Scan 11
Researches into the early history of the violin family, 1883
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1AVAILABLE EVIDENCE.
3CONSIDERING the great popularity of the violin, and the important place which the stringed instruments played with a bow occupy in our orchestral scores, it is not surprising that occasionally attempts should have been made to trace the origin and early history of these instruments. Almost all our treatises on the ingenious construction and on the distinguished makers of the violin—and we possess now a considerable number of such publications—contain a discussion on its mediæval precursors. Unfortunately, however, most of these discussions are mere compilations repeating unfounded, or at least unascertained, statements of previous writers. The consequence is that erroneous notions are not unfrequently promulgated, and the progress in obtaining reliable information is more obstructed than promoted.
5Much misunderstanding has been occasioned by the circumstance, very common during the middle ages, of the same name being applied in different centuries to different instruments. In most instances the misunderstanding might have been prevented if our musical historians had not omitted to state distinctly the period in which the instrument which they describe was in popular use. Indications such as "the middle ages," or "mediæval," are generally too vague to impart any satisfactory information. Considering that the middle ages comprise about a thousand years, from the fourth to the fifteenth century of our era, it might surely be surmised that the musical instruments of the earlier centuries must have been in many respects different from those of the later centuries.
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