Chapter III: Introduction (2)

Unfortunately he does not illustrate his text, but the depth of pitch given by him would indicate an instrument of larger proportions than the one held by the Boscerville figure. In any case, whether this be the instrument indicated by Jerome or not, he has distinctly described the existence of a bass species of viol at that date, and our next picture might certainly be taken as an illustration of his description, giving licence of course, to the third string. This bas-relief in marble (Fig. 8) is preserved in the museum at Cologne, and, looked at with a twentieth-century eye, is wonderfully replete with omens. Observe the bridge and its position: the sound holes in their approved place: the manner in which the sounding-board joins the neck: the excellent fingerboard and tailpiece. All these items, combined with its size, might easily allow it to be the rubebe of Jerome de Moravia and if one supposes this to be so, it is not amiss to suggest that the Boscerville instrument is also a rubebe, which experience enlarged in the following century to the size before us.

It is hardly necessary to add further examples, as these three give a fairly broad idea of the progressive attempts at a definite form, from about the eleventh to the end of the fourteenth century. During this period there were doubtless no hard and fast rules for tuning. The minstrel adapted the pitch of his instrument according to whim, or the compass of his voice. He danced and sang to his own improvised accompaniments. Thus we hear in 1391 of: “Un nommeé Isembart jouait d’une rubèbe, et, en jouant, un nommé Le Bastard se print à danser,” and again in 1395, “Roussel et Gaygnat preurent à jouer, l’un d’une fluste l’autre d’une rubèbe, et ainsi que les aulcuns dansoient.”[11] The minstrel’s person and attainments were undoubtedly of a genial character, yet with all due deference to his merry ways, and the good service he rendered to poetry and music, one cannot help observing that his dancing and warbling were the means of retarding the development of musical instruments to a certain extent. If you roam the country with your musical equipment upon your back you naturally require something of a portable size. “A fiddle under my cloak?” says the indignant Sir Roger l’Estrange in defending himself against Mr Bagshawe’s insinuations that he frequently solicited private conferences from Oliver Cromwell with a fiddle under his cloak; “Truly my fiddle is a bass-viol, and that’s somewhat a troublesome instrument under a cloak.” The minstrel of the Middle Ages was certainly of the same opinion, and was careful that his fiddle should not assume alarming proportions. He was content so long as he could carry it about with ease like “Gervais de Nevers” who:

--“donned a garment old
And round his neck a viol hung
For cunningly he played and sung.”

Another obstacle to the progress of stringed instruments was placed in their way by the early contrapuntists who expended their genius entirely upon vocal music. Thus it was that no one appeared to realise that a resonant bass-viol, answering to the pitch of the bass voice, could be constructed by enlarging the rebecs and embryo viols then in use. Not until the middle of the fifteenth century did anything of the sort appear, and when it did, it came at the imperative call of the part-songs then coming into vogue. The singers of these compositions demanded to be kept in tune just as much as the warblers of sweet melodies had required, and it was the desire to do this to the best advantage that led eventually to the construction of complete sets of stringed instruments played with a bow and answering in pitch to the treble, alto, tenor, and bass voices.

And now, if you have finished your coffee, shall we return to our case of Asiatic instruments? There is to be found amongst them a mongrel species of bass instrument, which certainly acted in no mean way as a factor in the development of low-pitched instruments played with a bow. We allude to the _trummelscheit_, known in England under the ambiguous title of marine trumpet. It carries one short gut string tuned to CC, and when correctly played--_i.e._ harmonically--gives out a scale corresponding in pitch to that of the high soprano voice.

This _trummelscheit_ before us is rather undersized. Its form and construction are of an advanced type, for besides the short gut string it has the additional sympathetic wire strings piercing the body like a delicate bundle of nerves. Broadly speaking, this instrument was probably made in France in the days when aristocracy prospered, and danced stately minuets at the court of “Le Grand Monarch”: when that cultured son of _tapisier_, Molière, wrote his immortal _comedies_ for the amusement of the _haute monde_, and Jean Baptiste Lully’s impudence and genius placed him upon the highest pinnacle of fame. The intriguing Jean Baptiste--whom Boileau denounced as a _coquin tenebreaux_, a _coeur bas_, and a _bouffon odieux_--was possessed of talents which quite equalled his gifts as a composer of operas. He could write such divine inspirations as “Bois Epais”: could revolutionise the “_ballet de la cour_” by the introduction of the pirouette and sprightly allegro: could play the fiddle to perfection, and conduct his band of “_Petits Violons_” in a manner to make them quickly famous. He could pen mischievous verse; take advantage of court squabbles and turn them to good account, and used his histrionic gifts to the most satisfactory ends. Many a time did Lully’s impersonations of the exquisitely comic situations in which Molière delighted to place his characters, obtain for him the King’s pardon when his Majesty had been fairly exasperated by the unscrupulous actions of his “_Surintendant de la Musique_.” The polygamy scene in _M. de Pourceaugnac_ was one of Maître Lully’s most effective parts for this purpose, and it is easy to imagine how the ludicrous perplexities of M. Jourdain in _Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme_[12] must have been interpreted by a man who had himself risen from obscurity to wealth and fame. It is in the latter witty comedy that we hear of the trumpet marine and its position at that time. Bewildered M. Jourdain’s music-master is advising him to give concerts twice a week at his house.

LE MAÎTRE DE MUSIQUE

Au reste, monsieur, ce n’est pas assez; il faut qu’une personne
comme vous, qui êtes magnifique et qui avez de l’inclination pour
les belles choses, ait un concert de musique chez soi tous les
Mercredis ou tous les Jeudis.

M. JOURDAIN

Est-ce que les gens de qualité en out?

LE MAÎTRE DE MUSIQUE

Sans doute. Il vous faudra trois voix: un dessus, une haute-contre
et une basse, qui seront accompagnés d’une basse de viole, d’un
téorbe et d’un clavecin pour les basses continues, avec deux dessus
de violon pour jouer les retournelles.

M. JOURDAIN

Il faudra mettre aussi une trompette marine. La trompette marine
est un instrument qui me plaît, et qui est très harmonieux.

LE MAÎTRE DE MUSIQUE

Laissez-nous gouverner les choses.

In spite of Molière’s just, or unjust ridicule, the marine trumpet figured in the royal band of Louis XV. Several names of artists who played this instrument at the French court are recorded in the _État de la France_ for 1702, and among them we find Danican Philidor, a favourite musician of Louis, “le bien aimé” (?) and as rampant a chess player as was his contemporary Diderot. Whether from motives of economy or because the marine trumpet was looked upon as “no great shakes” (as our Yankee cousins say), all players of that instrument at the French court were also performers on a species of hautbois--now obsolete--called the Cremorne. How these virtuosi managed to juggle notes out of both instruments at the same time, history does not relate, but in the face of such a feat as that achieved by Don Jumpedo, who nightly jumped down his own throat at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket some hundred years ago, all things seem possible.

England was not behind France in her use of the marine trumpet. Gay King Charles would have all things at court in accordance with the French fashion, and the marine trumpet doubtless found its way to the British coast in the company of truffles, perruques, pirouettes, and long-ear’d puppy dogs. Whether it was bundled in with the Cremorne, as was its fate in France, or ignored, as in Italy, is not recorded, but its advent was apparently announced in the following stirring advertisement published in _The London Gazette_ for 4th February 1674:--“A rare concert of Trumpets Marine, never before heard of in England. If any persons desire to come and hear it they may repair to the Fleece Tavern near St James’ about two of the clock in the afternoon every day in the week except Sundays. Every concert shall continue one hour and so begin again. The best places are one shilling and the other sixpence.” The marine trumpet was not only a means of drawing the public, but it apparently had a market value of its own, for we find in Thomas Shadwell’s play, _The Miser_, of that period, that a certain loan includes a “Bolona lute, a roman Arch lute, 2 gittars, a Cremona Violin, a Lyra Viol, 1 Viol da Gambo, and a Trumpet-Marine, very fit for you if you be a lover of musick.”

But it was in Germany--the scene of the trumpet marine’s birth--that it found its real vocation. In that land of sausages and romance, beer and love sonnets, it was known under the double title of “Trummelscheit”--from its resemblance to a sword sheath--and “Nonnen-Trompett,” for the reason that the nuns themselves employed it in their convents. The delicate lips of the fair _religeuses_ were unable to cope with the mouth-distorting horn; yet they required an instrument of that type to add vigour to their heaven-sent praises. Their difficulty was in reality not unlike that of the German bassoon player, Schubert, when Baumgarten commanded him at rehearsal to sustain a certain note. “It is very easy for you, Mister Baumgarten, to say, hold out that note,” replied he quietly, “but who is to find the vind?” The wind instruments must have their human bellows, but these being weak, the marine trumpet became a substitute for the horn, and every German cloister was furnished with, and employed, a nonnen-trompett or nonnen geige. Until almost the end of the eighteenth century, this quaint custom continued, after which the nuns apparently grew bolder and fearlessly attacked double-basses and violoncellos and whole orchestras of instruments. Kastner, writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century, says: “All who go to Lichtenthal near Baden can hear the nuns of the convent of this name sing divine service with an orchestral accompaniment in which many of them took part,” which proves that even at that date the custom of supplying their own music had not been excluded from convent life.

How the marine trumpet or trumpet marine came to be so called is a riddle that possibly finds its solution in the form of the instrument itself. The shape in its earliest form resembled the long speaking-trumpet familiar to sailors. Thus we can account for the nautical touch which is given to this instrument by the first half of its title, while the trumpet part must be engendered by the _timbre_ produced by the ingenious arrangement of the bridge. One does not often find the correct bridges on the existing marine trumpets. To be accurate, the bridge should be made of wood in the form of a shoe. The heel part should be attached to the table of the instrument and the gut string passed over it, while the toe part should rest unattached upon a little square of inlaid ivory or glass. The toe acts like the _bâton_ of the _chef-d’orchestre_; each throb of the pulsating string is faithfully translated by a tap upon the ivory or glass when the player sets the string in vibration with his bow. It is this ingenious arrangement that contrives to give a sonorous burring--associated with the sound of brass instruments--to the harmonies of the marine trumpet. Mr E. J. Payne, who wrote the able article upon this instrument in Sir George Grove’s “Dictionary of Music and Musicians” (first edition), there says: “The facility with which the marine trumpet yields its natural harmonies is due to its single string and its lop-sided bridge. Paganini’s extraordinary effects in harmonics on a single string were in fact produced by temporarily converting his violin into a small marine trumpet. As is well known, that clever player placed his single fourth string on the treble side of the bridge, screwing it up to a very high pitch, and leaving the bass foot of the bridge comparatively loose. He thus produced a powerful reedy tone and obtained unlimited command over the harmonics.”

Michael Praetorius, writing in 1620, gives a good deal of interesting information about the marine trumpet. He says that its ancient origin is undoubted: that the roaming musicians played upon it in the streets; and plasters it with faint praise by remarking that, “its tone was more agreeable at a distance than close to it.” Marin Mersenne, most exact and careful critic, scribbling in Paris sixteen years later, discusses this instrument lengthily. In the course of his remarks--which are full of interest--he mentions that the marine trumpet was very difficult to play for the reason (oh! mark this, ye modern violoncellists of the dexterous digits) that it was necessary to move the _thumb_ or another finger with swiftness. “I have no doubt,” he adds, “that one could not play it perfectly until one had studied it as long as the lute or viol.” Mersenne’s allusion to the _thumb_ movement of course speaks for itself, still, it is interesting to note more particularly that the _movable thumb_ was employed by marine trumpet virtuosi long before it was ever included in the technique of the violoncello. The genius of Berteau was the means of introducing thumb movement as a special aid to the high positions on the violoncello, in the first half of the eighteenth century; until then the fingerboard over the belly remained unknown. Truly there is nothing new to be discovered! Here was the modern violoncellist’s particular recourse in use probably a century or so before he became slightly acquainted with it as a _novelty_, at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

To make a long story short, and end the tale of the marine trumpet, we will briefly outline its origin. In ancient times it was nothing more nor less than the monochord, an instrument, as we know, invented by Pythagoras of Samos, for measuring musical sounds, B.C. 530. When he departed this life, this learned Greek exhorted his disciples to “strike the monochord” and thereby rather inform their understandings than trust to their ears in the measurement of intervals. His followers and pupils not only hearkened, but performed, and thus from century to century the monochord was preserved. It acted as bass to the rebecs of the Middle Ages; it replaced the horn in the German convents; it originated the thumb movement; and eventually suggested the big “Geiges” which came into vogue in Germany in the first half of the sixteenth century. From the pictures and descriptions of these “Geiges” given by authorities of the period, the earliest were made in two kinds--_i.e._ those with bridges and those without. Both appear in complete quartets, and both were provided with six or more strings. With the bridgeless “Geiges,” or viols, we may adopt Toole’s remark about China in one of his inimitable impersonations. “China,” said he, “is divided into two parts, China proper and China improper. With the latter we will, of course, have nothing to do.” As a matter of fact we don’t want to have anything to do with these bridgeless viols or “Geiges,” because in our heart of hearts we feel very dubious as to their existence. Though we may tremble when we say it, we instinctively assign their creation to some _facile_ artist long since passed away. Either this erring gentleman forgot to sketch the bridge or else these--so-called--bridgeless viols were nothing more nor less than big guitars beside which the officious delineator added a bow. In any case we will dispense with them and hasten to that immediate predecessor of the violoncello, the viola da gamba, a leg viol, which was known all over Europe by its Italian name.

To begin with the makers of these and their kind, we find the earliest known names are those of Hans Frey, and Jean Ott, who worked in Nuremberg in the first half of the fifteenth century. It may be remembered that Nuremberg was at that time one of the most active commercial centres in Europe, and in addition fostered all the talent and intellect of the day. Within its precincts dwelt the poetic cobbler, Hans Sachs, penning his four thousand master songs, his numberless comedies and tragedies, and making slippers for dainty Eva besides. Then there was Adam Kraft, modelling his limestone tabernacle in the Church of Lawrence, and Peter Vischer, the brass worker--and Albert Dürer. Before this illustrious name we pause, for he himself, we believe, played the viol, while the viols to be found in his paintings are doubtless most accurately portrayed for--was not Hans Frey the viol-maker his father-in-law? It is said that Hans Frey amassed considerable wealth in his native town, but his affluence was certainly not due entirely to the patronage of his viol-playing clientèle, for we know that he was a “respected citizen skilled in all things,” and that not the least of his accomplishments was his skill in copper repoussé work. Many are the decorative figures, tankards, cake moulds, and other characteristic designs which owe their existence to his expert fingers. How redolent are they of guilds, master-singers, rules, institutions, and all the elephantine conceit and narrow-mindedness which went to make the life of the middle-class Nuremberg citizen!

After Hans Frey and Jean Ott we hear of Joan Kerlino who, according to Fetis, worked at Brescia, in Lombardy, in 1449. A “viola da Braccio,” or arm viol, of his making was in the possession of a Parisian _luthier_ named Koliker, in 1804, mention of which had been made by De Laborde in his “Essai sur la Musique” some twenty-five years previously.[13] Herr von Wasielewski traces Kerlino’s name to a German origin, assuming that he settled in Brescia and founded a school there. If this most probable assertion be true, then it follows, “as does the night the day,” that the Italian viola family owes its creation to Germany. Notwithstanding Germany’s precedence in the matter of originating the viol form, it is curious to note that the earliest known book in which a picture of a viol is to be found is that by Carmine Angurelli, which was published in Vienna in 1491, just forty-three years after the German Kerlino is said to have been making viols in Brescia. A copy of the little work is in the British Museum, and the woodcut of a seven-stringed viol which graces its title-page is a type ahead of its time.[14] It is quite equal to the viols shown in Hans Judenkünig’s “Ein schöne Kunstliche Underwaisung,” published in Vienna thirty years later, and far in advance of any representation of a viol in Martin Agricola’s “Musica Instrumentalis,” which appeared in 1528. The form of Angurelli’s viol has much more grace than the German “Geiges” of that date. There are no upper bouts, the curve from the joint of the neck sweeps straight down to the lower bouts, a shape, by-the-by, adopted for his grand old tenors by Gasparo da Salo, the Brescian maker, at a later date. The head of the viol is square, it has seven pegs, and one which projects at the side of the head and supports two more strings. The bridge is well delineated, and is almost identical with the familiar form now to be seen on every violoncello; moreover, it stands in the right place and not close to the short tailpiece as we find in Dürer’s pictures. The sound-holes are in the primitive C form, also freely used by Da Salo, and the tailpiece is a facsimile of that employed in the middle of the following century. Perhaps the most puzzling part of the picture is the bow which hangs on a peg beside this viol, for it is even of a more advanced type than the viol itself. Does this woodcut represent the consummation of Kerlino’s work in Italy, or is this viol and bow but one of those freaks of fancy which leap the bounds of an artist’s idealism and suddenly appear in completeness, as did Minerva from Jupiter’s ingenious brain? Whichever the case may be, we have in this picture the earliest woodcut representation of a viola da gamba extant, and to those who enthuse over these things we say: “Look at it in the works where it is to be found!” (p. 67 _f_).

After Kerlino there was a famous performer on the lute in Germany, named Hans Gerle, who made stringed instruments, and contributed to the literature of musical instruments by writing his “Musica Teusch,” which was published in 1532. In 1500 we find the monk, Pietro Dardelli, making viols in Mantua, while Ventura Linarolli was likewise occupied in Venice in 1520, and Peregrino Zanetti was busy in Brescia in 1540. Morglato Morello was also a diligent craftsman in Mantua in 1550, and Gaspard Duiffoproucart was making beautiful viols, lutes, and chittaras at Lyons in 1558.

Until Dr Henry Coutagne published his “Gaspard Duiffoproucart et les Luthiers Lyonnaise,” in Paris in 1893, Choron and Fayolle’s version of this maker’s life which appeared in their “Dictionnaire historique des Musiciens,” in 1810, was pretty generally accepted. According to the latter authorities, Duiffoproucart was born in the Tyrol at the end of the fifteenth century, and worked in Boulogna. He was supposed to have travelled in Germany before settling definitely in Boulogna in 1515, and when Francis I. visited that town he made Duiffoproucart a handsome offer to accompany him to France. The King’s proposition proving tempting, Duiffoproucart is said to have accepted it, and made many viols for the musicians belonging to the court orchestras. But apparently the air of Paris did not suit the good viol-maker. His health suffered, and for this reason he obtained leave to settle in Lyons.

Like a bolt from the blue, however, Dr Coutagne, bristling with authentic documentary evidence, has refuted the whole story. Through his careful research we learn that Duiffoproucart was born at Freising in Upper Bavaria in 1514: that he established himself in Lyons about the middle of the sixteenth century: that Henry II. of France granted him his “_Lettres de naturalité_” in 1558, and that he died in Lyons in 1570, leaving several children, among whom one son followed his father’s profession.

Thus has the life of the Lyons viol-maker confined itself into reasonable limits at last, and instead of our imagining him settling in Boulogna, a young man full of ambition, in 1515, we now picture him at that date in long clothes, felicitously celebrating his first birthday; all of which has a tint of an Æsop fable about it which is most attractive. But there is something even of greater interest than the satisfactory establishment of this maker’s career by the aid of document and script, and that is--his much-discussed portrait which is in the Bibliothèque National in Paris. This picture was engraved in Lyons by Pierre Woeiriot in 1562, and is supposed to have been copied from the original portrait, which graced the back of one of Duiffoproucart’s own viols. At the base of the picture the maker’s name is inscribed and spelt thus: “Duiffoprougcar,” which, by the way, is the most familiar form, but according to M. Coutagne is incorrect orthography. Under the name are two Latin lines which we shall have reason to refer to later, and then follows: “æta. ann. XLVIII,” and the date: “1514.” The true meaning of these words and figures remained a puzzle until Dr Coutagne solved it by discovering that the Roman figures indicated the age of the maker to be forty-eight at the date of the publication of the engraving, in 1562, while the Arabian figures give the year of his birth, 1514.

If we were compelled to rely entirely upon this engraving for evidence of the number of viola da gamba made by Duiffoproucart, we might be led to imagine that he had never made such an instrument in his life. The artist has represented him as a man of fine physique, surrounded by various specimens of small viols, lutes, and guitars, but no sign of a bass-viol is visible. Notwithstanding the artist’s omission, however, three--if not four--of this maker’s viola da gamba are in existence, and if we would see one of these we have not far to go. Indeed, here close beside us, guarded by the policeman’s watchful eye, is a specimen of Duiffoproucart’s skill (p. 74). It hangs in a good light and its glass house exposes every side of it to view. The property of Sir George Donaldson, there is no doubt but what he has a very unique possession in this singular little bass-viol. Its small proportions suggest an exceptionally large knee viol (originally it was doubtless a very large tenor-viol called in France, Quinte) or an instrument especially constructed for use in church processions. The deep brown varnish, with a glint of red in it, is particularly good, and adds to the elegance of the outline and _tout ensemble_ of the viol. The front is free from ornamentation but the back bears an inlaid design, in coloured woods, of a saint and an angel. Round the edges and in the upper part there is an interlaced design of flowers. The peg-box is surmounted by a horse’s head well carved, while the fingerboard is also inlaid in coloured woods and bears the Latin inscription so indelibly associated with this maker:

“Viva fui in Sylvis: fui dura occisa securi
Dum vixi tacui: Morte Dulce cano.”[15]

and his particular mark is on the back where the neck joins the ribs. This instrument belonged to the Parisian _luthier_, M. Chardon, before it became the property of Sir George Donaldson, and, while in the hands of its former owner, aided in identifying the famous viola da gamba, by the same maker, now reposing in the Musée Instrumental of the Brussels Conservatoire. This beautifully inlaid specimen--known as the “_basse de la ville de Paris_,” owing to the fifteenth-century plan of the gay city which adorns the back--is slightly longer than Sir George Donaldson’s, though its dimensions are smaller than those finally adopted for the violoncello. It has had an adventurous career, this viol, belonging successively to M. Roquefort, M. Raoul--an enthusiastic Parisian musical amateur, who published several compositions for the violoncello as well as a method for that instrument--and also to the mighty fiddle-maker, J. B. Vuillaume. At the death of the latter it went through many vicissitudes and wandered about Russia, passing through several hands. M. Coutagne describes the beauties of this graceful viola da gamba so accurately and delightfully that we cannot do better than quote his words:

“One is at first struck by the richness and variety of the decoration,” says he. “The neck curves forward at the top in the form of a horse’s head of goodly proportions, but the back of this is covered with delicate and complicated carvings representing the head of a woman, a satyr playing a Pan’s pipes, the whole being framed in designs of animals, fruit and musical instruments. The peg-box itself is covered with carved encrustations of a woman playing a lute; a dog attached by a collar, and other ornamentation.

“The upper table is of pine, the back and the ribs are of maple. The front is covered with a dull red varnish, that of the rest of the instrument is clear yellow. A similar contrast is observable in the character of the two tables. The front is covered with representations of butterflies, and bunches of roses, and carnations in a pot: some birds on a branch and a building of varied shapes, remarkable for a tower and a Chinese pagoda: briefly, a design in the decorative Dutch style of the seventeenth century. The back, on the contrary, is covered with a complicated _marqueterie_ design in multi-coloured woods. The whole of the upper part is taken up with a scene which is apparently inspired by Raphaël’s ‘Vision of Ezekiel’; it represents a profile of St Luke seated upon an ox and being raised in the air towards the clouds from whence angels are seen blowing trumpets. Below this is an unpretentious plan of a good-sized town situated by a stream dotted with islands and surrounded by walls; more than two hundred houses measure at the most half-a-square-inch, other edifices constitute the background of this picturesque decoration, where some microscopic figures of men also appear. Inscribed beneath is the name, ‘Paris,’ and we have found an almost identical plan, dated 1564, at the Bibiothèque Nationale. To complete the description of this inlaying we must mention several bunches of flowers which encircle the principal subject.”

M. Coutagne says that this viol shows signs of recutting and also attempts to change the C-shaped sound-holes into the _f_ form, now so familiar to the eye of the connoisseur and _virtuoso_. The absence of any name signature to this viol, and the marked difference of workmanship and colour observable between the front table and the rest of the viol, caused several experts to doubt its authenticity until it was placed side by side with this viola da gamba of Sir George Donaldson’s. Then the incontestable evidence given by the close resemblance existing between the two instruments at once allayed all doubts as to the authenticity of the back, head, neck and ribs of the “_basse de la ville de Paris_.” The front, however, with its dull red varnish and painted design never felt the touch of Duiffoproucart’s hand. Beyond a doubt this is of English manufacture: and more than possibly the work of seventeenth-century Barak Norman.

Can anything be more _bizarre_ than this union of the work of good John Bull Norman and Lorraine Duiffoproucart? Imagine such methods applied to other beautiful and valuable works of art, and we might come across such incongruities as, Cleopatra’s Needle nicely finished off with a druidical stone, or the statue of Wellington supporting Napoleon’s head upon its shoulders, or Raphaël’s beautiful madonnas seated upon Chesterfield couches: one might go on endlessly summing up such horrors were vandalism a ruling power, but fortunately it is not; even the remotest cottage dweller now knows the value of his various household gods, and only parts with them “at a price.”

The third example of Duiffoproucart’s work is known as the “_basse de viole au Vieillard à la chaise d’Enfant_.” A drawing of this instrument by M. Hellemacher is included in M. Vidal’s “Instrument à Archet” (Paris, 1876-78), and M. Soubie also gives a clear representation of it in his “Histoire de la Musique Allemande” (Paris 1896). In form and size, this viola da gamba resembles the two already mentioned. It is small, the same horse’s head surmounts the peg-box, and the picture on the back is said to have been copied from a design of Baccio Dardinelli, which was engraved by Duiffoproucart’s contemporary, Augustin Venetien. The inlaying is in the characteristic style of the maker, in several coloured woods. The fourth gamba by this maker--according to Monsieur Chardon--exists in Switzerland and completes the number of known examples of violas da gamba by this maker.

Not many yards away from this graceful Duiffoproucart viol of Sir George Donaldson’s is a viola da gamba of strikingly beautiful workmanship. The inlaying is exquisitely rich in ivory and tortoise-shell, reminiscent of the luxurious decorations lavished by past makers on that much-treasured instrument--the lute. As you gaze at this viol’s profuse charms, you are seized with a longing to assume a mantle of gorgeous ostentation, to powder your hair, and wrap rich brocades around you, to dance stately minuets, to discuss my Lady Castlemaine and that pretty, witty jade, Nell Gwynne, behind your fan, to traverse London in a _chaise à porteur_, to listen to the King’s “four-and-twenty fiddlers” at Whitehall: in short,--to comport yourself as a loyal subject of Charles II.

But before we allow ourselves to lapse into such delights, we have here two interesting photographs of an Andrea Amati masterpiece; a violoncello which numbered among the famous set of thirty-eight bow instruments sent to Charles IX., King of France, by Pope Pius V. We shall linger over these pictures with more than ordinary interest, for the reason that they introduce us to the first wavering incursions of the violoncello against the viola da gamba. This Amati violoncello was but the advance guard of the main body which followed at a later date. Very slowly, but yet surely, the violoncello ousted the gamba, but its victory was not a matter of delight to everyone. Many were the comments upon the matter, and M. Hubert le Blanc even wrote a clever little book upon the subject entitled, “Defense de la Basse de Viole contre les Enterprises du Violon et les Pretensions du Violoncel.” This was brought out in Amsterdam in 1740, and it is said that the author was so delighted to find a publisher, after having tried every firm in Paris, that his enthusiasm led him to rush off to Amsterdam and settle there, when he found a publisher in that town.

Will you come here to the central hall? We can sit down close to this beautiful majolica and endeavour to place Duiffoproucart and Amati in the world of music which surrounded them. Come!

HOW TO HOLD OR PLACE THE VIOL

Being conveniently seated, place your Viol decently betwixt your
knees; so that the lower end of it may rest upon the calves of
your legs. Set the soles of your feet flat on the floor, your
toes turned a little outward. Let the top of your Viol be erected
towards your left shoulder; so as it may rest in that posture,
though you touch it not with your hand.

HOW TO HOLD AND MOVE THE BOW

Hold the Bow betwixt the ends of your thumb and two foremost
fingers near to the Nut, the thumb and first finger fastened on
the stalk; and the second finger’s end turned in shorter against
the Hairs thereof; by which you may poise and keep up the point of
the Bow. If the second finger have not strength enough, you may
join the third finger in assistance to it; but in playing Swift
Divisions, two fingers and the thumb is best.

From Christopher Simpson’s “The
Division-Viol” (First Edition, 1665).

CHAT THE THIRD

The Renaissance--The Influence of the Netherlands School--A brief
Outline of the growing Use of the Viol in Germany, Italy, England,
France

It must be allowed that both Gaspard Duiffoproucart and Andrea Amati were fortunate in living at a time when Art, Science, and Literature had taken a new lease of life. The meeting of sixteenth-century modernity with antique culture had created a new atmosphere of learning; in a word, the Renaissance had dawned, and progress had begun its march over Europe. _Il Divino_ Raphaël, Leonardo da Vinci, Savonarola, Galilei, Lassus, were as comets in the horizon of advancement. Petrucci in Venice had invented the art of music printing, and deep in the heart of the Netherlands there had grown up a technically equipped school of musical composers, before which the spontaneous art of the minstrel was compelled to recede. Impelled onward by Guillaume Dufay, Johan Ockenghem, Josquin des Prés, and their successors, to Lassus, the higher culture of the divine art was making rapid progress and consummating the final emancipation of musical instruments. Already, in the early part of the sixteenth century, signs and tokens of the event were observable. In 1511 a native of Strasburg--Sebastian Virdung--compiled a species of miniature Grove’s dictionary devoted to the musical instruments of his time. The work was published in his native town, and was afterwards extensively cribbed by Agricola and Luscinis. The numerous woodcuts with which Virdung’s work is interspersed are of interest, especially when such guileless incongruities as a “Grosse Geigen”--without a bridge--and a “Kleine Geigen” (a rebec) with a bridge present themselves.

Ten years after Virdung, Hans Judenkünig was busy penning little pieces for voices and stringed instruments, a style of composition that counted numerous imitators at a later date, both on the Continent and in England. His manuscript--published by good Hans Syngriner in Vienna in 1523--consists of a number of short pieces, songs and dances, with the lute and viol pieces written in tablature. A precious copy of this work is jealously preserved in the Royal Library at Vienna. When one realises that it is easily within human capacity to feast upon its secrets, one cannot help wishing that a “magic carpet” could be requisitioned to take us to the spot where it now lies, at once. Could this be accomplished, and we were suddenly confronted with Judenkünig’s dog-eared elderly tome, our feeble attempts at description would collapse like a Gibus hat. There is something about time-honoured volumes that commands silence.

There are other points of interest about Judenkünig’s work besides that of its being the earliest attempt to mingle instruments in a methodical concerted manner. For instance, the title-page monopolises our attention, for the name Geygen is among the first to be found in print. Then again, further on, there is a woodcut representation of a man standing erect and playing on a big six-stringed viol, which he apparently holds vertically before him.[16] The instrument does not touch the ground, and, doubtless, it is attached round the player’s neck by a cord or ribbon, although the artist has not shown anything of that description. Similar woodcuts of the period intimate that this manner of playing the bass-viol was not at all uncommon during the sixteenth century. The custom was, doubtless, a survival of those “_musiciens ambulants_,” the minstrels, who could not be burdened with many accessories, and, like the Egyptian camel, carried their belongings on their backs. It was doubtless with their fiddles slung round their necks that the Chester minstrels sallied forth in the reign of King John, and, unarmed, conquered the besieging Welshmen by making such a noise that their enemy imagined themselves to be opposed by an overwhelming force, and flew. Also, at a later date, it is easy to imagine the genial Anthony Wood desiring to escape a little from University pedagogism and stealing out with five chosen comrades “in poor habits,” and how like country fiddlers they “scraped for their livings.” Roaming the country with their viols on their backs, Wood states that they went to “Farringdon Fair,” and, to the house of Mr Thomas Latton, at “Kingston Bakepaze,” who gave them money and sent drink out to them. After playing dance music at the inn and visiting other private houses, a most depressing encounter with some soldiers considerably damped Anthony Wood’s spirits. These men of war forced them to play in an open field without paying them a penny. “Most of my companions,” says he, referring to the incident, “would afterwards glory in this, but I was ashamed and could never endure to hear of it.” Among the five gentlemen who assisted in this escapade he mentions that “Edmund Gregorie, B.A., and gent. com. of Mert. Coll., Ox., played the bass-viol.”

Another call for playing the bass-viol in the position depicted by Hans Judenkünig came from that all-powerful patroness of music--the Church. To facilitate the use of viols in the religious processions, the bass-viol was attached round the neck of the performer. A small hole was made in the upper part of the back of the instrument so employed and a peg inserted. A cord or chain was attached to this peg, and passed round the player’s neck; an arrangement which allowed him to play with some degree of ease. Bass-viols so employed gained the title of “viola da Spala,” or shoulder viols, in Italy, from the position in which they were held. The early violoncellos, which were of a small size--not the size destined to live--were submitted to a similar chaining and carrying; of course, thumb movement and the numerous treasures of the high positions were unknown, and the player confined his efforts to the first position.

Two years after Hans Judenkünig’s publication, Martin Agricola, whose real name was Sore or Shor, published his “Musica Instrumental Deudsch,” a remarkable work, both from the point of view of literature and musicianship. He launched into woodcut representations of all the viols of the day, and they are probably there found for the first time in complete Quartets, with the names under each instrument as follows:--“Discantus” (treble), “Altus,” “Tenor,” “Bassus.” The tuning of all these viols at this period was always regulated by that prescribed for the lute. Gerle and Judenkünig states this to be composed of fourths, with a third intervening, while Agricola instructs the executant to

“Draw up your fifth string as high as you may
That it may not be broken when on it you play.”

This confusing method was even practised in the following century, for the worthy John Playford, in his “Introduction to the Skill of Music” (Twelfth Edition, 1694), tells the would-be player of the bass-viol that: “When you begin to Tune, raise your _Treble_ or smallest String as high as conveniently it will bear without breaking; then stop only your _Second_ or _Small Mean_ in F and tune it till it agree in _Unison_ with your _Treble_ open,” and so on with each string. Imagine a modern orchestra tuned according to this recommendation!

* * * * *

Turning to Italy during the same period, we find much of interest. There a princely school of musicians had grown from the seeds scattered by those Netherlanders who became welcome guests of the Medici and other great Italian families. The cultured _cliques_ of dilettanti, who were to be found in almost every town in Italy, were speeding the advancement of music and musical instruments, while other nations were at a musical standstill. Amateur viol players were far from few, and some idea of the growing popularity of the instrument may be gathered from the fact that the contemporary painters elected to introduce it into their pictures. Raphäel’s painting, of “Saint Cecilia”--now in the Dresden Gallery--gives a faithful representation of the form of the viol of the period, in the instrument which lies at her feet. It has no strings upon it, and how the well-drawn bridge stands upright without support is an anomaly which has its fellow in a fresco by Melozzo da Forzi, which graces the walls of the _Sacristie_ of St Peter’s in Rome, Among the musical angels there represented is one who plays on a viol. The strings of this instrument are depicted raised to the accustomed distance from the table of the viol, but no trace of a bridge to support them is visible.

Paul Veronese also elected to introduce the viol into his masterpiece, the “Marriage in Cana of Galilee,” which is in the Louvre in Paris. The group of viol players in the background have a special interest when one realises that it is Titian who is playing the bass-viol, while behind him may be seen Tintoretto playing the alto-viol, and Paul Veronese himself the tenor-viol. The treble-viol--called Discantus by Agricola and Discant in England--is in the hands of an ecclesiastic. In Titian’s picture entitled the “Music Lesson,” to be seen in the National Gallery, he has shown the custom of singing and playing to the accompaniment of a bass-viol very clearly, while Guido Reni in his “Coronation of the Virgin,” in the same gallery, demonstrates another practice of the period in his two angels playing the lute and viol. Many other similar examples of viols are to be found in the paintings and engravings of that time, and in every case it is observable that (1) viols were entirely subservient to the voice; (2) that neither artist, engraver, nor dilettanti paid much attention to the violins and violoncellos which were being made by Andrea Amati in Cremona. That the shape of all viols was doubtless influenced by the advent of the stranger violin and still more foreign violoncello, is probable; indeed, one can observe the coming ascendancy of the new form in the bass, which Domenichino has placed in the hands of his matchless “St Cecile.” The _f f_ holes are full of grace, the primitive C form being entirely cast aside. The whole outline of the gamba too is very handsome, and its resemblance to the bass-viol by the old Brescian, Pelegrino Zanetti, to be seen in the Musée of the Paris Conservatoire, is so exact that it is easy to imagine that that instrument, served as Domenichino’s model.

In the first half of the sixteenth century, the tentative efforts made by such men as Galilei, Cavalieri, and Peri towards the composition of music of a more dramatic character than that which surrounded them at that time, resulted in a higher status for the viola da gamba, and later, for the violoncello. For the latter it was a waiting game, but “_tout vient à celui qui sait attendre_.” One result of the general agitation among musical circles was the appearance of a notable book on the art of playing viols by Silvestro Ganassi del Fontego. This interesting work, entitled “Regola Rubertina,” was published in Venice in 1542, and was exclusively devoted to the art of fingering and tuning treble and bass viols. A most important fact is to be learnt from the inscription on the title-page, which states among other particulars that the book is suitable for those who play the viol _without frets_--evidently the beginning of a surer technique.

Perhaps nowhere in Italy was the dominant idea of restoring the learning of the ancient classics more deeply and fittingly rooted than in the birthplace of the greatest mediæval poet--Dante. In beautiful Florence there were _coteries_ composed of the most prominent men of the day who found a common cause in their zeal for the revival of the culture and polish of former ages. The house of Giovanni Bardi, Count of Verino, was more especially a meeting-place for the restless spirits of the day. Among the company who there assembled frequently was Vincenzio Galilei--the father of the astronomer--Jacopo Corsi, Ottavino Rinuccini, Strozzi, Jacopo Peri, and Emilio Cavalieri. To Peri is accorded the honour of writing the first opera, and to Cavalieri the first oratorio--two mighty steps these towards the emancipation of musical instruments, for both these forms of composition gave birth to the orchestra. Bent upon freeing music from the severe canonical style to which the Church confined it, Galilei made an attempt by writing a species of Cantata--_Il Conte Ugolino_--which he himself sang sweetly to the accompaniment of a bass-viol before the Bardi dilettanti.[17] After this effort, Emilio Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman of good family, and another devoted member of the Bardi _coterie_, wrote the important _La Rappresentazione di Anima e di Corpo_, wherein he brought about a more equal unison of voice, poetry, and instruments. This composition was performed at the Church of Valicella, in Rome, and the orchestra consisted of a Harpsichord, a double Guitar, two Flutes, and a Basso Viola da Gamba (double bass-viol). No separate parts were given to the performers, so doubtless they were left to work out their way through the maze of figures and signs which graced the Harpsichord part. These two experiments led to others of a similar kind. Then Jacopo Peri, another of the Bardi faction, who moved in the highest circles of Florentine society, essayed a still higher flight. Instigated to the effort by Jacopo Corsi--another Florentine nobleman, whose house was likewise a centre for all the musicians of the day--and Rinuccini the poet, he attempted a musical drama which was believed to be identical in style with that of the ancient Greek tragedies. This work is the earliest known opera, it was entitled _Dafne_, and was performed at the Palazzo Corsi in 1597. According to Giov. Batt. Doni, “it charmed the whole city,” so that three years later Peri was commissioned to write an opera to be performed on the occasion of the marriage of Henry IV. of France with Maria di Medici. The title of this second opera was _Euridice_; it also scored a great success, and in the preface to the composition, Peri himself records that Jacopo Corsi played the graviciembalo (the piano of the period), while the rest of the orchestra comprised: a chitarrone (a kind of guitar) which was in the hands of Grazio Moritalvo; a lyra grand (species of bass-viol with a large number of strings) played by Battista del _Violino_ (note the name) and a luto grosso (large lute) played by Giovanni Sani. Thirty years later Giovanni Legranzi introduced the viola da gamba into his orchestra, and five years after that a similar number of violas da gamba, together with two contrabassi di viola, are included in the orchestral score of that mighty innovator, Claudio Monteverdie, in his opera, _Orpheus_.

* * * * *

Music in England at the end of the fifteenth century was but another name for noise. The dignified minstrel of former times was gone, as was also the significance of his title. True, there still existed little bands of wandering musicians who claimed the name, but they were composed entirely of the most degenerate classes of society. Indeed, so noted were they for their evil practices that it was thought necessary to issue certain regulations to prevent “idle persons under colour of minstrelsy going messages or other feigned business, being received in other men’s houses to meate and drinke.” But neither protective laws nor Edward IV.’s charter, which was granted to keep outsiders from assuming the livery of the King’s minstrels, could revive the romantic exclusiveness which had formerly been the privilege of their sect.