A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Shawm
SHAWM or SHALM (Germ. Schalmey or Chalmei; Fr. Chalumeau).
The name of this ancient instrument is variously derived from the Latin Calamus, Calamellus, 'a reed,' or from the German schallen, 'to sound.' The σῦριγξ of the Greeks, supposed by Bernsdorff and others to be identical with it, is shown by Mr. Chappell[1] to have been the Pandean pipe. Under the names of Pommer and Bombard smaller and larger forms were known in Germany; the latter, also called the Brummer, developing into the Bassoon. [See Bassoon.] It was clearly a reed instrument like the shepherd's pipe, although Mr. Chappell thinks it more closely allied to the modern clarinet. The older dictionaries define it as 'a hautboy or cornet,' and it is so frequently associated with the bagpipe that there must evidently have been some affinity between the two instruments. For instance, we find in Clement Marot, i. 166,
Faisoit sonnor Chalumeaux et Cornemuses;
and again, Drayton, 'Polyolbion,' iv.
Even from the shrillest Shawme unto the Cornamute.
This combination of the pastoral oboe with the bagpipe may be daily seen in the streets. [See Pifferaro.]
Another similarity between the shawm and the bagpipe, as also between it and the musette, is noted by Schladebach in describing the Schalmey or Schalmei. He states that it is still played under this name by the peasants of the Tyrol and of Switzerland, and that the reed, instead of being inserted directly into the player's lips, is fitted into a box or 'capsule' with a mouthpiece, wherein it vibrates unconstrained. This is exactly the device still retained in the bagpipe, and nowhere else. It possesses, according to the same writer, six holes for the three middle fingers of either hand, with a single hole covered by means of a key for the right little finger. This would give the scale of the musette or shepherd's pipe.
The chief interest of the name is due to its use in the Prayer-book version of Psalm xcviii. 7, 'With trumpets also and shawms, shew yourselves joyful before the Lord the King.' The Authorised Version gives this 'With trumpets and sound of cornet.' Dr. Stainer, in 'The Music of the Bible,' argues that the former of these at least is a mistranslation. The original Hebrew words are chatsotsroth and shophar. The passage is translated in the Septuagint ἐν σάλπιγξιν ἐλαταῖς καὶ φανῇ σάλπιγγος κερατίνης, and in the Vulgate 'in tubis ductilibus.et voce tubæ corneæ.' The chatsotsrah is obviously the trombone, which it will be shown by other evidence is of extreme antiquity; the shophar is in both Greek and Latin versions described as the 'horn-trumpet or ramshorn,' well known to have been used in Jewish festivals, whence in Numbers xxix. 1 a feast day is called 'a day of blowing the trumpets,' and in Joshua vi. 4 'seven trumpets of ramshorns' are minutely described as preceding the Ark.
- ↑ History of Music, vol. i. p. 259.