The Violin

But the tie of Italian connection may be drawn more closely than this. Galilei, in his Dialogues (p. 147), states that both the Violin and the Violoncello were invented by the Italians; and he suggests more precisely the Neapolitans, as the rightful claimants of this honor. Dr. Burney, who does not attempt to settle the point, quotes the passage, to the above effect, from Galilei, and admits his own inability to confute it. Montaigne, whose travels brought him to Verona in 1580, has recorded, that there were Violins as well as organs there, to accompany the mass in the great Church. Corelli’s Violin, an instrument specially Italian, which afterwards passed into the possession of Giardini, was made in 1578, and its case was decorated by the master-hand of Annibale Caracci, probably several years after the instrument was finished; as Caracci at that date had numbered but eight of his own years.

Towards the end of the 16th century, the Violin is found indicated in some Italian scores, thus: —piccoli Violini alla Francese; which circumstance has been sometimes alleged as rendering it probable, that the reduction of the old viol or viola to the present dimensions of the Violin took place in France, rather than in Italy: but the fact does not seem to offer a sufficient basis for the conjecture, when it is considered that no instruments of French construction, corresponding with the Violin in its present form, and of as early a date as those which can be produced of Italian make, are known to exist. It is reasonable to suppose, therefore, that these piccoli Violini, or little Violins, were not identical with the Violin proper; – although Mr. Hogarth3 (from whose respectable authority I am rather loth to differ) quotes the phrase as one tending to the support of the French claim. The term in question, which occurs, particularly, in Monteverdi’s Opera of Orfeo, printed at Venice in 1615, seems to me to imply merely some French modification of the already invented Italian model – a modification applying to the size, and possibly also to some minor details in the form.

The French writer, Mersennus, who designates all instruments of the violin and viol class under the term barbiton, describes one of them, the least of the tribe, as the lesser barbiton. This latter was a small violin invented for the use of the dancing-masters of France, and of such form and dimensions as to be capable of being carried in a case or sheath in the pocket. It is the origin of the instrument which in England is called a Kit, and which is now made in the form of a violin. – Is it too great a stretch of conjecture, to hint, that this may, possibly, have been the kind of thing intended by the term above quoted?

That curious enquirer, Mr. Gardiner, in his “Music of Nature,” assigns to Italy the local origin of the Violin, but without placing the date as near to exactness as it might have been. He makes it to have been “about the year 1600.” He might safely have gone thirty or forty years farther back, at least, notwithstanding that the shape of the instrument, towards the end of the 16th century, has been supposed, by Hawkins, to have been rather vague and undetermined4. The transition from the old shapes to the new had occurred, though it was as yet far from universal. It is sufficient that the change had commenced.

Admitting the genuine and perfect violin to be rightfully assignable to the Italians, it may be of some interest, now, to present a few more records relating, principally, to the instrument in its imperfect character, when it bore only that sort of analogy to the true instrument, that the ‘satyr’ is said to have borne to ‘Hyperion.’

The “Musurgia, seu Praxis Musicæ,” of the Benedictine Monk Luscinius, published in 1542, represents (coarsely cut in wood) as the bowed instruments then in use, the rebec, or three-stringed violin, and the viol di gamba. The instruments of the viol tribe, however, which are supposed to have been those that led more immediately to the construction of the true violin, considerably precede the above period in their date of origin. Violars, or performers on the viol, whose business it was to accompany the Troubadours in their singing of the Provençal poetry5, were common in the 12th century; and, in a treatise on music, written by Jerome of Westphalia in the 13th century, there is particular mention made of the instrument known by the name of viol.

Under various modifications of the term fiddle, there are to be found many very early allusions to an instrument, such as it was, bearing some resemblance to the violin. Fidle is a Saxon word of considerable antiquity; and from the old Gothic are traced the derivations of

1. Middle High German. Videl (noun), Videlœre (noun personal), Videln (verb, to fiddle), Videl-boge (fiddle bow).

2. Icelandic. Fidla.

3. Danish. Fedel.

Then we have Vedel, Veel, Viool (Dutch); Vedel, Vedele (Flemish), Fiedel, Fidel, Geige (Modern German).

Fythele, Fithele, – and Fythelers (fiddlers) are alluded to in the Old English Romances. In the legendary life of St. Christopher, written about the year 1200, is this passage: —

…Cristofre hym served longe;The Kynge loved melodye of fithele and of songe.

The poet Lidgate, at the beginning of the 15th century, writes of

Instrumentys that did excelle,Many moo than I kan telle:Harpys, Fythales, and eke Rotys, &c.

Chaucer, in his “Canterbury Tales,” says of the Oxford Clerk, that he was so fond of books and study, as to have loved Aristotle better

Than robes rich, or fidel, or sautrie —

and his Absolon, the Parish-Clerk, a genius of a different cast, and exquisitely described, is a spruce little fellow, who sang, danced, and played on the species of fiddle then known. An instrument remotely allied to the fiddle – the ribible, a diminutive of rebec, a small viol with three strings – is also alluded to by Chaucer. Referring to a later period, there is evidence to show that an instrument of the violin kind was used in England before the dissolution of monasteries, in the time of our eighth Henry, in the fact that something similar to it in shape is seen depicted upon a glass window of the chancel of Dronfield church, in the county of Derby; an edifice which was erected early in the sixteenth century.

At what period the legitimate violin may have found its way from Italy into this country, it would, I fear, be very difficult to ascertain with exactness; but it is easy to suppose that, when once that event had occurred, the neater shape and superior qualities exhibited by the new comer, would speedily render him the model for imitation, and lead to the multiplication of his species here, and to the displacement of the baser resemblances to him. The true instrument, however, was for a long while among us, ere its merits came into just appreciation. Until the period of the Restoration, it was held, for the most part, in very low esteem, and seldom found in less humble hands than those of fiddlers at fairs, and such like itinerant caterers of melody for the populace6. Its grand attribute, the superior power of expressing almost all that a human voice can produce, except the articulation of words, was at first so utterly unknown, that it was not considered a gentleman’s instrument, or worthy of being admitted into “good company.” The lute7, the harp, the viol, and theorbo, were in full possession of the public ear, and the poetic pen; nor has this latter authority ever been thoroughly propitiated by the later-born child of Melos, whose first screams on coming into the world may perhaps have irrecoverably alarmed the sensitive sons of Apollo. Moreover, poetry is ever apt to prefer the old to the new, and often recoils with distaste from what is modern. “Though the violin surpasses the lute,” says a recent ingenious writer, “as much as the musket surpasses the bow and arrow, yet Cupid has not yet learned to wound his votaries with a bullet, nor have our poets begun to write odes or stanzas to their violins.”

In the 39th Queen Elizabeth, a statute was passed by which “Ministrels, wandering abroad,” were included among “rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars,” and were adjudged to be punished as such. “This act,” says Percy, in his Reliques of English Poetry, “seems to have put an end to the profession.” That writer suggests, however, that although the character ceased to exist, the appellation might be continued, and applied to fiddlers, or other common musicians; and in this sense, he adds, it is used in an ordinance in the time of Cromwell (1656), wherein it is enacted that if any of the “persons commonly called Fiddlers or Minstrels shall at any time be taken playing, fiddling, and making music in any inn, alehouse, or tavern, or shall be taken proffering themselves, or desiring or intreating any … to hear them play or make music in any of the places aforesaid,” they are to be “adjudged and declared to be rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars8.” By a similar change or declension, according to Mr. Percy, John of Gaunt’s King of the Minstrels came, at length, to be called, like the Roi des Violons in France, King of the Fiddles– it being always to be borne in mind, nevertheless, that it was only as yet a baser kind of instrument which brought its professors into such scrapes9.

The term crowd, as well as that of fiddle, was commonly used in England before the appearance of the perfect Violin, but appears to have been soon disused (along with the barbarous instrument it designated) after that period. Butler, in his “Hudibras,” employs both terms indiscriminately, and seems to find enjoyment in linking them with mean and ludicrous associations – a tendency which must be allowed to have been quite in keeping with the feeling of the times he describes. His motley rabble, whom he puts in the way of the knight and his squire, were special affecters of the instrument he delights to dishonour,

And to crack’d fiddle, and hoarse tabor,In merriment did drudge and labor.

He makes contemptuous allusion, also, to certain persons

That keep their consciences in cases,As fiddlers do their crowds and bases.

Crowdero, the fiddle-noted agent in the story, is made to cut, on the whole, a very sorry figure. Thus, as to his instrument, and his manner of calling it into exercise:

A squeaking engine he appliedUnto his neck, on north-east side,Just where the hangman does dispose,To special friends, the knot of noose.

When the knight, in the outset of his career, meets the aforesaid rabble, with the aggravating accompaniment of the bear and fiddler, and counsels them to peace and dispersion, he says

But, to that purpose, first surrenderhe prime offender!

It is true that the mettle put forth by Crowdero, in the ensuing general fight, raises him a little out of the mire of meanness: but then, the weapon with which he batters the cranium of the prostrate Hudibras – to wit, his own wooden leg – has the effect of disturbing the small dignity which his gleam of valour might have shed over him; and, besides, he is speedily exhibited in reverse, being vanquished in turn by Ralpho the Squire, and forced into the ignominious confinement of the stocks; while Ralpho exultingly says to Hudibras, the fiddle is your trophy,

And, by your doom, must be allow’dTo be, or be no more, a crowd.

In France, certain ancient and respectable monuments, and particularly a figure on the portico of the venerable Cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris, representing King Chilperic with a sort of Violin in his hand, have been referred to as proofs that an instrument of this nature was very early held in esteem in that country; and the minstrels in the highest estimation with the public, were at all times the best Violists of their age. Among the instruments represented in the beautiful illuminations of the splendid copy of the Roman d’Alexandre, in the Bodleian library at Oxford, are Viols with three strings, played upon with a clumsy bow.

In Italy, as in France, the viol appears to have enjoyed earlier favour than in England, where the fiddle or crowd (the descendant, probably, of the Welsh instrument crwth) was its predecessor. The instruments chiefly used by the ladies and gentlemen in the Decameron, are the lute and the viol – upon which latter some of the ladies are represented as performing.

An ingenious Piedmontese, Michele Todini, published a pamphlet at Rome, 1676, wherein are described various musical inventions of his own, “of special merit, though of little note.” Amongst them were two Violins, the pitch of one of which could, by an adroit mechanical contrivance, be at once heightened a whole tone, a third, or even a fifth; while the other, under the usual strings, had a second set of strings, like those of a kit, tuned in the octave above, and was so contrived that the Violin and kit might either be played separately, or both together, at the pleasure of the performer. In the 23rd Chapter of this little tract is a description of a Viola di gamba, so constructed, that, without shifting the neck, all the four kinds of Violins, namely, the treble Violin, the contralto (or Viola bastarda), and the tenor and bass viol, could be played upon it. Todini had originally given the bass of this instrument an unusual depth; but he abandoned that, when he invented the double bass, – which instrument he was the first to introduce and play upon in oratorios, concerts, and serenades.

The arms and seal of the town of Alzei, in the neighbourhood of Worms, consist of a crowned lion rampant, holding a fiddle in his paws. The fiddle alone appears to have been the original bearing; for the palatine lion was first joined to the fiddle when Duke Conrad of Hohenstauffen was enfeoffed by the Emperor Frederick I with the Palatinate of the Rhine. His son-in-law, the Palsgrave Henry, calls the Steward (Trucksess) of Alzei, his vassal, in a bill of feoffment, dated in 1209, and in another document, 1211. This Steward, however, and Winter of Alzei, bore the fiddle as their arms. On account of these arms, the inhabitants of Alzei are mockingly called fiddlers by their neighbours10.

Connected with the history of the instrument in England, there is a curious old custom, now “invisible, or dimly seen,” and I know not when commenced, which is thus described in Hone’s Table Book: —

“The concluding dance at a country wake, or other general meeting, is the ‘Cushion Dance;’ and if it be not called for, when the company are tired with dancing, the fiddler, who has an interest in it, which will be seen hereafter, frequently plays the tune to remind them of it. A young man of the company leaves the room, the poor young women, uninformed of the plot against them, suspecting nothing; but he no sooner returns, bearing a cushion in one hand and a pewter pot in the other, than they are aware of the mischief intended, and would certainly make their escape, had not the bearer of cushion and pot, aware of the invincible aversion which young women have to be saluted by young men, prevented their flight by locking the door, and putting the key in his pocket. The dance then begins.

“The young man advances to the fiddler, drops a penny in the pot, and gives it to one of his companions. Cushion then dances round the room, followed by pot, and when they again reach the fiddler, the cushion says, in a sort of recitative, accompanied by the music, ‘This dance it will no farther go.’

“The fiddler, in return, sings or says (for it partakes of both), ‘I pray, kind Sir, why say you so?’

“The answer is, ‘Because Joan Sanderson won’t come to.’

“‘But,’ replies the fiddler, ‘she must come to, and she shall come to, whether she will or no.’

“The young man, thus armed with the authority of the village musician, recommences his dance round the room, but stops when he comes to the girl he likes best, and drops the cushion at her feet. She puts her penny in the pewter pot, and kneels down with the young man on the cushion; and he salutes her.

“When they rise, the woman takes up the cushion, and leads the dance, the man following, and holding the skirt of her gown; and, having made the circuit of the room, they stop near the fiddler, and the same dialogue is repeated, except that, as it is now the woman who speaks, it is John Sanderson who won’t come to, and the fiddler’s mandate is issued to him, not to her.

“The woman drops the cushion at the feet of her favourite man: the same ceremony and the same dance are repeated, till every man and woman (the pot-bearer last) have been taken out, and all have danced round the room in a file. The pence are the perquisite of the fiddler. There is a description of this dance in Miss Hutton’s ‘Oakwood Hall.’”

Then follows, in Hone’s Book, a further illustration of this curious custom, in “numerous verse” – but the prose account is here sufficient.

The dialogue in the old puppet dramas (says Strutt) were mere jumbles of absurdity and nonsense, intermixed with low immoral discourses passing between Punch and the fiddler, for the orchestra rarely admitted of more than one minstrel; and these flashes of merriment were made offensive to decency by the actions of the puppet. In the reign of James II, there was a noted merry-andrew named Philips; “This man,” says Granger, “was some time fiddler to a puppet-show; in which capacity he held many a dialogue with Punch, in much the same strain as he did afterwards with the mountebank doctor, his master upon the stage. This zany, being regularly educated, had confessedly the advantage of his brethren.”

The following may be seen in volume the 1st of Purcell’s Catches, on two persons of the name of Young, father and son, who lived in St. Paul’s Churchyard – The one was an excellent instrument-maker, and the other an excellent performer on the fiddle.

You scrapers that want a good fiddle, well strung,You must go to the man that is old, while he’s Young; 27But if this same fiddle you fain would play bold,You must go to his son, who’ll be Young when he’s old.There’s old Young and young Young, both men of renown,Old sells, and Young plays, the best fiddle in town;Young and old live together, and may they live long,Young, to play an old fiddle; old, sell a new song!

The zealous, ingenious, minute and gossiping Anthony Wood, to whose journalizing propensity we are indebted for a free insight into the state of music at Oxford, during the time of the Civil War (when musical sounds were scarcely any where else to be heard in the kingdom), was an ardent admirer of the violin, while its admirers were yet scarce; and has left us, in his life, written by himself, some particulars relating to the instrument, that are too pleasant, as well as curious, to be here passed by. Let me introduce this quaint worthy, speaking of himself in the third person, and under the abridged designation of A. W.

In 1651, “he began to exercise his natural and insatiable genie to music. He exercised his hand on the violin, and, having a good eare to take any tune at first hearing, he could quickly draw it out from the violin, but not with the same tuning of the strings that others used. He wanted understanding, friends and money, to pick him out a good master; otherwise he might have equalled in that instrument, and in singing, any person then in the University. He had some companions that were musical, but they wanted instruction as well as he.”

The next year, being obliged to go into the country, for change of air and exercise, with a view to rid himself of an ague, he states that “while he continued there, he followed the plow on well-days, and sometimes plowed: and, having had, from his most tender years, an extraordinary ravishing delight in music, he practised there, without the help of an instructor, to play on the Violin. It was then that he tuned his strings in fourths, and not fifths, according to the manner; and having a good eare, and being ready to sing any tune upon hearing it once or twice, he could play it also in a short time, with the said way of tuning, which was never knowne before.

“After he had spent the summer in a lonish and retired condition, he returned to Oxon; and, being advised by some persons, he entertained a Master of Musick to teach him the usual way of playing on the violin, that is, by having every string tuned five notes lower than the one going before. The master was Charles Griffith, one of the musicians belonging to the City of Oxon, whom he then thought to be a most excellent artist: but when A. W. improved himself on that instrument, he found he was not so. He gave him 2s. 6d. entrance, and so quarterly. This person, after he had extremely wondered how he could play so many tunes as he did by fourths, without a director or guide, tuned his violin by fifths, and gave him instructions how to proceed, leaving then a lesson with him to practice against his next coming.

“Having, by 1654, obtained a proficiency in musick, he and his companions were not without silly frolicks, not now to be maintained.” – What should these frolics be, but to disguise themselves in poor habits, and, like country fiddlers, scrape for their livings! After strolling about to Farringdon Fair, and other places, and gaining money, victuals and drink for their trouble, they were overtaken, in returning home, by certain soldiers, who forced them to play in the open field, and then left them

But if this same fiddle you fain would play bold,You must go to his son, who’ll be Young when he’s old.There’s old Young and young Young, both men of renown,Old sells, and Young plays, the best fiddle in town;Young and old live together, and may they live long,Young, to play an old fiddle; old, sell a new song!

The zealous, ingenious, minute and gossiping Anthony Wood, to whose journalizing propensity we are indebted for a free insight into the state of music at Oxford, during the time of the Civil War (when musical sounds were scarcely any where else to be heard in the kingdom), was an ardent admirer of the violin, while its admirers were yet scarce; and has left us, in his life, written by himself, some particulars relating to the instrument, that are too pleasant, as well as curious, to be here passed by. Let me introduce this quaint worthy, speaking of himself in the third person, and under the abridged designation of A. W.

In 1651, “he began to exercise his natural and insatiable genie to music. He exercised his hand on the violin, and, having a good eare to take any tune at first hearing, he could quickly draw it out from the violin, but not with the same tuning of the strings that others used. He wanted understanding, friends and money, to pick him out a good master; otherwise he might have equalled in that instrument, and in singing, any person then in the University. He had some companions that were musical, but they wanted instruction as well as he.”

The next year, being obliged to go into the country, for change of air and exercise, with a view to rid himself of an ague, he states that “while he continued there, he followed the plow on well-days, and sometimes plowed: and, having had, from his most tender years, an Proctor, a young man and a new comer: – John Packer, one of the university musitians. But Mr. Low, a proud man, could not endure any common musitian to come to the meeting, much less to play among them. Of this kind I must rank Joh. Haselwood, an apothecary, a starch’d formal clister-pipe, who usually played on the base-viol, and sometimes on the counter-tenor. He was very conceited of his skill (though he had but little of it), and therefore would be ever and anon ready to take up a viol11 before his betters; which being observed by all, they usually called him Handlewood. The rest were but beginners. Proctor died soon after this time; he had been bred up by Mr. John Jenkins, the mirrour and wonder of his age for musick, was excellent for the lyra-viol and division-viol, good at the treble-viol, and violin, and all comprehended in a man of three or four and twenty yeares of age. He was much admired at the meetings, and exceedingly pitied by all the facultie for his loss.”