Books › A dictionary of music and musicians (A.D. 1450-1889) by eminent writers, English and foreign : with illustrations and woodcuts, 1879 › scan 302
Scan 302
A dictionary of music and musicians (A.D. 1450-1889) by eminent writers, English and foreign : with illustrations and woodcuts, 1879
82 lines. Read by computer on 7 September 2026. Printed page 280. See the scan on archive.org.
1sufficiently indicate the extent to which the art was cultivated. In performance, the parts were usually doubled, i.e. there were six players, two to each part, who all played in the fortés: the piano passages were played by three only. To accompany voices, theorboes were added in the bass, and violins in the treble: but the English violists of the 17th century long regarded the violin as an unwelcome intruder. Its comparatively harsh tone offended their ear by destroying the delicate balance of the viol concert: Mace denominates it 'the scolding violin,' and complains that it out-tops everything.1 When the 'sharp violin,' as Dryden calls it, was making its way into music in England, it had already been nearly a century in use on the continent. The model had been developed in Italy: the treble violin had first come into general use in France.
3Of the viol family the most important seems originally to have been the Tenor. This agrees with the general plan of mediæval music, in which the tenor sustains the cantus or melody, the trebles and basses being merely accompaniments. The violin apparently originated in the desire to produce a more manageable and powerful instrument for the leading part. The Geige and Rebec were yet in use: perhaps the contrast between their harsher tone and the softness of the discant viol may have suggested the construction of a viol with a convex back modelled like the belly. But the extreme un-handiness of the tenor viol is probably the true key to the change. It was impossible to play artistically when supported on the knee, and too large to be held under the chin. At first, it would appear that violin-makers made it handier in the latter respect by cutting away the bottom, exactly as the top was sloped away to the neck: and viols thus sloped at the bottom are still extant. The more effective expedient of assimilating the back to the belly not only reduced the depth at the edges but rendered it easier to retain in position. The first instrument to which we find the name Violino applied was the tenor, and the common violin, as a diminutive of this, was the 'Violino piccolo.' [See TENOR VIOLIN.]
5However the idea of assimilating the model of the back to that of the belly may have originated, it must have been quickly discovered that its effect was to double the tone. The result of making the instrument with a back correlative to the belly, and connected with the latter by the sides and soundpost, was to produce a repetition of the vibrations in the back, partly by transmission through the ribs, blocks, and soundpost, but probably in a greater degree by the concussion of the air enclosed in the instrument. The force which on the viol produced the higher and dissonant harmonics expended itself in the violin in reproducing the lower and consonant harmonics by means of the back. [See HARMONICS.]
7The invention of the Violin is commonly assigned to Gaspar Duiffoprugcar, of Bologna, and placed early in the 16th century: and it has
91 Music's Monument, p. 233.
11been stated there still exist three apt, is evi-
12lins of Duiffoprugcar's work, dated & Corrente.
13The name is obviously a corrupt Almaine,
14existed in the 16th century in the Prelude,
15lute-makers of the Tyrolese naument for
16brücker;3 and as some of them li much the
17following century it is possible that 'ued in
18have made violins. But the authentic
19any date in a violin before 1520 is query.
20able. No instrument of the violin patternp-
21can be fairly assigned to a date earlier thanba
22middle of the 16th century is in existence, aol.'
23is scarcely credible that the violin could have
24so common between 1511 and 1519, seeing tha
25we find no mention of it in contemporary musical
26handbooks which minutely describe the stringed
27instruments of the period. In default of any
28better evidence, the writer agrees with Mr.
29Charles Reade (quoted in Mr. Hart's book, 'The
30Violin,' p. 68) that no true violin was made
31anterior to the second half of the 16th century,
32the period of Gaspar di Salo and Andreas Amati.
33The earliest date in any instrument of the violin
34pattern which the writer has seen, is in a tenor
35by Peregrino Zanetto (the younger) of Brescia,
361580. It is, however, certain that tenors and vio-
37lins were common about this time, and they were
38chiefly made in the large towns of Lombardy,
39Bologna, Brescia, and Cremona. The trade had
40early centred in the last-named city, which for
41two centuries continued to be the metropolis of
42violin-making; and the fame of the Cremona
43violin quickly penetrated into other lands. In
441572 the accounts of Charles IX. of France show
45a payment of 50 livres to one of the king's musi-
46cians to buy him a Cremona violin.4
48The difficulty of ascertaining the precise anti-
49quity of the Violin is complicated by the fact
50that the two essential points in which it differs
51from the Viol, (1) the four strings tuned by
52fifths, and (2) the modelled back, apparently
53came into use at different times. We know from
54early musical treatises that the three-stringed
55Rebec and some four-stringed Viols were tuned
56by fifths: and the fact that the modelled back
57was in use anterior to the production of the true
58violin is revealed to us by a very early five-
59stringed Viol with two Bourdons, now in the
60Historical Loan Collection at the Inventions
61Exhibition. This unique instrument, while it
62has the primitive peg-box with seven vertical
63pegs, has a modelled back and violin sound-
64holes: and it only needs the four strings tune
65by fifths, and a violin scroll, to convert it into a
66Tenor of the early type.
68Another very important member of the Violin
69family is the VIOLONCELLO, which, though its
70name (little Violone) would seem to derive it
71from the Double Bass, is really a bass Violin,
732 Wasielewski. Die Violine im xvii. Jahrhundert, p. 3. The dates are
74stated as 1511, 1517, and 1519.
753 Besides Gaspar we hear of Magnus, Wendelin, Leonhard, Leopold
76and Uldrich Tiefenbrücker. Magnus was a lute-maker at Venice,
771607. Wasielewski, Geschichte, etc., p. 31.
784 A Nicolas Dolinet, joueur de fluste et violon du dict sieur, la
79somme de 50 livres tournois pour luy donner moyen d'achepter un
80violon de Cremone pour le service du dict sieur. Archives curieuses
81de l'Histoire de France, vol. viii. p. 355.
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