Reconstructing Lost Instruments: Praetorius’s <em>Syntagma musicum</em> and the Violin Family <em>c.</em> 1619
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3986/dmd15.1-2.07Keywords:
violin, viola, cello, Amati family, metrologyAbstract
Michael Praetorius’s De organographia and Theatrum instrumentorum provide valuable clues that contribute to a new understanding of the violin family c. 1619, many surviving examples of which are reduced in size from their sixteenth- and seventeenth-century dimensions. The record of surviving instruments – especially those of the Amati family – alongside metrologic, documentary and iconographic evidence shows that Michael Praetorius describes a large instrument conforming remarkably well to the original dimensions of the basso da braccio (violoncello), as well as furnishing an excellent scale representation of the violin family as it was at the time of these works’ publication and an accurate tuning scheme.Downloads
References
Badiarov, Dimitry. “The Violoncello, Viola da Spalla and Viola Pomposa in Theory and Practice”. The Galpin Society Journal 60 (April 2007): 121–145.
Bagatella, Antonio. Regole per la costruzione dei violini, viole, violoncelli e violoni, 1782. Translated by G. Koeckert. Geneva: Aimé Kling, 1927. Reprinted. Cremona: Turris Editrice, 1995.
Bonta, Stephen. “From Violone to Violoncello: A Question of Strings?” Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 3 (1977): 64–99.
Bonta, Stephen. “Terminology for the Bass Violin in Seventeenth Century Italy”. Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 4 (1978): 5–42.
Bonta, Stephen. “The Use of Instruments in Sacred Music in Italy 1560–1700”. Early Music 18, no. 4 (November 1990): 519–535. https://doi.org/10.1093/earlyj/XVIII.4.519.
Boyden, David D. The History of Violin Playing from its Origins to 1761 and its Relationship to the Violin and Violin Music. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.
Boyden, David D. “Monteverdi’s violini piccolo all francese and viole da brazzo”. Annales Musicologiques: Moyen-Age et Renaissance 4 (1963): 387–401.
Brantôme, Pierre de Bourdeille de. Oeuvres complètes de Branthôme. Vol. 10. Edited by Prosper Merimee and Louis Lacour. Paris: P. Jannet, 1890.
Chiesa, Carlo. “Introduction to Brescian Violin making in XVI Century”. In 1520–1724: Liutai in Brescia, edited by Luisa Baggi, 29–44. Cremona: Eric Blot Edizioni, 2008.
Chiesa, Carlo. “An Introduction to the Life and Works of Andrea Amati”. In Andrea Amati Opera Omnia: les Violons du roi, edited by Fausto Cacciatori, 11–24. Cremona: Consorzio Liutai Antonio Stradivari, 2007.
Cozio di Salabue, Ignazio Alessandro. Memoirs of a Violin Collector. Translated by Brandon Frazier. Baltimore: Brandon Frazier, 2007.
Doursther, Horace. Dictionnaire universel des poids et mesures anciens et modernes: con-tenant des tables des monnaies de tous les pays. Brussels: Imprimeur de l’Academie Royale, 1840.
Haynes, Bruce. A History of Performing Pitch: The Story of “A”. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2002.
Hayes, Gerald R. Musical Instruments and their Music, 1500–1750. Vol. 2, The Viols and other Bowed Instruments. London: Oxford University Press, 1930.
Hill, W. Henry, Arthur F. Hill and Alfred E. Hill. Antonio Stradivari: His Life and Work (1644–1737). London: W. E. Hill and Sons, 1902.
Holman, Peter. Four and Twenty Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court 1540–1690. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
Holman, Peter. “Terpsichore at 400: Michael Praetorius as a Collector of Dance Music”. The Viola da Gamba Society Journal 6 (2012): 34–51.
Hutchins, Carleen Maley. “350 Years of Violin Research: Violin Development from the 16th through the 19th Centuries”. In Research Papers in Violin Acoustics: 1975–1993, vol. 1, edited by Carleen Maley Hutchins. Woodbury: Acoustical Society of America, 1997.
Kinsky, Georg. Katalog des Musikhistorischen Museums von Wilhelm Heyer in Cöln. Vol. 12. Cologne: Wilhelm Heyer, 1912.
Kory, Agnes. “A Wider Role for the Tenor Violin?” The Galpin Society Journal 47 (March 1994): 123–153. https://doi.org/10.2307/842665.
Lee, Barbara. “Giovanni Maria Lanfranco’s Scintille di musica and its Relation to 16th Century Music Theory”. PhD diss., Cornell University, 1961.
Mersenne, Marin. Harmonie universelle: The Books on Instruments. Translated by Roger E. Chapman. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1957.
Meucci, Renatto, ed. Un corpo alla ricerca dell’anima: Andrea Amati e la nascita del violino 1505–2005. 2 vols. Cremona: Consorzio Liutai Antonio Stradivari, 2005.
Myers, Herbert W. “When is a Violino not a Viola da Braccio?” The Galpin Society Journal 53 (April 2000): 335–339. https://doi.org/10.2307/842338.
Myers, Herbert W. “Zacconi’s Viola da Braccio Tunings”. The Galpin Society Journal 51 (July 1998): 244–247. https:/doi.org/10.2307/842791.
Pollens, Stewart. Stradivari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Praetorius, Michael. Syntagma musicum II: De organographia. Wolfenbüttel: Elias Holwein, 1619.
Praetorius, Michael. Syntagma musicum II: De organographia; First and Second Parts. Translated by Harold Blumenfeld. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949.
Praetorius, Michael. Syntagma musicum II: De organographia; Parts I and II. Translated and edited by David Z. Crookes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986.
Praetorius, Michael. Syntagma musicum II: De organographia; Parts III–V, with Index. Translated and edited by Quentin Faulkner. Lincoln: Zea Books, 2014.
Praetorius, Michael. Theatrum instrumentorum seu sciagraphia. Wolfenbüttel: Elias Holwein, 1620.
Rossi, Francesco Rocco. “Music in the 16th Century in Cremona”. In Un corpo alla ricerca dell’anima: Andrea Amati e la nascita del violino 1505–2005, vol. 2, edited by Renatto Meucci, 30–49. Cremona: Consorzio Liutai Antonio Stradivari, 2005.
Schlosser, Julius. Die Sammlung alter Musikinstrumente. Vol. 3. Kunsthistorisches Museum in Wien, Publikationen aus der Sammlungen für Plastik und Kunstgewerbe. Vienna: Anton Schroll, 1920.
Schwindt, Nicole. “Hans Mielichs bildliche Darstellung der Münchner Hofkapelle von 1570”. Acta Musicologica 68, no. 1 (1996): 48–85. https://doi.org/10.2307/932680.
Segerman, Ephraim. “The Name ‘Tenor Violin’”. The Galpin Society Journal 48 (March 1995): 181–187. https://doi.org/10.2307/842810.
Segerman, Ephraim. “The Tunings and Sizes of the Viole da Braccio”. The Galpin Society Journal 52 (April 1999): 391–393. https://doi.org/10.2307/842556.
Sibire, Sébastien-André. La Chélonomie ou le parfait luthier. Paris: Chez l’autheur, 1806. Reprint, Brussels: A. Loosfelt, 1885.
Zacconi, Lodovico. Prattica di musica. Venice: Bartolomeo Carampello, 1592.
Zeller, Matthew. “The Violin-Family Designs of Andrea Amati: Reconstructing the Original Outlines of the King Cello and Propugnaculo Viola”. MA thesis, University of South Dakota, 2014.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors guarantee that the work is their own original creation and does not infringe any statutory or common-law copyright or any proprietary right of any third party. In case of claims by third parties, authors commit their self to defend the interests of the publisher, and shall cover any potential costs.
More in: Submission chapter
