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Scan 3
The violin, 1900
16 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1DEMY OCTAVO, WITH THIRTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS.
3RESEARCHES INTO THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE VIOLIN FAMILY BY CARL ENGEL.
5PRICE SEVEN SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE.
7"The publication of this important book makes manifest to us the full measure of the loss we have sustained by the death of the author who, by common consent, was placed first among those who devote themselves to the study of musical instruments. In no work from his pen have we had such ripe fruit, in a province now recognised as a foundation of a general and philosophical systematisation of the art, as in this masterpiece of erudition and sound judgment. With the deductions suggested by what is at present known as the scientific basis of music Engel had little or nothing to do. He spent his valuable life in continual observation and much reading, the outcome of which we may some day expect to gain in the four large volumes left by him in manuscript, with complete illustrations of all the known musical instruments in the world. When this magnum opus appears, the present view of the subject by which all Eastern and the so-called ethnological music is brought into relation with our major and minor scales will be exhaustively satisfied. The dawn of another view of the subject affecting our conception of it may be imminent, but Carl Engel's descriptions and conclusions will be always indispensable to the inquirer, as this volume on the origin of bowed instruments is to all those who concern themselves with the violin family. We notice in this essay all the deep research, clearness of expression, calm judgment, and ingenuity of reasoning identified with Engel's writing. It starts with a chapter on available evidences, and then at once attacks the root of the argument concerning the origin of the fiddle-bow, which he is inclined to believe was gradually developed from the drum with which the Greeks and other ancient peoples twanged their lyres. By this hypothesis, the friction of a feather is the rudimentary idea of the modern perfected bow. . . . Among the specimens contained in the book are woodcuts of both Chinese and Japanese bowed instruments, and one exception called Sarangi, in the Indian. The Hindu Sarinda figured on page 17 is with eleven in number, in the cases of the Indian Museum at South Kensington. The only the upper part of the sound-body open—a peculiarity Engel describes as the rule—and that has a different form to the others, and to the illustration given by him. The Indian Museum instruments have complete sound membranes of skin, and instead of three strings for bowing have four. They have also sympathetic wires, not indicated in the woodcut. Our Western 'Viola d'Amore' was also sympathetically furnished with thin untouched strings. Ancient bows have fixed tension, so that they are very near relations of our violin bow; however, the remarkable bow of the Japanese 'Kokiu,' of which the writer has a fine specimen, is capable of adjusted tension, by a cord attached to the lower end of the horsehair used for the friction. Our bow was only perfected by Tourte, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Engel's problem is to show how, in European countries, the bow became gradually used for certain instruments the strings of which had previously been twanged. This is the real interest to the reader of a very ingenious disquisition. Engel first treats of the Welsh Crwth separately from the English Crowd, the Mediaeval Rotte, Rote and Chrotta. The Crwth is one of two readings
8"The publication of this important book makes manifest to us the full measure of the loss we have sustained by the death of the author who, by common consent, was placed first among those who devote themselves to the study of musical instruments. In no work from his pen have we had such ripe fruit, in a province now recognised as a foundation of a general and philosophical systematisation of the art, as in this masterpiece of erudition and sound judgment. With the deductions suggested by what is at present known as the scientific basis of music Engel had little or nothing to do. He spent his valuable life in continual observation and much reading, the outcome of which we may some day expect to gain in the four large volumes left by him in manuscript, with complete illustrations of all the known musical instruments in the world. When this magnum opus appears, the present view of the subject by which all Eastern and the so-called ethnological music is brought into relation with our major and minor scales will be exhaustively satisfied. The dawn of another view of the subject affecting our conception of it may be imminent, but Carl Engel's descriptions and conclusions will be always indispensable to the inquirer, as this volume on the origin of bowed instruments is to all those who concern themselves with the violin family. We notice in this essay all the deep research, clearness of expression, calm judgment, and ingenuity of reasoning identified with Engel's writing. It starts with a chapter on available evidences, and then at once attacks the root of the argument concerning the origin of the fiddle-bow, which he is inclined to believe was gradually developed from the drum with which the Greeks and other ancient peoples twanged their lyres. By this hypothesis, the friction of a feather is the rudimentary idea of the modern perfected bow. . . . Among the specimens contained in the book are woodcuts of both Chinese and Japanese bowed instruments, the only one exception called Sarangi, in the British Museum at South Kensington. The only one exception called Sarangi, in the British Museum at South Kensington. The Indian Museum instrument has complete sound membranes of skin, and instead of three strings for bowing have four. They have also sympathetic wires, not indicated in the woodcut. Our Western 'Viola d'Amore' was also sympathetically furnished with thin untouched strings. Ancient bows have fixed tension, so that they are very near relations of our violin bow; however, the remarkable bow of the Japanese 'Kokiu,' of which the writer has a fine specimen, is capable of adjusted tension, by a cord attached to the lower end of the horsehair used for the friction. Our bow was only perfected by Tourte, at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Engel's problem is to show how, in European countries, the bow became gradually used for certain instruments the strings of which had previously been twanged. This is the real interest to the reader of a very ingenious disquisition. Engel first treats of the Welsh Crwth separately from the English Crowd, the Mediaeval Rotte, Rote and Chrotta. The Crwth is one of two readings
10A fair coffer with a bow, a girdle,
11A finger-board, and a bridge; its value is a pound.
13We refer the reader to page 67 for an ingenious hypothesis of the origin of these names. Yet more important is the noteworthy argument which deduces these forms of partially bowed instruments from the old Greek lyre. Engel's quotations from poets and other old authors are a mine of wealth to the curious in such matters. . . . The later mediaeval bowed instruments are introduced by a chapter on the Rebec, followed by the Geige, the Fiddle, the Vielle, and the Viols. . . . After the Viols, when arrived at the Violin, the lamented author terminated his inquiry, considering he had landed his reader on the terra firma of what is well known to musicians. We will, however, refer to the curious illustration on page 112, which represents, from a sarcophagus found in Sicily and probably dating 250 years before our era, two stringed instruments alike, which had the late Dante Rossetti seen he might have depicted in one of his ideally pictorial conceptions. Engel saw in this an instrument the strings of which could be stopped to produce notes of different pitch, as the violin or guitar are stopped. This expedient, older in Egypt than the Pyramids, is connected with Greece and Rome almost by this one example! A brief retrospect shows that the violin family attained its highest degree of perfection about the year 1700, which proves that there is finality to improvements even in musical instruments. The index is copious and sufficient."—Musical Review, April 21, 1883.
15LONDON AND NEW YORK: NOVELLO, EWER AND CO.
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