other evidence. As the Arab kuitra was known to be played by means
of a quill, we shall not be far wrong in identifying it with the vihuela da penola. The word vihuela or vigola is connected with the Latin fidicula or fides, a stringed instrument mentioned by Cicero[1] as being
made from the wood of the plane-tree and having many strings.
The remaining link in the chain of identification is afforded by St
From Denon’s Voyage in Egypt.
Fig. 2.—Ancient Egyptian Guitar. 1700 to 1200 B.C.
Isidore, bishop of Seville in the 7th century,
who states that fidicula was another name for
cithara, “Veteres aut citharas fidicula vel
fidice nominaverunt.”[2] The fidicula therefore
was the cithara, either in its original
classical form or in one of the transitions which
transformed it into the guitar. The existence
of a superior guitarra latina side by side with
the guitarra morisca is thus explained. It was
derived directly from the classical cithara introduced
by the Romans into Spain, the archetype
of the structural beauty which formed the
basis of the perfect proportions and delicate
structure of the violin. In an inventory[3] made
by Philip van Wilder of the musical instruments
which had belonged to Henry VIII. is the
following item bearing on the question: “foure
gitterons with iiii. cases they are called Spanishe
Vialles.” Vial or viol was the English equivalent
of vihuela. The transitions whereby the cithara
acquired a neck and became a guitar are shown in the miniatures (fig. 3)
of a single MS., the celebrated Utrecht Psalter, which gave rise to so
many discussions. The Utrecht Psalter was executed in the diocese
of Reims in the 9th century, and the miniatures, drawn by an Anglo-Saxon
artist attached to the Reims school, are unique, and illustrate
the Psalter, psalm by psalm. It is evident that the Anglo-Saxon
artist, while endowed with extraordinary talent and vivid imagination,
drew his inspiration from an older Greek illustrated Psalter
from the Christian East,[4] where the evolution of the guitar took
place.
Fig. 3.—Instrumentalists from the Utrecht Psalter, 9th century: (a) The bass rotta, first transition of cithara in (C); (b, c, d), Transitions showing the addition of neck to the body of the cithara.
|
|
From Dr H. Janitschek’s Geschichte der deutschen Malerei. |
| Fig. 4.—Representation of a European
Guitar. A.D. 1180. |
One of the earliest representations (fig. 4) of a guitar in Western Europe occurs in a Passionale from Zwifalten A.D. 1180, now in the Royal Library at Stuttgart.[5] St Pelagia seated on an ass holds a rotta, or cithara in transition, while one of the men-servants leading her ass holds her guitar. Both instruments have three strings and the characteristic guitar outline with incurvations, the rotta differing in having no neck. Mersenne[6] writing early in the 17th century describes and figures two Spanish guitars, one with four, the other with five strings; the former had a cittern head, the latter the straight head bent back at an obtuse angle from the neck, as in the modern instrument; he gives the Italian, French and Spanish tablatures which would seem to show that the guitar already enjoyed a certain vogue in France and Italy as well as in Spain. Mersenne states that the proportions of the guitar demand that the length of the neck from shoulder to nut shall be equal to the length of the body from the centre of the rose to the tail end. From this time until the middle of the 19th century the guitar enjoyed great popularity on the continent, and became the fashionable instrument in England after the Peninsular War, mainly through the virtuosity of Ferdinand Sor, who also wrote compositions for it. This popularity of the guitar was due less to its merits as a solo instrument than to the ease with which it could be mastered sufficiently to accompany the voice. The advent of the Spanish guitar in England led to the wane in the popularity of the cittern, also known at that time in contradistinction as the English or wire-strung guitar, although the two instruments differed in many particulars. As further evidence of the great popularity of the guitar all over Europe may be instanced the extraordinary number of books extant on the instrument, giving instructions how to play the guitar and read the tablature.[7] (K. S.)
|
| From Ruhlmann’s Geschichte der Bogeninstrumente. |
| Fig. 1.—Typical Alto Guitar Fiddle, 15th century (Pinakothek, Munich). |
GUITAR FIDDLE (Troubadour Fiddle), a modern name bestowed retrospectively upon certain precursors of the violin possessing characteristics of both guitar and fiddle. The name “guitar fiddle” is intended to emphasize the fact that the instrument in the shape of the guitar, which during the middle ages represented the most perfect principle of construction for stringed instruments with necks, adopted at a certain period the use of the bow from instruments of a less perfect type, the rebab and its hybrids. The use of the bow with the guitar entailed certain constructive changes in the instrument: the large central rose sound-hole was replaced by lateral holes of various shapes; the flat bridge, suitable for instruments whose strings were plucked, gave place to the arched bridge required in order to enable the bow to vibrate each string separately; the arched bridge, by raising the strings higher above the soundboard, made the stopping of strings on the neck extremely difficult if not impossible; this matter was adjusted by the addition of a finger-board of suitable shape and dimensions (fig. 1). At this stage the guitar fiddle possesses the essential features of
- ↑ De natura deorum, ii. 8, 22.
- ↑ See Etymologiarium, lib. iii., cap. 21.
- ↑ See British Museum, Harleian MS. 1419, fol. 200.
- ↑ The literature of the Utrecht Psalter embraces a large number of books and pamphlets in many languages of which the principal are here given: Professor J. O. Westwood, Facsimiles of the Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS. (London, 1868); Sir Thos. Duffus-Hardy, Report on the Athanasian Creed in connection with the Utrecht Psalter (London, 1872); Report on the Utrecht Psalter, addressed to the Trustees of the British Museum (London, 1874); Sir Thomas Duffus-Hardy, Further Report on the Utrecht Psalter (London, 1874); Walter de Gray Birch, The History, Art and Palaeography of the MS. styled the Utrecht Psalter (London, 1876); Anton Springer, “Die Psalterillustrationen im frühen Mittelalter mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den Utrecht Psalter,” Abhandlungen der kgl. sächs. Ges. d. Wissenschaften, phil.-hist. Klasse, Bd. viii. pp. 187-296, with 10 facsimile plates in autotype from the MS.; Adolf Goldschmidt, “Der Utrecht Psalter,” in Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, Bd. xv. (Stuttgart, 1892), pp. 156-166; Franz Friedrich Leitschuh, Geschichte der karolingischen Malerei, ihr Bilderkreis und seine Quellen (Berlin, 1894), pp. 321-330; Adolf Goldschmidt, Der Albani Psalter in Hildesheim, &c. (Berlin, 1895); Paul Durrieu, L’Origine du MS. célèbre dit le Psaultier d’Utrecht (Paris, 1895); Hans Graeven, “Die Vorlage des Utrecht Psalters,” paper read before the XI. International Oriental Congress, Paris, 1897. See also Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1898), Bd. xxi. pp. 28-35; J. J. Tikkanen, Abendländische Psalter-Illustration im Mittelalter, part iii. “Der Utrecht Psalter” (Helsingfors, 1900), 320 pp. and 77 ills. (Professor Tikkanen now accepts the Greek or Syrian origin of the Utrecht Psalter); Georg Swarzenski, “Die karolingische Malerei und Plastik in Reims,” in Jahrbuch d. kgl. preussischen Kunstsammlungen, Bd. xxiii. (Berlin, 1902), pp. 81-100; Ormonde M. Dalton, “The Crystal of Lothair,” in Archäologie, vol. lix. (1904); Kathleen Schlesinger, The Instruments of the Orchestra, part ii. “The Precursors of the Violin Family,” chap. viii. “The Question of the Origin of the Utrecht Psalter,” pp. 352-382 (with illustrations), where all the foregoing are summarized.
- ↑ Reproduced in Hubert Janitschek’s Geschichte der deutschen Malerei, Bd. iii. of Gesch. der deutschen Kunst (Berlin, 1890), p. 118.
- ↑ Harmonie universelle (Paris, 1636), livre ii. prop. xiv.
- ↑ See C. F. Becker, Darstellung der musik. Literatur (Leipzig, 1836); and Wilhelm Tappert, “Zur Geschichte der Guitarre,” in Monatshefte für Musikgeschichte (Berlin, 1882), No. 5. pp. 77-85.
