Walter E. Colton.
THE ORIGIN OF THE VIOLIN.
The country which affords us the most ancient memorials of a perfect language, of an advanced civilization, of a philosophy in which all phases of human thought find expression, of a poetry rich in every style, and of a musical art corresponding with the lively susceptibilities of the people—India—appears to have given birth to bow instruments.
Classical antiquity, in its forms of sculpture and bas–relief, contains no suggestion of the instrument. A little figure of Apollo playing upon a kind of violin with something like a bow, exhibited in Florence, has been proved to be of modern production. This is the only known piece of sculpture reputed ancient, in which anything like a bow can be found. Ancient painting, while giving many delineations of musical instruments, in every case fails to represent that indispensable adjunct of the violin proper,—the bow.
As to India, no conjecture based on obscure interpretation of record or delineation is needed, for the veritable instruments exist to–day, preserving, in the main, their original characteristics. The first or simplest form of bow instrument seems to have consisted of a little hollow cylinder of wood covered at one end with a piece of skin tightly stretched, and furnished with a neck and bridge, the whole being very much like a modern banjo. A slip of bamboo, bent so as to hold tense a bundle of hairs, furnished the bow. The number of strings was variable, according to the purpose of the instrument. Thus, in the case of the virtuoso, one string was deemed sufficient, while for the uses of the common people two or three were permitted. The antiquity claimed by Indian writers for this form of bow instrument is almost incredible; one tradition relates that it was invented by one of the early kings of Ceylon, at a period about five thousand years before the Christian era. In that dawn of history the migratory tides flowing from the East to the West, from India through Asia, Persia, Arabia, thence through northern Europe, and thence across the Danube and the Rhine, have left other memorials than the stormy history of their wars. The polite arts of to–day find their crude germs in that ancient time. And although, by the ready interchange of ideas achieved by modern civilization, a modern invention may embody suggestions gathered from all countries and all times, it is possible to examine each component part, to follow up each relative train of thought which has here found practical expression, until we arrive at the single idea, the main–spring, as it were, of the whole mechanism. In music the violin may be traced back through a thousand varied forms until it finds its beginning in the revanastron, or, as I have called it, the banjo–fiddle of India. At the time of its invention, it was undoubtedly designed for nothing higher than an accompaniment to the voice. As such it exists to–day in parts of India and Arabia, and in such menial capacity it was retained until about the 12th century. In fact, bow instruments did not come into special notice in Europe until about the 13th or 14th century.
At that time the natural divisions of the human voice, long recognized, were definitely classed into soprano, tenor, alto, and bass; and music began to be considered in the true dignity of its position as an art to be scientifically cultivated. With the scientific division of the voice, bow instruments became at once similarly divided into their four registers. The form of instruments was still arbitrary; the number of strings and manner of tuning varied with every new caprice; but the instrumental combinations of that day contained the nucleus of the modern quartette.
Still, despite the progressive steps and more popular diffusion of musical knowledge, the instruments of the violin family at that time, and for a period of nearly two centuries, held but a precarious tenure of existence in the rivalry with the more robust fellow–members of the orchestra; for the musical susceptibilities of the people appear to have been more cordially appealed to and drawn out by the sonorous blasts of the brazen trumpet and the artillery of the kettle–drum, than by the sweet and subdued tones of the bow instruments of the day.
It is related that King Henry the Eighth of England, in the year 1530, was entertained at Cardinal Wolsey’s palace with “a concert of drums and fifes.” This is nothing compared with the heroic endurance of his daughter Elizabeth, who was “daily regaled during dinner with twelve trumpets, two kettle–drums, which, together with fifes, cornets, and side–drums, made the hall ring for half an hour together.”
Between the latter part of the 15th century and the first half of the 16th, the instruments of the viol family, with the introduction of the viol d’amour and the viol di gamba, reached the terminus of their servitude as appendages to the voice, and at one step culminated in the invention of the violin as we have it to–day. The new curvatures of the top and back; the deep indentures of the sides for convenience of the bow; the sweep of the outline; the scroll; the removal of the frets on the finger–board,—an ancient distinguishing feature, perpetuated in the arrangement of the neck of the guitar,—all these innovations upon established conventionality seem to have been made at once. Since that time the violin has steadily, and without retrogression, advanced to its present position in popular estimation,—the aristocrat of musical instruments. Laboring under difficulties not encountered by the voice, it is yet capable of presenting a rhythmic musical picture, which the mind can take up and at once translate to the feelings in intelligible language.