Micrologus; Praetorius: On Instruments

83-04 PRAETORIUS: ON INSTRUMENTS

Oftentimes, I will mention the name of a musical instrument from the Renaissance, and by now I expect that you are becoming familiar with the sound of many of them. But I thought it would be useful to do a quick survey of Renaissance instruments using the writing of the musical encyclopedist Michael Praetorius as a point of departure, and hoping to gain a little more perspective on the rich palette of colors available to the Renaissance instrumentalist.

Praetorius published a book about instruments in 1618 in Wolfenbüttel, in northern Germany, as the second volume of a three-volume encyclopedia entitled Syntagma Musicum. And while this might seem late for a work about Renaissance instruments—most experts place the start of the Baroque era around 1600—the instruments Praetorius describes are the same ones which were in use throughout much of the 16th century.

We begin with his general definition of instruments: “Musical Instruments may be described as the ingenious work of able and earnest artisans who devised them after much diligent thought and work, fashioned them out of good materials and designed them in the true proportions of art, such that they produce a beautiful accord of sound and can be employed for the magnification of God and the fitting and proper entertainment of men.”

Praetorius makes it clear that single-line instruments—those which play only one note at a time—are normally played in consorts, or groups of instruments of the same type in a wide range of sizes. This is no doubt because of the contrapuntal nature of much Renaissance music in which each part is of equal importance and therefore most properly rendered as part of a homogeneous texture.

The best known consort instruments of the Renaissance are the recorders. Praetorius lists eight common sizes of recorder, ranging from what we would call "sopranino" down to a contrabass about seven feet long. In order to savor the full spectrum we will hear first a high consort performed by the Musicians of Swanne Alley, then a low consort featuring the Wiener Blockflötenensemble.

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Krummhorns are instruments which are similar to recorders in their fingering system, but are otherwise quite different. The name refers to the characteristic letter "J" shape of the instrument, and derives from an old German word meaning "curved"—same root as our English word "crumpled," by the way. Krummhorns use a double reed, like the modern oboe or bassoon, but unlike those instruments, the reed is not held between the lips, but rather encased in a wooden capsule at the top of the instrument. As Praetorius points out, it thus works more in the manner of the bagpipe by using the wind pressure in the chamber around the reed to start it vibrating. Krummhorns are devilishly difficult to play well, and an abundance of bad performances has made it the butt of many a joke. But there is nothing quite so stirring as a vigorous consort of Krummhorns, as in this performance by the Musicians of Swanne Alley.

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The reed instrument which was undoubtedly heard more than any other in the Renaissance was the shawm—at least that is the English name for it—Praetorius calls the treble instrument the schalmey, but the larger ones he terms Pommer, a corruption of the French word bombarde, meaning a "cannon." The sound is rather an assault on the ears, too, which made it the favored instrument for large gatherings, both indoors and out.

Two performances: the first with four shawms, all played by David Munrow, and the second with three shawms and, as often happened, a sackbut—the Renaissance trombone. The second selection is performed by members of the Case Western Reserve University Collegium Musicum.

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The sackbut also figures prominently in ensembles with the cornetto, or Zink, as Praetorius and his countrymen termed it (also known in England simply as the "cornet"). The cornetto is unusual in that it has no descendants among today's instruments: it is like a woodwind, in that it is essentially a tube with fingerholes to change the pitch; but what makes it unusual is that it produces the sound by means of a small trumpet-like mouthpiece. The name "cornetto" derives from corno, the horn from which the instruments were first made in the Middle Ages. The derivation of the word sackbut, on the other hand, comes from the old French verbs sacquer and bouter, which aptly describe the pulling and pushing arm motion of the player. An ensemble of sackbuts and cornetts demonstrated by His Majesties Sagbuts and Cornets.

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At the other end of their range, sackbuts were sometimes combined with another double reed instrument, the curtal or Dulzian. As Praetorius says:

“In their lower range and tone, dulcians are similar to the low shawms, though still quieter and softer; and perhaps it is from this loveliness of sound that they are called ‘dulcians’—from ‘dulcisonantes’, or sweetly sounding."

The dulzian seems to be the first woodwind instrument to be double-bored, that is, to have its trunk of wood bored through in two places with a connection at the bottom so that the tube doubles back on itself. It is thus like the modern bassoon which may have derived from it. Unlike the bassoon, but like so many Renaissance instruments, it was made in a family of sizes. Praetorius lists five, of which we will hear three in this performance by the Early Music Consort of London.

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Another double reed instrument and perhaps the most curious of all Renaissance instruments is the rackett or "rankett," or, as it later came to be calld for reasons which will be obvious in a moment, the "sausage bassoon."

Praetorius says:

“Racketts are quite short instruments, where they can be measured. Yet because their inside tubing is coiled around nine times, this amounts to the same as if the body were nine times as long as it actually is. Thus racketts produce a low sound like the largest shawm or dulzian.”

In sound, racketts are quite soft, almost as if one were blowing through a comb.

Praetorius prefers a rackett in combination with other instruments to a full consort of them, but for our purposes today, it is important to keep the listening experience undiluted! Again, here is the Early Music Consort of London.

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Praetorius was by profession himself an organist and he naturally gives considerable attention to organs in his treatise. Of one special type, related in sound to the racket, he says:

"The term 'regal' may apply to the reed stops generally found in the breastworks of the organ. But this term is also used in royal chapels to designate an instrument in the shape of a small and longish chest containing one or more ranks of reeds, with two sets of bellows attached in back. The regal can be made very soft by placing its cover on, and by taking it off it can be made low enough to sound clearly in a full and well-appointed ensemble of singers and players. It is heard with great pleasure before court banquets and at affairs of honor.”

[MUSIC: John Beckett of Musica Reservata, demonstrating a Regal]

The regal was somewhat exotic even in the Renaissance, however, partly because it was almost impossible to keep in tune. A much more widely used keyboard instrument was the clavichord. Praetorius recommends it for beginning keyboard players, in fact, precisely because it was so easy to keep in tune, and because it did not have the harpsichord's problem of breaking quills. Clavichords of the Renaissance were of the so-called "fretted" type, which is to say that each string could produce three or four different pitches by being struck in different places by metal tangents connected to the three or four corresponding keys. This meant that the number of strings necessary was kept to a minimum, but also that certain pitches could not be sounded simultaneously, since they used the same string. The real advantage to the clavichord was an expressive one: it was the only keyboard instrument in common use which could produce gradation of loud and soft through the touch of th player's finger.

[MUSIC: Bernard Brauchli demonstrates the delicacy of the clavichord]

The most popular of all keyboard instruments were of the plucked string type: the harpsichord, the virginals, and the spinet. In fact, Praetorius speaks out against these instruments being referred to simply by the term "instruments" and not by their proper names. One unique feature of his discussion of harpsichords is the mention of the arpichordum stop, in which metal tangents buzz against the strings as heard in the latter part of this next example.

[MUSIC: Christopher Hogwood playing a virginals fitted with an arpichordum stop]

The lute, or testudo as Praetorius subtitles it in reference to its tortoise-shaped back, needs no introduction.

Here is Jakob Lindberg.

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Praetorius says that mastery of the lute is the basis from which one learns all other similar stringed instruments. In this group he includes the viol, or viola da gamba, so called because even the smallest of these instruments is held between the legs rather than at the shoulder. How does the viol family differ from the violin family? In general terms, there are six strings instead of four, the fingerboard is fitted with frets, the soundholes are traditionally shaped like the letter "C" instead of "f", and the bow is held underhanded—that is, with the palm facing upwards.

[MUSIC: Les Filles de Sainte Colombe show us how it is done]

Praetorius holds the violin in less esteem than the viol and considers it primarily a folk instrument, which indeed it was in Germany during the Renaissance. He does allow, however, that the violin, along with a lute, bass viol, flute, and the plucked wire strung citterns and bandora—in other words, a Broken Consort or English Consort—"makes an especially beautiful effect and gives forth an appealing and lovely resonance."

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Cradle of Conceites demonstrating the Broken Consort and concluding this look at Renaissance instruments through the eyes of the musical encyclopedist, Michael Praetorius.