It is interesting to notice the wording of
Menenius's description of this stage music. 'The trumpets, sackbuts,
psalteries, and fifes, Tabors and cymbals.' The 'sackbut' was merely
our modern slide trombone, while the rest of these instruments were in
common use in the 16th century, except the Psaltery, which Kircher (b.
1601) says is the same as the Nebel of the Bible. The picture he gives
is remarkably like the dulcimers which may be seen and heard outside
public-houses to this very day, _i.e._, a small hollow chest, with the
strings stretched across it. An instrument of this kind could be
played with the fingers, like a harp, or with a plectrum, like a
zither, or with two little knob-sticks, like the dulcimer. Mersennus
(b. 1588) also identifies the Psaltery with the Dulcimer.
In the text, the Hautboy is only named once, in _H. 4. B_ III, ii,
332, near the end of Falstaff's soliloquy, on old men and lying, where
he says that Shallow was such a withered little wretch that _the case
of a treble hautboy_ was a mansion for him, a court.
The 'treble' hautboy corresponds with our modern instrument, and was
the smallest in size of the hautboy tribe, of which only two now
survive--viz., the Oboe proper, and its cousin, which is a fifth lower
in pitch, and correspondingly larger, and which has curiously picked
up the name of Corno Inglese, Cor Anglais, or English Horn.
Pages:
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160