Scan 18
Musical instruments, historic, rare and unique, 1888
2 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1level is that arrangement of wooden or metal bars in those instruments classed generally as Harmonicons, which are especially at home in Java, Siam, and Burma, and are known to be used from the Hill country of India in the one direction, to Africa in the other. The beautiful Siamese Ranat and Khong (Plate XLIII.) and the Zulu Marimba (Plate XLVIII.) are examples of this wide distribution, and in the latter the gourd resonators attached to the bars show the simplest form of sound reinforcers, which, perfected in various Eastern instruments, such as the Indian Víñas and Sitárs (Plate XL.) has in Europe attained its crowning artistic development in the beautiful pear-shaped Resonance bodies of the Lute and Mandoline. We find also varieties of this beautiful form in the Georgian and Turcoman tambouras, the Colascione of Southern Italy and similar instruments, the migrations of which may here and there be traced along the lines of religious movements, as in Central Asia and Hindostan, in China, the Corea, and Japan. For instance, the shorter-necked lutes and guitars, the rebec, rebab, and other precursors of the viols and violins, which, borrowed from the Arabic population of the Holy Land, actually came to Europe upon the reflex wave of the Crusades. The Saracenic occupation of Spain had, however, its share in the transmission of these instruments, and of a taste for the pizzicato, and also of an elaboration of vocal and instrumental ornament, which has remained in the popular airs and dances of that country, and, an important characteristic of the music of the Troubadours and Trouvères, has left its mark upon our modern music everywhere. The Arab blood in Spain may have tended to preserve the use of the guitar as a national instrument in that country. A Guitar (Plate XXIX.) and a Cetera (Plate XXVIII.) made by Stradivarius, as he usually signed his name, are of especial interest as showing that he was not above making more simple instruments than violins. The beautiful tortoiseshell Guitar (Plate X.) has a tradition that connects it with Mary of Scots and the unfortunate Rizzio. In all these guitar and lute instruments, the roses in the sound-boards show a wealth of invention in design that is truly astonishing. A work of this kind would not be without interest if it were devoted only to these roses, and to those of spinets and
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