George Dubourg - The Violin

A recent French writer, Monsieur C. Desmarais, in an ingenious inquiry into the Archology of the Violin, takes us back to the ancient Egyptians, to whom he assigns the primitive violin, under the name of the chélys , and suggests that its form must have resulted from a studious inspection of one of the heavenly constellations!

M. Baillot, in his Introduction to the Méthode de Violon du Conservatoire , speculating on the origin of the instrument, has a passage which, in English, runs thus: —

“It is presumed to have been known from the remotest times. On ancient medals, we behold Apollo represented as playing upon an instrument with three strings, similar to the violin. Whether it be to the God of Harmony that we should attribute the invention of this instrument, or whether it claim some other origin, we cannot deny to it somewhat that is divine.

“The form of the violin bears a considerable affinity to that of the lyre, and thus favors the impression of its being no other than a lyre brought to perfection, so as to unite, with the facilities of modulation, the important advantage of expressing prolonged sounds – an advantage which was not possessed by the lyre.”

This is pretty and fanciful, but far too vague to be at all satisfactory. Apollo might appear to play on an instrument, in which antiquarian ingenuity might discover some latent resemblance to the violin; but where was his bow ? M. Baillot has not ventured to assert that he had one – and we may safely conclude that he had not , if we except the bow that was his admitted attribute. As for the affinity to the lyre, it is indeed as faint as the most determined genealogist, studious of an exercise, could wish.

It has been remarked, by some curious observer, that, among the range of statues at the head of the canal at Versailles, an Orpheus is seen (known by the three-headed dog that barks between his legs), to whom the sculptor has given a violin , upon which he appears scraping away with all the furor of a blind itinerant. But is the statue, or its original, an antique? We may rest in safe assurance that it is a modern-antique; as much so, as the ingenious figment of Nero’s fiddling a capriccio to the roaring accompaniment of the flames of Rome!

As for the fidicula of the Romans (or rather, of the Latin Dictionary), it is evidently, as far as it has been made to apply to the fiddle, no legitimate family name. The violin very positively disowns all relationship with it, and leaves it to settle its claims with the guitar .

As far as the mere name goes, however, it is not impossible that a connection may exist, and that the word-hunting Skinner may be right in deriving the Anglo-Saxon word fithele from the older German vedel , and thence from the Latin fidicula , which, it is hardly necessary to state, was any thing but a fiddle, and therefore “had no business” to lend its appellation in the way here noticed.

On the whole, as regards the pretensions alleged on the side of the ancients for the honor of having had the violin in existence among them, it may be safely remarked, that, if nothing like the bow , which is obviously connected most essentially with the expression and character of the violin, can be traced to their days, the violin itself, à fortiori , cannot be said to have belonged to them; and all those questionable shapes which have been speculatively put forward as possible fiddles, must be thrown back again into the field of antiquarian conjecture, to await some other appropriation. The following remarks by Dr. Burney may be taken as a fair summary of all that needs to be observed on this head:

“The ancients seem to have been wholly unacquainted with one of the principal expedients for producing sound from the strings of modern instruments: this is the bow . It has long been a dispute among the learned whether the violin, or any instrument of that kind, as now played with a bow , was known to the ancients. The little figure of Apollo, playing on a kind of violin, with something like a bow, in the Grand Duke’s Tribuna at Florence, which Mr. Addison and others supposed to be antique, has been proved to be modern by the Abbé Winkelmann and Mr. Mings: so that, as this was the only piece of sculpture reputed ancient, in which any thing like a bow could be found, nothing more remains to be discussed relative to that point.” – ( Hist. of Music , 4to. vol. i, p. 494.)

The Welch, who are notoriously obstinate genealogists, have not failed to mark the Fiddle for their own, and to assign him an origin, at some very distant date, among their native mountains. In support of this pretension, they bring forward a very ugly and clownish-looking fellow, with the uncouth name of crwth . This creature certainly belongs to them, and is so old as to have sometimes succeeded in being mistaken, in this country, for the father of the violin tribe – a mistake to which the old English terms of crowd for fiddle, and crowder for fiddler, seem to have lent some countenance. A little investigation, however, shows us that it was merely the name, and not the object itself, that we borrowed, for a time, from our Welch neighbours; and that, by a metonymy, more free than complimentary, we fastened the appellation of crowd upon the violin , already current among us by transmission from the continent. The confusion thence arising has occasioned considerable misapprehension: nor has the effect of it been limited to our own island boundaries; for a French writer, M. Fétis, in one of his Letters on the State of Music in England, reports the error, without any apparent consciousness of its being such. Let us quote his passage in English:

“The cruth is a bowed instrument, which is thought to have been the origin of the viola and violin. Its form is that of an oblong square , the lower part of which forms the body of the instrument. It is mounted with four strings, and played on like a violin, but is more difficult in the treatment, because, not being hollowed out at the side, there is no free play for the action of the bow.”

“What!” exclaims the enquiring virtuoso, “is this box of a thing, this piece of base carpentry, this formal oblong square, to be supposed the foundation of that neat form and those graceful inflections which make up the ‘complement externe’ of what men call the violin? Can dulness engender fancy – and can straight lines and right angles have for their lineal descendant the ‘line of beauty?’” The soberest person would answer, this is quite unlikely; the man of taste would deny it to be in the nature of things. No, no; our Cambrian codger may have been a tolerable subject in his way – a good fellow for rough work among the mountains, and instrumental enough in the amusement of capering rusticity – but he must not be allowed, bad musician though we freely admit he may have been, to give himself false airs , and to assume honors to which his form and physiognomy give the lie. Let him be satisfied to be considered “ sui generis ,” unless he would rashly prefer illustrious illegitimacy, and be styled the base violin . 1 Footnote_1 M. Cartier, Musicien de la Chapelle du Roi, announced for publication, several years ago, an “Essai Historique sur le Violon, et sur les progrès de l’Art Musical, depuis le moyen age.” This announcement was accompanied by the following observations: – “An Historical Essay upon the Violin may, at first sight, appear to many to possess but little interest. They will not readily believe that it is capable of exciting their liveliest curiosity, and of presenting an object of real utility, inasmuch as an attempt will be made to lead the mind from the mere mechanism of the art to a moral and scientific view of the subject, and to a consideration how far the beau idéal of music is indebted to the violin. The author proves that this instrument was unknown to the ancients , and derives its origin from the Druids of Gaul , from whom it afterwards passed to the bards of Scotland – that, from this obscure beginning, it made its way through the dark ages, with slow but certain success, till the beginning of the 17th century, when it attained the first rank among instruments.” – ( Harmonicon , 1827.) I have not been able to discover whether this promised treatise has yet seen the light. The idea of tracing the instrument to the Druids of Gaul seems more romantic than rational; but it would be something gained for la gloire de la France , could such a theory be substantiated.