless comedies and tragedies, and making slippers for dainty Eva besides. Then there was Adam Kraft, modelling his limestone tabernacle in the Church of Lawrence, and Peter Vischer, the brass worker—and Albert Dürer. Before this illustrious name we pause, for he himself, we believe, played the viol, while the viols to be found in his paintings are doubtless most accurately portrayed for—was not Hans Frey the viol-maker his father-in-law? It is said that Hans Frey amassed considerable wealth in his native town, but his affluence was certainly not due entirely to the patronage of his viol-playing clientèle, for we know that he was a “respected citizen skilled in all things,” and that not the least of his accomplishments was his skill in copper repoussé work. Many are the decorative figures, tankards, cake moulds, and other characteristic designs which owe their existence to his expert fingers. How redolent are they of guilds, master-singers, rules, institutions, and all the elephantine conceit and narrow-mindedness which went to make the life of the middle-class Nuremberg citizen!

After Hans Frey and Jean Ott we hear of Joan Kerlino who, according to Fetis, worked at Brescia, in Lombardy, in 1449. A “viola da Braccio,” or arm viol, of his making was in the possession of a Parisian luthier named Koliker, in 1804, mention of which had been made by De Laborde in his “Essai sur la Musique” some twenty-five years previously.[13] Herr von Wasielewski traces Kerlino’s name to a German origin, assuming that he settled in Brescia and founded a school there. If this most probable assertion be true, then it follows, “as does the night the day,” that the Italian viola family owes its creation to Germany. Notwithstanding Germany’s precedence in the matter of originating the viol form, it is curious to note that the earliest known book in which a picture of a viol is to be found is that by Carmine Angurelli, which was published in Vienna in 1491, just forty-three years after the German Kerlino is said to have been making viols in Brescia. A copy of the little work is in the British Museum, and the woodcut of a seven-stringed viol which graces its title-page is a type ahead of its time.[14] It is quite equal to the viols shown in Hans Judenkünig’s “Ein schöne Kunstliche Underwaisung,” published in Vienna thirty years later, and far in advance of any representation of a viol in Martin Agricola’s “Musica Instrumentalis,” which appeared in 1528. The form of Angurelli’s viol has much more grace than the German “Geiges” of that date. There are no upper bouts, the curve from the joint of the neck sweeps straight down to the lower bouts, a shape, by-the-by, adopted for his grand old tenors by Gasparo da Salo, the Brescian maker, at a later date. The head of the viol is square, it has seven pegs, and one which projects at the side of the head and supports two more strings. The bridge is well delineated, and is almost identical with the familiar form now to be seen on every violoncello; moreover, it stands in the right place and not close to the short tailpiece as we find in Dürer’s pictures. The sound-holes are in the primitive C form, also freely used by Da Salo, and the tailpiece is a facsimile of that employed in the middle of the following century. Perhaps the most puzzling part of the picture is the bow which hangs on a peg beside this viol, for it is even of a more advanced type than the viol itself. Does this woodcut represent the consummation of Kerlino’s work in Italy, or is this viol and bow but one of those freaks of fancy which leap the bounds of an artist’s idealism and suddenly appear in completeness, as did Minerva from Jupiter’s ingenious brain? Whichever the case may be, we have in this picture the earliest woodcut representation of a viola da gamba extant, and to those who enthuse over these things we say: “Look at it in the works where it is to be found!” (p. 67 f).

After Kerlino there was a famous performer on the lute in Germany, named Hans Gerle, who made stringed instruments, and contributed to the literature of musical instruments by writing his “Musica Teusch,” which was published in 1532. In 1500 we find the monk, Pietro Dardelli, making viols in Mantua, while Ventura Linarolli was likewise occupied in Venice in 1520, and Peregrino Zanetti was busy in Brescia in 1540. Morglato Morello was also a diligent craftsman in Mantua in 1550, and Gaspard Duiffoproucart was making beautiful viols, lutes, and chittaras at Lyons in 1558.

Until Dr Henry Coutagne published his “Gaspard Duiffoproucart et les Luthiers Lyonnaise,” in Paris in 1893, Choron and Fayolle’s version of this maker’s life which appeared in their “Dictionnaire historique des Musiciens,” in 1810, was pretty generally accepted. According to the latter authorities, Duiffoproucart was born in the Tyrol at the end of the fifteenth century, and worked in Boulogna. He was supposed to have travelled in Germany before settling definitely in Boulogna in 1515, and when Francis I. visited that town he made Duiffoproucart a handsome offer to accompany him to France. The King’s proposition proving tempting, Duiffoproucart is said to have accepted it, and made many viols for the musicians belonging to the court orchestras. But apparently the air of Paris did not suit the good viol-maker. His health suffered, and for this reason he obtained leave to settle in Lyons.

Like a bolt from the blue, however, Dr Coutagne, bristling with authentic documentary evidence, has refuted the whole story. Through his careful research we learn that Duiffoproucart was born at Freising in Upper Bavaria in 1514: that he established himself in Lyons about the middle of the sixteenth century: that Henry II. of France granted him his “Lettres de naturalité” in 1558, and that he died in Lyons in 1570, leaving several children, among whom one son followed his father’s profession.

Thus has the life of the Lyons viol-maker confined itself into reasonable limits at last, and instead of our imagining him settling in Boulogna, a young man full of ambition, in 1515, we now picture him at that date in long clothes, felicitously celebrating his first birthday; all of which has a tint of an Æsop fable about it which is most attractive. But there is something even of greater interest than the satisfactory establishment of this maker’s career by the aid of document and script, and that is—his much-discussed portrait which is in the Bibliothèque National in Paris. This picture was engraved in Lyons by Pierre Wœiriot in 1562, and is supposed to have been copied from the original portrait, which graced the back of one of Duiffoproucart’s own viols. At the base of the picture the maker’s name is inscribed and spelt thus: “Duiffoprougcar,” which, by the way, is the most familiar form, but according to M. Coutagne is incorrect orthography. Under the name are two Latin lines which we shall have reason to refer to later, and then follows: “æta. ann. XLVIII,” and the date: “1514.” The true meaning of these words and figures remained a puzzle until Dr Coutagne solved it by discovering that the Roman figures indicated the age of the maker to be forty-eight at the date of the publication of the engraving, in 1562, while the Arabian figures give the year of his birth, 1514.

If we were compelled to rely entirely upon this engraving for evidence of the number of viola da gamba made by Duiffoproucart, we might be led to imagine that he had never made such an instrument in his life. The artist has represented him as a man of fine physique, surrounded by various specimens of small viols, lutes, and guitars, but no sign of a bass-viol is visible. Notwithstanding the artist’s omission, however, three—if not four—of this maker’s viola da gamba are in existence, and if we would see one of these we have not far to go. Indeed, here close beside us, guarded by the policeman’s watchful eye, is a specimen of Duiffoproucart’s skill (p. 74). It hangs in a good light and its glass house exposes every side of it to view. The property of Sir George Donaldson, there is no doubt but what he has a very unique possession in this singular little bass-viol. Its small proportions suggest an exceptionally large knee viol (originally it was doubtless a very large tenor-viol called in France, Quinte) or an instrument especially constructed for use in church processions. The deep brown varnish, with a glint of red in it, is particularly good, and adds to the elegance of the outline and tout ensemble of the viol. The front is free from ornamentation but the back bears an inlaid design, in coloured woods, of a saint and an angel. Round the edges and in the upper part there is an interlaced design of flowers. The peg-box is surmounted by a horse’s head well carved, while the fingerboard is also inlaid in coloured woods and bears the Latin inscription so indelibly associated with this maker:

“Viva fui in Sylvis: fui dura occisa securi

Dum vixi tacui: Morte Dulce cano.”[15]

and his particular mark is on the back where the neck joins the ribs. This instrument belonged to the Parisian luthier, M. Chardon, before it became the property of Sir George Donaldson, and, while in the hands of its former owner, aided in identifying the famous viola da gamba, by the same maker, now reposing in the Musée Instrumental of the Brussels Conservatoire. This beautifully inlaid specimen—known as the “basse de la ville de Paris,” owing to the fifteenth-century plan of the gay city which adorns the back—is slightly longer than Sir George Donaldson’s, though its dimensions are smaller than those finally adopted for the violoncello. It has had an adventurous career, this viol, belonging successively to M. Roquefort, M. Raoul—an enthusiastic Parisian musical amateur, who published several compositions for the violoncello as well as a method for that instrument—and also to the mighty fiddle-maker, J. B. Vuillaume. At the death of the latter it went through many vicissitudes and wandered about Russia, passing through several hands. M. Coutagne describes the beauties of this graceful viola da gamba so accurately and delightfully that we cannot do better than quote his words:

“One is at first struck by the richness and variety of the decoration,” says he. “The neck curves forward at the top in the form of a horse’s head of goodly proportions, but the back of this is covered with delicate and complicated carvings representing the head of a woman, a satyr playing a Pan’s pipes, the whole being framed in designs of animals, fruit and musical instruments. The peg-box itself is covered with carved encrustations of a woman playing a lute; a dog attached by a collar, and other ornamentation.

VIOLA DA GAMBA
By Gaspard Duiffoproucart.

“The upper table is of pine, the back and the ribs are of maple. The front is covered with a dull red varnish, that of the rest of the instrument is clear yellow. A similar contrast is observable in the character of the two tables. The front is covered with representations of butterflies, and bunches of roses, and carnations in a pot: some birds on a branch and a building of varied shapes, remarkable for a tower and a Chinese pagoda: briefly, a design in the decorative Dutch style of the seventeenth century. The back, on the contrary, is covered with a complicated marqueterie design in multi-coloured woods. The whole of the upper part is taken up with a scene which is apparently inspired by Raphaël’s ‘Vision of Ezekiel’; it represents a profile of St Luke seated upon an ox and being raised in the air towards the clouds from whence angels are seen blowing trumpets. Below this is an unpretentious plan of a good-sized town situated by a stream dotted with islands and surrounded by walls; more than two hundred houses measure at the most half-a-square-inch, other edifices constitute the background of this picturesque decoration, where some microscopic figures of men also appear. Inscribed beneath is the name, ‘Paris,’ and we have found an almost identical plan, dated 1564, at the Bibiothèque Nationale. To complete the description of this inlaying we must mention several bunches of flowers which encircle the principal subject.”

M. Coutagne says that this viol shows signs of recutting and also attempts to change the C-shaped sound-holes into the f form, now so familiar to the eye of the connoisseur and virtuoso. The absence of any name signature to this viol, and the marked difference of workmanship and colour observable between the front table and the rest of the viol, caused several experts to doubt its authenticity until it was placed side by side with this viola da gamba of Sir George Donaldson’s. Then the incontestable evidence given by the close resemblance existing between the two instruments at once allayed all doubts as to the authenticity of the back, head, neck and ribs of the “basse de la ville de Paris.” The front, however, with its dull red varnish and painted design never felt the touch of Duiffoproucart’s hand. Beyond a doubt this is of English manufacture: and more than possibly the work of seventeenth-century Barak Norman.

Can anything be more bizarre than this union of the work of good John Bull Norman and Lorraine Duiffoproucart? Imagine such methods applied to other beautiful and valuable works of art, and we might come across such incongruities as, Cleopatra’s Needle nicely finished off with a druidical stone, or the statue of Wellington supporting Napoleon’s head upon its shoulders, or Raphaël’s beautiful madonnas seated upon Chesterfield couches: one might go on endlessly summing up such horrors were vandalism a ruling power, but fortunately it is not; even the remotest cottage dweller now knows the value of his various household gods, and only parts with them “at a price.”

The third example of Duiffoproucart’s work is known as the “basse de viole au Vieillard à la chaise d’Enfant.” A drawing of this instrument by M. Hellemacher is included in M. Vidal’s “Instrument à Archet” (Paris, 1876-78), and M. Soubie also gives a clear representation of it in his “Histoire de la Musique Allemande” (Paris 1896). In form and size, this viola da gamba resembles the two already mentioned. It is small, the same horse’s head surmounts the peg-box, and the picture on the back is said to have been copied from a design of Baccio Dardinelli, which was engraved by Duiffoproucart’s contemporary, Augustin Venetien. The inlaying is in the characteristic style of the maker, in several coloured woods. The fourth gamba by this maker—according to Monsieur Chardon—exists in Switzerland and completes the number of known examples of violas da gamba by this maker.

Not many yards away from this graceful Duiffoproucart viol of Sir George Donaldson’s is a viola da gamba of strikingly beautiful workmanship. The inlaying is exquisitely rich in ivory and tortoise-shell, reminiscent of the luxurious decorations lavished by past makers on that much-treasured instrument—the lute. As you gaze at this viol’s profuse charms, you are seized with a longing to assume a mantle of gorgeous ostentation, to powder your hair, and wrap rich brocades around you, to dance stately minuets, to discuss my Lady Castlemaine and that pretty, witty jade, Nell Gwynne, behind your fan, to traverse London in a chaise à porteur, to listen to the King’s “four-and-twenty fiddlers” at Whitehall: in short,—to comport yourself as a loyal subject of Charles II.

But before we allow ourselves to lapse into such delights, we have here two interesting photographs of an Andrea Amati masterpiece; a violoncello which numbered among the famous set of thirty-eight bow instruments sent to Charles IX., King of France, by Pope Pius V. We shall linger over these pictures with more than ordinary interest, for the reason that they introduce us to the first wavering incursions of the violoncello against the viola da gamba. This Amati violoncello was but the advance guard of the main body which followed at a later date. Very slowly, but yet surely, the violoncello ousted the gamba, but its victory was not a matter of delight to everyone. Many were the comments upon the matter, and M. Hubert le Blanc even wrote a clever little book upon the subject entitled, “Defense de la Basse de Viole contre les Enterprises du Violon et les Pretensions du Violoncel.” This was brought out in Amsterdam in 1740, and it is said that the author was so delighted to find a publisher, after having tried every firm in Paris, that his enthusiasm led him to rush off to Amsterdam and settle there, when he found a publisher in that town.

Will you come here to the central hall? We can sit down close to this beautiful majolica and endeavour to place Duiffoproucart and Amati in the world of music which surrounded them. Come!

How to Hold or Place the Viol

Being conveniently seated, place your Viol decently betwixt your knees; so that the lower end of it may rest upon the calves of your legs. Set the soles of your feet flat on the floor, your toes turned a little outward. Let the top of your Viol be erected towards your left shoulder; so as it may rest in that posture, though you touch it not with your hand.

How to Hold and Move the Bow

Hold the Bow betwixt the ends of your thumb and two foremost fingers near to the Nut, the thumb and first finger fastened on the stalk; and the second finger’s end turned in shorter against the Hairs thereof; by which you may poise and keep up the point of the Bow. If the second finger have not strength enough, you may join the third finger in assistance to it; but in playing Swift Divisions, two fingers and the thumb is best.

From Christopher Simpson’s “The
Division-Viol” (First Edition, 1665).

CHAT THE THIRD

The Renaissance—The Influence of the Netherlands School—A brief Outline of the growing Use of the Viol in Germany, Italy, England, France

It must be allowed that both Gaspard Duiffoproucart and Andrea Amati were fortunate in living at a time when Art, Science, and Literature had taken a new lease of life. The meeting of sixteenth-century modernity with antique culture had created a new atmosphere of learning; in a word, the Renaissance had dawned, and progress had begun its march over Europe. Il Divino Raphaël, Leonardo da Vinci, Savonarola, Galilei, Lassus, were as comets in the horizon of advancement. Petrucci in Venice had invented the art of music printing, and deep in the heart of the Netherlands there had grown up a technically equipped school of musical composers, before which the spontaneous art of the minstrel was compelled to recede. Impelled onward by Guillaume Dufay, Johan Ockenghem, Josquin des Prés, and their successors, to Lassus, the higher culture of the divine art was making rapid progress and consummating the final emancipation of musical instruments. Already, in the early part of the sixteenth century, signs and tokens of the event were observable. In 1511 a native of Strasburg—Sebastian Virdung—compiled a species of miniature Grove’s dictionary devoted to the musical instruments of his time. The work was published in his native town, and was afterwards extensively cribbed by Agricola and Luscinis. The numerous woodcuts with which Virdung’s work is interspersed are of interest, especially when such guileless incongruities as a “Grosse Geigen”—without a bridge—and a “Kleine Geigen” (a rebec) with a bridge present themselves.

Ten years after Virdung, Hans Judenkünig was busy penning little pieces for voices and stringed instruments, a style of composition that counted numerous imitators at a later date, both on the Continent and in England. His manuscript—published by good Hans Syngriner in Vienna in 1523—consists of a number of short pieces, songs and dances, with the lute and viol pieces written in tablature. A precious copy of this work is jealously preserved in the Royal Library at Vienna. When one realises that it is easily within human capacity to feast upon its secrets, one cannot help wishing that a “magic carpet” could be requisitioned to take us to the spot where it now lies, at once. Could this be accomplished, and we were suddenly confronted with Judenkünig’s dog-eared elderly tome, our feeble attempts at description would collapse like a Gibus hat. There is something about time-honoured volumes that commands silence.

There are other points of interest about Judenkünig’s work besides that of its being the earliest attempt to mingle instruments in a methodical concerted manner. For instance, the title-page monopolises our attention, for the name Geygen is among the first to be found in print. Then again, further on, there is a woodcut representation of a man standing erect and playing on a big six-stringed viol, which he apparently holds vertically before him.[16] The instrument does not touch the ground, and, doubtless, it is attached round the player’s neck by a cord or ribbon, although the artist has not shown anything of that description. Similar woodcuts of the period intimate that this manner of playing the bass-viol was not at all uncommon during the sixteenth century. The custom was, doubtless, a survival of those “musiciens ambulants,” the minstrels, who could not be burdened with many accessories, and, like the Egyptian camel, carried their belongings on their backs. It was doubtless with their fiddles slung round their necks that the Chester minstrels sallied forth in the reign of King John, and, unarmed, conquered the besieging Welshmen by making such a noise that their enemy imagined themselves to be opposed by an overwhelming force, and flew. Also, at a later date, it is easy to imagine the genial Anthony Wood desiring to escape a little from University pedagogism and stealing out with five chosen comrades “in poor habits,” and how like country fiddlers they “scraped for their livings.” Roaming the country with their viols on their backs, Wood states that they went to “Farringdon Fair,” and, to the house of Mr Thomas Latton, at “Kingston Bakepaze,” who gave them money and sent drink out to them. After playing dance music at the inn and visiting other private houses, a most depressing encounter with some soldiers considerably damped Anthony Wood’s spirits. These men of war forced them to play in an open field without paying them a penny. “Most of my companions,” says he, referring to the incident, “would afterwards glory in this, but I was ashamed and could never endure to hear of it.” Among the five gentlemen who assisted in this escapade he mentions that “Edmund Gregorie, B.A., and gent. com. of Mert. Coll., Ox., played the bass-viol.”

Another call for playing the bass-viol in the position depicted by Hans Judenkünig came from that all-powerful patroness of music—the Church. To facilitate the use of viols in the religious processions, the bass-viol was attached round the neck of the performer. A small hole was made in the upper part of the back of the instrument so employed and a peg inserted. A cord or chain was attached to this peg, and passed round the player’s neck; an arrangement which allowed him to play with some degree of ease. Bass-viols so employed gained the title of “viola da Spala,” or shoulder viols, in Italy, from the position in which they were held. The early violoncellos, which were of a small size—not the size destined to live—were submitted to a similar chaining and carrying; of course, thumb movement and the numerous treasures of the high positions were unknown, and the player confined his efforts to the first position.

Two years after Hans Judenkünig’s publication, Martin Agricola, whose real name was Sore or Shor, published his “Musica Instrumental Deudsch,” a remarkable work, both from the point of view of literature and musicianship. He launched into woodcut representations of all the viols of the day, and they are probably there found for the first time in complete Quartets, with the names under each instrument as follows:—“Discantus” (treble), “Altus,” “Tenor,” “Bassus.” The tuning of all these viols at this period was always regulated by that prescribed for the lute. Gerle and Judenkünig states this to be composed of fourths, with a third intervening, while Agricola instructs the executant to

“Draw up your fifth string as high as you may

That it may not be broken when on it you play.”

This confusing method was even practised in the following century, for the worthy John Playford, in his “Introduction to the Skill of Music” (Twelfth Edition, 1694), tells the would-be player of the bass-viol that: “When you begin to Tune, raise your Treble or smallest String as high as conveniently it will bear without breaking; then stop only your Second or Small Mean in F and tune it till it agree in Unison with your Treble open,” and so on with each string. Imagine a modern orchestra tuned according to this recommendation!

Turning to Italy during the same period, we find much of interest. There a princely school of musicians had grown from the seeds scattered by those Netherlanders who became welcome guests of the Medici and other great Italian families. The cultured cliques of dilettanti, who were to be found in almost every town in Italy, were speeding the advancement of music and musical instruments, while other nations were at a musical standstill. Amateur viol players were far from few, and some idea of the growing popularity of the instrument may be gathered from the fact that the contemporary painters elected to introduce it into their pictures. Raphäel’s painting, of “Saint Cecilia”—now in the Dresden Gallery—gives a faithful representation of the form of the viol of the period, in the instrument which lies at her feet. It has no strings upon it, and how the well-drawn bridge stands upright without support is an anomaly which has its fellow in a fresco by Melozzo da Forzi, which graces the walls of the Sacristie of St Peter’s in Rome, Among the musical angels there represented is one who plays on a viol. The strings of this instrument are depicted raised to the accustomed distance from the table of the viol, but no trace of a bridge to support them is visible.

Paul Veronese also elected to introduce the viol into his masterpiece, the “Marriage in Cana of Galilee,” which is in the Louvre in Paris. The group of viol players in the background have a special interest when one realises that it is Titian who is playing the bass-viol, while behind him may be seen Tintoretto playing the alto-viol, and Paul Veronese himself the tenor-viol. The treble-viol—called Discantus by Agricola and Discant in England—is in the hands of an ecclesiastic. In Titian’s picture entitled the “Music Lesson,” to be seen in the National Gallery, he has shown the custom of singing and playing to the accompaniment of a bass-viol very clearly, while Guido Reni in his “Coronation of the Virgin,” in the same gallery, demonstrates another practice of the period in his two angels playing the lute and viol. Many other similar examples of viols are to be found in the paintings and engravings of that time, and in every case it is observable that (1) viols were entirely subservient to the voice; (2) that neither artist, engraver, nor dilettanti paid much attention to the violins and violoncellos which were being made by Andrea Amati in Cremona. That the shape of all viols was doubtless influenced by the advent of the stranger violin and still more foreign violoncello, is probable; indeed, one can observe the coming ascendancy of the new form in the bass, which Domenichino has placed in the hands of his matchless “St Cecile.” The f f holes are full of grace, the primitive C form being entirely cast aside. The whole outline of the gamba too is very handsome, and its resemblance to the bass-viol by the old Brescian, Pelegrino Zanetti, to be seen in the Musée of the Paris Conservatoire, is so exact that it is easy to imagine that that instrument, served as Domenichino’s model.

In the first half of the sixteenth century, the tentative efforts made by such men as Galilei, Cavalieri, and Peri towards the composition of music of a more dramatic character than that which surrounded them at that time, resulted in a higher status for the viola da gamba, and later, for the violoncello. For the latter it was a waiting game, but “tout vient à celui qui sait attendre.” One result of the general agitation among musical circles was the appearance of a notable book on the art of playing viols by Silvestro Ganassi del Fontego. This interesting work, entitled “Regola Rubertina,” was published in Venice in 1542, and was exclusively devoted to the art of fingering and tuning treble and bass viols. A most important fact is to be learnt from the inscription on the title-page, which states among other particulars that the book is suitable for those who play the viol without frets—evidently the beginning of a surer technique.

Perhaps nowhere in Italy was the dominant idea of restoring the learning of the ancient classics more deeply and fittingly rooted than in the birthplace of the greatest mediæval poet—Dante. In beautiful Florence there were coteries composed of the most prominent men of the day who found a common cause in their zeal for the revival of the culture and polish of former ages. The house of Giovanni Bardi, Count of Verino, was more especially a meeting-place for the restless spirits of the day. Among the company who there assembled frequently was Vincenzio Galilei—the father of the astronomer—Jacopo Corsi, Ottavino Rinuccini, Strozzi, Jacopo Peri, and Emilio Cavalieri. To Peri is accorded the honour of writing the first opera, and to Cavalieri the first oratorio—two mighty steps these towards the emancipation of musical instruments, for both these forms of composition gave birth to the orchestra. Bent upon freeing music from the severe canonical style to which the Church confined it, Galilei made an attempt by writing a species of Cantata—Il Conte Ugolino—which he himself sang sweetly to the accompaniment of a bass-viol before the Bardi dilettanti.[17] After this effort, Emilio Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman of good family, and another devoted member of the Bardi coterie, wrote the important La Rappresentazione di Anima e di Corpo, wherein he brought about a more equal unison of voice, poetry, and instruments. This composition was performed at the Church of Valicella, in Rome, and the orchestra consisted of a Harpsichord, a double Guitar, two Flutes, and a Basso Viola da Gamba (double bass-viol). No separate parts were given to the performers, so doubtless they were left to work out their way through the maze of figures and signs which graced the Harpsichord part. These two experiments led to others of a similar kind. Then Jacopo Peri, another of the Bardi faction, who moved in the highest circles of Florentine society, essayed a still higher flight. Instigated to the effort by Jacopo Corsi—another Florentine nobleman, whose house was likewise a centre for all the musicians of the day—and Rinuccini the poet, he attempted a musical drama which was believed to be identical in style with that of the ancient Greek tragedies. This work is the earliest known opera, it was entitled Dafne, and was performed at the Palazzo Corsi in 1597. According to Giov. Batt. Doni, “it charmed the whole city,” so that three years later Peri was commissioned to write an opera to be performed on the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. of France with Maria di Medici. The title of this second opera was Euridice; it also scored a great success, and in the preface to the composition, Peri himself records that Jacopo Corsi played the graviciembalo (the piano of the period), while the rest of the orchestra comprised: a chitarrone (a kind of guitar) which was in the hands of Grazio Moritalvo; a lyra grand (species of bass-viol with a large number of strings) played by Battista del Violino (note the name) and a luto grosso (large lute) played by Giovanni Sani. Thirty years later Giovanni Legranzi introduced the viola da gamba into his orchestra, and five years after that a similar number of violas da gamba, together with two contrabassi di viola, are included in the orchestral score of that mighty innovator, Claudio Monteverdie, in his opera, Orpheus.

Music in England at the end of the fifteenth century was but another name for noise. The dignified minstrel of former times was gone, as was also the significance of his title. True, there still existed little bands of wandering musicians who claimed the name, but they were composed entirely of the most degenerate classes of society. Indeed, so noted were they for their evil practices that it was thought necessary to issue certain regulations to prevent “idle persons under colour of minstrelsy going messages or other feigned business, being received in other men’s houses to meate and drinke.” But neither protective laws nor Edward IV.’s charter, which was granted to keep outsiders from assuming the livery of the King’s minstrels, could revive the romantic exclusiveness which had formerly been the privilege of their sect.

Thus music and musical instruments having lost their chief support in the lordly though uncultured minstrel, other patrons had to be found. In Henry VII.’s reign, Dr Burney tells us of a certain “Dr Fayrfax of Newark Cornyshe” and a few others who set popular poetry to music, “which,” says he, in his dry way, “was uncouth but superior to the music.” Then again, we hear in the same reign of the “Stryng Minstrels at Westminster,” and of the “waits” who belonged to each town in England and made “merrie musick for the kynge” when he passed that way. Henry VIII.—whose musical abilities were of no mean order—included two viols in the State band in the year 1526. The fifteen trumpets and ten sackbuts, receiving the most pay, with which the viols had to compete, doubtless allowed them no chance of being heard, but they were there, and it was their début in the royal music; dejâ quelque chose. Henry VIII.’s son, Edward VI., increased the number of viols in his musical establishment to eight, which was a significant augmentation, when we find that his father’s sackbuts had been reduced to six. About this time compositions styled “songes for severall voyces” came into vogue, no doubt instigated by the visit to these shores of the great Netherlands composer, Orlando Lassus. The first of these “severall voyce” compositions was published by Winken de Worde in 1530, and we make mention of them here because it was these very “songes” for “three, fower, and five voyces” that later became “Apt for voyce and vialls,” and were eventually succeeded by that form of composition called “Fantesies.” In 1540, the Italian gambist, Ferabosco, established himself in London, and gave lessons in the art of viol playing, and, as the cult of the gamba grew in England, ventures in the land of concerted music were made by musicians of the period. In the dumb show English play entitled Gorbodic—performed in 1561—the earliest English tragedy to be acted on the stage, music was executed by voices and musical instruments between the acts. The first act opened with the instructions that: “Firste the Musicke of Violenze began to play, durynge whiche came in uppon the stage sixe wilde men clothed in leaues.” Likewise Gascoyne’s Jocasta, of about the same date, was preceded by a dumb show accompanied by viols, cittaras, bandoras, and other musical instruments. The year 1558 saw the publication by Anthony Munday of “A Banquet of Daintie Conceits,” to be sung to the lute, bandora, virginals, or any other instrument, and in 1593 one of the earliest and best music printers of the day, William Barley, brought out an important work entitled “A New Booke of Tablature containing Instructions to guide and dispose the Hand, to play on sundry Instruments, as the Lute, Orpharion, and Bandora.” Then came, in 1597, the famous lutanist John Dowland’s “First Booke of Songes or Ayres of foure Parts, with Tablature for the Lute. So made that all the Parts together, or either of them, severally may be sung to the Lute, Orpharion, or Viol da Gambo.” The year 1599 gives us the Psalms of David, “in Metre to be sung and played on the lute, orpharyon, citterne, or base violl,” by Richard Allison, “to be solde at his house in the Duke’s Place near Alde-gate,” and dedicated to the Countess of Warwick. It is interesting to note that some MS. lute compositions of Allison’s are preserved in the British Museum. In the same year, Thomas Morley, gentleman of the Chapel Royal and pupil of William Byrd, “by whose endeavours,” says Anthony Wood, “he became, not only excellent in music, as well as in the theoretical as practical part, but also well seen in the Mathematicks in which he was excellent,” published his “First Booke of Consorte Lessons, made by divers exquisite Authers for six Instruments to play together,” dated 1596. The “six instruments” selected to “play together” consisted of the “Treble Lute,” “The Pandora” (a species of bass-lute), “The Citterne” (small guitar), “The Base violl,” “The Flute,” and “The Treble violl.” What this mixture sounded like it is difficult to surmise. No doubt the players sat round a large circular table with their “parts” spread out before them; no doubt there was a fine display of lace ruffles and graceful white hands: no doubt there were many glances exchanged between the coquettish lady with the “Treble Lute” and the dark man playing “The Base violl”: no doubt the beauties of the “exquisite authors” were perhaps somewhat lost upon these two, but “The Pandora,” “The Citterne,” “The Flute,” and the “Treble violl” were more intent upon the music, and strummed away to their hearts’ content. Side by side in a ring lay the parts before the performers then, but to-day, what a strange irony of Fate it is that has scattered them about in different museums and libraries.

In the British Museum you will find the Flute part printed by “Thomas Snodham for John Brown” and “sold at his shop in Dunstones Church Yard in Fleet Street 1611.” The “Trebel violl” part is preserved in the library at Magdalen College, Oxford. “The Pandora” part is at Christ Church, Oxford, and the “Cittern” part is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. The “Base Violl” part and the “Treble Lute” part have, curiously enough, disappeared completely. Did the lady of the “Lute” jilt the gentleman of the “Base violl” and he in a fit of rage—consequent on the event—destroy the treacherous parts that were the means of bringing them together; or, did they elope, live happy ever after, and leave directions for the parts—so full of tender reminiscences—to be buried with them?

Morley attempted no other composition of the kind, for the very good reason that he did not supply a “public want” as do so many of our modern composers and authors. The reissue of his work in 1611 proved that it was appreciated at a later date, but at the time of the first publication the English people had not yet broken away from the habit of combining voices with musical instruments. So Morley had to capitulate, and in 1600 contented himself with pleasing the popular taste by bringing out “The first booke of Little Aires to sing and play to the Lute with the Base violl.” People delighted in singing these little “Aires” in those days. It was a favourite pastime and must have put a stop to a great deal of gossiping, scandalous chit-chat. The “Base violl,” like the guitar in the barber’s shop, was kept hanging on the wall, ready to hand, and when an unloquacious visitor appeared, how delightful it was to reach down the “Base violl” and sing a “Little Aire” to its accompaniment!

John Maynard wrote a similar set of compositions which were also published by Snodham in the same year. These he named “The XII. Wonders of the World,” classified under the following headings:—“The Courtier,” “The Deune,” “The Souldiour,” “The Phisition,” “The Merchant,” “The Country Gentleman,” “The Bachelor,” “The Marryed Man,” “The Wife,” “The Widow,” “The Maide.” Each of the little songs are provided with an accompaniment for the lute and bass-viol. The style of the poetry is quite in the Gilbertian vein, as may be judged by the following lines purporting to describe the duties of a medical man:—

“Studie to uphold the slippery fate of man

Who dies when we have done the best and all we can.

From Practise and from bokes, I draw my learned skill

Not from the knowne receipt or Pothecaries bill.

The Earth my faults doth hide

The World my cures doth see

What youth and time effects is oft ascribed to me.”

This curious and interesting little volume concludes with some “lessons” for the lute and viola da gamba, in all of which the player of the bow instrument never quits the first position. The whole is dedicated to Maynard’s “Honoured Lady and Mistris the Lady Joane Thymne of Cause Castle in Shropshire,” to whom he addresses a ponderous hyperbole on her gracious qualities beginning with the amiable wish that “Nestor’s years on earth, and Angels’ happiness in heaven” might be hers.

The musical attainments of “La Belle France” were full of interest during the same period. At the beginning of the fifteenth century the figure of the good King Réné of Anjou faces his kingdom, viol in hand and whistling the refrain of his latest composition. A kingly creature with noble gifts of mind and person which opened to the first inspiration of the Italian Renaissance and mingled its vigour with the culture of Provence. The influence of this minstrel Prince in the domains of Art was powerful at the time, yet it was soon obliterated by the coarse tastes of his conqueror, Louis XI. An instance of this monarch’s musical vagaries is instanced by his command that a concert of pigs should be provided for him. The master of the Royal Music, M. l’Abbé de Baigne, complied with the demand of his royal master by inventing an ingenious arrangement which was a mixture of pork and piano. He procured swine of various ages and sizes, placed them in a tent and erected a keyboard, the notes of which were each furnished with a spike which was to each pig like the business end of the nail to the man who inadvertently came into contact with it. When the good Abbé attacked the notes vigorously, each pig became acquainted with his own particular spike and burst forth into long and pronounced squeaks. Heretofore we have always looked upon those numerous nursery rhymes in which animals figure as instrumentalists as due to the inventive caprice of the writer. Confronted with Louis XI.’s practical application of such idiosyncrasies, the following couplet is but a representation of real life after all:—

“Come dance a jig

To my granny’s pig

With a rowdy, rowdy, dowdy;

Come dance a jig

To my Granny’s pig

And pussy cat shall crowdy.”[18]

We assume that the pig and the cat formed the instrumental part of the performance, while the guests footed it lightly. An instance of feline dexterity is afforded us in the following:—

“A cat came fiddling out of a barn

With a pair of bag-pipes under her arm;

She could sing nothing but fiddle cum fee,

The mouse has married the bumble-bee;

Pipe cat—dance mouse

We’ll have a wedding at our good house.”[19]

Louis XII.’s visits to Italy encouraged the further spread of those artistic tastes introduced by King Réné. He imported the Italian crafts and architecture into France, and his choir, which afterwards graced the court of Francis I., had not its equal in Europe. It was Louis XII.’s influence and taste that laid the foundation of a new era in French musical art, a foundation upon which Francis I. built a solid structure. This monarch’s tastes were of great assistance to art, for he keenly encouraged the importations of Italy’s treasures and gave appointments at his court to the Netherlands musicians. He sanctioned the establishment of Petrucci’s system of music printing by Robert Ballard—who for many years rejoiced in the privilege of being “seul imprimeur de la musique de la chambre, chapelle, et menu plaisirs du roi.” The King was himself a lute and guitar player of no mean order, and he could sing his own “chansons” to the accompaniment of these instruments, excellently. It was this monarch who founded the royal “musique de chambre” by establishing a separate band which should perform in his anteroom and on particular occasions. The services of these musicians were quite independent of those of the members of the “chapelle” band, and included some of the best artists of the day, among them Claude Gervaise and the famous lutanist Albert were especially noted. Gervaise held a similar post in Henry II.’s regime and figured also in Charles IX.’s musical establishment. In 1556 he published seven books of “Gaillards, Pavan’s,” and popular songs for four and five viols. The appearance of these compositions in France nearly half-a-century before Morley’s “Consort Lessons for six different Instruments,” in England, is in the nature of an anomaly, seeing that both Maugars and Rousseau state that in their day (seventeenth century) the viol was in its youth in France, whereas the English,—who had received that instrument straight from Italy—were the finest performers in the world.

Both Henry II., and his son, Charles IX., were loyal to the traditions of the musical tastes of their family. The first of these monarchs we know granted Duiffoproucart his “lettres de naturalisation,” and it is quite within the bounds of possibility that his gamba, now before us, and the Amati violoncello, which we are about to discuss, came in contact with one another at the French court. The Machiavelian-like manœuvres of Marie de Medici at her son’s court did not squash Charles IX.’s ardent love of music and poetry, any more than Henry VIII.’s matrimonial imbroglios prevented him from attaining a degree of excellence on the flute. It is said that the French king frequently took part with the choir of his “Chapelle” in singing Mass in the manner of his father, and that he was greatly attached to his musicians. In spite of his affection for them, however, he advocated low living and high thinking for them. “Poets and musicians resemble horses,” said he, “they become soft and lose their vivacity if surrounded by abundance, let them be nourished but not fattened.”

It was during this monarch’s reign that the important event of the foundation of an “Academie de Musique” by a distinguished poet and musician—Antoine de Bäif[20]—took place. The premises of this establishment were situated in the poet’s own home in the Faubourg Saint Marcel. All the most eminent musicians of the day, both native and foreign, were received and handsomely entertained at this “Academie,” and each week a grand concert of vocal and instrumental music was given and regularly attended by Charles IX. Marguerite de Valois, the King’s sister, in imitation of De Bäif, also established an “Academie de Musique” at her Palace of Issy and herself presided at the concerts, which were held in the grounds of the chateau. At the base of a limpid fountain the Princess and her musicians assembled each week, and the poets of the day named the fountain “Castalinus” in memory of that which flowed at the feet of Parnassus, consecrated by the ancient Greeks to the Muses.

It is under the date 27th October 1572—but three days after the tragic St Bartholomew’s Eve—that the “Archives Curieuses de l’Histoire de France”[21] records a certain flautist, named Nicolas Delinet, receiving money wherewith to buy a “Cremona Violin”:—“A Nicolas Delinet joeur de Fluste et Violon dudict la somme de 50 livres tourn pour lui donner moyen d’achepter ung Violon de Cremonne pour le service dudict Sieur,” so runs the announcement. From this purchase of a Cremona violin, it may be inferred that the exquisite Amati “set” to which this violoncello belonged had not yet arrived from Italy. Yet they were sent in the year 1572. The thought presents itself irresistibly that Pope Pius V. sent this handsome present to Charles IX. as a token of his approbation of the St Bartholomew Massacre. The completeness of the “set”: the novelty of shaping the bass instruments in the same form as the violin, and the appropriateness of such a gift to the music-loving Charles, all point to an intimate personal graciousness, which might well be taken for a secret approval of some deed or event.

Made of Copper

“Mike Cougler, of Mush Island, Lexington County, owns a violoncello made of copper which can be heard two miles away.”—South Carolina Gazette, 1902.

New Music

This day are published

Six Solos for two violoncellos with a thorough bass for the harpsichord.

Composed by Signor Pasqualiano.

Printed by J. Walsh in Catherine Street in the Strand.—London Evening Post, 14th January 1748.

Fiddle Strings

This day imported and sold wholesale or retale at Simpson’s Musick Shop in Sweeting’s Alley, opposite the East door of the Royal Exchange.

Roman Ring Firsts, Seconds, and Thirds; blue Firsts, and white Seconds and Thirds, in knots and all in great perfection. Merchants and shopkeepers may be served with any quantity at the lowest prices.—General Advertiser, 31st January 1750-51.

CHAT THE FOURTH

Andrea Amati—“The King” and its History—Gasparo da Salo—Woods employed by Ancient Luthiers—Paolo Maggini and the “Dumas” Bass—M. Savart’s Experiments—Freaks—Stradivarius Violoncellos—Signor Piatti’s Violoncellos—The Bass of Spain—Davidoff’s Violoncello—Herr Klengel’s Amati—A neat Swindle—Stradivarius’ Contemporaries—Owners of Rugger Violoncellos—George IV.’s pseudo Stradivarius—The earliest Treatise on the Violoncello as a Solo Instrument—Mr Andrew Forster’s Gamba—The Prince Consort’s “Ancient Instruments” Concert—Development of the Technique, of Violoncello playing

The romances of real life are generally allowed to be far more amazing than anything fiction can create. Perhaps though, when all is said and done, the most sentimental or interesting happenings are not those which lie concealed in reality or myth, but in the unwritten something which clings about the antique treasures we prize—“Those certain things” which Oliver Wendell Holmes calls “good for nothing unless they have been kept for a long while.”

That old oak chair is more precious than a modern production, not because the wood is better or the make more solid, but for the misty reminiscences of lace and buskin, Cavalier and Puritan, in which it is steeped.

This exquisite brocade is valued not so much for its rich texture as for the memory of the shapely shoulders of a Du Barry, or a Castlemaine, which it once graced.

This china vase: this tapestry: this antique ring—we have but to look at them and they tell us many an unwritten story, impossible to repeat, and appealing to us alone. Of all the mute romancers carefully preserved from time’s destructive grasp, none can tell such tales as do the grand old fiddles. Those constant yielding companions of generations passed away have served as confessional boxes for so many centuries that each curve and bend teems with a secret. Take this masterpiece of Andrea Amati for instance (p. 114). Made in Cremona by a man of the mature age of fifty-two or thereabouts, the impulsive hazard of his youthful efforts had long since passed away: definite aim had developed his gifts, and ripe experience had given his hand an exquisite cunning. Little did he think as he sat in his sunny Cremona workshop, smoothing the back of this violoncello, bending the ribs, letting in the purfled edges, while he chatted now and again with a neighbour who dropped in, that he was building a monument to his own memory.

THE ‘KING’
Violoncello by Andreas Amati, 1572.

Sent with its fellows to the French court, this violoncello arrived, with the painted armorial bearings of Charles IX., exquisitely pure and fresh in colour, upon its back and sides. It was relegated to the King’s “Chapelle,” or private oratory, doubtless occupying a humble position in the band where the Duiffoproucart viol was prominent: feeling the touch of fresh fingers, as the old ones lost their skill: seeing the intrigues of the court life: hearing the cries of, “The King is dead! Long live the King!” observing each phase of human love and folly, and watching the vagaries of Princes for over two hundred years. Truly your tales would outrival Balzac himself could you speak, and your royal title—“the King”—is but a well-deserved panegyric.

At the time of the French Revolution, in 1790, this violoncello is said to have been still in use at the court of the unfortunate Louis XVI. On the 6th and 7th of October in that year the mob destroyed the whole magnificent “set”—consisting of twenty-four violins (twelve large, and twelve small), six tenors, and eight basses—to which it belonged. Two of the violins of this number were afterwards recovered by Viotti’s pupil, M. J. B. Cartier, and one of the small violins belonged to George Somes, Esq., in 1884. These fiddles, and this violoncello—“The King”—are apparently the only members of the “set” that survived the reckless vengeance of the mob. When one realises how easily such delicate constructions are ruined in sacrilegious hands, their preservation in the midst of the pandemonium, which reigned supreme at that time in Paris, is miraculous.

After the Revolution a glimpse of the whereabouts of “The King” is afforded us by a pencilled note written by the father of its present owner on the back of the frame, containing the interesting slip of paper which has accompanied this violoncello for at least a hundred years. On the paper itself the following inscription is written in French characters:—“Basse faitte par erndre ermati Luthiér â cremonne eu italie en 1572. envoyez par le pape 3: à Charles 9 roi de france pour sa chapelle.—avec ses amories et se devise, pietate justicia.” Turning this little framed document over, the three faintly pencilled words, “Duport had it,” seem to imply that “The King,” during the Napoleonic era, was the property of Berteau’s gifted pupil, Jean Pierre Duport, known generally as “Duport l’ainé.” If this was the case, then this violoncello went with him to the court of Frederick the Great at Berlin. It is more probable, however, that it fell into the hands of Jean Pierre’s brother, Jean Louis Duport—one of the finest violoncellists of his day—as he became a member of Napoleon’s band and professor at the Conservatoire of Music. Another pencilled note in the same hand, at the back of the frame, stating that “A Hollander brought it to Betts in 1812, and he sold it to H. W. Curtis”[22] (afterwards Sir William Curtis) still further points to Duport, the younger, as its owner, for Duport was in sore straits at one time. This accomplished artist, it may be remembered, also held an appointment at the court of Frederick the Great, but when the defeats of Auerstädt and Jena placed Prussia in the position of a suppliant at the feet of Napoleon, Duport returned to Paris utterly ruined. If the violoncello had belonged to his brother it is possible that Jean Pierre may have ceded it to the more accomplished Jean Louis, and the latter brought it to Paris in 1806, where his misfortunes induced him to part with it to a dealer. The next we hear of “The King” is on the death of Sir William Curtis, when it figures in the catalogue of his musical instruments—which were sold by auction on 3rd May 1829—as: “Lot 9, a violoncello by Andrea Amati Cremonencis Faciebat, 1572. A document was given to the proprietor when he purchased this instrument, stating that it was presented by Pope Pius V. to Charles IX., King of France, for his chapel. It has been richly decorated, the arms of France being on the back and the motto ‘Pietate et Justitia’ on the sides. The tone of this violoncello is of extraordinary power and richness.” The Rev. Canon A. H. Bridges, Rector of Beddington, either bought it at the above sale, or from Sir William Curtis’s survivors. On the death of Canon Bridges, in 1891, it became the property of his son, the present owner, John Henry Bridges, Esq., of Ewell Court, Surrey.

THE ‘KING’
Violoncello by Andreas Amati, 1572.

Some connoisseurs describe “The King” to be nothing but a curiosity at the present time. This is hardly correct, for, in spite of its having been very much knocked about in the past, it still retains a sweet quality of tone which makes it a delightful drawing-room instrument. Like Amati’s fiddles “The King” is of small dimensions; indeed violoncellos at this early date were nothing but extra large tenors, and it was not until makers turned their attention to evolving violoncellos out of the viola da gamba that the former began to take a prominent place in the ranks of stringed instruments. The transition itself from gamba to the early form of violoncello took place in the second half of the sixteenth century but—“Who effected the change?” Was it Duiffoproucart in Lyons, Andrea Amati in Cremona, or Gasparo da Salo, looking forth over the sunny plains of Lombardy? The correct reply is perhaps—“All!” Duiffoproucart reduced the size of the huge German geiges so as to furnish what Rousseau in his “Dictionnaire de Musique” defines as “les instruments de remplissage.” Previous to the dispersion of viols into various sizes, they were universally large both in Italy and later in France and England. “The first viols in use in France,” says Jean Rousseau—the eminent violist—in his “Traité de la Viole” (Paris, 1687), “had five strings, and were very large ... of such dimensions indeed, that the Père Mersenne says that a young Page de Musique could be shut within to sing the treble part, while the bass was played upon the self-same instrument”—an arrangement which certainly could not contribute to the happiness of either the little page, or the bass-viol, and the diminishing process which necessarily did away with such a forlorn practice was certainly welcome to all the actors in the trio. Owing to the breaking up of the viols into various sizes, orchestras grew in proportion, so that we find in the Etat de France for 1645, that the “Musique de la Chambre de Monsieur” (Louis XIV.’s brother) boasted “Nicolas Fleury” and “Pierre Montigny” as players of the Haute Contre,[23] “Pierre Noinne” and “N... le Vert” as players of the Taille Basses,[24] while “Francois Martin” and “Guillaume Mercer” disported themselves on the “Taille Haute.”[25] In the beginning of the following century, further names of instruments de remplissage, appear in the Paris Opera orchestra: for instance “2 quintes”[26] “2 tailles,”[27] and “3 haute contres.”

This was the result of Duiffoproucart’s creation of the small viola da gamba, a size which broke into many degrees and kinds. Then Andrea Amati made a further step in the right direction by making small-sized bass instruments in the same form as the violin, which had at that time assumed the shape now so familiar. The moot question—“Was it Andrea Amati in Cremona, or Gasparo da Salo in Brescia who first made violoncellos in the form of the violin?”—is of course unanswerable at this space of time. Da Salo was a man of progress, ready to fight for his opinions. He made some fine double-basses and grand tenors which are sought after to this day, and Herr August Reichers, the Berlin violin-maker, possessed a small-sized violoncello by this maker in 1884. If this instrument was not a cut-down bass-viol, or an exceptionally large tenor, it is apparently a solitary example of a violoncello by Da Salo, but even though its existence be allowed, the numerous violoncellos made by Andrea Amati must necessarily admit him to be—if not the inventor—at least the earliest known luthier to make violoncellos.

Although Da Salo may be looked upon as no enthusiast where violoncellos were concerned, he was not neglectful in the matter of other bass instruments. Signor Dragonetti possessed no fewer than three fine basses by the Brescian maker, of various sizes, and Mr Hart, in 1875, owned a small double-bass of Da Salo’s which had been brought from Italy by Tarisio, and was looked upon as the ne plus ultra of its kind. A Da Salo viola da gamba, catalogued as of the year 1570, was to be seen among the sumptuous display of musical instruments shown at the Special Loan Exhibition held at Fishmongers’ Hall in the summer of 1904.

But, fortunately, we need not rely entirely upon catalogues, description, and speculation for an idea of Da Salo’s skill as a gamba-maker, for, here beside us, in their neat glass house, two examples of the fine old Brescian repose in calm tranquillity, like veterans silently ruminating over many campaigns. They both face us with the quaint C-shaped sound-holes, so dear to the hearts of the old viol-makers, and both display upper tables of remarkably well-chosen even-grained pine wood. One of them is strung with seven strings, but the seventh is a later invention, for the earliest viols had five strings, then six, and it was not until the last part of the seventeenth century that Sainte Colombe (some say Marais) added another to the six. A true unaltered seven-stringed viol is hardly ever to be met with now. A solitary and excellent example, however, was lent by M. Galley to the Special Loan Exhibition at South Kensington in 1872. This was a remarkably handsome gamba and had remained untouched, with the exception of an attempt to attach sympathetic strings. A further adjunct to be found in this Da Salo gamba before us is the scroll, which curves round in a unique manner like a wisp of twisted ribbon: this never felt the touch of Da Salo’s hand. It may be the work of Barak Norman, for a similar, indeed identical, scroll crowns his gamba now in the Donaldson Museum, but certainly it is not Da Salo’s work. In his day sculptured human and animal heads were de rigueur, and, like his contemporaries, he carved these himself, or employed special artists to do so. In Germany the followers of Jacobus Stainer of Absam—whose favourite ornament was a lion’s head—freely adopted this practice, but the custom died out first in Italy, where viol-makers discovered that such a system was far from remunerative.

Close to this gamba of Da Salo’s with the spurious scroll, his second example exhibits his skill as a wood-carver, in the exquisitely chiselled head of an old woman, which surmounts the neck. The varnish is slightly darker on this gamba than on the one beside it. Age is no doubt responsible for this and not the maker himself, as it is also for the black Da Salo fiddles of which some connoisseurs speak with a degree of scorn. It may be noticed that there is but one line of purfling round this gamba. This was such an ordinary custom with Da Salo that comment is unnecessary. It is clumsily let in, lacking the grace and finish expended upon this difficult art by Cremona makers. The Amatis above all others excelled in the neatness of their purfling, and the customary three lines is always to be met with in their fiddles as well as in those of Stradivarius. The latter, however, on one solitary occasion reverted to one line of purfling in the violoncello upon which Bernard Romberg played for many years. This instrument is unique in many ways, for the gifted Cremonese maker made the back and sides of plane wood and poplar, material which he employed occasionally in the early part of his career, but which he had discarded at the date (1711) he made the violoncello.

Speaking of wood, by-the-by, the proper selection of timber was held to be a matter of great importance by the ancient luthier. M. Fetis, in his “Antonio Stradivarius,” has given some interesting information regarding the source from whence the old viol-makers obtained their wood. He says that maple was sent from Croatea, Turkey and Dalmatia to Venice in the shape of galley oars, and that the Turks, ever seeking to outrival the Venetians, and consequently frequently at war with them, took care to choose wood with the handsomest wave, knowing well that it would break the more easily. It was from among this selection that the viol-maker had to gather his timber. In his own country there was certainly little difficulty in obtaining wood, but, where would he get such maple as came to him from Dalmatia? Secretly he welcomed this

“... thing devised by the enemy”

and turned it to good account. The illustrious Da Salo was very partial to pear wood as well as sycamore, which he cut slab-ways from the tree, as did most of his contemporaries. Stradivarius preferred maple to any other wood, but he went with the times and also employed the woods favoured by his brethren, such as poplar, lime, and even grained pine. A species of red pine, common to the Tyrol, and known to the Italian makers by the name of “Azarole,” was more in favour with the Cremona luthier than Swiss pine. Only the south side, the side exposed to the drying rays of the sun, was used. Indeed, this precaution is one which has been observed by makers for over three hundred years, knowing well that it is one of the first aids towards solving the problem: Given: A log of wood. Make: A fiddle. The timber must be blameless, free from knots or blemish, and—above all—free from worm, a fate which has destroyed whole forests of pine if the trees are cut at the wrong season of the year. Also the tree must have arrived at a maturity of ten years, and the question of sap flowing through the outer part of the tree must be duly considered. Speaking on this subject, Mr Davidson[28] remarks that, owing to the sap passing through this part of the tree, the wood abounds in saccharine matter and is quickly susceptible to decay. In trees which have arrived at maturity, there is no distinction between the sap and heart wood, the wood being of the same texture throughout and almost uniform. The proper time for cutting trees is when the sap ceases to flow, and experience has determined the month of December to be the best time for this purpose, as the wood which has been cut during this month has been found to have always been of superior quality to any cut during the other months. Monsieur l’Abbé Sibre, author of “La Chelonome ou le parfait Luthérie,” which was published at the beginning of the nineteenth century, voices the merits of wood cut in December and January long before Mr Davidson, and adds the admonition that the wood must be cut from between the bark and heart of the tree. The wood being cut as required from the healthy pine or maple, it is sawn into planks, and,—though the fiddle-maker’s hands are madly twitching to commence operations on it,—subjected to a drying process to be effected by sun and air for at least six years. If at the end of that period of time the luthier is still enamoured of his timber, then he may clamp it and cut it and scrape it into the violin or violoncello of his fancy. Monsieur Simoutre, the French violin-maker and author of some patent improvements which, in common with all innovations connected with bow instruments, have had no lasting effect, contends that the best pine wood comes from Silesia, from La Valteline, Les Grisons, Le Simmenthal in the Bernese Alps, from certain sheltered parts of the valley of the Lac de Joux, in the Canton de Vaud, Switzerland, and from the southern slopes of the Jura Bernois. Modern violin-makers generally employ maple cut from trees growing on the southern slopes of the Carpathians and also in some parts of the Eastern Alps, but where this is not procurable, it has been found that it is not absolutely necessary to range the Alps or the Carpathians in search of suitable wood, for many a fine violin and violoncello have been made from the wainscot or beam of an old-time cottage or mansion. J. B. Vuillaume used to roam over Italy and Switzerland frequently for the sole purpose of picking up choice bits of pine which had probably formed part of a beam or support in some residence for hundreds of years. Out of these purchases he undoubtedly made some of his finest instruments. His example has recommended itself to many other makers, and only the other day we heard of a contemporary English maker whose best violins and violoncellos have been formed from an old beam obtained from a house near Eltham. Such practices as these certainly place lutherie within the range of everyone so inclined, for, who is there in these days that does not possess a likely piece of old furniture? some familiar escritoire, or table, or panel, out of which a possible rival to Cremona’s chefs-d’œuvre may be conjured by the aid of gouge, chisel, bending iron, and glue pot. In spite of the time-saving effects which the appropriation of the family heirlooms for this purpose would effect, how much more appealing and poetic were the methods of the ancient luthier, who went straight to the forest for his wood. Can one picture Stradivarius storing up old beams, and tables, on the roof of his house in Cremona? Can we imagine Guarnerius roaming about the country seeking likely bits of wood in cottages, or the Amatis, or Da Salo, the maker of these gambas, resorting to such a commonplace expedient. No! a thousand times. They went straight to the forest for their timber, wandered through the misty depths of clustered pines, pondering in the deep silence upon many a knotty point of their craft. Or they stood at times on the rocky borders of the wood, where the trees looked down upon the valley from whence the sound of the rushing brook could be faintly heard. From a point of vantage they watched the trees being felled: hearkened to the tone they emitted as their torn limbs bounded from rock to rock: counted the number of circles to ascertain the age of a likely tree: examined the colour with care to judge of its health. If they were satisfied with these various preliminary tests, they bought what they required, stored the planks on the sheltered side of their workshop or on the roof of the same, and watched the hot Italian sun do its work of drying. Not only did the most eminent makers of the past carefully store their own wood, but if they became possessed of a particularly handsome piece they did not scruple to patch and piece it together, so that no scrap of the treasure should be wasted.