a musical instrument, supposed to have been a kind of lyre, or a harp with twelve strings. I think were on the same page here. Below, the earliest complete image, a clavicembalum, shown next to a psaltery which was half its inspiration, the other half being the organ. The levitating instrument is an artistic convention, since we see it in paintings from the middle ages right through to the baroque period. The bowed psaltery is a type of psaltery or zither that is played with a bow. Is this correct? The instrument is apparently strung in courses of 2 strings. ), The Berkeley psaltery illustration (right) and its commentary gives a range of an octave and a major third, A to c. no indication of either unison or octave stringing, and the shorter courses are single-strung. Standing strapless psaltery players are seen again and again in iconography. "[4] The psaltery was originally made from wood, and relied on natural acoustics for sound production. All the best. Two medieval writers recommend silver strings for the psaltery, with bronze or brass and even gold mentioned as alternatives. With thanks toPaul Baker for being a sounding board and prodding my thinking on the Memling psaltery; to Arnold den Teuling of Assen, Netherlands, for permission to use his photograph of the Minden altarpiece for more on this image, see Arnold den Teulings website and to the Bodemuseum, Berlin, for their unrestricted photography policy. I am now in the process of correcting that in the main text. Lutenist John Dowland, for example, wrote in 1610 that octave stringing on the melody courses of a lute was irregular to the rules of Musicke (in his introduction to his son Robert Dowlands publication, A Varietie of Lute Lessons). The tuning is often held in root, tonic and dominant, or root and fifth. This suggests that, since the psalterion retained medieval practices in several other ways, it retained the octave and fifth stringing of the psaltery. I wrote a book, _The Hammered Dulcimer: A History_ (Scarecrpw Press, 2001), in which I argued that the French/Burgundian/English dulcimer developed from the pigs-head psaltery, and Im glad to see that you came to a similar conclusion. psaltery Due to the different relationships in the sequence in the different octaves, only the upper octave has a c#. This is a low string tuned a fourth below the adjacent string rather than diatonic step down as with the rest of the psalterion. Since we cannot know the comparative gauges of the strings, it may be that the shorter strings were tuned in octaves to the longer adjacent strings, so the same principle could apply to playing or avoiding octaves. None of the instruments in the Cantigas are labelled so, with a range of names for similar or same instruments, we cant know what the players in the cantigas called their instrument (and some remain nameless to this day). None of the instruments seems to have a fretted string or strings at the base, in the way that some 19thC and later instruments do. I came upon this while chasing a description I found in a mediaeval antiphon, of the Virgin Mary accompanying herself on a psaltery of ten strings while singing the Magnificat. The hammered dulcimer and related instruments such as the santur, cimbalom, yangqin, and khim, appear very similar to psalteries and it is often hard to tell which one historical images represent. Top left is the psalterion as portrayed in Marin Mersennes, The bottom row above shows three other examples of dulcimers lacking a central bridge, confirming Mersennes undivided courses: from, By the time of the beautifully illuminated, Standing strapless psaltery players are seen again and again in iconography. Could it be that Memling painted a new style of psaltery, modified with a hugely expanded pitch range to play in the English countenance? The bottom row above shows three other examples of dulcimers lacking a central bridge, confirming Mersennes undivided courses: from De mulieribus claris On famous women a 15th century French copy (BnF Franais 599) of the work by Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, first published in 1374; from the Psalter of Henry VIII, c. 1540-1541; and from the concert tapestry, c. 1500, now in Cluny Museum. except for a single bottom course, possibly a bourdon. The Burgundian physician, Henri Arnaut, gave plans for such an instrument (among others) in a treatise written ca. Music Administrative Office: Researcher Violet Alford said that it was a mistake to include the stringed drum under the name of psalterium, the latin name of a strummed or plucked instrument. If you have references for other instruments, Id love to know the references. The psaltery first appeared in Europe in the 11, Its not possible to say whether double and triple strings were in unisons or octaves, but there is arguably a very strong indication in a later work. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. The logical choice, for reasons that will soon become clear, would be that the shorter strings are natural and the longer strings flats, so that the group of 4 strings together are (working from our left to right), for example, 2 x e flat / 2 x e natural, 2 x d flat / 2 x d natural, and so on. Paris, Bibliothque nationale, MS Latin 7295. Not a harp, as the sound-box blocks the viewer from seeing through the instrument; also it has sound holes. According to Jeremy Montagu, the string drums were in continuous use through the middle ages, seen in iconography. From China, Qing Dynasty, 18th century CE. You have done an excellent job of assembling these illustrations. See more. We have no precise details for which courses were in octaves, double octaves, fifths and unisons, but technical necessity yields some of the information. So it seems that, in the 13th and 14th centuries, some psalteries had uneven string spacing for placement; and others had shorter single strings, but not always for the same purpose: shorter either for accidentals, as Berkeley shows, or for tuning courses an octave or a fifth apart with the option of playing only the fundamental, as Memling implies. Musician Ccile Nuez plays Tambourin de Barn and one-handed flute (flabuta) in, "Some notes on the Pyrenean Stringed Drum with five musical examples", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "The Stringed Drum and the 16th Century Music: New Iconographical Sources", https://doi.org/10.3989/anuariomusical.2011.66.122, "Mixel ETXEKOPAR & Franois ROSS Une certaine Soule musique", "Instruments de la Msica Tradicional Basca", "Flutes et Tambourin de Cordes, Flabutas et Tamborin". The historical evidence of troubadour instruments (and the international counterparts of troubadours) Ive seen in iconography and historical writing is the vielle, harp, gittern, pipe and tabor, bagpipe and portative organ. [4], It has 5 or six strings tuned in 5ths.[2]. Ttun-ttun performance featured by M.Etxekopar, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tambourine_de_Bearn&oldid=1145338700, Wikipedia articles incorporating the Cite Grove template, Wikipedia articles incorporating the Cite Grove template without a link parameter, Articles with unsourced statements from November 2012, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0, string drum, tambourin de Gascogne, tambourin cordes, Pyrenean string drum, ttun-ttun, toun-toun, psalterio salmo, chicotn, This page was last edited on 18 March 2023, at 16:31. It may be that if one learns to hold and balance the instrument from the beginning then the practicalities of standing and playing, supporting the psaltery only with the arms, are unproblematic, but the iconography suggests otherwise, often showing impossibly suspended instruments with no means of support. Im working on electronics to make this a MIDI controller as well as an instrument in its own right. https://artscimedia.case.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/146/2015/04/14233251/09.psaltery.mp3. A woman playing a triangular harp, which was called by "Jewish, Christian and Greek sources" a. Triangular psaltery. Copyright 2023 Iowa State University of Science and Technology. Shapes included "triangular, trapezoidal, semitrapezoidal, wing shaped, or harp shaped". Still prominent in the music of Arabic-speaking countries, it is played with finger plectra and is normally triple strung. Psalteries still played in European folk music include the Finnish kantele and its Baltic relatives, among them the Estonian kannel, which is bowed rather than plucked, and the Russian gusli. Its intended to play contemporary (Philip Glass, et al) as well as early music. Perhaps the most important of Memlings paintings for musicians and luthiers is his triptych altarpiece for the Santa Mara la Real monastery in Njera, Spain (now in the Koninklijk Museum Voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, Belgium), showing six angel singers and ten angel musicians. It may even be that this was a radical, new, fully chromatic psaltery. Three shapes of psalteries (bottom row) from the Cantigas de Santa Maria, Cdice Rico. Its fully chromatic with a single string per note, strung with Nylgut and has a 62-note range (C2-C#7). 515-294-6409 fax However, if we take the wider string spacing here as representative of reality and if is the key word here it may indicate groups of 3 single diatonic courses followed by gaps to aid the players placement, akin to the gaps shown on the Berkeley psaltery. The Hebrew word nebhel, so rendered, is translated "viol" in Isaiah 5:12 (RSV, "lute"); 14:11.In Daniel 3:5 Daniel 3:7 Daniel 3:10 Daniel 3:15, the word thus rendered is Chaldaic, pesanterin, which is supposed to be a word of Greek origin denoting an instrument of the In the King James Bible "psaltery", and its plural, "psalteries", are used to translate several words from the Hebrew Bible whose meaning is now unknown. WebThe psaltery is a box zither chordophone of Medieval Europe. All the strings on a psaltery are played open, as on a harp or on the inside of a harpsichord or piano, so there are no frets. Madrid, Prado, no. Extreme caution should be exercised with this particular painter, though, as the details on the. Omissions? The longer courses are arranged in twos, so we have pitches A B then a gap, c d then a gap, and so on. Part 2: Turning monophony into polyphony, is a compendium of music theory, including drawings and tunings for the, The psaltery illustration in the Berkeley theory, (As with all pictures, click for larger view. [2] From the 1970s on, the instrument has shown renewed vitality. Since there is a minimum optimal length of a string combined with its pitch beyond which it reaches breaking point, the higher courses must have been in unison if we presume that octave stringing always adds a string at the upper octave. The pitches for the first octave are as follows, with the shorter strings in square brackets: We can see that, in order to retain the unbroken sequence of double course, double course, followed by shorter single course accidental, the two octaves follow a different sequence: the lower B, There is a detail on the double-strung psaltery painted by Italian artist Sano di Pietro in his. Apparently invented in the 15th century, it came into use in the Pyrenees, where it took hold. There are earlier Italian depictions of psalteries with strings in groups of 3 with much closer spacing, indicating courses of 3 strings, and this image may likewise indicate a triple course strung in 3 unisons or, as indicated by Mersenne, fundamental and 2 at the octave, or fundamental and fifth (1+2 or 2+1), or fundamental-fifth-octave. So if you look at the half-trapezoidal psalteries with 2-4 strings per course, I think those are half-canons. Not only are there 61 strings counting from the left bridge, there is an arc of 22 points from left to right across the longer strings, attached to each of which is another string coming from the right hand bridge (from our perspective, left hand for the player), giving a shorter vibrating length and therefore a higher pitch than each adjacent string. You seem to be describing the modern concert zither, which has a fretboard next to the courses. Thirdly, there is another hark back:the strings may also be played with the quill or the fingers, like the Harpe, Mandore & Cistre [cittern], in other words, as well as with hammers, the psalterion may still be played like a psaltery which, by 1635, had fallen into wide disuse for more than a century. All these devices were attempts to keep pace with the creation of the first keyboard psaltery, the clavicembalum, which led ultimately to one of the most important instruments of the 19th and 20th centuries. Iconography shows a variety of psaltery stringing practices, strung singly or in double or triple courses to strengthen and embolden the sound. Wikipedia isutheatre@iastate.edu. of the Psaltery There is another feature, unique to this psaltery in iconography, about which we can only make educated guesses. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. Cleveland Museum of Art. Paul Hillier, voice with Andrew Lawrence-King, harp and psaltery. The longer courses are arranged in twos, so we have pitches A B then a gap, c d then a gap, and so on. I want to tread really cautiously here. So this leads us to the possibility of believing Memlings literal representation of the stringing: the reason it is not possible to tell where one putative double or triple course ends and the next begins is because it is strung singly, until we reach the lowest 22 courses. The instrument was clearly very popular, appearing many times in iconography and literature. One thing you might have missed though is that the word psaltery isnt mediaeval in origin and doesnt come from the psalms specifically: the word psalterion/psalterium goes back to classical Greece and thence Rome, and was used in the Latin translation of the Bible (for example in Psalm 32 in the Vulgate=33 in English Bibles to refer to a ten-stringed instrument used to accompany sacred singing in the Old Testament). I think I was probably splitting hairs! Its regular appearance in manuscript iconography, church iconography and in Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales are evidence of its wide use and appeal. psaltery, (from Greek psaltrion: harp), musical instrument having plucked strings of gut, horsehair, or metal stretched across a flat soundboard, often trapezoidal but also rectangular, triangular, or wing-shaped. Since the gaps within courses are largely consistent, this is theoretically less likely to be a result of inaccurate painting. In the 15th century, we find the first evidence for a kind of mechanized psaltery the harpsichord. I have since replaced the Memling pictures with much higher quality renderings, but you have spotted that I didnt go back and revise the text in terms of what is now visible: hitch pins are clear in higher definition. There is a detail on the double-strung psaltery painted by Italian artist Sano di Pietro in his Assumption of the Virgin, 1448-52, which shows irregular spacing between courses in an apparently deliberate scheme. The string drum or Tambourin de Barn (in German) is a long rectangular box zither beaten with a mallet. In the sometimes confusing nomenclature of early instruments, the psalterion was not a psaltery, but the name for a nearly triangular harp in classical Greece and, by the timeMersenne was writing, a hammer dulcimer (which is unrelated to the modern Appalachian or lap dulcimer). HISTORY OF THE PLUCKED PSALTERY The instrument, probably of Middle Eastern origin in late Classical times, reached Europe in the 12th century as a variety of the trapezoidal Arabic psaltery, or qnn. I wonder if the psaltery is in any way related to the (far, far later) autoharp. It has a flat soundboard over which a variable number of strings are stretched. Psalteries are members of the zither family, instruments having strings extended across an armless, neckless frame or holder; non-Western psalteries are thus sometimes referred to as zithers. Only the mid to low range can therefore have been in octaves. The modified psalteries shown by the Berkeley manuscript before 1361, Memling in the 1480s, the. That it appears nowhere else in iconography suggests the idea was either short-lived, localised, or both. Thus, Nebuchadnezzar's idolatrous ensemble included the Aramic psantria. In the middle rectangular example, it is impossible to tell. 515-294-2624 The Burgundian physician, Henri Arnaut, gave plans for such an instrument (among others) in a treatise written ca. Its an intriguing instrument, and appears to show an attempt to chromaticise the instrument before it died out altogether, but its precise function is speculation and there are clearly other interpretations. Like most other instruments of the time, the psaltery had no specific repertory, but was used to play whatever music the occasion demanded. A number of courses together tuned in octaves and fifths would produce parallel octaves and parallel fifths, a medieval practice long since generally considered unmusical. WebThe instrument, probably of Near Eastern origin in late Classical times, reached Europe in the 12th century as a variety of the trapezoidal Arabic psaltery, or qanun. It provides evidence that the practice of increasingly adding musica ficta affected the design of the psaltery, becoming neither purely diatonic nor fully chromatic, but diatonic plus those notes most needed for musica ficta. Psaltery definition, an ancient musical instrument consisting of a flat sounding box with numerous strings which are plucked with the fingers or with a plectrum. Qanun Psaltery. Not only did the psalterion replicate the medieval bourdon of a more-than-diatonic step down; it could have been played like its predecessor, the medieval psaltery; it was shown by Mersenne as a purely diatonic instrument when they had fallen out of favour; and it employed octave stringing which,by 1635, had fallen into disuse on any melody course of any instrument. In contrast with the centuries-old plucked psaltery, the bowed psaltery appears to be a 20th-century invention. The 6 strings (3 sets) are most often tuned in octaves that match the keynote of the tabor pipe, and can be played pianissimo as well as forte. The latter may be explained by louder quill playing the tune and quieter flesh or nail playing the bourdon drone, and by the high left hand positions seen below on the top row, second and third images. Having such a bourdon or drone string was a feature of the medieval, Italian painter Tommaso del Mazza, known as. The first two illustrations that you show in the Cantigas de Santa Maria are of the canon and half canon; the Del Mazza painting is that of a half canon, and resembles the qalun played by Uighurs today. Hello, Paul, and thank you for your interesting response. The psaltery (psalterion, saltere, sauterie, Psalterium, Psalter, salterio) is an ancient instrument seen in many forms. 1490. While psalteries had largely died out in Europe by the 19th century, the salterio remained common in Mexico well into the twentieth century and is still played in some regional styles. Mersenne was clearly a fan of the psalterion, writing 1,000 words about it, including its structure, stringing, tuning, temperament, playing techniques, and tablature. Angel musician from the Reliquary of St Ursula by Hans Memling (ca.1489). Triangular psaltery, Palatine Chapel, ca. Ancient Greece with possible input from Egypt and nearby Asia. Such an arrangement would certainly have been a sensory aid for the player, to give placement. Now they are only made in Germany. The author drew an instrument which strongly suggests a psaltery with a keyboard (see right), though the keyboard is only partially drawn. First Online: 01 January 2010 3261 Accesses Abstract The terms psaltery and zither are somewhat interchangeable. The oldest extant kanteles are dated to between the 12th and 14th century, and it doesnt get a mention in writing until the 16th century. The clear suggestion is that this is optional, and contemporaneous iconography confirms the variety in bridge numbers and placement he states. This would add versatility to the instrument, as fifths could then be added only when appropriate to the music or to gain a particular effect, and avoided at other times.