Books › The heart of music; the story of the violin, 1906 › scan 131
Scan 131
The heart of music; the story of the violin, 1906
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1years, but the full flood-tide of its power did not reach Spain until the twelfth century.
3It was in the thirteenth century that the Church in Spain, becoming scandalised at the dissolute hands and unseemly uses into which the rebeck and its brethren had fallen, forbade it to be played or listened to by any good Catholics. It was hereafter to be reserved for the holy rites of the Church itself. Perhaps they hoped to purify its mission through the atmosphere of devotion, or perhaps they burned to develop its possibilities in peace and quiet, undisturbed and unprofaned by secular interference, or perhaps they merely wanted the best of this world, whether food or learning, wine or culture, music or amusement, for themselves. Be that as it may, the rebeck and its fellows passed out of the hands of the common folk and for a brief space lived a virtuous life in the cloister.
5But the people were not to be so easily cheated of their merry stringed music; they loved it far too well to relinquish it without a struggle. Since the Church would not permit them to play a rebeck they cast about in their minds for a method to circumvent the Church and to agree to its dictum while doing what they pleased.
7The essential peculiarity of the rebeck consisted in the fact that it was played with a bow.
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