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Ripin ReevaluationVirdungsMusica 1976
Ripin ReevaluationVirdungsMusica 1976
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BY EDWIN M. RIPIN
some 12 unnumbered pages, of which the first eight are devoted to the
title page, dedicatory letter to the Bishop of Strasbourg, introduction, and
an illustration showing the two participants in the dialogue that consti-
tutes the text proper. This dialogue takes place between "Sebastianus"-
that is, Virdung himself-and a fictional rustic, "Andreas Silvanus,"" whose
role is the same as that of Philomathes in Morley's Plaine and Easie Intro-
duction: to feed the master cues in the form of appropriate questions and
to lighten the tone of the exposition. The first quarter of their dialogue
is devoted to setting forth Virdung's classification of the various types of
instruments and to brief remarks about some of them (including a number
of those described in the epistle to Dardanus of pseudo-Jerome);4 this
material is illustrated by woodcuts representing some sixty-odd examples
of all kinds.5 The remainder of the text deals with the rudiments of musi-
cal notation and of keyboard, lute, and recorder intabulation. The treat-
ment does not really constitute an instrumental method in the sense of
providing specific instructions for playing any of the instruments dis-
cussed or even in providing simple pieces to play, although Virdung does
3 The suggestion that Andreas Silvanus was a real person, a musician and friend
of Virdung's, variously identified as Andreas Silva or Andreas Waldner de Ratisbona
(see Winifred Kirsch, "Andreas de Silva," MGG, Vol. XII, cols. 705-6), would seem
to be without foundation. Virdung would hardly be likely to have felt that anyone
who was already a musician would require the kind of elementary information that
Musica getutscht contains; moreover, the representation of Andreas in the illustration
of fol. Aiiij shows him to be a man of the woods (as his name suggests), with a
knife in his belt and a boar spear in his hand, suggesting that Virdung had chosen
the appropriate persona for the conventional dialogue form in which he cast the text.
(As with most of the illustrations in the book-see below, page 217-this one has
been reversed left-to-right, with the result that the typeset labels "Sebastianus" and
"Andreas Silvanus" placed above the woodblock now stand over the wrong figures.
Clearly the figure at the left, with his cleric's robe and academic hood, must have
been intended to represent Virdung; accordingly, the roughly dressed figure at the
right must have been intended to represent the unlearned Andreas.)
4 For a major study on these mythical instruments, see Rheinhold Hammerstein,
"Instrumenta Hieronymi," Archiv fiir Musikqwissenschaft, XVI (1959), 117-34-
5 These woodcuts are generally said to be by Urs Graf (see, for example, Karl
Nef, "Seb. Virdungs Musica getutscht," Bericht iiber den musikrwissenschaftlichen
Kongress in Basel [Leipzig, 1925], pp. 7-8, and Gerhard Stradner, "Bemerkungen zu
den klangliche
Der besaiteten Aspect
Tasteninstrumenten in Sebastian
beim Restaurieren Virdungs 'Musica
von Saitenklavieren, Beitrigegetutscht ... '. "
zur Auffiih-
rungspraxis, II [Graz, 1973], P. 79) on the basis of the appearance of Graf's mono-
gram in a single illustration in the book (see Fig. ga, below). The remaining illustra-
tions, however, do not show any of the same skill in draftsmanship, and none of them
are included in Emil Major and Erwin Gradmann, Urs Graf (Basel, [19421), where
this picture of a lute player is reproduced as Abb. izo and described on p. 142. The
difference in the quality of the material that the block cutter had to work with is
most clearly seen in the crudity of the rendering of the figures in the illustration on
fol. Aiiij or the hands in the illustration showing two methods of holding the recorder
on fol. Miiijv. Doubtless, the greater difficulty of accurately picturing the way in
which a lutenist holds his instrument and positions his hands, necessitated recourse to
a draftsman of higher caliber than was required for the other, simpler illustrations. It
is, of course, also possible that the Urs Graf illustration had been prepared for some
other purpose and was simply used in Musica getutscbt because of its obvious appro-
priateness.
!i~'~
TABLE I
Library Remarks
CH: Bu Imperfect copy consist
D:B Complete copy; apparently
enumerated in fn. io were p
and 9 of the present article
D:Mbs Complete copy
D:Ngm Imperfect copy consisting of leaves Ciij, Dij, and Diiij and signat
through O, complete except for leaf Kiiij; leaf Dij erroneously numb
GB:Eu Imperfect copy, lacking the last three leaves of signature O; titl
"Priestern" for "Priesters"
GB:Lbm Call number k.8.c.9. Complete copy; title page has "Priestern" for "Priesters"
US: Bpm Complete copy, uniquely hand-colored; leaf Dij erroneously numbered Diij
Printing A2 (Title page corresponding to Figure Ia but signatures J through O differently
set throughout)
D:W Schmieder Katalog No. 1318. Complete copy; title page has "Priestern" for
"Priesters"; leaf Dij erroneously numbered Diij
GB:Lbm Call number Hirsch I. 159. Imperfect copy with leaves Bij and Diij muti-
lated; title page has "Priestern" for "Priesters"; leaf Dij erroneously num-
bered Diij
A:Iu Complete copy, two pages of which were reproduced in Hiplins, Steinert,
and Schneider, eds., The International Exhibition ... Vienna, 1892.
A:Wgm Imperfect copy lacking all of signature A, part of leaf Oiij, and all of leaf
Oiiij
A:Wn Complete copy; the source of Figs. Ib, 3c, 4b, and 5b of the present article
and of Abb. 118/1-3 and 132/1 of Kinsky, Geschichte der Musik in Bildern.
D:KA Complete copy; Fi lacking in the numbering of leaf Fiij
D:W Schmieder Katalog, No. 1317. Complete copy
NL: DHgm Complete copy
(a) d (d)
Figure 2. (a) H
watermark wi
mark--printin
printing B
A fourth watermark, depicting grapes (Fig. 2d), appears in the two copies
classified as printing A2. Resembling Briquet's No. I3022, this mark is to
be found in the second half of the book, which was set separately.22 The
301-2, stating that it, too, originates in Basel, although the paper maker is unknown.
He also reproduces several versions in Die Ochsenkopf-Wasserzeichen, III, 788, of
which No. 339 is closest to that found in Musica getutscht.
22 The principal resemblance between this watermark and that given by Briquet
is that of all of Briquet's "raisin A grosse tige" type, only No. 13022 shows a stem
ending in a cross just as the stem in the paper used in the second half of printing
A2 does. Briquet, II, 648, lists Basel 1513/19 as the earlier of two citations to paper
employing watermark No. 13022.
(b) S ~4tbwrcb
is 9 Ncbald
+ nbyeanin"rt n
JSter Im ot als
manak ad iiii.3ar
mrnn e . ft.Siintffbatmba
grnbet
pff (ant tYyi4aSet
gtm tag.
(a)
(b)
Ryral
30 See, for example, the different capital D's in the first word of the example
shown and the different forms of the cb's at the end of the second line.
TABLE 2
33 He probably realized his mistake early in the printing of the verso side of the
sheets for signature A, by which time it was too late to correct the garbled order
of the pages already built into the recto side of the sheets, the type for which, in
all likelihood, would already have been distributed. The error could, however, be
made less apparent by eliminating the caption on fol. Aiijv, "Hie nach wirt herr
Bastian von Andrea Siluano dem musico mit sollichen nachfolgenden worten em-
pfangen," which introduces the picture of Sebastian and Andreas in printing A and
implies that the first speaker will be Andreas. This would explain why the caption
does not appear in any of the surviving copies of printing B, although fol. Aiiijv of
this printing otherwise corresponds line for line to fol. Aiijv of printing A.
34 In the more complicated blocks for the tablatures, however, a number of new
errors are introduced adding to those present in the original (see fn. 42 below): six
appear in the keyboard tablature on fols. Jiv-Jij and five in the lute tablature on fols.
Mijv-Miij.
35 See Robert Priebsch and W. E. Collinson, The German Language (London,
1966), p. 371, and Kenneth Brooke, An Introduction to Early New High German
(Oxford, '955), pp. Ix, 129, and the selection from the Volksbuch published
burg in 50o9 reprinted on pp. 4-io, the orthography of which generally cor
quite closely to that found in printing B.
36Friedrich Kluge, Etymologisches Worterbuch der deutschen Sprach,
ed. Walther Mitzka (Berlin, 196o), p. I32, s.v. "Dienstag."
7 George K. Nagler, Die Monogrammisten und diejenigen bekannten u
bekannten Kiinstler aller Schulen, II (Munich and Leipzig [ i86o]), 43.
38British Museum General Catalogue of Printed Books to 1955, Vol.
(London, i961), col. i6o, s.v. "Gebrauch." The call number of the version
the lutenist on its title page is i347.d.34-
39 The literature on Schoensperger is scanty. For biographical details,
Benzing, Die Buchdrucker des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts im deutschen Sprac
Beitriige zum Buch- und Bibliothekwesen, XII (Wiesbaden, 1963), pp. 14,
(a)
(b)
with any very great precision, although the book seems to have been
available by the end of 52 i. Ferdinand Columbus's Regestrum of the
Biblioteca Columbina lists what must have been a copy of Musica getutscht
as item 922,40 giving the following description:
Musica theutonica sebastianj virdvarg de omnj cantu & notulis intabulaturarum
traducta horum quattuor instrumentorum vz. organj luttine siue laud & fistule.
I[ncipit] dialogus teutonicus Mein lieber herr post modum sequuntur epistola
teutonica que I[ncipit] dem hoc virdigen hoch zu. opus I[ncipit] beatus populus
qui scit iubilationem & D[esinet] gott voll dein ion sein Se amen & Continet
quamplura instrumenta musicalia. est in 40. costa en nuremberga 6 Crai[per] a
6 de dizembre de i521.41
in Virdung's lute and keyboard tablatures does not correspond exactly to those evi-
dent in the Furter printing (see Lenneberg, "The Critic Criticized," pp. 2-5), the
number of errors in the Schoensperger printing is so much greater that the corre-
spondence of a few more (but by no means all) of the tempus numbers seems merely
to be coincidental.
43 Klaus Wolfgang Niembller, "Othmar Luscinius, Musiker und Humanist,"
Archiv fiir Musikwissenschaft, XV (x958), 46.
lttwe platfante
utikfpour appnl*a tref
faine mrOaIWttoute taos
ratuttore onemfrOmat/ht p parulfdpes
(oulpmftfflff056i0Pwfl
aWea ioulrr rII~t/dtottSl
etlf ftra.
V i
Figur
Bibli
fever..
Livre plaisant in 1554, using the same blocks for the illustrations, he did
not restore any of the deleted material (if, indeed, he had any access to
Virdung's original text), so that the Seer schoon Boecxken bears no closer
resemblance to Musica getutscht than does the Livre plaisant.
Although Othmar Luscinius's Musurgia seu praxis musicae of 1536
retains almost all of Virdung's illustrations, the book is far from the mere
translation it is usually said to be. In his dedication to Andreas Calvus of
Milan, Luscinius explains at length that he has not produced a direct
translation and implies that Musica getutscht contains flaws and omissions
attributable to Virdung's "being prematurely snatched from life [so that]
his last hand did not touch everything."48 In any event, the order of pre-
sentation is radically changed, and most of Virdung's remarks about indi-
vidual instruments are replaced by entirely different material. Moreover,
two extended "commentaries" occupy no less than 42 of Luscinius's 102
pages of text and illustrations; these deal with questions of notation and
of consonance, dissonance, and composition that are absent from Virdung's
text. Luscinius aptly describes the result of his work in commenting that
"what started as an amphora will have gone forth at last as a pitcher."49
Finally, although Martin Agricola's Musica instrumentalis deudsch,
first published in I528, uses a substantial number of illustrations clearly
based on the woodcuts in Musica getutscht, it employs them to supple-
ment a significantly reordered presentation. Agricola retains Virdung's
system of classifying instruments, but, like Luscinius, he eliminates Vir-
dung's descriptive comments and value judgments on individual types.
Moreover, in addition to the clavichord, lute, and recorder discussed in
detail by Virdung, Agricola deals extensively with instruments that Vir-
dung hardly mentions, including bowed strings of several kinds and the
transverse flute. Finally, Agricola emphatically rejects the type of lute
tablature that Virdung employs, substituting a system of his own. The
revised edition of Musica instrumentalis deudsch issued in 1545 reduces
this relatively small dependence on Musica getutscht even further, em-
ploying fewer illustrations based on Virdung's woodcuts and adding still
more new material, including an important section on the newly emerg-
ing violin.
It would seem reasonable to conclude from this consistent pattern of
deletion or replacement that Virdung's contemporaries did not take the
actual content of Musica getutscht very seriously, even if they obviously
thought that the idea of an illustrated treatise dealing with the rudiments
of music was a good one. Schlick's remarks in the Tabulatur etlicher
Lobgesang are so intemperate that they require considerable discounting,
but it seems clear that, at best, Virdung was not a practicing instrumen-
Example i
r r -r
-1 ~
! g J -J ' J i J t ,
KOM do_ _ _o_
Example 2
Keyboard
Lute
(transposed
Vocal
I I
WIIE
Keyboard
Vocal
Lute
Keyboard
I J
_ __
Example 3
a. m.7 b. m.15
Vocal r
f I
Keyboard .
L,,,- , i - l
Am u1
-9 Clavic
several a
more tha
given pai
fifteenth
respondin
intervals
not. The
written
eb-e, f-f
Early Cl
other su
eb'-fg', g
ing such
does not
playable,
playable.
earlier in
cannot be sounded without first releasing the b in the bass, etc. In Exam
ples 3a, 3c, and 3e, the problem arises from a literal transcription of th
vocal setting, whereas in Example 3b it is caused by the addition of an
ornamental neighboring tone. In Example 3d, the e in the soprano of th
vocal version would have been unplayable without first releasing the d
in the tenor, a problem which has been eliminated in the keyboard setting
by rewriting the two upper voices. It is, however, promptly reintroduced
in a different form later in the measure, when the d in the tenor cannot
be sounded without first releasing the e in the soprano. Nonetheless, on
balance, Vosterman's treatment of both tablatures seems to show a better
understanding than Virdung's of what would be helpful to a beginning
student on the keyboard or lute.
The information that Virdung gives about instruments similarly leave
much to be desired. Vosterman, Agricola, and Luscinius provide us with
negative evidence on this matter in the form of their omission of virtually
every word of it; Praetorius, in the next century, makes his low opinion
completely explicit:
In some libraries a book may be found which was printed in quarto at Basel in
1511 and in which various ancient as well as various modern instruments are
depicted. But this book is not so very old, and nothing particular can be
learned from it about the use and nature of the instruments shown.60
This puts the matter a trifle strongly, since Musica getutscht does, in fact,
contain some information about instruments, but there is little of real value
aside from some remarks about the stringing of lutes and the range and
stringing of clavichords.
Even where Virdung says something that is obviously correct, the
context in which these nuggets of fact appear leads one to suspect that
they represent happy accidents rather than indications of any great exper-
tise on Virdung's part. Thus, while he is undoubtedly correct in stating
that a knowledge of clavichord playing is transferable to other keyboard
instruments, he is on far weaker ground when he says the same thing for
the lute with regard to playing the harp, psaltery, and geigen, and for the
recorder with regard to playing "all the other winds having finger
Lute tablature and left-hand technique are transferable to viol
nature of the German lute tablature that Virdung employs, in
intersection of each string and fret is assigned a different letter i
assigning letters only to the frets and positioning these letter
symbolic of the strings as in French tabulature, does not allo
eralization to instruments with different numbers of strings or di
tunings. And Virdung nowhere specifically mentions or pictur
six-string viols tuned in fourths around a central third like t
which his tablature applies."Y Consequently, although the remark a
relationship of bowed-string playing to lute playing is indeed true
class of geigen, it lacks the breadth of application that Virdung
to it and seems really to be an uninformed and misleading gene
as are the obviously erroneous references to the harp and the p
The problem with transferring wind techniques from the r
similar, since Virdung again ties his instructions quite closely to
ture. The recorder, with its thumbhole and seven fingerholes, h
fingered differently from the other woodwinds Virdung depi
first part of the treatise, so that his fingering chart and intab
structions cannot be directly applied to any of these other ins
Accordingly, what appears at first to be an insightful commen
large group of instruments, on closer examination again turns
uninformed and invalid.
These misconceptions about the transferability of lute and recorder
technique may have resulted, in part, from Virdung's lack of specific
knowledge of instrumental playing, but they may also have their roots in
his classification system, which shows the weaknesses of his intuitive and
subjective approach. Presumably on the basis of the time-honored distinc-
tions embodied in Psalm I5o, Virdung divides all instruments into three
classes, corresponding approximately to chordis, organo, and timpanis
61 ". .. was du vff dem clauicordio lernest / das hast du dafi git vnd leichtlich
spilen zii lernen / vff der Orgeln / vff dem Clauizymell / vff dem virginale / vnnd
vff allen andern clauierten instrumenten / Was du daii wff der lauten greiffen vnd
zwicken lernest / das hast du leicht vff der harpfen / oder vff dem psalterio oder
vff der geigen zii lernen / Was du dafi vff der fli6ten lernest / das hast du darnach /
vff allen andern gel6cherten pfeiffen dester lychter zii lernen" (fol. Ei).
62 This tablature, the invention of which Virdung credits to Conrad Paumann, is
an extension of one originally created for an instrument having five courses of strings
and expanded by the use of capital letters or other symbols to an instrument with
an added bottom course (see Willi Apel, The Notation of Polyphonic Music, 5th
ed. [Cambridge, Mass., 19531, p. 74). Except for these added capitals, the intersec-
tions of the strings and frets are labeled consecutively in alphabetical order proceed-
ing from the second course across the first fret and continuing across each of the
frets in the same manner. Any instrument having fewer strings would therefore
employ different symbols for the same intersections after the second fret. Virdung's
clein Geigen has only three strings; his gross Geigen, on the other hand, is depicted
as having nine strings, and it is difficult to imagine how such a tablature could be
applied to it at all.
(fol. Bi). His stringed instruments are subdivided into four groups (fols.
Bi-Bijv): those with keyboards (clavichord, virginal, clavicytherium, clavi-
cimbalum, hurdy-gurdy), those with fretted necks (lute, gross Geigen,
quintern), those with individual strings for each note (harp, psaltery,
dulcimer), and those with three strings at most and no fret (clein Geigen,
tromba marina), which apparently are separated from the lute and gross
Geigen in large part because Virdung thought them "useless instru-
ments."63
Virdung divides the wind instruments (fols. Biij-Civ) into two groups
-those blown by the performer and those blown by bellows-and sub-
divides the first group into those instruments having finger holes (shawm,
flute, recorder, krumhorn, cornett, etc.) and those without finger holes
(trombone, three types of trumpet). The bellows-blown instruments are,
of course, organs of various kinds, and a more systematic mind than Vir-
dung's would have paralleled this group to the keyboard instruments that
comprise his first subgroup of stringed instruments, or might even have
considered the question of the bladder pipe and the bagpipe, which share
with the bellows-blown instruments the ability to sustain a tone beyond
the capacity of the human lungs and (in the case of the bagpipe) to play
more than one musical line at a time.
Virdung's third major class of instruments consists of "those made of
metal or other sounding material" that "sound like the hammer on the
anvil,"64 that is, bells of various kinds. Excluded from the formal classifi-
cation scheme but pictured and described immediately after its presenta-
tion are the instruments from pseudo-Jerome (fols. Cij'-Diij), which take
nearly forty percent of the space Virdung devotes to his introductory sur-
vey of instruments. This discussion is interrupted by a consideration of a
group of drums of Virdung's time (dismissed as inventions of the devil
and destructive of sweet melody and all music),65 and followed (fols.
Diijv-Diiij) by a group of miscellaneous wind instruments and noisemak-
ers that Virdung dismisses as unfit for the performance of proper music.66
Here again Virdung is more descriptive and opinionated than systematic,
although the pictures he presents of these instruments, most notably the
one of a snail-shaped horn-the ancestor of Mersenne's cor d plusieurs
tours-are of considerable interest and importance.
The question of the value and reliability of Virdung's pictures is col-
63". .. ich sye auch fiir onniitze instrumenta achte vfi halte / als dye cleynen
geigen vnnd das Trumscheit" (fol. Bij').
64 "Das dritt geschlecht ist aller d' instrumit / die v6 den metallk oder ander
clingendE materien werden gemacht" (fol. Bi); 'Das ist der lay instrument aller
sampt / welche clyngen als die himer vff dem ampos" (fol. Cij).
65 ,. . v. nd ich glaub vnd halt es fiir war der teiifel hab die erdacht vnd gemacht
dann gantz kein hotlseligkeit [sic] / noch guits daran ist / sunder ein vertempfung /
vnnd ein nydert ruckung aller siissen melodeyen vnd der gantzen Musica" (fol. Di).
&6 "Dise instrument alle / wye dye genennet synd / order namen gewinnen
nmochten / dye acht ich alle fiir g6ckel spill" (fol. Diiij).
ored by the fact that most of them are quite clearly rev
right, as occurs naturally in the printing process if
picture on the printing block without taking the pre
the drawing first. This matter has excited consider
speculation on the part of historians of instruments, esp
to account for the perpetuation of the reversal in Lus
lished twenty-five years later, by which time it shou
to realize that something was wrong and to have corr
petuation is, however, readily explicable because, as
cinius printed his illustrations from Virdung's origin
harder to imagine why Schoensperger's blockcutter
work in so many other ways, did not merely copy
tions onto his blocks, thereby producing a second r
have corrected Virdung's original error. He did not
Schoensperger's pirated version slavishly reproduces t
its essentially word-for-word reproduction of the or
Virdung's illustrations of keyboard instruments pr
their own beyond those of simple reversal. It is obv
sentations of the clavichord (Fig. 9a), the positive or
cytherium (Fig. 9b) are reversed. But what is one to
(Fig. 9c) and clavicmbalum (Fig. 9d), which appe
instruments except for a reversal of the arrangement of
rectangular case and the fact that the clavicimbalum
the virginal only thirty-eight? Adding to this confu
pect a clavicimbalum to be a wing-shaped harpsichor
tangular instrument at all. Virdung's text sheds no l
since he precedes the pictures of the clavichord and
with no comment whatever. On folio Biv, where he
therium, the supposed clavicimbalum, and the hurd
it is not at all clear to what instrument the text appl
that it had gut strings rather than metal ones.68 Luscini
tangle by using both of these illustrations and interc
of the clavicimbalum cut with that of the clavicitherium
does not translate the part of Virdung's text appeari
deals with the mysterious gut-strung instrument.
Agricola, in his turn, included copies of several of
illustrations in the original edition of his Musica inst
67See especially Jacob Eisenberg, "Virdung's Keyboard
Society Journal, XV (1962), 87-88.
68 "Das ist eben als das virginale / allein es hat ander sait
schaue vnd negel die es harpfen machen hat auch federk
neiilich erfunden vnd ich hab ir nir eins gesehen" [this is par
reproduced in Fig. 3a]. Stradner, "Bemerkungen," pp. 8o-8i,
long-standing arguments in favor of this description referrin
therium or to the clavicimbalum, suggests instead that Virdu
to none of the instruments depicted on the page.
(fhuicotbti3
'---
(a)
C[laIftcrii
(b) r
Birginal
(c)
(d)
.lanicimlallri
Figure 9. Representations of keyboard instruments from Musica getutscbt: (a) clavi-
chord; (b) clavicytherium; (c) virginal; (d) clavicimbalum
Olanicorfunm.
C~auiciterium.
(b)
rlfcvmbalIum.
(d) _