Scan 54
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1condition of instrumental music about the sixteenth century, together with the form and character of bowed instruments belonging to the same period. The manners and customs of peoples have also to be considered. We have hitherto found the Geige or Fiddle among minstrels and itinerant musicians in countries where music and minstrelsy had become an institution with the people. The instrument was rude and gross, and its office was to play extemporaneous accompaniments with considerable licence. At length domestic music began to be zealously cultivated in Germany and the Low Countries, to which important circumstance the rapid development of stringed instruments is traceable. Viols of various kinds supported the voices, and an important manufacture of such instruments took root in Nuremberg and other German cities. In following the history of the Madrigal much light is thrown upon that of the Viol, to which it is necessary to give attention in order to follow in some degree the development of the Violin.
3The condition of music in Italy previous to the time when the father of the Madrigal, Adrian Willaert, followed in the steps of his countrymen and made Italy his home, presents a great contrast to the state of the art in Germany and the Netherlands about the same period. The love of music in these countries had been growing among the people from the days of their minstrel poets and their wandering musicians. In Italy minstrelsy received but little attention or encouragement. The effect of this was probably felt when that extraordinary love of culture and admiration for art manifested itself amid the courts of her princes, about the middle of the fifteenth century. The love of melody then, as now, was deeply rooted in the nature of her people. Musical composition, however, of a high
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