Springtime and Other Essays Part 5

(1) "That it is the _Hardest Instrument_ in the _World_.

(2) "That it will take up the Time of an _Apprentices.h.i.+p_ 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 _Fas.h.i.+on_."

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_, a.s.sure 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 _Ba.s.ses_).

"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 cla.s.s is the double ba.s.s, which is "still frequently made with the flat back and sloping shoulders of its departed predecessors." The ba.s.s 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-ba.s.s 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 Fas.h.i.+on_, _or out of Fas.h.i.+on_.

[Picture: PLATE IV. The Tromba Marina]

"I remember there was a _Fas.h.i.+on_, 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 pa.s.s 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 ba.s.s 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 Ches.h.i.+re (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 cla.s.s 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 astonis.h.i.+ng beauty of a quartette of recorders played by Mr Galpin and his family. In Plate VI. are shown the great ba.s.s recorders, in regard to which the author is careful to point out that the ba.s.soon-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 compa.s.s 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 a.s.sertion that duets and trios can be played on one of these curious instruments.