Part 7

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

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

PLATE XXIX.

GUITAR, BY ANTONIUS STRADIVARIUS.

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

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

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

PLATE XXX.

BELL HARP AND HURDY-GURDY.

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

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

[Music]

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

THE HURDY-GURDY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Baton, a luthier of Versailles, introduced in the year 1716 improvements in the vielle, or hurdy-gurdy, one of which, by reducing it to the size of a guitar, made it more convenient for performance. He even went further by adapting it to lute and theorbo bodies, while he and his successors gradually extended the compass, the highest G being added by Louvet about 1773. It became for some time a fashionable instrument, and representations of the vielle and musette (a refined bagpipe) occur in contemporary French paintings. But after the French Revolution the hurdy-gurdy was relegated once more to the highways and byeways; the last popular street player in Paris was Barbu, who, according to Mr. Louis Pagnerre, was to be heard previous to 1870, in the Champs Elysées and other open spaces, and occasionally in the courtyards of the houses of his patrons. He sometimes gave concerts, for he was an artist, and had taste as well as executive talent; he could make the instrument sing, use it to accompany his own voice, or to take a part in combination with guitar and violin. He disdained to ask for money, relying upon the appreciation of his audiences to obtain his reward. Barbu had also been heard in London, and is supposed to have been shot during the Commune.

PLATE XXXI.

SORDINI.

The Sordino is a pocket fiddle, the "Pochette" of the French and the "Taschengeige" of the Germans. In form it is derived from the mediæval rebec which came from the East, and was also known as "gigue." It was distinguished from the viol family by the neck being a prolongation of the body of the instrument, instead of an attachment to it. A diminutive viol, the dancing master's kit, replaced the rebec kit, or sordino, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. A sordino, in the Museum of the Paris Conservatoire, with the date 1717, is believed to be unique as the undoubted work of Stradivarius. Tarisio, a well-known violin collector, brought it from Italy to France, and Louis Clapisson, the violinist, composer, and collector, eventually bought it in 1858, and employed it in his opera of "Les trois Nicolas," writing a gavotte for it. The late M. Chouquet (author of _Le Musée du Conservatoire National de Musique_, Paris, a catalogue _raisonné_ of the musical instruments in that collection) has described, in enthusiastic terms, the effect of this little instrument when a gavotte was played upon it by Croisilles. "It was remembered," he says, "with pleasure by the old subscribers to the Opera Comique"--a remark that would seem to imply that the sordino, or pochette, had adequate power, and a special and agreeable quality of tone. The instrument is provided with four catgut strings, and _f_ holes on either side the bridge. Two Sordini are represented in the three figures of this Plate, the one with a negro's head in two views, the other with a termination in ivory.

These Sordini belong to the Music Class Room, Edinburgh University.

PLATE XXXII.

CLAVICHORD.

"The claricord hath a tunely kynde As the wyre is wrested high and lowe."

John Skelton, Poet Laureate, who was born at Oxford in 1489, and died in the sanctuary, Westminster, in 1529, was the author of a poem entitled "The Claricorde," from which this quotation is taken. The true spelling is Clavichord, from the Latin "clavis," a key, and "chorda," a string. The wrester was the tuner, who wrested or strained the wire to the required tension. The words "wrest-pin" and "wrest-plank" remain in technical use for the tuning-pin and the wood in which the tuning-pins are inserted.

The Clavichord represented belongs to Mr. Gerald Wellesley, of London: its dimensions are--length, 5 feet 8-1/2 inches; width, 1 foot 9 inches; and depth, 6-1/2 inches; width of the key-board, 2 feet 9-1/2 inches. The compass is five octaves and a semitone--from the third E below, to the third F above, middle C.

Chinese decoration, which was much in vogue in the early part of last century, was not unfrequently applied to clavichords and harpsichords. As examples of the latter may be mentioned the instrument that belonged to Queen Sophia Dorothea, until lately preserved in her palace at Charlottenburg, near Berlin, but now in the Hohenzollern Museum, and the Ruckers clavecin or harpsichord in the Turin Museum. There are two music parties or concerts shown within the lid of Mr. Wellesley's clavichord, with instruments that are not, however, Chinese, but conventional representations of European fiddles and guitars.

The Clavichord is, without question, the earliest key-board stringed instrument, it having been developed from the Monochord, used for teaching singing in monasteries and church schools. It appears to have come into use in the second half of the fourteenth century, but it was not until the beginning of the eighteenth century that it obtained its full development, when, in fact, its expressive character was brought into notice by improvements in the instrument and the finger technique. It was the Bachs who took advantage of this quality as the medium to express a characteristic and tender sentiment. Its gentle, intimate tone is produced by brass pins, called tangents, fixed in the keys and flattened at the upper ends. Raised to the strings in playing, these tangents set the strings in vibration, and at the same time form bridges to measure off the lengths required for the notes. The red cloth, woven in the strings behind the tangents, damps the sound. As far as we have met with the clavichords, the instrument has had two, sometimes three strings of brass wire to each note tuned in unison; the treble being, however, occasionally of steel wire to cause a brighter sound. There were sometimes octave strings to the lowest bass octave, after the manner of some theorboes, to make those notes distinct. These groups of unisons served for two, three, and even four notes according to the point of contact of the tangent affecting them, and to clavichords thus made the Germans applied the word "gebunden" (fretted). About the year 1700 each key obtained its own strings; and the instrument having become larger, it was more powerful and fitted to produce shades of sound of varying intensity. It had the "Bebung" as well, which is analogous to the violin-player's _vibrato_, and obtained by rocking the finger upon the key without quitting it. The clavichord is the only key-board instrument that allows this effect, but care has to be used to avoid an undue sharpening of the pitch of the note so treated--indeed, a constant equality of touch has to be maintained in playing the clavichord, to preserve an accurate intonation.

One of the most inspired compositions ever written for the clavichord is the "Fantasia Cromatica e Fuga," by Johann Sebastian Bach. The figuration, the manner of slurring, the arpeggios, and much more in this piece, are extremely characteristic of the instrument. For a performance intended to reproduce, as far as may be possible, the original reading, the piece should be first studied upon a clavichord, not a pianoforte. The gentle influence of the instrument soon makes itself felt, and both player and listener seem to breathe another and a purer atmosphere. But such a performance demands concentration and those quiet surroundings the old composers enjoyed.

I'm never merry when I hear sweet music; The reason is your spirits are attentive. SHAKSPEARE.

Music, which gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes. TENNYSON.

PLATE XXXIII.

THE EMPRESS HARPSICHORD.

Represents a Harpsichord of the largest size, the culmination of an instrument that had remained in use for nearly three hundred years, but, at the time this one was made, was about to be replaced by the pianoforte. This fine Harpsichord bears the joint names of Shudi and Broadwood, and was made at the house now known as No. 33 Great Pulteney Street, London, where the pianoforte business of Messrs. John Broadwood and Sons is still carried on. The instrument is numbered 691, and the books of the original firm show that it was made for the Empress Maria Theresa, and shipped on the 20th of August 1773, which happened to be the day after Shudi died. But he had for some time retired from harpsichord-making, and this instrument is really to be attributed to his son-in-law, John Broadwood. Burkhard Tschudi, or Shudi as he wrote his name in England, was of a noble Swiss family. He had established his business as a harpsichord-maker, in Great Pulteney Street, about 1732. Through Handel's friendship he became patronised by Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of George III., and was permitted to use the sign of "The Plume of Feathers" for his house. He was honoured with a commission from Maria Theresa's old enemy, Frederick the Great, to make two harpsichords for the "Neues Palais" at Potsdam, where they are still to be seen. One of them is described, with Silbermann's Forte Piano, in Dr. Burney's famous tour. Some years previously, Shudi had made a harpsichord and presented it to Frederick on the occasion of his victory at Prague, but the present writer could not find the instrument when he made a special visit to Berlin and Potsdam, in 1881. It may be said of Shudi and Jacob Kirkman, once fellow-apprentices, and afterwards competitors, that they left the harpsichord a more powerful instrument, and more varied in effect, by means of stops and registers, than it had ever been before.

Shudi was the inventor of the Venetian Swell (patented 1769), which he intended for the harpsichord. When the patent expired this contrivance was generally adopted in England, and becoming transferred to the organ, has remained, ever since, an important means of effect in that instrument. The figure in the Plate shows the Venetian Swell open, as it would be when the right pedal is put down. There are four registers and six stops in this instrument. Taking them in their order from left to right, we find on the left-hand side, the "lute," the jacks or plectra of which twang the first unison string, near the wrest-plank bridge, and give a more reedy sound than is obtained from the usual striking-places; the "octave," which, as its name indicates, acts upon strings tuned an octave higher, which are of shorter length, and lie below the others; and the "buff" (sometimes called "harp") stop, which partly mutes the second unison strings, throughout, by the contact of small pads of leather. On the right-hand side are the first and second rows of unison strings. The upper key-board has the first unison and lute only, while all the registers come under the player's control on the lower key-board. The machine stop, at the left hand of the key-boards, permits an agreeable change to lute and buff (harp) by using the left pedal and both sets of keys. Kirkman appears to have arranged his left-hand stops differently--buff, lute, octave. The dimensions of the Harpsichord here drawn are 8 feet 9-3/4 inches in extreme length, and 3 feet 4 inches in width at the key-boards. The great width of the key-board of the modern pianoforte renders it impossible, in designing one, to reproduce the special grace of the harpsichord.

Among composers, those who have best understood the genius of the harpsichord have been Handel and Scarlatti. The former, with his famous Air with variations in D Minor and the Presto following it, summed up the history and technique of the instrument, as far as it was then known. Scarlatti found such new features to display in technical contrivance and effect, that we are still attracted by an individuality the originality of which is, as yet, untouched by time. The only parallel instance, although resembling it in no other way, is that of Frédéric Chopin as a composer and performer on the pianoforte.

With the harpsichord went out the figured bass accompaniment, or thorough bass, that, for two hundred years, had been the foundation of a correct musical education. By degrees the training for technique and memory came to occupy that attention with pianoforte-players, which had been devoted to developing the fluency of improvisation expected from the harpsichord-player.

This harpsichord was lent by Mr. Victor Mahillon, of Brussels, to the South Kensington Music Loan Collection, 1885.

PLATE XXXIV.

PEDAL HARP.

A green and gold Harp that once belonged to George IV., and is now in the possession of Mr. Edward Joseph, of London. It is 5 feet 3 inches high, 2 feet 6 inches in extreme width, and 1 foot 9 inches wide at the base. It was included in the characteristic Louis Seize Historic Room, in the Music Loan Collection, Royal Albert Hall, 1885. This room, one of three, was so contrived as to display the musical instruments in social use with such surroundings of furniture, paintings, etc., as would be true for the period. These Historic Rooms, suggested by Mr. Alfred Maskell, the official superintendent of the Music Loan Collection, were arranged with great knowledge and taste by Mr. George Donaldson. They represented an English apartment of the time of George I., a Tudor apartment that included Queen Elizabeth's virginal, and a Louis Seize apartment that, with the Harp in the accompanying Plate, contained also the beautifully painted Ruckers clavecin or harpsichord (lent by Viscount Powerscourt) that had belonged to the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. There is a photograph of this harpsichord in the Catalogue of the South Kensington Collection, 1872, and a wood engraving of the Louis Seize room, showing both harpsichord and harp, in the _Art Journal_ for August 1885.

The first pedal mechanism was invented by Hochbrucker, a Bavarian, about 1720; by it he rendered the harp fit for changes of key, possible before, and that only partially, by clumsy contrivances. By using a pedal to raise each open string a semitone, accomplished by pressure upon the strings, he gave the harp eight major and five complete minor scales--also three descending minor. The Cousineaus, who were Frenchmen, and father and son, superseded the contrivance of Hochbrucker by another that grasped or pinched the strings with pieces of metal on either side, and also by slides raising or lowering the bridge-pins. By doubling the pedals and mechanism, and changing the key of the open strings from E[flat] to C[flat], they, about 1782, produced the first double-action harp. It was, however, left for Sebastian Erard to perfect the harp by means of a fork mechanism of most ingenious contrivance. He began with the single-action harp about 1786, turning his attention to the double-action in 1801. It was not, however, until 1810 that he succeeded in producing the culmination of his various improvements in a harp of great beauty of tone, with seven pedals and two transpositions, the semitone and the whole tone, permitting performance in any key without change of fingering. In spite of these important inventions the harp has almost lost position as a solo instrument. It has, however, been taken advantage of by modern composers, who have adopted it, with charming effect, as an orchestral instrument.

PLATE XXXV.

STATE TRUMPET AND KETTLEDRUM.

This silver state trumpet, with nine others, adorned with bannerets of the Royal Arms in crimson and gold, and silver state kettledrums, similarly adorned, belong to the collection of H.M. the Queen, in St. James's Palace. They were both probably made in the reign of George III., one of the trumpets in the collection bearing the maker's name, William Shaw, Red Lion Street, Holborn. Henry VIII. had fourteen trumpets in his Royal Band, while Queen Elizabeth, in 1587, had ten.

The bending back of the trumpet upon itself, now a well-known feature in the appearance of the instrument, was an invention of a Frenchman towards the end of the fifteenth century. The trumpet is one of the oldest wind instruments used in concert with others. As far back as 1607 a piece for five trumpets, in the _Orfeo_ of Monteverde, was played at the Court of Mantua. It became an instrument much cultivated, and Handel's and Bach's parts for it are of extreme difficulty. The notes of the trumpet are the natural harmonics produced by varying pressure of the lips in the mouthpiece. Recently slides and pistons have been employed to augment its compass, and render its employment easier.

The State Trumpets were sounded to announce the arrival of Her Majesty the Queen at Westminster Abbey on the occasion of the Thanksgiving Service for her Jubilee on the 21st of June, 1887, as they had been on the 20th of the same month, fifty years before, to proclaim her Accession. The Fanfare for four trumpets played at the Jubilee Service by the State Trumpeters is here given by the kind permission of the composer, Mr. Thomas Harper, a famous player himself upon the slide trumpet, an instrument now not much known on the Continent.

[Music]