Some Aspects of 16th-Century Instrumental Terminology and Practice

Author(s): Rey M. Longyear

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Summer, 1964), pp.
193-198
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the American Musicological Society
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~ STUDIES AND ABSTRACTS

SOME ASPECTS OF i6TH-CENTURY INSTRUMENTAL

TERMINOLOGY AND PRACTICE
ONE OF THE MORE unsettled
topics in musicology is the use of musical
instrumentsduring the Renaissance.Technological improvementsand changes
of taste have made virtually all of them obsolete. Among the sources of
information concerning these instrumentsare pictorial and literary accounts,
many of which are fancifully allegorical, while the language of the primary
sources is often archaic. Many of the contemporaneousdocuments may have
been written by non-musicianswho were viewing the Renaissance orchestra
at a distance and therefore could not clearly differentiateamong various types
of instrumentsin a given family. The scores themselves are not of great assistance in determining instrumental practice, since instrumentation was
seldom specified by composers or performers, substitution of instruments
(the "broken consort") was common, and composers purposely strove to
write parts which could be played by many different instruments.
The passage of time has further complicated the problem. Today the
student of Renaissanceinstrumentalpractice is confronted with a profusion
of contradictory definitions in musical encyclopaediasand lexica, histories of
musical instruments,and specialized monographs.Even such works from the

early seventeenth century as Praetorius's Syntagma Musicum (1619) or Mersenne's Harmonie Universelle (1635) cannot be regarded as wholly reliable

guides to Renaissanceinstrumentation.Frequently, serious errors in nomenclature have arisen through mistranslation,injudicious choice of words, and
unstandardizedterminology.
The studies by Broder' and Weaver2 of the instrumentation of the
intermedii of the Renaissance are the most recent investigations of the instrumentalpractice of this period. The purpose of this essay is not to retrace
their steps, but to point out some of the more obvious inconsistencies and
contradictions in several standard sources of information on Renaissance
instruments,to discuss in greater detail some of the instrumentsmentioned by
these two authors, to propose a standardizedterminology for some of the
Renaissanceinstruments,and to indicate a few frontiers of research.This can
best be accomplishedby discussingsome of the more controversialinstruments
of the Renaissancewhich appearin the articles by Broder and Weaver.
I. Cembali-cembalino.During the Middle Ages, the word "cymbal" was
applied to a variety of instruments, from "clashpansto hurdy-gurdy."3 In
discussing the intermedio performed at the marriage festivities of Constanzo
'Nathan Broder,"The Beginningsof terly XLVII (1961),
pp. 363-378.
s Gerald
the Orchestra," this JOURNALXIII
Hayes, "Musical Instruments"
in
New
(196o), pp. 174-180.
Oxford History of Music, III
2Robert L. Weaver, "Sixteenth-Cen- (London and New York, I96o), p. 483.
tury Instrumentation," Musical Quar-

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JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICALSOCIETY

Sforza and Camilla of Aragon at Pesaro in 1475, both writers mention Kinkeldey's hypothesis that the cembali used therein were bells.4 On the evidence
of a definition in the Vocabolario della Crusca of 1741 (266 years after the
Pesaro intermedio) Weaver advances the hypothesis that the cembali might
be tambourines,5 despite Sachs's emphatic insistence to the contrary.6
The cymbala, a set of small tuned bells suspended on a rack, were highly
regarded during the Middle Ages. St. Dunstan is frequently depicted playing
this instrument, and often elaborate instructions were given for casting the
bells.7 The term itself survived into the Baroque; Mersenne's cymbale is a
triangle with rings on its base.8
The question also arises whether the cembalino used in the Florentine
intermedii of 1589 was (i) a small set of tuned bells like the present-day
glockenspiel; (2) a small keyboard instrument; (3) a small instrument of the
dulcimer family; and even (4) a small tambourine.
The standard sources are of little help. Hipkins states that the cembalo was
a dulcimer9 whereas Neupert merely considers the term to be an abbreviation
of clavicembalo.o0 However, during the 16th century dulcimer-type instruments were folk instruments and were seldom, if ever, used in art music
(Gombosi, for example, does not mention the csimbalom in his account of
Hungarian music during the Renaissance)11 and the hypothesis that cembali
were tambourines has been proven insupportable. If any instruments of the
cymbala family could be found in Renaissance paintings, this would be a
partial solution of the mystery surrounding the term cembalo: when did this
word cease to mean an instrument of the bell family and begin to mean some
instrument of the keyboard family?
II. Flauto-flauto grosso--traversa. In describing the Corteccia-Striggio
intermedii of 1565, Broder calls the flauti "tenor recorders" and the flauto
grosso tenore a "large tenor recorder."12 If the size of the instrument were
increased, the pitch would be lowered;13 the flauto grosso tenore would thus
have been either a bass recorder or some sort of flauto d'amore.
During the entire vogue of the recorder composers were notoriously
inaccurate in specifying exactly which instrument of this family was to be
used, and especially in ensemble music one cannot be absolutely certain even
4Otto Kinkeldey, Orgel und Klavier
in der Musik des i6. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 191o), p. 165.
Weaver, op. cit., pp. 365, 374.
66Curt Sachs, The
History of Musical
Instruments (New York, 1940), p. 289.
In a different context, the Vocabolario
della Crusca has been attacked as a questionable source for musical terminology.
See David D. Boyden, "When Is a Concerto Not a Concerto,"Musical Quarterly
XLIII ('957), PP.
223-24.
SSee Rev. J. Smits
van Waesberghe,
Cymbala: Bells in the Middle Ages
(Rome, 1951).
8
Mersenne, Marin (trans. R. E. Chapman) Harmonie Universelle: The Books

on Instruments (The Hague, 1957), P.

547.
9 A. J. Hipkins, "Cembalo"in Grove's
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th
ed. (London and New York,
I954), II, p.
13910 Hanns Neupert, "Cembalo"in MGG
II, col. 954.
11Otto Gombosi, "Music in Hungary,"
in Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance (New York, 1954),
PP. 714-727.
12 Broder, op.
cit., p. 176.

13Wilmer T. Bartholomew, Acoustics

of Music

(New

York,

1942),

p. ii6;

Glen Haydon, Introduction to Musicology (New York, 1941), p. 44-

STUDIES AND ABSTRACTS

195

when going to the ultimate source, the music.14 This is principally because
the ranges of the recorders, from sopranino to bass, occur in steps of either
a fourth or a fifth. Furthermore, the tenor recorder is not a low-pitched
instrument; its compass is of two octaves beginning on middle C and thus
exceeds at both ends of its range the customary ambitus of the soprano voice.
Weaver's translation of flauti grossi as "great recorders" is equally inaccurate.15
What is most probable is that the flauti were soprano or alto recorders and
the flauti grossi tenor or bass recorders, and a casual observer may easily have
made the mistake of calling a bass recorder a "large tenor recorder."
According to Weaver's tables of instrumentation in the Italian and
English intermedii of the Renaissance, the traversa appears in eleven of them
between 1539 and 1594.16 The traversa is described by both Virdung and
Agricola, and in the inventories of the Cassel Hofkapelle five traversi were
listed in 1573 and three cases of them in 1613; Baines states that "evidently
flutes were tremendously popular."17 On the other hand, Dart categorically
states that Monteverdi and Purcell, and presumably the other seventeenthcentury composers, "did not use the transverse flute, and that is the end of
the matter."18 Yet in 1713 Hotteterre could write that the transverse flute
was a very fashionable instrument,19 and the magnificent music for the
transverse flute by Vivaldi, J. S. Bach, and Handel is well known. It is a
mystery why the transverse flute sank into oblivion during the 17th century
only to enjoy a glorious revival in the i8th. In 1628 Giustiniani could say
that the traversa was rare in Italy,20 and later writers have spoken of the
rarity of transverse flutes during the seventeenth century.21 On the other
hand, Lully wrote for the traversa in his La Triomphe d'Amour (I672), Hotteterre was called "le Romain" because of the time he had spent in Italy, and
Vivaldi's numerous flute concertos antedate the flute works of Handel and
J. S. Bach. It may well be that the traversa survived during the seventeenth
century in Germany (as witness the name "fluite d'allemagne") and parts of
Italy.22
III. Bassi di violone. The terms violoni, bassi di violone, bassi di viuole, and
sotto basso di viola occur frequently in the list of stringed instruments in the
Renaissance intermedii. Ambros translated bassi di violone as "Kontrabiisse,"23
14Thurston Dart, "Six Problems in ciety Journal IV (i951), p. 42; M. A.
InstrumentalMusic" in Jan LaRue (ed.), Soyer, "Des instruments 'i vent," in AlInternational Musicological Society: Re- bert Lavignac and Lionel de la Laurport of the Eighth Congress (Kassel and encie, eds., Encyclopddie de la musique
New York,
et dictionnaire du Conservatoire (Paris,
I, pp. 234-35.
15 Weaver, 196i),cit.,
op.
p. 371.
1927), Series 2, III, p. 1429.
16 Ibid., pp. 374-78.
22 In a conversation with the present
17Anthony Baines, "Two Cassel Invenwriter in 1961, Professor Dart said that
tories," Galpin Society Journal IV both the recorder and the traversa were
out of fashion during the i7th century
pp. 31-35.
(195I),
18 Dart, op. cit.,
and that through technological improvep. 234.
19 Preface to the 1713 edition of his
ments the traversaagain became popular.
flute method.
For a discussion of these improvements,
20 Nigel Fortune, "Giustiniani on Insee Hans-Peter Schmitz, "Fl6teninstrustruments," Galpin Society Journal V mente," MGG IV, col.
344.
23A. W. Ambros (ed.
(1952), p. 51.
Hugo Leich21 Eric
"A
SeventeenthHalfpenny,
tentritt), Geschichte der Musik (LeipCentury Fl2te d'allemagne,"Galpin So- zig, 1909), IV, p. 247.

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JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICALSOCIETY

which Weaver translated as "bass viol."24 This latter term is often used to
describe the double bass. Perhaps no instrument in today's orchestra has so
many synonyms (double bass, bass viol, contrabass, string bass, bass), and it
would alleviate some terminological confusion if the term "bass viol" could be
avoided in referring to a markedly different instrument, the double bass.
Ganassi's "basso della viola contrabasso" goes to D, and in the prologue to
Book II of his Regola rubertina, a primary source on the viols in the Renaissance, he describes the viol quartet: soprano, alto, tenor, and contrabass.
Mersenne's "contrabass viol" has as its lowest note contra B flat. Neither of
these writers describe the violone, specified in Baroque scores as the lowest
stringed instrument. An excellent illustration of the violone dating from
around i 713 depicts an instrument with five strings which resembles a fat
and only slightly overgrown cello. Because of its size and the diameter and
length of the strings, it is unlikely that the violone was similar either in sound
or in pitch to the present-day double bass.25 The principal monograph on
the double bass states that today's instrument is not a modified violone, that
the violone is not a true double bass, and that the double bass derives from
the instruments of the violin rather than from the viol family.26 Bessaraboff's
table of instrument lengths is interesting: the full consort bass viol's body
length is 68 cm.; the cello 72.5 cm.; the violone ioo cm.; Praetorius's Violone,
oder Gross Viol-de-Gamba Bass 14 cm.; his Gross Contra-Bas Geig 140 cm.27
IV. Tamburo con zufolo. This small drum and flageolet was performed
by one player. The drum was strapped to the left elbow and played with a
drumstick held in the right hand while the left hand fingered a small flute.
Besseler states that this instrumental combination was common throughout
I3th-century Europe28 and survives in the fluviol i tamburi of the Catalan
dance orchestra.29 It is interesting to observe this use of a folk instrument
in the Renaissance orchestra to accompany a pastoral scene featuring bacchantes and satyrs. "Thoinot Arbeau" mentions a dance for pipe and tabor
dating from the late Renaissance, but states that it need not be performed
by only one player.30
V. Cornetto muto. The designation cornetto muto appears in several
descriptions of Renaissance orchestras. Broder and Baines,31 among others,
translate this expression as "mute cornett," whereas Weaver vacillates between this translation and "muted cornett." A recent (I96I) exhibition of
musical instruments in New York even used the phrase "silent cornet" [sic].
It is difficult to imagine instruments in an orchestra used decoratively rather
than musically (were the "silent" cornetto parts given to beginners?); furthermore, as anyone who has had experience in playing woodwind instruments
24Weaver,
28 Heinrich
Besseler, "Cobla"in MGG
op. cit., p. 371.
25Johann Christoph Weigel, Musika- II, col. 1519.
29 See the illustration in
lische Theatrum, in Documenta MusicoMGG II faclogica XXII (I96I), Plate 23.
ing cols. 1503-04.
26Eric Halfpenny, "Notes on the GenS3Thoinot Arbeau (tr. Mary Stuart
ealogy of the Double Bass," Galpin So- Evens), Orchesography (New York,
ciety Journal I (1948), pp. 41-45.
1948), p. 67.
27Nicholas Bessaraboff,Ancient Euro3l Anthony Baines, "Cornett"in Grove
pean Musical Instruments (Cambridge, V, II, pp. 447-48.
Mass., 1941), pp. 255, 311, et passim.

STUDIESAND ABSTRACTS

197

knows, it is highly impractical if not impossible to "mute" such an instrument.

The source of "muto" is from the verb mutare, meaning to change or to alter
(for example, the English word "mutation"). The term "muto" has no connection, etymological or otherwise, with sordino.
The expression "mute cornett" is used in Elizabethan and Jacobean sources
and this may be the reason for its use in some present-day writing. Frequently
English writers of this period would make cognates of foreign musical terms,
as witness "Roger-O" for ruggiero and "Lumber Me" for "L'Homme Arm'."
Grout's term "soft-toned cornett" is the most acceptable translation.32
The cornetto muto was a straight cornetto, but instead of having a
detachable cup mouthpiece the mouthpiece was an integral part of the instrument, merging directly into the bore without any break. Baines states
that the tone quality was softer and more veiled than that of the conventional
cornetto and compares its tone to that of a trumpet with a half-inserted cup
mute,33 although experiments undertaken by the present writer do not
disclose much similarity. Mersenne stated that the muette style of playing the
cornetto was accomplished simply by blowing into the instrument, perhaps
as if it were a recorder; this is not corroborated by any other source the
present writer has been able to investigate.34
Because of the confusion which arises when cornetto is translated as
"cornett," it seems to be more practical and systematic to retain the word
cornetto in English, much as the viola and violoncello are called by their
Italian names and the word timpani is more commonly used than kettledrums.
It would also be nice if something could be done to alleviate the
frequently
ghastly intonation characteristic of the cornetto in both live and recorded
performances.
VI. Tamburi-timpani. A few of the intermedii, especially in the battle
scenes, employ some kind of drum. Drums were used in medieval processions during the Middle Ages,35 as early as the fifteenth
century snares were
stretched over the batter head of the drum,36 the Dutch used the snare drum
for martial purposes in the sixteenth century,37 and examples of drum cadences
for marching and (presumably improvised) drum beats for
dancing in the
Orchisographie38 show the ubiquity of this membranophone. It is probable
that the "truml" in Lassus' description of a Florentine intermedio of I56539
was a snare drum.
Timpani were common in fifteenth-century Italian art,40 the Christmas
82 Donald Jay Grout, A Short History
of Opera (New York, 1947), p. 62.
83 Here another
disagreement occurs
in standardsources. Carse (Musical Wind
Instruments, London, 1939, p. 2I5) and
Baines, op. cit. state that the cornetto
diritto (straight cornetto) and the cornetto muto are different instruments because the mouthpiece of the former is
detachable, whereas Sachs (op. cit., p.
324) claims that these two instruments
are identical.
34 Mersenne,op. cit., p. 345.
35Edmund A. Bowles, "Musical In-

struments in Civic Processions during

the Middle Ages," Acta Musicologica
XXXIII

(196I),
S6 Valentin

p. 149.

Denis, "Musical Instruments in Fifteenth-Century Netherlands

and Italian Art," Galpin Society Journal
11 (1949), p. 45.
37 H. G. Farmer, "The Tenor Drum"
in Handel's Kettledrums and Other Papers on Military Music (London, 1950),
p. 99.
38sArbeau, op. cit., pp. 18-23, 67-74.
39Cited in
Weaver, op. cit., p. 378.
40 Denis,loc. cit.

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN

198

MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

festivities of Edward VI ( 55 ) incorporateda "Kettel Drom with his boye,"41

and timpani may have been used in the grands ballets de cour of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries.42They were used in Wiirttemberg churches in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.43It would not be an impossible conjecture
that the two tamburi used in the battle scene in the fourth of the Cofaneria
intermedii of i565 were timpani, particularly since the term "tamburi"for
timpaniwas used even as late as the time of J. S. Bach.
In The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, given in London in 1589,
timpani are mentioned by name.44Timpani parts could be implied in earlier
music (as Titcomb suggests the use of timpani in Dufay's "Gloria ad modum
tubae")45 but this is perhaps the first time that the timpani were mentioned
as part of an orchestralgroup. Descriptions of timpani in the orchestra do not
occur until the early seventeenth century46and the first written timpani part,
for not one but two pair of timpani, appears in the Mass for Fifty-Three
Voices by Orazio Benevoli in i628. Needless to say, the oft-repeated statement
that the timpani were introduced into the orchestra by Locke or Lully is
inaccurate.47
University of Tennessee

REYM. LONGYEAR

THE OXFORD MUSIC SCHOOL IN THE

LATE I7TH CENTURY
WHEN WILLIAM HEYTHER endowed the chair of Music at Oxford in
i626, he
provided for both theoretical and practical instruction in the art. To this end
both books and instruments were provided, and these Heyther ordained
should be cared for and should not be taken outside the Music School.' This
original endowment was enriched after the Restoration by a number of

41See H. G. Farmer,"TheTurkishInfluence on MilitaryMusic"in Handel's

Kettledrums,
p. 42.
42Henri-Marie-Frangois
Lavoix, Histoire de l'instrumentation
(Paris, 1878),
p. 159.
43Josef Sittard, Zur Geschichte der
Musik am Wiirttembergische
Hofe (2
vols., Stuttgart,I890-91),I, pp. 13, 41.
4Weaver,op cit., p. 378.
45CaldwellTitcomb,The Kettledrums
in WesternEurope:Their History Outside the Orchestra(HarvardUniversity
Diss.,
46

1952),

pp. 251-52.

Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musi-

cum (Wolfenbiittel,

1619), III, pp. 134-

ler der Tonkunst in Oesterreich XX, p.

x); Percival Kirby, "The Kettledrums:
An Historical Survey," Music and Letters IX (I928), PP. 38-39; Titcomb,
cit., pp. 236, 245.

op.

47For examples, see Karl Geiringer,

Musical Instruments: Their History in
Western Culture (London, 1943)
p.
188; Lavoix, op. cit., p. 159; William
"Percussion
in
Instruments"
Denny,
Willi Apel (ed.), Harvard Dictionary of
Music (Cambridge, 1947), p. 564; Titcomb, op. cit., p. 259.

1 Cf. Nan
Cooke Carpenter, "The
Study of Music at the University of Ox-

",
35; Guido Adler, preface to Orazio ford in the Renaissance (145o-600)
Benevoli: Messe und Hymnus (Denkmd'- Musical Quarterly XLI (I955), PP. 194f.