Books › The violin and its music, 1881 › scan 42
Scan 42
The violin and its music, 1881
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 20. See the scan on archive.org.
1can be shown that fiddling preceded jigging—which surely would be somewhat difficult—the instrument found its name in the dance, and not the dance in the instrument.
3The value of the title Geige as historical evidence of the instrument bearing that name having merged into the perfect Violin, has yet to be noticed. I have already remarked in effect, that the barbarous Fiddle, whether the Geige, Fithele, or Rebec, was not sacrificed at the shrine of the Viol, but went on its way merrily, playing dance and jig, heedless of the grave and superior duties fulfilled by its own creature, the Viol. Long before the time when the Viol's vocation had passed away, the resources of the merry Fiddle were gradually but surely being developed. No longer was its music alone heard amid fools and jugglers, the halls of prince and potentate resounded with its strains. As the sound of the Viol died away, the voices of other instruments, the offspring of the merry Fiddle, were heard. It is here we have the chief evidence of Germany's part in the development of the foremost member of the stringed instrument family; for it was the Germans who, in the early years of the sixteenth century, possessed the descant, tenor, and bass Geigen.* It is, however, the retention of the name Geige by the Germans which strikes us as remarkable, and as pointing to the connection of the old three-string Geige and the modern Violin. An
5* Martin Agricola mentions these in his work on Music, 1545.
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