Scan 181
Catalogue of the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments, 1918
15 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1In the form of the Mandoline (Ital. Mandolino) we see a derivative of the lute. There were two types in general use in Italy, the "Neapolitan," with four pairs of strings, and the "Milanese," or "Lombardy," with five. The tuning of the former is in fifths like the violin, in the latter it is variable. The modern mandoline in its form exaggerates the convexity of the lute, and, thus, is a recrudescence of the early Egyptian form, while in the two types mentioned above there were well defined differences in form. (Compare Nos. 1048 and 1056). Variants of the form will be described as they occur.
31034. KUITRA, or KOUITARA. Arabian lute …………… Algeria
4Deep body of wood. Four pairs of gut strings. A triangular sound-hole. All string instruments of this type have rather large sound-holes, necessitated by the fact that the strings are plucked.
5As in all lutes, the peg-box is placed at an angle from the rest of the neck.
6Length, 88.5 cm.; of body, 43 cm.; width, 27 cm.; depth, 17 cm.
81035. E'OUUD, or Ud. (Pl. idan). Early Arabian lute ………. Egypt
9Body of nineteen alternating strips of light and dark wood. Short neck similarly inlaid. Rosette sound-hole. Six pairs of gut strings.
10Length, 90 cm.; of body, 50 cm.; width, 34 cm.; depth, 18 cm.
11At the time it was introduced into Spain by the Moors it was known as the alud. This instrument, probably of Persian origin, is described by Al Farabi in the tenth century.
12Quoting from "Mefatih ol alum," "The Brothers of Purity," an encyclopedia of the tenth century,11 Sachs gives the names of the various parts of the ud as follows: ain—(eye), pl. ayun—sound-hole; bamm (Tk.)—the bass string, in the ancient four stringed ud woven from 64 silk threads, but later the only gut string; had—the highest string of the five-stringed type; ibrik (Ar.) or raqabe—neck; mossena (air), in the four-stringed type the next to the highest string, woven from 36 silk threads and giving g; motsellets (water)—the next to highest string in four-stringed type, giving d; qasa—the vaulted back; reqme—a small patch of green fishskin, gummed on between string-holder and sound-hole; shemsyat—the two small sound-holes; shemshat (shemsyat) the large sound-hole; zir (pl. ziran), the highest string in the olden type, woven from 27 silk threads.11
1411 According to Kiesewetter (Musik der Araber, p. 8) this encyclopedia of twelve folio volumes was the work of an association of scholars known as the "Brothers of Purity." The names given by Sachs on the following pages are without doubt taken from this source, as there is a complete copy in the Imperial Library at Vienna. The pages run as follows: 5, 28, 173, 194, 315, 262, 262, 320, 369, 369, 431.
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