Books › The M. Steinert collection of keyed and stringed instruments : with various treatises on the history of these instruments, the method of playing them, and their influence on musical art, 1893 › scan 149
Scan 149
The M. Steinert collection of keyed and stringed instruments : with various treatises on the history of these instruments, the method of playing them, and their influence on musical art, 1893
6 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 147. See the scan on archive.org.
1with more advanced instruments, and even to-day is not quite obsolete.
3The Guitar shaped violin, which is a direct descendant of the Fiddle of the Troubadours, has been made and used in all ages. Likewise, the Rebec for a long time continued in use side by side with the violin. The Viola de Gamba has never been completely forced out of existence by the Violoncello. But the most singular survival of all is the Welsch crwth, which is simply the small lyre as introduced by the Romans into Celtic Britain, adopted with some slight modifications for use as a bowed instrument. The adoption of four strings tuned by fifths for the violin in its three sizes, marks the emancipation of bowed instruments from the domination of the lute. Thereby such impediments to progress as complicated and various tunings, frets and tablature music were removed. This change in very many respects facilitated musical progress. Naturally the diminished number of strings increased the resonance of the instrument, as with six strings there is an excessive pressure on the bridge, which checks vibration and increases the resistance to the bow. By the change the fingering was simplified, although in the larger instruments it was rendered more laborious to the player.
5It cannot be maintained, however, that music lost nothing by the abandonment of the viol. The violin offers fewer facilities for harmonic combinations and suspensions in the form of chords and arpeggios. Bowed instruments tended more and more to become merely melodic, like wind instruments. By increasing the length of the scale, effect was sought to be produced, and the higher and less agreeable notes, which would have shocked the ears of our fore-fathers, were more frequently employed. In fact, it is often supposed that the earlier violinists were not sufficiently masters of the instrument to command the higher positions. Nothing can be more absurd. Many compositions for the Viola de Gamba prove that very complicated music was played on that instrument across the strings in the higher positions, and the
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