The Psaltery was a plectrum instrument derived from the Arab Qanūn; it is rarely absent in paintings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries where musical instruments are represented. The same instrument, increased in the weight of stringing to resist the impact of hammers, is the familiar dulcimer, which, like the hurdy-gurdy and the bagpipe, has seen better days. What was once thought of the dulcimer is shown by the painting that adorns the one drawn in [Plate XVII]. It seems almost vexatious that we do not know who first adjusted a key-board to a psaltery, and thus constructed a spinet. It was not earlier than the fifteenth century, but the name of the meritorious inventor has not come down to us, or where he lived. It seems most likely from the earliest name, clavicymbalum, being Latin, that the instrument was first contrived in a monastery. But we have, fortunately, in [Plate VI.], in an upright Spinet or Clavicytherium, one of the earliest existing specimens of the kind. It is a question not yet decided whether this rare instrument is of South German or North Italian origin. The reason is given for the former attribution in the description accompanying the drawing. Yet the Mantegnesque feeling is so strong in the decoration of the interior that we pause before accepting the Swabian origin as conclusively settled.
Queen Elizabeth's Virginal ([Plate VIII.]), which has at last found a resting-place in the splendid collection of old musical instruments in South Kensington Museum, is not a virginal proper, but apparently an Italian spinet. It has been gloriously decorated, and it awakens an intense feeling of interest to reflect upon who may have played upon it and who may have stood by and heard the pleasing tones of an instrument once so much cared for. The Spinet was at that time beginning to gain upon the Lute. The power to perform part music with two hands, which the lute-player, having only one hand to stop with, could but imperfectly approach, was an endowment there was no gainsaying. We may see the contemporary prosperity of the great Venetian republic in the lutes, theorboes, and spinets that are now dispersed throughout Europe; and almost at the same time such instruments as the Ruckers Virginal ([Plate XVIII.]) and the Ruckers double Spinet ([Plate XX.]) bear witness for Antwerp as to the favour successful commerce has ever shown the Arts. The great English spinet-makers belong to the second half of the seventeenth century, and the first quarter of the eighteenth. Among them, Stephen Keene was in the foremost rank, and his work will still bear examination in the spinet drawn in [Plate XXII]. The eighteenth century was marked by a great advance in making the expressive Clavichord, which although perhaps the oldest key-board stringed instrument, had always had to give way before the louder and more graceful-looking spinet. [Plate XXXII.] displays the clavichord at its culmination, and the Chinese Lac decoration shows that, in this specimen at least, its intimate charm of tone, capable, as no other key-board instrument was, of the vibrato, was deemed worthy of an elaborate setting.
The latest improvements of which the Spinet genus was capable, including the Venetian Swell, are founded in the Double Harpsichord ([Plate XXXIII.]) made by Burkat Shudi (Burkhard Tschudi) and John Broadwood in 1773, for the Empress Maria Theresa. It is a question whether some musical instruments of special character should not be retained for use or be made again when that character cannot be expressed by any existing instrument. If this were done the Viola d'Amore, the Viola da Gamba, the Harpsichord, the Clavichord, and the old German flute, in the last instance with some concession to defective intonation, would find their places and be sometimes heard with pleasure.
With regard to the selection and drawing of the subjects represented in the following Plates, it may be mentioned that the present writer had the important advantage of a free use of the remarkable Loan Collection of Musical Instruments exhibited at the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington, in 1885. Extraordinary facilities for drawing the selected subject were obtained through his official connection with the Music Division of the Exhibition, and through the gracious permission of the respective owners of the instruments, including H.M. the Queen, H.R.H. the Prince of Wales, H.R.H. the Siamese Minister, and the Japanese Commission. He has also utilised some sketches of instruments selected and drawn by Mr. Robert Glen of Edinburgh, to whom belongs the credit of originating the idea of this publication.
The pictorial representation of the subjects was undertaken by Mr. William Gibb, and the plates in this volume have been successfully reproduced from his admirable drawings. The book gains, moreover, a special and unexpected value from the fact that no illustrated Catalogue Raisonné was compiled of the Music Loan Collection of 1885, which combined the most beautiful and valuable Manuscripts, Books, Paintings, etc., as well as Musical Instruments, which were ever brought together. There were no funds available, nor was there time to permit of such a work being carried out before the Collection was dispersed. By those who deplore the loss of that opportunity, the illustrations of this work may be regarded as a valuable memento of that unrivalled Collection.
A.J.H.
JEWISH SHOPHAR.