Scan 130
Musical instruments, historic, rare and unique;, 1921
12 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1that have been used in Italy, the Milanese and Neapolitan Mandolines are the best known. The Milanese Mandoline, with five or six pairs of strings, preserves old either tunings; the Neapolitan Mandoline, which is really an eighteenth-century instrument, is evidently of later introduction, as it is tuned in fifths similar to a violin, which makes performance upon it easily attainable by violin players. Mozart wrote the serenade in Don Giovanni with an accompaniment for it, but beautiful as this composition is, the accompaniment appears scarcely characteristic of the Mandoline or of the Bandurria either—a small kind of Spanish guitar of deeper pitch than the Mandoline, which, for local colour, would have been the right instrument. These instruments, like the Dulcimer, make their characteristic effects by means of the reiteration of notes, analogous to what is called "repetition" on a pianoforte, the intention being to convey an impression of sustained sound, and make the melody prominent when several other instruments are being played.
3The accordance of the Neapolitan Mandoline is—
5of the Milanese Mandoline of five notes—
7of the Milanese Mandoline of six notes—
9and of the Bandurria—
11the three higher notes being here of catgut—the lower of silk overspun with metal. The Bandurria, like the Mandolines, is played with a plectrum, called in Spanish "Pua," which is prevented from defacing the wood by the presence of a tortoiseshell plate, let into the soundboard. The plectrum is usually a small piece of tortoiseshell or quill.
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