MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS - online book
The History And Development Of Musical Instruments From The Earliest Times.
| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
94 MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.
is no reason to suppose that it existed in England. Howbeit, the Welsh crwth (Anglo-saxon, crudh ; English, crowd) is only known as a species of fiddle closely resembling the rotta, but having a fingerboard in the middle of the open frame and being strung with only a few strings; while the rotta had sometimes above twenty strings. As it may interest the reader to examine
the form of the modern crwth we give a woodcut of it. Edward Jones, in his M Musical and poetical relicks of the Welsh bards," records that the Welsh had before this kind of crwth a three-stringed one called " Crwth Trithant," which was, he says, " a sort of violin, or more properly a rebeck." The three-stringed crwth was chiefly used by the inferior class of bards ; and was probably the Moorish fiddle which is still the favourite instrument of the itinerant bards of the Bretons in France, who call it rcbck. The Bretons, it will be remembered, are close kinsmen of the Welsh.
A player on the crwth or crowd (a crowder) from a bas-relief on the under part of the seats of the choir in Worcester cathedral (engraved p. 95) dates from the twelfth or thirteenth century; and we give (p. 96) a copy of an illumination from a manuscript in the Bibliotheque royale at Paris of the eleventh century. The player wears a crown on his head ; and in the original some musicians placed at his side are performing on the psalterium and other instruments. These last are figured with uncovered heads; whence M. de Coussemaker concludes that the crout was consi-
 |
||