Books › Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 1904 › scan 335
Scan 335
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 1904
36 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 286. See the scan on archive.org.
1but the German name 'bowed instruments' is more accurate.1 They have been developed, [according to the late Mr. E. J. Payne, the writer of this article], by the application of the bow to the Greek lyre and monochord; and their common name (Viol, Violin, Fiddle) is derived from the Latin name by which a small sort of lyre appears to have been known throughout the Roman empire. The Latin name for any kind of string is 'fides,' of which the diminutive is 'fidicula'; and by a grammatical figure which substitutes the part for the whole, these terms came to designate the lyre itself, just as we now speak of the quartet of fiddles collectively as 'the strings.' In the derivative tongues the diminutive assumed various forms, which may be divided into two groups, thus: —
3Latin Fides, a string
4Diminutive Fidicula
6(SOUTHERN GROUP—Low Latin.)
7Fidiula or Fídula (also, Vítula, Vidula, Vidella, Flgella, etc.)
8Spanish Víhuela Víola
9Provençal Viola Víula
10Italian Vióla (French Viole, English Voil)
12Diminutive Violino Fr. Violon8
13Augmentative Violone
14Diminutive Violoncello
16(NORTHERN GROUP—Old French.)
17Fideille2
18Medieval French Vielle (Viella)
19Anglo-Saxon Fithele
20Medieval English Fidel
21High German Fiedel
22Scottish Fithel
23Modern English Fiddle
24Low German Vedel
26In the opinion of Mr. Edward Heron-Allen, who published his researches on the subject in a pamphlet entitled The Ancestry of the Violin, in 1882, this theory of the development of the Violin family is erroneous. His studies, which were elaborated in his Violin-making as it Was and Is (London, 1884), and adopted by Mr. Carl Engel in his Researches into the History of the Violin Family (London, 1883), led him to the conclusion that the application, first of a long plectrum, and, by a natural progression, of a bow, to the instruments which owed their ancestry to the Greek lyre, culminated in the instrument known as the crwth, an instrument of the highest historic antiquity (CRWTH, vol. i., p. 642), which was a final form. The crwth as will be seen in the present article, existed side by side with the instruments of the violin family proper into comparatively recent times, when it died a natural death, like the Tromba Marina, the Virginal, or the Serpent. The Violin-family proper, had its origin, in the opinion of Mr. Heron-Allen, in the prehistoric UŘHEEN of the Chinese, and the Nofre or Nefru of the ancient Egyptians, and reached Europe from two independent sources. One of these
281 A German authority insists that the true name is 'Bow-string instruments.'
292 The form Fideille is not found, so far as the writer knows. In literature, its place having been early taken by the decayed form 'vielle': but its past existence is demonstrable by analogy. Brachet (Grammaire Historique de la Langue Française, p. 285, gives the following instances of the French forms assumed by Latin words in -lculus, -a, -um: Abellie (apicula), Orteil (orticulum), Sommell (somniculus), Péril (periculum), Oreille (auricula), Cornellie (cornicula), Ouaille (ovicula), Vermell (vermiculus), Aigulle (acicula). From this list, to which may be added Corbelle (corbicula), we may safely conclude that Fidicula became in the oldest French 'fidelle,' which form was transmitted with very little alteration to Anglo-Saxon and Old High German, while in France itself it became by phonetic decay 'Vielle.' one of two readings
302 The form Fideille is not found, so far as the writer knows. In literature, its place having been early taken by the decayed form 'vielle': but its past existence is demonstrable by analogy. Brachet (Grammaire Historique de la Langue Française, p. 285, gives the following instances of the French forms assumed by Latin words in -lculus, -a, -um: Abellie (apicula), Orteil (orticulum), Sommell (somniculus), Péril (periculum), Oreille (auricula), Cornellie (cornicula), Ouaille (ovicula), Vermell (vermiculus), Aiguelle (acicula). From this list, to which may be added Corbelle (corbicula), we may safely conclude that Fidicula became in the oldest French 'fidicelle,' which form was transmitted with very little alteration to Anglo-Saxon and Old High German, while in France itself it became by phonetic decay 'Vielle.' one of two readings
313 'Violon' is the old French diminutive of 'Viole,' and exactly equivalent to 'Violino.'
33was the incursion of the Asiatic-African hordes into Spain under Tarik in the 6th century, and the other was the incursion of the Indo-Germanic (or, as we prefer to say, the Indo-European) races under Attila, on the opposite side of the Mediterranean Sea. The Chinese instrument with a neck or handle, met the Egyptian instrument with a neck or handle, and resulted in the bow-instruments with which we are familiar to-day. The Graeco-Roman lyre struggled with the only improvement of which it was capable, i.e., the application of a bow, until it was compelled to disappear from practical music in the form of the crwth.
35The Violin is the most popular and useful of all portable instruments, and indeed of all instruments except the pianoforte, and it has considerable importance as being the principal instrument in the orchestra, the main body of which is composed of violins, in their four sizes of trebles, altos, or tenors, basses, and double-basses. It is nearer to the human voice in quality, compass, and facility of execution than any other instrument; few are simpler in construction, and none is so cheap or so easily mastered, provided the learner sets rightly about it. In addition to the popularity which it enjoys on these accounts, the fiddle exercises a unique charm over the mind from the continuity of its existence and usefulness. Most people are aware that 'an old fiddle is better than a new one.' This, as will appear farther on, is not absolutely true; although probably the majority of the fiddles in use are not new, very many being one, two, and even three hundred years old. A violin, if it be only well-made to begin with, can, by
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