Old Instruments Of Music

________________________________________________
Title:     Old Instruments Of Music
Author: Francis Darwin [More Titles by Darwin]

Mr Galpin has written an admirable book on old musical instruments. His knowledge, which is first hand, is the harvest of many years’ research; and, like the best type of learned authors, he has the power of sharing his knowledge with the ignorant.

His book begins with a study of stringed instruments, which occupies about half the book, the remainder being given up to the wind band.

My own experience of instruments of music is confined to the latter division. I remember as a small boy at school struggling with an elementary flute: or was it a penny whistle? I believe it was a flute, for I have a dim recollection of pouring water into it before it would sound. I tried to teach the instrument—whatever it was—to a friend, and wrote down the fingerings by a series of black and white dots, in the manner quoted from Thomas Greeting’s Pleasant Companion, 1675, by Mr Galpin (p. 146). Then when I was about fifteen or sixteen years old I began under that admirable teacher, the late R. S. Rockstro, to work regularly at the flute. As a Cambridge undergraduate I remember playing flute solos at the University Musical Society’s concerts. And I can still recall the pleasant sound of the applause which on one occasion called for a repetition of my performance. Since those days I took up the bassoon under the guidance of another admirable teacher, Mr E. F. James. But nowadays my chief interest is the recorder, which is best known to the unmusical world from the well-known passage in Hamlet. Of this instrument I shall have something to say in the sequel. I give these personal details to show how small a right I have to do more than give an abstract of Mr Galpin’s admirable book.

The first instrument dealt with is the harp, the essential feature of which is that each string gives but one sound. {72} It is not clear to me why the psaltery and dulcimer are separated from the harp, since they also have unstopped strings and therefore unalterable notes. Whereas the interpolated chapter ii. is concerned with instruments—the gittern and citole—whose tones are alterable in pitch by "stopping," i.e., altering the length of the vibrating part of the string. I can only suppose that the author considers that the fact of the gittern and citole being sounded by plucking the strings, brings these instruments into alliance with the harp. I confess that I should like to have seen Class I. (strings unalterable in tone) including the harp, the rote, the psaltery, dulcimer (Plate I.), the æolian-harp, and the piano. Then would come a class of instruments some at least of whose strings produce a variety of tones by stopping, i.e., shortening the vibrating region of the string, and this would include gittern and citole, lute, etc. But doubtless the author has good reason for his arrangement, and I have not knowledge enough to be his critic.

[Picture: Plate I. Psaltery and Dulcimer]

At p. 4 (Galpin) is represented the simple Irish harp or lyre which was known as the cruit or crot; it is essentially a harp, although it seems, in its infancy at any rate, to have had but five or six strings. The name cruit or crot afterwards developed into rotte, and under this name is described a remarkable instrument apparently dating from the fifth to the eighth centuries, which is figured at p. 34 (Galpin). It was found in the Black Forest in the grave of a warrior, together with his sword and bow, and seems to have been clasped in his arms, as though he had especially valued it. The true harp, which in its simplest form (Galpin, p. 8) chiefly differs from the rote in shape, {73a} is characterised by the picturesque triangular outline that is so familiar. It was of Teutonic origin, and Mr Galpin tells an admirable story of a Saxon who disguised himself as a Briton, by playing the rote instead of the harp, which would have revealed his nationality. In spite of its Saxon parentage the Irish adopted the harp, and a beautiful instrument of the early thirteenth century is preserved at Trinity College, Dublin (Galpin, p. 12). The Irish for harp is Clairsech, {73b} a word that reminds me of an Irish friend who used to quote—

"Old Tracy and old Darcy
Playing all weathers on the Clarsy."

Mr Galpin tells a pleasant story of St Ealdhelm, who was Bishop of Sherborne in the year 705. When he was about to preach he found the church empty; he therefore took his harp, and "standing on a bridge hard by, soon attracted a considerable crowd by his playing. Then he delivered his sermon."

Chapter ii, p. 20, is devoted to the gittern and citole. In the first-named instrument we have the ancestor of the guitar, which it resembled in its flat back, and in the curving inwards of the vertical sides. {74a} It has generally been believed that the "waist" thus produced was an adaptation to the use of the bow, but, as the author points out, this form occurs long before the existence of bowed instruments. {74b} At p. 22 (Galpin) is given an early fourteenth century illustration of a gittern-player, holding in his right hand the plectrum with which he sounds the strings. The most curious point, however, is the depth of the neck of the instrument, which is pierced by a large hole to admit the left thumb; without this curious device it would apparently be impossible to stop the strings. On the same plate is given an illustration of the precious gittern at Warwick Castle, believed to date from about 1330, in which the thumb-hole is more clearly shown. The guitar, which may be considered a descendant of the gittern, is said to have completely eclipsed its ancestor in the seventeenth century. And at the present time it, together with the mandoline and the banjo, are the only representatives of the type in every-day use.

Mr Galpin places the citole in the same class as the gittern. He says that this instrument has been much misunderstood, and since I do not desire to add my quota to the injustice under which this unfortunate instrument suffers, I shall pass on to the mandore and lute. The essential characteristic of these instruments is that their bodies, instead of having the flat back of the guitar, are rounded. Though the body is now built of strips of wood or ivory, its form is "reminiscent of the time when the body or resonator consisted of a simple gourd or half-gourd covered with skin." In this they resemble the instruments of Oriental races, and the author traces the form of the rebec and mandoline as well as that of the mandore and lute to Persian, Arabic, and Moorish influence in the Middle Ages.

The European lute had at first only four strings, but in the "elaborate instruments of the seventeenth century there were twenty-six or thirty strings to be carefully tuned and regulated." No wonder that a lutenist should have been said to spend three-quarters of his existence in tuning his instrument. The mandore was a small form of lute, and is chiefly of interest because in a yet smaller form it still survives as the mandoline, which, however, usually has both wire and covered strings, and is played with a plectrum. To return to the lute, its most obvious characteristic is that the head (in which are the pegs for tuning the strings) is bent at right-angles to the general plane of the instrument. It is not clear what is the meaning of this curious crook in the instrument, but it is some comfort to the ignorant since it enables us to recognise a lute when we see one. Henry VIII. and his daughters Mary and Elizabeth are said to have been good lutenists. The smaller gut strings, called by the pleasant name of minnikins, were easily broken, and a gift of lute-strings was considered a present fit for a queen, and one which the great Elizabeth did not disdain.

There was also an archlute, which in its largest form—six feet in height—was known as the chitarrone. It had not the rectangular bend in the neck of the ordinary lute; it was also characterised by having four or five free or unstopped strings. A fine reproduction of Lady Mary Sidney and her archlute faces the title-page of the book.

Mr Galpin (p. 46) quotes from Thomas Mace’s Musick’s Monument, 1676, the proper method of "fretting" a lute or similar instrument. The frets, or horizontal strings or wires which make cross ridges on the neck of lutes, viols, etc., I had ignorantly imagined to be guides to the beginner as to where to stop the string; but it appears (Galpin, p. 46) that they "add to its tone and resonance by keeping the string from touching the finger-board too closely." The word "fret" is said to be derived from the old French ferretté, i.e., banded with iron. {77a}

[Picture: PLATE II. Various stringed instruments]

In Mace’s {77b} book above referred to he discourses with a child-like enthusiasm on his favourite instrument. He does not follow the elder lutenists, whom he describes as "extreme shie in revealing the Occult and Hidden Secrets of the Lute." He gives the following examples of "False and Ignorant Out-cries against the Lute":—

(1) "That it is the Hardest Instrument in the World.

(2) "That it will take up the Time of an Apprenticeship to play well upon It.

(3) "That it makes Young People grow awry.

(4) "That it is a very Chargeable Instrument to keep; so that one had as good keep a Horse as a Lute for Cost.

(5) "That it is a Woman’s Instrument.

(6) "And lastly (which is the most Childish of all the rest), It is out of Fashion."

The following extracts from Mace will give some idea of his style and of his method of treating the subject:—

"First, know that an Old Lute is better than a New one: Then, The Venice Lutes are commonly Good. There are diversities of Mens Names in Lutes; but the Chief Name we most esteem, is Laux Maler, ever written with Text Letters: Two of which Lutes I have seen (Pittifull Old, Batter’d, Crack’d Things) valued at 100 l. a piece (p. 48).

"When you perceive any Peg to be troubled with the slippery Disease, assure yourself he will never grow better of Himself, without some of Your Care; therefore take Him out, and examine the Cause (p. 51).

"And that you may know how to shelter your Lute, in the worst of Ill weathers (which is moist) you shall do well . . . to put It into a Bed, that is constantly used, between the Rug and the Blanket; but never between the sheets, because they may be moist with Sweat (p. 62).

"Strings are of three sorts, Minikins, Venice-Catlins, and Lyons (for Basses).

"I us’d to compare . . . Tossing-Finger’d Players to Blind-Horses, which always lift up their Feet, higher than need is; and so by that means, can never Run Fast, or with a Smooth Swiftness" (p. 85).

He says, "You must be Very Careful (now, in your first beginning) to get a Good Habit; so that you stop close to your Fretts, and never upon any Frett; and ever, with the very End of your Finger; except when a Cross, or Full Stop is to be performed" (p. 99).

[Picture: Plate III. The Crwth]

Bowed Instruments.

Mr Galpin (p. 75) gives a figure of a man playing a Crowd with a bow, instead of plucking the strings with the fingers as shown in sculptured Irish Crosses. What makes the figure so especially interesting, is that there is clearly no means of stopping the strings, i.e., of altering the length of the vibrating region, and therefore altering the pitch. No one, I fancy, would have guessed that the bow was of more ancient lineage than the fiddle. The finger-board, which transforms the instrument into an undeniable relative of the violin, is known to have existed in the thirteenth century. It is a striking fact that what is practically a cruit or rotte survived in use until the nineteenth century in this country, in the form of the Welsh crwth or crowd shown on Plate III. There is a specimen dated 1742 in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The crwth here figured was made last century by Owain Tyddwr of Dolgelly, an old man who remembered the instrument as it was in his younger days, and took great pleasure in its reconstruction.

The crwth is followed by the rebec, which most of us know better from Milton’s lines—

"When the merry bells ring round
And the jocund rebecks sound"—

than in any more practical manner. It had a certain resemblance to the lute in its pear-shaped outline and its convex or rounded sound-box, but differs from that instrument in being played with a bow. Mr Galpin quotes very appropriately the name of one of the country actors in A Midsummer Night’s Dream—Hugh Rebeck—as suggesting that an everyday audience was familiar with it.

Viols.—The only surviving instrument of this class is the double bass, which is "still frequently made with the flat back and sloping shoulders of its departed predecessors." The bass viol was also known as the Viola da Gamba, and this was Sir Andrew Aguecheek’s instrument, who was said to play on the "Viol de Gamboys." These instruments—bass and treble—had six strings, and were provided with frets like the guitar. Their tone is described as "soft and slightly reedy or nasal, but very penetrating." It seems that the smaller viols disappeared in England towards the end of the seventeenth century, but the type of viol corresponding to the violoncello "held its own for nearly another hundred years," when it at last yielded to the more modern instrument.

Under the heading "Concerning the Viol and Musick in general," Mace writes (p. 231):—

"It may be thought, I am so great a Lover of It [the Lute], that I make Light Esteem of any other Instrument, besides; which Truly I do not; but Love the Viol in a very High Degree; yea, close unto the Lute. . . .

"I cannot understand, how Arts and Sciences should be subject unto any such Phantastical, Giddy, or Inconsiderate Toyish Conceits, as ever to be said to be in Fashion, or out of Fashion.

[Picture: PLATE IV. The Tromba Marina]

"I remember there was a Fashion, not many Years since, for Women in their Apparel to be so Pent up by the Straitness, and Stiffness of their Gown-Shoulder-Sleeves, that They could not so much as Scratch their Heads for the Necessary Remove of a Biting Louse; nor Elevate their Arms scarcely to feed themselves Handsomely; nor Carve a Dish of Meat at a Table, but their whole Body must needs Bend towards the Dish."

And here we must leave Thomas Mace (who with all his oddities is a lovable and genuine writer) and pass on to the "scoulding" violin—to use his own phrase—an instrument he considered as only suitable for "any extraordinary Jolly or Jocund Consort-Occasion."

The violin, which finally ousted the treble viol, seems indeed to have had a humble beginning in fairs and country revels: but six violins were included in Henry VIII.’s band, where they were played by Italian musicians. Violins did not rapidly make their way to popularity, and Playford (1660) describes these instruments—rather condescendingly—as "a cheerful and spritely instrument much practised of late." He speaks, too, of a bass violin, i.e. the violoncello.

The chapter ends with a description of the tromba marina, which is not marine trumpet, but a curious elongated box-like instrument with a single string, which is sounded with a bow and wakens the harmony of the sympathetic strings within the body of the instrument. Mr Galpin’s instrument was discovered in an old farmhouse in Cheshire (Plate IV.).

Chapter vi. is chiefly devoted to the organistrum or hurdy-gurdy (Plate V.). This is a stringed instrument which differs from the rest of its class by being sounded neither with fingers like the lute nor with a bow like the viol, but by means of a rotating wooden wheel. The melody string (or strings) is not stopped directly by the finger as in the violin, but by a series of keys manipulated by the performer, who need not necessarily possess a musical ear since the stopping is arranged for him. The Swedish nyckel-harpa—which I remember to have heard in Stockholm—is the only other instrument in which the strings are stopped by mechanical means. This instrument differs from the organistrum in the fact that it is sounded by the ordinary fiddle-bow, and not by means of a wheel. The organistrum is remarkable for having been "in constant and popular use" from the tenth century up to the present day.

 

Clavichord and Virginal.

The clavichord, the earliest progenitor of the piano, originated in an instrument in which the tangent which struck a given string also acted as a bridge to mark off the length of the vibrating portion and therefore to determine the note produced. It is remarkable that (p. 115) this type of instrument remained in use until the time of Sebastian Bach, when the principle of "one tangent one string" replaced the more ancient system.

Of the clavichord Mr Dolmetsch (p. 433) writes that its tone is comparable, as regards colour and power, "rather to the humming of bees than to the most delicate among instruments. But it possesses a soul . . . for under the fingers of some gifted player it reflects every shade of" his "feelings like a faithful mirror. Its tone is alive, its notes can be swelled or made to quiver just like a voice swayed by emotion. It can even command those slight variations in pitch which in all sensitive instruments are so helpful to expression."

[Picture: PLATE V. I. Viola d’Amore. 2. Cither Viol. 3. Hurdy-gurdy or Organistrum]

The best known among the group of instruments to which the clavichord belongs are the spinet and the harpsichord. I think that Browning’s musician who "played toccatas stately at the clavichord" must have performed on one of the last-named instruments. In the spinet and the harpsichord the strings are plucked, and therefore sounded, by small points made of leather or of quill which are under the control of the keyboard.

Mr Galpin (who is always interesting on evolution) points out that the progenitor of the spinet is the plucked psaltery, whereas the piano forte (the earliest form of which appeared about 1709) is a descendant of the dulcimer in which the strings were struck.

 

Wind Instruments.

One of the most ancient of wind instruments is the panpipe, which used to be familiar in the Punch and Judy show of our childhood, when it was accompanied by another ancient instrument—the drum. The panpipe consists of a row of reeds of graduated lengths which are closed at the lower end and into which the performer blows, much as we used, as children, to blow into a key and produce a shrill whistle. It is illustrated in an Anglo-Saxon Psalter of the early eleventh century, which is preserved in the Cambridge University Library. The whistle which we have all made in our childhood by removing a tube of bark from a branch in which the sap is rising, is an advance on the panpipes, since it includes a method of producing a thin stream of air which impinges on a sharp edge, whereas in the panpipes we depend on our lips for the stream of air. These whistles are closed at the lower end, and yield but a single note. But in the tin penny whistle the tube is pierced by six holes for the fingers, and on this instrument one may hear the itinerant artist perform wonders. An instrument of this type, known as the recorder, played a great part in the early orchestra. It differs from the penny whistle in being made of wood, and in having eight instead of six finger-holes; the additional ones being for the left thumb and the little-finger of the right hand. The recorder seems to have been especially popular in England, indeed it was sometimes known as the fistula anglica, i.e. the English pipe. The instrument was made in different sizes; and I shall not easily forget the astonishing beauty of a quartette of recorders played by Mr Galpin and his family. In Plate VI. are shown the great bass recorders, in regard to which the author is careful to point out that the bassoon-like form shown in No. 1 and No. 5 does not alter the pitch of the instrument, which depends on the length of the tube measured from the fipple.

[Picture: Plate VI. Recorders]

Mr Dolmetsch, in his book The Interpretation of the Music of the XVIlth and XVIIIth Centuries, p. 457, writes:—

"At the first sound the recorder ingratiates itself into the hearer’s affection. It is sweet, full, profound, yet clear, with just a touch of reediness, lest it should cloy."

"The intonation . . . right through the chromatic compass of two octaves and one note is perfect, if you know how to manage the instrument; but its fingering is complicated, and requires study."

The flageolet is the nearest living relative of the recorder. What is known as the French flageolet is especially reminiscent of the ancient instrument in having a thumb-hole, or rather two such holes. It has the pleasant archaic feature of its lowest note being produced by thrusting the little finger of the right hand into the open end of the tube. The most curious development of the flageolet is found in the double or triple pipes which were made in the closing years of the eighteenth century. I remember Mr Galpin demonstrating the truth of his assertion that duets and trios can be played on one of these curious instruments.

A much simpler instrument known as the tabor pipe {85} was in general use in the twelfth century. Its essential feature is that it has but three holes, so that it can be played with one hand, thus leaving the other hand free to accompany the melody on the tabor or small drum hung round the neck of the performer or from his wrist. Its working compass is an octave and three notes, though two shrieking higher notes can be produced. The French form of three-holed pipe is known as the galoubet. There was also a bass galoubet, which is known from the figures in Praetorius (1618), and from one solitary instrument which has escaped destruction. Mr Galpin has a copy of it in his great collection, and I have had the pleasure of playing on it. The instruments of the genus recorder have been finally beaten in the struggle for life by the flageolet, and perhaps especially by the true flute, which Mr Galpin, for the sake of clearness, distinguishes as the cross flute. It seems to be a mistake to consider the flute as a modern instrument, as it was popular about the year 1500, and is shown in an illuminated MS. of 1344 preserved at Oxford.

The flute as used about 1600 had but six holes, but the D# key for the little finger of the right hand came into use about the end of the seventeenth century, and about 1800 several keys had been added to enable the performer to play with less cross-fingering.

Dolmetsch, op. cit., p. 458, claims that although the one-keyed flute of the eighteenth century has a weak tone, it is more beautiful than the modern flute.

He adds that a flautist has recently studied this instrument, guided by Hotteterre le Romain’s book (1707), and can play more perfectly in tune than "he ever did before upon a highly improved and most expensive modern instrument."

The concert-flute of the present day is an elaborate instrument covered with keys, and it has, I believe, been suggested that its tone is injured by this elaboration. Bass flutes have been made, one 3 ft. 7 ins. in length is mentioned, whose lowest note was an octave below middle C.

Shawms. {87}

The next class of wind instruments dealt with by the author is that of which the oboe and bassoon are typical. Mr Galpin refers to a reed-pipe with which I am very familiar; it is made from a dandelion stalk pinched flat at one end. Its principle is that of the oboe. I well remember admiring its tone as a child, and lamenting its very brief life, for it soon got spoiled. The reed of serious musical instruments is made of two pieces of cane which are flat at the free or upper end and terminate below in a tube which fits on to the instrument. This is an ancient type of instrument, for the Roman tibia is believed to have been played with the "double reed," i.e. of oboe-type. I may here be allowed to quote from my Rustic Sounds, p. 5: "The most truly rustic instrument (and here I mean an instrument of polite life—an orchestral instrument) is undoubtedly the oboe. The bassoon runs it hard, but has a touch of comedy and a strong flavour of necromancy, while the oboe is quite good and simple in nature and is excessively in earnest; it seems to have in it the ghost of a sun-burnt boy playing to himself under a tree, in a ragged shirt unbuttoned at the throat." A figure is given (Galpin, p. 159) of a goat playing on a shawm {88} from a carving of the twelfth century at Canterbury. The name is believed to be derived from calamaula, a reed-pipe, which was corrupted to chalem-elle and then to shawm. Shawms were made of various sizes, from the small treble instrument, one foot long, to the huge affair, six feet in length. The name Howe-boie, i.e. probably Haut-bois, was applied to the treble instrument as early as the reign of Elizabeth; while the deeper-toned instruments retained the name shawm. The bassoon is only a bass oboe rendered less cumbrous by the tube being bent sharply on itself. A tenor bassoon, known as the oboe da caccia, or teneroon, also existed, and if my memory serves me right, Mr Stone rescued one of these instruments from the band of a London boys’ school. A teneroon of Mr Galpin’s is shown at p. 168 of his book, where it appears to be about seven-tenths of the size of the ordinary bassoon.

[Picture: Plate VII. Pibcorn or Horn-pipe]

The next class of wind-instrument is that of which the clarinet is the modern representative. It has a rich but somewhat cloying tone, and, to my thinking, none of the mysterious charm of the oboe. It is characterised by a single vibrating plate or reed, and the current of air from the performer’s mouth passes between it and an immovable surface of wood. In our country this type of reed was found in a most interesting instrument, the horn-pipe {89a} or pibcorn, which is said to have existed in Wales as late as the nineteenth century. One of these curious instruments is in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries, and is shown in Plate VII. It was given to the Society by Daines Barrington, who describes it in the Society’s Archæologia for 1779. In a Saxon vocabulary of the eighth century the word Sambucus (i.e. elder-tree) is translated swegelhorn. Now the word swegel was applied to the tibia or leg-bone; it is therefore of remarkable interest to find that, according to an old Welsh peasant, the tibia of a deer should be the best tube for the pibcorn. {89b} This name, which means pipe-horn, is very appropriate, since the tube of the instrument bears at either end a cow’s horn. To the upper one the performer applied his mouth. He had no means of regulating the reed as a clarinet or oboe-player has; the reed was left to its own sweet will, as is also the case with the reeds in another ancient instrument—the bagpipe, to which a few words must be given.

Mr Henry Balfour believes that both these instruments came to us with the Keltic migration from the East. Or, as Mr Galpin suggests, we may owe the bagpipe to Roman soldiers, "for the tibia utricularis was used in the Imperial army." It is quite a mistake to suppose that the bagpipe is in any special way connected with Scotland. Illuminated missals of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries show how common the bagpipe was in England. But the Scots must at least have a share of the credit of preserving the bagpipe from extinction; and the same may be said of another Keltic race, the Breton, in whose land I have heard the bagpipe accompanied by a rough kind of oboe.

Mr Galpin tells me a pleasant story of a bagpipe hunt in Paris. He discovered, in a shop, an old French musette (bagpipe), the chanter or melody-pipe of which was missing. He did not buy it until in a two days’ hunt all over Paris he discovered the lost chanter, when he returned to the first shop, triumphantly carried off the musette, and thus became the owner of this rare and beautiful instrument.

The drone, which forms a continuous bass to the "chanter," was not an original character of the bagpipe, but appeared soon after the year 1300. A second drone "was added about the year 1400, for it is seen in the ancient bagpipe belonging to Messrs Glen of Edinburgh," which bears the date 1409.

 

The Horn and Cornett.

The horn takes its name from the cow’s horn, out of which the instrument was made. The resemblance includes the tapering bore of this instrument, and also the fact that it is curved. {90} In the metal instruments, made in imitation of the natural horn, we find a curvature of about a semi-circle, as in the seventeenth century hunting horn (Galpin, p. 188). While in the horn of the early seventeenth century shown on the same plate, the tube is curved into many circular coils.

[Picture: PLATE VIII. I, 2, 3, 4, 5. Cornetts. 6. Serpent. 7. Bass Horn. 8. Ophicleide. 9. Keyed Bugle]

The cornett, {91} which was blown like a horn or trumpet, seems to have been successful in mediæval times, because a workable scale was so much more easily attainable with it than in the ordinary trumpet. In Norway a goat’s horn pierced with four or five holes stopped by the fingers is still in use as a rustic instrument. This is in fact a cornett which, as early as the twelfth century, was made of wood or ivory, and had a characteristic six-sided form. It seems to have been popular, and Henry VIII. died possessed of many cornetts. We hear, too, of two Cornetters attached to Canterbury Cathedral; and the translators of the Bible gave it a place in Nebuchadnezzar’s band. But the cornett was doomed to destruction in the struggle for life. In 1662 Evelyn speaks of the disappearance of the cornett "which gave life to the organ." Lord Keeper North wrote, "Nothing comes so near, or rather imitates so much, an excellent voice as a cornett pipe; but the labour of the lips is too great and is seldom well-sounded." The cornett was given a place in the chorales of Bach and the operas of Gluck after it had become extinct in England.

The bass cornett was known as the serpent from its curved form, and this character was in fact necessary in order that the performer’s hands might be nearer together. Mr Galpin writes:—"If not overblown it yields a peculiarly soft woody tone which no longer has its counterpart in the orchestra." He quotes from Thomas Hardy’s Under the Greenwood Tree, where the village shoemaker remarks, "There’s worse things than serpents." Dr Stone (Dictionary of Music, 1883) wrote:—"There were till a few years ago two serpents in the band of the Sacred Harmonic Society, played by Mr Standen and Mr Pimlett." The serpent {92} was driven out of the orchestra by the Ophicleide, which again has been extinguished by the valved Tubas of Adolphe Sax.

 

Trumpet and Sackbut.

"The story of the trumpet is the story of panoply and pomp," says Mr Galpin, and goes on to explain how the trumpeters with drummers formed an exclusive guild. Trumpets served as war-like instruments, but also for domestic pomp. Thus twelve trumpets and two kettle-drums sounded while Queen Elizabeth’s dinner was being brought in. That monarch had certainly no excuse for being late for her meals.

The trumpet was originally a long straight cylindrical tube, but as early as 1300 the tube was bent into a loop, thus combining length with handiness. This form of the instrument was known as a clarion, a word which has degenerated in our day into a picturesque word for a trumpet. It was for the clarion that Bach and Handel wrote trumpet parts which, I gather, are almost unplayable on the modern instrument. The clarion seems to have been soon beaten in the struggle for life by the clarinet, "which, as its name implies, was considered an effective substitute for the high clarion notes."

The sackbut, i.e. trombone, is an important offshoot from the trumpet. The essential feature of this splendid instrument is that the length of the tube can be altered at will. Thus the performer is not—like the trumpeter—confined to one series of harmonics, but can take advantage of a whole series of these accessory notes.

 

The Organ.

This is one of the most ancient of instruments. Thus in the second century before our era Ctesibius of Alexandria had a simple type of organ, in which the wind from the bellows was admitted at will into whistle-like tube by keys which the performer depressed with his fingers. It is a remarkable fact that keys should afterwards have been replaced by cumbersome sliders which had to be pushed in and out to produce the desired note. But so it was, and the keyboard had to be rediscovered in the twelfth century. The keys were first applied to the little portatives, {94a} one of which is figured by Galpin, p. 221, where the organist works the wind supply with one hand and manipulates the keys with the other. In Galpin, p. 222, a monk is shown playing a simple organ of apparently two octave compass, while another tonsured person is blowing a pair of bellows, one with the left and the other with the right hand. Another artist is shown by Galpin, p. 226, from a thirteenth century Psalter, who is accompanying a player of the symphony (hurdy-gurdy). The bellows are blown by the feet of an assistant.

The regal, figured by Galpin at p. 230, was a simple form of organ in which the pipes were not of the whistle-type, but consisted principally of reed-pipes.

 

Tabors and Nakers.

In my essay on war music {94b} I wrote of the band of a French regiment at the beginning of the war: "When the buglers were out of breath, the drums thundered on with magnificent fire, until once more the simple and spirited fanfare came in with its brave out-of-doors flavour—a romantic dash of the hunting-song, and yet with something of the seriousness of battle. . . . As I watched these men, so soon to fight for their country, I was reminded of that white-faced boy pictured by Stevenson, striding over his dead comrades, the roll of his drum leading the living to victory or death." I have ventured to quote the above passage in illustration of Mr Galpin’s striking remark that the drum has probably entered more largely than any other instrument into the destinies of the human race.

The historian of musical instruments in the far north has an easy task, since it appears that the Eskimoes confine themselves to the drum, which they sound on all possible occasions, from prosperous huntings to the death of a comrade.

The instruments of the class here dealt with are divided into three types:—

(i.) The timbrel or tambourine, which is characterised by having only one membrane stretched on a shallow wooden frame.

(ii.) The drum with two membranes, one at each end of a barrel-shaped frame.

(iii.) The naker or kettle-drum, with a single membrane stretched over the opening of a hemispherical frame. The tambourine is an extremely ancient instrument since it was known in Assyria and Egypt as well as in Greece and Rome, and it is especially interesting to learn that the Roman tambourine had the metal discs which make so exciting a jingle in the modern instrument. The mediæval tambourine also had what, in the case of the drum, is called the snare, which is a cord tightly stretched across the membrane, and gives a certain sting to instruments of this class, but now only exists in the drum proper.

 

Drum.

An ancient Egyptian drum was discovered at Thebes. It was a true drum having a membrane at each end of the hollow cylinder which made the frame, and, what is more remarkable, it had the braces or system of cords by which we still tighten the drum-membranes.

The drum "suspended at the side of the player and beaten on one head only" became, with the accompaniment of the fife, the earliest type of military music. {96a} Mr Galpin concludes {96b} by quoting what Virdung (1511) had to say of drums: "I verily believe that the devil must have had the devising and making of them, for there is no pleasure nor anything good about them. If the noise of the drum-stick be music, then the coopers who make barrels must be musicians."

 

Kettle-drums. {96c}

Anyone who has seen the band of the Life Guards must have admired (as I do) the splendid personage who plays the kettle-drums. These are not of the ordinary drum-form, being hemispherical instead of cylindrical, and having but a single membrane. They have a right to be called musical instruments since their pitch is alterable: {96d} I have often admired the drummer in an orchestra tuning his instrument at a change of key. One sees him leaning over his children like an anxious mother until he gets his large babies into the proper temper.

The earliest record of kettle-drums in this country is in the list of Edward I.’s musicians, among whom was Janino le Nakerer. Henry VIII. is said to have sent to Vienna for kettle-drums {97} that could be played on horseback in the Hungarian manner. In England, Handel was the first to use the kettle-drum in the concert-room, and he used to borrow from the Tower the drums taken from the French at the battle of Malplaquet in 1709.

Cymbals and Chimes.

The cymbals are of a great antiquity, being depicted on ancient Assyrian monuments, and "in the British Museum may be seen a pair of bronze cymbals which once did duty for the sacred rites of Egyptian deities." They are figured in English MSS. of the thirteenth century, and Mr Galpin gives a figure of a cymbal-player (as shown in a fourteenth century MS.) vigorously clashing his instrument. There was also an apparatus known as a jingling johnny, figured by Galpin at p. 258. It was a pole bearing a number of bells, hence the name which it doubtless deserved. The crescents with which it is decorated are an inheritance from its forbears of the Janizary bands.

Mr Galpin ends his book with a very interesting chapter on the Consort, i.e. Concert, which, however, does not lend itself to that abbreviation to which the rest of the book has been mercilessly subjected.

NOTES.

{71} Old English Instruments of Music, by Francis W. Galpin, 1910.

{72} Modern harps, however, have pedals for raising the natural note of any string by a semi-tone.

{73a} It has also a greater compass than the rote.

{73b} In obedience to good authority I have here adopted the spelling Clairsech instead of Clarsech. I presume that the spelling Clarsy (p. 74) is intentionally phonetic.

{74a} We imagine the gittern to be laid flat on a table with strings uppermost.

{74b} Galpin, p. 21.

{77a} In Mr Dolmetsch’s The Interpretation of the Music of the XVIlth and XVIIIth Centuries (N.D.), the author also points out, p. 446, that the frets of the viol give to the stopped notes the "clear ring" of the open strings. He claims also that in the viol "the manner of holding the bow and ordering its strokes . . . prevents the strong accents characteristic" of the violin, and facilitates "an even and sustained tone."

He recommends (p. 452) that frets should be added to the Double Bass, which would "give clearness to many rapid passages which at present only make a rumbling noise."

{77b} On Mace’s title-page he describes himself as "one of the Clerks of Trinity Colledge in the University of Cambridge."

{85} See my book, Rustic Sounds, 1917, where the pipe and tabor are more fully treated.

{87} A curious rustic shawm which survived in Oxfordshire until modern times is the Whithorn or May Horn. It was made by a strip of bark twisted into a conical tube fixed together with hawthorn prickles and sounded by a reed made of the green bark of the young willow. The instruments were made every year for the Whit Monday hunt which took place in the forest.

{88} They were also known as wayte pipes, after the watchmen (waytes) who played on them.

{89a} It is believed to have given its name to the well-known dance.

{89b} Galpin, p. 172.

{90} A straight horn, however, existed.

{91} So spelled, in order to distinguish it from the cornet à piston, once so popular.

{92} Mr Dolmetsch, op. cit., p. 459, says that the serpent "was still common in French churches about the middle of the nineteenth century; and although, as a rule, the players had no great skill, those who have heard its tone combined with deep men’s voices in plain-song melodies, know that no other wind or string instrument has efficiently replaced it."

{94a} No specimen of the true portative is known to be in existence (Galpin, p. 228).

{94b} Rustic Sounds, p. 197.

{96a} Page 244.

{96b} Page 249.

{96c} The old name for the kettle-drum was nakers, a word of Arabic or Saracenic origin.

{96d} The larger of the kettle-drums has a range of five notes from the bass F, immediately below the line. The smaller drum’s range (also of five notes) is from the B flat, just below the highest note of the bigger drum (p. 253).

{97} The earliest use of the name kettle-drum is in 1551 (Galpin, p. 251).

[The end]
Francis Darwin's essay: Old Instruments Of Music

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN