The Musical Myths and Facts (Vol. 1&2). Engel Carl

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СКАЧАТЬ Louis XVI. This vielle, elegant in form and tastefully inlaid with ivory, bears the inscription "Delaunay." A Hungarian violin, made in Presburg, inlaid with marquetry of various coloured woods. A small violin by Jacobus Stainer, inlaid with ornaments in silver, including the coat of arms of France; with a finely-carved head of a faun. A French quinton, or five-stringed viol, made by Guersan, in 1755. A viola da gamba, with a finely-carved head representing an angel bandaging the eyes of a female. A small viola da gamba of the kind on which the French ladies used to play at the time of Louis XIII. A pochette by Stradiuarius, known to be genuine. A pochette of the sixteenth century, of engraved ivory and ebony, inlaid with precious stones. A pochette of ivory and coloured woods, dating from the period of Louis XIII., and bearing the inscription "Marins." A crystal flute, the invention of Laurent; silver keys enriched with amethysts. A small Italian double-flute of ivory, made by Anciuti in Milan, anno 1722. An oboe of ivory, carved by Anciuti in Milan, beginning of the eighteenth century. A French oboe of ebony, inlaid with ivory, tortoise-shell, and enriched with gold and precious stones; of the time of Louis XIII. A small French oboe of the time of Louis XIV., made of ivory, with three silver keys. A French musette (a species of bagpipe with bellows); the pipes of ivory; twenty-one silver keys; the bag ornamented with embroidery in gold. This fine musette dates from the period of Louis XV. A small French musette of ivory, with silver keys, having belonged to the painter Vanloo. A cornemuse bretonne (bagpipe of Brittany) of the time of Louis XIII. A trumpet of the time of Henri IV., ornamented with embossed fleurs de lys and with the portrait of Henri IV., surrounded by butterflies. A serpent of the sixteenth century, made of wood, with the carved head of a demon finely executed.

      Turning to Belgium, we again meet with some interesting collections. M. Fétis, the well-known musician, had a number of Eastern instruments procured from Egypt, to enable him to familiarise himself with the Arabic tonal system, which essentially differs from our own, but which undoubtedly is of much higher antiquity, and therefore of particular interest to the musical historian. After the death of Fétis, his collection was purchased by the Belgian Government. Dr. Burney, who visited Antwerp in the year 1772, records in his journal that he saw in a public edifice of the town, called Oosters Huys, a large number of wind instruments of a peculiar construction. "There are," he says, "between thirty and forty of the common flute kind, but different in some particulars—having, as they increase in length, keys and crooks, like hautbois and bassoons. They were made at Hamburg, and all of one sort of wood, and by one maker, 'Casper Ravchs Scratenbach,' was engraved on a brass ring or plate, which encircled most of these instruments. The large ones have brass plates pierced, and some with human figures well engraved on them. These last are longer than a bassoon would be if unfolded. The inhabitants say that it is more than a hundred years since these instruments were used, and that there is no musician at present in the town who knows how to play on any one of them, as they are quite different from those now [in the year 1772] in common use. In times when commerce flourished in this city these instruments used to be played on every day by a band of musicians, who attended the merchants trading to the Hanse Towns in procession to the Exchange."

      No doubt there are some curious old harpsichords and lutes still to be found in Belgium and in the Netherlands—countries in former times distinguished for the cultivation of the art of music. Besides, the connection of the Netherlands with Asia has facilitated the acquisition of curious instruments from the East, a number of which may be seen deposited in the Museum at the Hague.

      A glance at a collection made by a musical amateur, during the seventeenth century, is sure to interest the musical antiquarian. The collector, Jean-Baptiste Dandeleu, a man of position and property in Brussels, died in the year 1667. Among his effects were the following instruments, the list of which is here literally transcribed as it was written at the time of his decease:—"Une orgue, que l'on dit avoir appertenu à feu l'archiduq (de glorieuse mémoire), et couste trois milles florins.—Une espinette organisée.—Un coffre dans lequel y a neuf violes de gambes d'accord.—Encor une vieille viole de gambes.—Six corps de luths ou thiorbes dans des vieilles caisses.—Une mandore aussy dans sa caisse.—Une autre petit instrument en forme de poire avec le col rompu, ou decollé.—Une caisse doublée de baye rouge, dans la quelle y a six fluttes rares d'accord, qui sont de bouys, avec leurs escorces et noeuds.—Une cornette noire de musique.—Encore une flûte de bouys de la longueur d'environ un pied dans une caisse noire.—Trois caisses avec diverses flûtes de bouys grandes et petites d'accord, entre les quelles aucunes manquent.—Encor six flûtes semblables, que l'on croid estre celles qui manquent cy-dessus.—Encor une grande flûte, ou pippe noire.—Un violon dans sa caisse.—Un cistre aussy dans sa caisse.—Un instrument rare pour sa structure à mètre les livres des musiciens dessus pour un concert de musique.—Cincq petits lesseniers."

      Most of the instruments in this collection were undoubtedly manufactured about the period in which they are mentioned. However, as regards lutes and viols, preference was given already as early as the seventeenth century to old ones, if they were the work of good makers. Thus, the lutes of Laux Maler, dating from the beginning of the fifteenth century—"pittifull old, batter'd, crack'd things," as Thomas Mace calls them in his 'Musick's Monument,' London, 1676—fetched as much as a hundred pounds apiece. "I have often seen," Mace remarks, "lutes of three or four pounds price far more illustrious and taking to a common eye. … First know that an old lute is better than a new one." Thus also with viols: "We chiefly value old instruments before new; for by experience they are found to be far the best." The improvement by age he reasonably attributes to the circumstance that "the pores of the wood have a more and free liberty to move, stir, or secretly vibrate; by which means the air—which is the life of all things, both animate and inanimate—has a more free and easie recourse to pass and repass."

      An interesting collection of antiquated musical instruments has been made by M. César Snoeck, of Renaix, in Belgium. It comprises among other rarities:—A small virginal bearing the inscription: "Paulus Steinicke me fecit, Anno 1657." A harpanetta, seventeenth century. A cetera or Italian cither, seventeenth century. The top terminates in a finely-carved figure, and the body is flattened towards the lower end. This interesting instrument is of the kind which the Italian improvisatori used for accompanying the voice. An assemblage of specimens, varying in size, of the German, or perhaps Dutch, zinken. These quaint-looking flute-trumpets, although blown through a mouth-tube somewhat similar to that of the trumpet, have finger-holes like a flute. They probably were made about the year 1700. A tenor-flute and three bass-flutes, probably of the seventeenth century.

      The municipality of Ghent, in Belgium, possesses silver trumpets which were made in the fifteenth century. It will be remembered from the biblical records (Numbers, x., 2) that Moses constructed two trumpets entirely of silver. Neither was the use of the trumpet for strategical purposes unknown to the Hebrews, as is evidenced by Gideon's employment of the instrument (Judges, vii.). There is an old German treatise, quaintly entitled 'Versuch einer Anleitung zur heroisch-musikalischen Trompeter-und Pauker-Kunst' ("An Attempt at a Guide to the heroic-musical Art of the Trumpeter and the Kettle-Drummer"), written by Johann Ernst Altenburg, Halle, 1795, which contains some interesting accounts concerning the various occasions on which the trumpet was formerly used in different European countries, at Court ceremonies and public festivities, as well as in war. Altenburg, who himself was a distinguished military trumpeter, and, no doubt, also a brave warrior, remarks: "Awful and terrible is the sound of the trumpet when it announces the near approach of the enemy; or when the enemy demands by trumpet-signal the surrender of a beleaguered town; or when he storms and enters the town with the blare of the trumpet of war! Likewise, the signal of alarm produces an uneasy impression upon a weaker corps when surprised and surrounded by a stronger corps. However, by means of this uncommon music, which has been made use of by many as a stratagem in olden time and at the present day, often important conquests have also resulted. During the Seven Years' War, in which I took part, it happened during a dark night that a large body of the enemy's troops nearly succeeded in surprising and cutting off one of our corps which was much smaller and weaker; but we, modifying the signals of our trumpets so as to make them appear to come from different quarters and from long distances, succeeded in intimidating the enemy, so that he suddenly turned and fled, believing that we were receiving succour."

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