II

The sixteenth century brought the violin to a perfection that was still far in advance of the technique of the players. At the same time there was a distinct advancement in the recognition of instrumental music, although vocal music continued to maintain its preeminence. This was due partly to the limited technique of the instrumentalists and partly to the greater appeal of music wedded to words. Violin players then knew nothing about changing of positions and therefore could play only in the first position.[44] Thus the tone register of the violin was small. Some players, however, attempted to reach higher tones on the first string through the stretching of the fourth finger. Simple melodic phrases or figures were lacking in even quality of tone, in smoothness and in fluency. The art of legato playing was unknown and violinists could not play two or more notes with ‘one bow.’ Neither did they endeavor to conquer the technical difficulties of playing on the G string. They made practically no use of the fourth string until the end of the century. In addition, the instruments were badly constructed, equipped with strings of inferior quality and tuned in a low pitch, all of which militated strongly against purity and accuracy of intonation. Hans Gerle (a flute player of Nuremberg), in his ‛Musica Teutsch, auf die Instrument der grossen und kleinen Geigen’ (1532), advised that intonation marks be placed on the fingerboard, and this naïve advice was in use as late as the middle of the eighteenth century.[45]

The same writer points out that instrumentalists in improvising their parts were prone to vie with each other in demonstrating their ability as contrapuntists, a perfectly comprehensible habit, which must have affected instrumental music in the sixteenth century as badly as the vagaries of coloratura singers affected operatic music in the eighteenth.

Gerle’s book, incidentally, contained a number of German, Welsh, and French songs, and a fugue for four violins. Among other early books on the violin mention may be made of these:

S. Virdung: Musica getuscht, 1511.

Judenkönig: A truly artistic instruction * * * of learning upon the lute and violin, 1523. (Contains 25 numbers for violin and flute.)

Agricola: Musica Instrumentalis, 1528. (Here the author refers to the vibrato as a device that ‘makes the playing more sweet.’)

La Franco: Scintille di Musica, 1533.

Silvestro Ganassi: Regola Rubertina che insegna suon di Viola d’arco, 1543.

Ludovico Zacconi: Prattica di Musica, 1592 (Zacconi stated here that the compass of the violin was g-ciii).

M. Prätorius: Syntagma Musicum, 1619.

Touching upon the use of the violin in the sixteenth century there is extant a wealth of historical references. From one of these, for example, we gather that at a public festival in 1520 viols were used to accompany songs. We may assume their popularity in England from the fact that they were used in the family of Sir Thomas More (1530), an ardent music lover, and that during the reign of Edward VI the royal musical establishment increased the number of its viols to eight. Violins were used at public performances in Rouen in 1558; at a fête in Bayonne for dance music in 1565, and in a performance of a Mass at Verona in 1580. In the year 1572 Charles XI of France purchased violins from Cremona and a little later ordered the famous twenty-four violins from Andrea Amati. In 1579, at the marriage of the Duke of Joyeuse, violins were used to play for dances, and Montaigne in his Journal (1580) refers to a marriage ceremony in Bavaria, where ‘as a newly married couple went out of church, the violinists accompanied them.’ From this passage of Montaigne we may infer that, in Germany at least, the popularity of violin music was not confined to the upper classes. It must be remembered, however, that the terms ‘viola,’ ‘violin,’ ‘viol,’ etc., were often applied indifferently to stringed instruments of various kinds, and in view of this inaccurate nomenclature historical references must be accepted with a certain amount of reserve.

We know little of the music that was played on the violin before the last decade of the sixteenth century. Violins, we are aware, were employed in ensembles, in orchestras, and in unison with voices, and in looking for violin music we have not necessarily to consider compositions written especially for violin. By way of illustration we may cite a collection of French Dances (1617), published for ‘instruments,’ presumably for all kinds of instruments, and a collection of ‘Songs’ edited in Venice (1539) bearing the remark ‘to sing and play,’ and indicating no special instruments. Probably much of this sort of music was played by violin. Among examples of specific writing for the violin there has come down to us previous to 1539 a Fugue (Fugato rather) for four violins, composed by Gerle. It is in four parts: Discant (first violin), Alto (second violin), Tenor (viola) and Bass ('cello), perhaps the earliest specimen of a composition for string quartet. The style is purely vocal, as we may see from the theme:

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There is no suggestion of the violin idiom in the piece and it throws no light on the development of violin music. Cortecci and Striggio in 1565 scored their intermezzi for two gravecembali, violins, flutes, cornets, trombones, and several other instruments. D’Etrée, an oboe player, wrote down the common lively tunes which had been previously learned by ear and published them in 1564. As a practical musician he undoubtedly considered also the violin. In the performance of Beaulieu’s Circe (1581) ten bands were used and in the first act ten violin players in costumes appeared. The famous violinist, Beaujoyeaulx (an Italian in the service of Henry III whose real name was Baltasarini), wrote ballets (1584), dances, festival music, and other compositions, which were very successful at the court. Doubtless he played them himself. Castiglione in his Cortigiano mentions a composition as being written for ‛quattro viole da arco’ which almost seems to indicate another specimen of early string quartet. Toward the end of the century we meet with the Balletti of Gastoldi and of Thomas Morley, some of which are printed without words and may have been intended for instrumental performances. Still, they are vocal in character and do not exceed the compass of the human voice. Besides these, there are other compositions and collections of dances, etc., that may be considered musical material for violinists of the time. Most of them, however, deserve no detailed notice.

Up to 1587 the leading instrument of the orchestra was the Cornetto (German ‘Zinke,’ an instrument of wood, not of metal). The earliest instance where the Cornetto alternates with the violins in taking the lead and where a part was inserted especially for violino is to be found in Concerto di Andrea e Giovanni Gabrieli—per voci e strumenti musicali, 1587. Some of G. Gabrieli’s compositions, however, are still in vocal style, but some are decidedly instrumental in character, as we may see from the following illustrations.

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and

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From a Sonata à 3 (1615).

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and

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(Note the last example, where the intentional contrast between piano and forte is distinctly indicated.)

In 1593 Florentino Maschera, one of the celebrated organists of his time, published a book of ‘Songs to play’ (Canzoni a sonar). The work consisted of seventy-one pieces which had family names for their titles, a custom that was often repeated in the first half of the sixteenth century. It is important to note that these pieces were printed in separate parts, so that they may be considered as the first specimens of independent though not direct writing for the violin. These canzoni were vocal in character and there was little that suggested instrumental technique. The style was that of the vocal compositions of the time—contrapuntal.

A genuine and daring innovator in the field of violin music was Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), who in some violin passages went up as high as the fifth position. Besides broadening the technique of the left hand, he demanded tremolos for dramatic effects in accompanying recitative:

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This passage from Combattimento di Tanceredi e Clorinda (1624) offered so many difficulties to the musicians that at first they refused to play it. As we shall see presently, however, Monteverdi was not the first to introduce this effect (cf. p. 381). Another of his new effects was the introduction of the pizzicato, which he marked thus: Qui si lascia l’arco, e si strappano le chorde con duo diti, and afterwards Qui si ripiglia l’arco. That Monteverdi expected violins to produce a crescendo with the bow is apparent with the instruction Questa ultima note va in arcato morendo. ‘Monteverdi with his two violins “alla Francese” in the score of Orfeo (the first printed reference to the violin as an orchestral instrument in the modern sense), probably meant nothing more than that the violins were to be in the fashion of the French, but in place of accompanying a dance, the character indicated in the opera was accompanied by two violins in a particular part of its music.’[46] In other violin pieces by Monteverdi, as in his Scherzi musicali and Ritornelle (1607), we see his superiority to his contemporaries, just as in his Sonata sopra Sancta Maria detratta, etc. (1610), he showed plainly his desire to improve violin music.