Fig. 52.—Violin. Said to have belonged to James I. English. Early 17th century. L. 23¼ in., W. 8 in. No. 34-’69.
Victoria and Albert Museum.
Fig. 53.—Angel playing a Viol, after an oil painting by Ambrogio da Predis. Late 15th century.
National Gallery.
It is generally and justly admitted that in no other branch of the art of music has greater progress been made during the last century than in the construction of musical instruments. Nevertheless, there are people who think that we have also lost something here which might with advantage be restored. Our various instruments by being more and more perfected are becoming too much alike in quality of sound, or in that character of tone which the French call timbre, and the Germans Klangfarbe, and which professor Tyndall in his lectures on sound has translated clang-tint. Every musical composer knows how much more suitable one clang-tint is for the expression of a certain emotion than another. Our old instruments, imperfect though they were in many respects, possessed this variety of clang-tint to a high degree. Neither were they on this account less capable of expression than the modern ones. That no improvement has been made during the last two centuries in instruments of the violin class is a well-known fact. As to lutes and cithers the collection at South Kensington contains specimens so rich and mellow in tone as to cause musicians to regret that these instruments have entirely fallen into oblivion.
As regards beauty of appearance our earlier instruments were certainly superior to the modern. Indeed, we have now scarcely a musical instrument which can be called beautiful. The old lutes, cithers, viols, dulcimers, etc., are not only elegant in shape but are also often tastefully ornamented with carvings, designs in marquetry, and painting.
Of the stringed instruments used in our orchestra, the violin ([Fig. 52]) is the one which has been longest preserved entirely unaltered. Its name (Italian, violino), a diminutive of viola, suggests that our tenor (viola di braccio) is the older instrument of the two. The viol ([Fig. 53], facing p. 104) in use about three centuries ago, was however somewhat different in shape. As the oldest-known instruments played with a bow, which in European countries preceded the violin, may be mentioned:—The rebec, which, it appears, was first popular in Spain; the crwth of the Welsh; the fidla of the Norwegian, which, in
shape somewhat resembled the crwth, and which, with some slight modifications, is still occasionally to be found in Iceland, where it is called langspiel; and the fithele of the Anglo-Saxons.