Books › A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments in the South Kensington museum, preceded by an essay on the history of musical instruments, 1874 › scan 366
Scan 366
A descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments in the South Kensington museum, preceded by an essay on the history of musical instruments, 1874
10 lines. Read by computer on 14 September 2026. Printed page 340. See the scan on archive.org.
1remarks: "This was the first time that such an instrument had been heard in England." From this statement it would appear that the viola d'amore had, about the year 1700, fallen so entirely into oblivion in England that foreigners could introduce it as a new instrument. John Playford describes its construction in his 'Musick's Recreation on the Viol Lyra-way,' London, 1661.
3(157.)
5VIOLA d'Amore. Strung entirely with wire. A curiously constructed head with a carved female bust. Probably English. 17th century.
7The viola d'amore strung entirely with wire appears to have been a novelty to Evelyn, for he records in his Diary of November 20, 1679, "I dined with Mr. Slingsby, Master of the Mint, with my wife, invited to hear music, which was exquisitely performed by four of the most renowned masters: Du Prue, a Frenchman, on the lute; Signor Bartholomeo, an Italian, on the harpsichord; Nicholao, on the violin; but above all, for its sweetness and novelty, the viol d'amore of five wire strings played on with a bow, being but an ordinary violin played on lyre-way by a German." Mattheson ('Das Neu-Eröffnete Orchestre,' Hamburg, 1713) describes the viola d'amore as being mounted with four wire strings, and with one catgut string for the highest tone. He says that it was usually tuned according to the common chord of C-major or C-minor, thus:
9Mattheson praises its sweetness of sound, but does not mention the sympathetic strings. The transformation of the wire-strung viola d'amore into the so-called psaltery or sultana, which has no sympathetic strings, is indicated in the following statement by Sir John Graham Dalyell ('Musical Memoirs of Scotland,' Edinburgh, 1849), "The instrument was first introduced in public in London during the year 1715, when it was heard between the acts of an opera. It was known in Scotland in the middle of the century, and a taste for it was probably encouraged by the performance of Passerini, an Italian resident in Edinburgh, in the year 1752, when it was said to be a new instrument called
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