History of Musical Instruments

Author(s): James Tilleard

Source: The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular, Vol. 6, No. 135 (Dec. 15, 1854), p. 242
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3370719 .
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242

242

MUSICAL TIMES.
THE MUSICAL

TIMES.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the latter they are much slenderer, and are not
action and the sentiment, stamp it as a work of
consummate genius, as one of the brightest orna- joined. Fig. 5.
ments of our art, and as one of the greatest proI
-4
a.----.
ductions of the present age, and ensure for it an
-n
immortality that can only cease with the sense of
the beautiful in the human heart.
Fig. 7.
G. A. MACFARREN.
The author last menf
tioned speaks also o
other pipes, namely,the
HISTORY OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
Compiledfrom "Sir John Hawkins's History of Music." Tibiae bifores, fig. 6,
the Tibiae gemine, fig.
F.R.G.S.
By JAMEs TILT.T]ARn,
7, instruments used in
From the " Bducatonal BEpositor."
theatrical representaMUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE ANCIENT GREEKS
tions; the latter of
AND ROMANS.
these seem to be the
The general division of musical instruments is into Tibiae
impares of Terthree classes, the inflatile, tensile, and pulsatile. Of rence:
he also dethe first are the trumpet, flutes, and pipes, whether scribes the Tibia utrisingle or collected together, as in the organ. Of the culariae, or bagpipes,
second, the lute, the harp, the clavicymbalum, and fig. 8, anciently the entertainment of shepherds and
viols of all kinds. Of the third are the drum, the other rustics.
sistrum, and bells.
The Horn, fig. 9, was anciently used at funeral
This division is adopted by Franciscus Blanchinus, solemnities; it is alluded to by Statius. Theb. lib. VI.
of Verona, in a very learned and curious dissertation
Fig. 9.
Fig. 8.
on the musical instruments of the ancients; which
bassof
ancient
the
medals, intaglias,
authority
upon
reliefs, and other sculptures of great antiquity, exhibits
the forms of a great variety of musical instruments in
use among the ancient Greeks and Romans, many
whereof are mentioned, or alluded to, by the Latin
poets, in such terms as contain little less than a precise
designation of their respective forms. His dissertation
is very curious and satisfactory, and contains in it a
detail to the following effect:One of the most simple musical instruments of the
ancients is the Calamus pastoralis, made of an oaten
reed; it is mentioned by Virgil, and many others of
the Latin poets, and by Martianus Capella. See the
form of it in fig. 1.
Other writers mention an instrument of very great
The ancient Buccina or horn-trumpet, fig. 10, is
antiquity by the name Ossea tibia, a pipe made of the mentioned
by Ovid, Vegetius, Macroblus, and others.
leg-bone of a crane. Fig. 2.
Fig. 10,
The Syringa or pipe of Pan is described by Virgil,
and the use of it by Lucretius. The figure of it occurs
so frequently on medals, that a particular description
of it is unnecessary. Fig. 3.
The Tibiae pares, mentioned by Terence to have
been played on, the one with the right hand and the
The Tuba communis, seu recta, so called in contraother with the left hand, are diversely represented in distinction to the Tuba ductilis, is of very ancient
Mersennus de Instrumentis Harmonicis, pag. 7, and original; it was formerly, as now, made of silver or
in the Dissertation of Blanchinus now citing. In the brass, of the form of fig. 11. Blanchinus hesitates not
former they are yoked together towards the bottom
Fig. 11.
and the top, as in fig. 4.

q\\

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 3.

01 ,

to assert that the two trumpets of silver which God

commanded Moses to make in the wilderness were of
this form. It seems that the trumpet retained this
figure without the least external diversity, so low
down as the year 1520; for in a very curious picture
at Windsor, supposed to be by Mabuse, representing
the interview between Ardres and Guisnes, of Henry
VIII. and Francis I. are trumpets precisely corresponding in figure with the Tuba recta above referred to.
(To be orfttnued.)

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