Books › The violin: some account of that leading instrument, and its most eminent professors, from its earliest date to the present time;, 1878 › scan 34
Scan 34
The violin: some account of that leading instrument, and its most eminent professors, from its earliest date to the present time;, 1878
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1cipally, to the instrument in its imperfect character, when it bore only that sort of analogy to the true instrument, that the 'satyr' is said to have borne to 'Hyperion.'
3The "Musurgia, seu Praxis Musicæ," of the Benedictine Monk Luscinius, published in 1542, represents (coarsely cut in wood) as the bowed instruments then in use, the rebec, or three-stringed violin, and the viol di gamba. The instruments of the viol tribe, however, which are supposed to have been those that led more immediately to the construction of the true violin, considerably precede the above period in their date of origin. Violars, or performers on the viol, whose business it was to accompany the Troubadours in their singing of the Provençal poetry*, were common in the 12th century; and, in a treatise on music, written by Jerome of Westphalia in the 13th century, there is particular mention made of the instrument known by the name of viol.
5Under various modifications of the term fiddle, there are to be found many very early allusions to an instrument, such as it was, bearing some resemblance to the violin. Fidle is a Saxon word of considerable antiquity; and from the old Gothic are traced the derivations of
71. Middle High German. Videl (noun), Videlære (noun personal). Videln (verb, to fiddle), Videl-boge (fiddle bow).
9* They who enjoy the advantage of access to curious books may see, a figure of a Provençal Fiddler in "Diez, Poesie der Troubadour." Viol was the old Norman French name for the fiddle used by the minstrels of the middle ages, which was furnished variously with 3, 4, 5, or 6 strings. Viula was the Provençal term—and arson, or arçon, for the bow.
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