Books › The arts and crafts book of the worshipful Guild of violin-makers of Markneukirchen, from the year 1677 to the year 1772, 1894 › scan 46
Scan 46
The arts and crafts book of the worshipful Guild of violin-makers of Markneukirchen, from the year 1677 to the year 1772, 1894
4 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 38. See the scan on archive.org.
1depended mainly on the position which the all-conquering violin attained in the orchestra, where, at first, in the mixture of all attainable instruments, the deep-toned trumpets, the trombone, the bassoon, struggled for supremacy with the contra-bass as the ground-work of the harmonies. Among the "Gamba" instruments the most popular was certainly the small ones called "Celli" (Violoncelli), but it was apparent from the already quoted work of Prätorius that even in a band composed according to the canons of Italian taste, the Viole da Gambe were only used "when they were to be had," and in default, the Viole de Braccio (modern viola) were considered as sufficient substitutes.
3The whole of the 17th century was an era very unfavourable to the development of orchestral music, owing to the unceasing din of war, and the consequently persistent abandonment of all higher culture and art. Meanwhile the strides that had been made in establishing the importance of the "Trompette Maggiore" (big trumpet), and the "Tromba da Tirarsi" (slide trumpet), by Girolamo Fantini, served as a foundation for still more firmly establishing the prestige of the violin. For, as a matter of fact, the violin attained its position as a ruler of all instruments, only at the time when the simplest form of trumpet had reached its zenith. It was only in the first half of the 18th century, when Johann Sebastian Bach (1750) had inaugurated the renaissance of church music, that the orchestral standing of the violin was also established. Bach was
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