Scan 40
The violin & its story : or the history & construction of the violin, 1905
8 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 26. See the scan on archive.org.
1This last "way" corresponds to our own violin, if not as regards the number of strings, yet in the tuning, and further in the omission of the frets.
3From the work of Agricola we learn that in his time it was the custom to divide the various kinds of members of the family of stringed instruments into classes, not only according to their size and compass, but that there was also a distinct class which corresponded to the compass and character of the various human voices. This custom had its origin in the ever growing elaboration of those pieces of music for several voices which had come into artistic use from the fourteenth century onwards. By the sixteenth century music had come to be most extensively employed in the services and ceremonies of the Church; and at the courts of princes it was usual to have at one time music sung by voices alone, and at other times to have the voices accompanied by instruments. With vocal pieces for few voices, each of these voices had assigned to it a particular instrument; but when a full chorus was used to produce the required quantity of tone, as was especially the case when two choirs were placed one at either end of the available space, then one chorus would have assigned to it instruments corresponding in compass to the voices, in order to make a distinction between the peculiar tone-colour of the two choirs. Instrumental music was therefore nothing but the echo, or counter-part, of the voices, notwithstanding the fact that nearly all the instruments which we now find put to so many and such varied uses were then available.
5A work now very rare is the "Easy way to comprehend how to learn upon the Lute and Fiddle," written "by Hans Judenkünig, Lutist, and now in Vienna in Austria printed in the year 1523." Agricola only treats the fiddle family as of orchestral* importance, but
7* The reader will not forget that the word "orchestral" here only means the playing of the same music as that sung by the voices as described in the preceding paragraph.—Translator.
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