Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 55
Scan 55
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
10 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 33. See the scan on archive.org.
1Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt, belongs to music cultivated as an art; whilst the kemángeh à gouz, kemángeh fark, kemángeh soghair, and the rebab, each mounted with two strings, are consigned to the people, and require scarcely any study.
3From the end of the eleventh century, we notice the vielles or violes (viols) on monuments. The oldest representations of this kind show us these instruments mounted with four strings. The author of an anonymous treatise on musical instruments which, to all appearance, cannot be later than the thirteenth century*, attributes the invention of the viol with four strings to a certain Albinus, and gives a very imperfect drawing of it. The term invention can only be taken for modification. At what period did this Albinus flourish? † We know not; but, in the work in question, we find a valuable indication of the tuning of the four strings, which are represented by the letters a, d, g, c, corresponding with the notes:
5This tuning by fourths is met with in the viols of the sixteenth century; but it has varied, as we shall presently see.
7* De diversis monochordis, tetrachordis, pentachordis, exachordis, eptachordis, octochordis, &c. ex quibus diversa formantur instrumenta musicæ, cum figuris instrumentorum. This treatise is found in a manuscript collection of different works on music, preserved in the Library of the University of Gand, No. 171.
9† Mr. William Chappell says, in his Popular Music of the Olden Time, vol. ii, p. 763, there can be very little doubt that the Albinus here referred to was Alcuin, who died in 804, and who assumed the name of Flaccus Albinus in his writings.—Tr.
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