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Scan 333
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1904
14 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Bologna, Brescia, and Cremona. The trade had early centred in the last-named city, which for two centuries continued to be the metropolis of violin-making; and the fame of the Cremona violin quickly penetrated into other lands. In 1572 the accounts of Charles IX. of France show a payment of 50 livres to one of the king's musicians to buy him a Cremona violin.1
3The difficulty of ascertaining the precise antiquity of the Violin is complicated by the fact that the two essential points in which it differs from the Viol (1) the four strings tuned by fifths, and (2) the modelled back, apparently came into use at different times. We know from early musical treatises that the three-stringed Rebec and some four-stringed Viols were tuned by fifths: and the fact that the modelled back was in use anterior to the production of the true violin is revealed to us by a very early five-stringed viol with two Bourdons, exhibited in 1885 in the Historical Loan Collection at the Inventions Exhibition. This unique instrument, while it has the primitive peg-box with seven vertical pegs, has a modelled back and violin sound-holes; and it only needs the four strings tuned by fifths, and a violin scroll, to convert it into a Tenor of the early type.
5Another very important member of the Violin family is the VIOLONCELLO (q.v.) which, though its name (little Violone) would seem to derive it from the Double Bass, is really a bass Violin, formed on a different model from the Violone. It is traceable in Italy early in the 17th century, was at first used exclusively as a fundamental bass in the concerted music of the church, and it is not until a century later that it appears to have taken its place as a secular and solo instrument. Elsewhere during the 17th century and a considerable part of the 18th, the Viol Bass (Viola da Gamba) was almost exclusively in use as a bass instrument. The first English violoncellos date from about the Restoration. The oldest one known is undoubtedly the work of Edward Pamphilon. It is of a very primitive pattern, being extremely bombé in the back and belly, the arching starting straight from the purfling, which is double. There exist also Violoncellos by Rayman, another of the Restoration fiddle-makers. Barak Norman's Violoncellos are not uncommon, though far fewer than his innumerable Bass Viols. The earlier Violoncellos in England, therefore, date not long after those of Italy; the French and German ones somewhat later. The Violoncello must have been kept out of general use by its irrational fingering; for being tuned by fifths, and the fingers of the performer being only able to stretch a major third, the hand has great difficulty in commanding the scales: and it was not until the middle of the 18th century that its difficulties were sufficiently overcome to enable it practically to supplant the Viola da Gamba in the orchestra. [See GAMBA, vol. ii. p. 140.]
7The adoption of four strings, tuned by fifths, for the Violin in its three sizes, really marks the emancipation of bowed instruments from the domination of the Lute. Such impediments to progress as complicated and various tunings, frets, and tablature music were thus removed. In most respects this change facilitated musical progress. The diminished number of strings favoured resonance; for in six-stringed instruments there is an excessive pressure on the bridge which checks vibration and increases resistance to the bow. By the change the fingering was simplified, though in the larger instruments it was rendered more laborious to the executant. Composers, though still obliged to regard the limited capacities of stringed instruments, were able to employ them with less reserve. Music, however, cannot be said to have lost nothing by the abandonment of the Viol.2 The Violin affords fewer facilities for harmonic combinations and suspensions, in the form of chords and arpeggios. Bowed instruments tended more and more to become merely melodic, like wind instruments. Effect soon came to be sought by increasing the length of the scales, and employing the higher and less agreeable notes, the frequent use of which, as in modern music, would have shocked the ears of our forefathers. It is often supposed that early violinists were not sufficiently masters of their instrument to command the higher positions. Nothing can be more absurd. In addition to what has been stated under the head SHIFT, it may be observed that many existing compositions for the Viola da Gamba prove that very complicated music was played on that instrument across the strings in the higher positions, and the transfer of this method of execution to the violin obviously rested with individual players and composers. Bach's Violin Solos represent it in the hands of one of transcendent genius; but Bach, with unfailing good taste, usually confines the player to the lower registers of the instrument. The tuning of the principal stringed instruments thus became what it is at the present moment and is probably destined to remain.
91 A Nicolas Dollnet, "joueur de fluste et violon du dict sieur la somme de 50 livres tournois pour luy donner moyen d'acheter un violon de Cremone pour le service du dict sieur." Archives curieuses de l' Histoire de France, vol. viii. p. 355.
112 Schubert's Sonata for the Pianoforte and Arpeggione (a revived form of the Viola da Gamba) is in fact a tribute to the musical capabilities of the Viol. [See ARPEGGIONE.]
13The strings indicated by solid notes are spun or 'covered' strings — that is, they are closely enveloped in fine copper or silver wire. The others are of plain gut, usually called 'cat-gut,'
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