I visited the Bate Collection on the last day before they closed for the move from St. Aldates to the new building in Jericho (named after one of the billionaires who co-funded the ongoing trumpocalypse, so I won't name it here). As they were desperate to clear out stuff from their shop, I helped by taking on the last 20 issues they had of the journal Early Music, which look like this:
The random issues span the years 1974 (the journal started in 1973) to 2004. The journal published four issues per year until recently - I am a bit worried that the most recent issue online dates from May 2024, so they may either be in trouble or just running late with their publication schedule?
I browsed through all 20 issue going backwards in time and it is amazing to observe how the field has moved in those three decades - starting with "what is a hurdy-gurdy?" and ending up discussing really subtle differences between medieval bows, or details of Renaissance notation on ten pages.
A few things I learned or noticed:
Small violins were a thing long before they were inflicted on children. As Margaret Downie Banks explained in November 1990 (vol 18, pp 588-596), violino piccolo is specified in early baroque compositions (including some by Bach even) in ways that suggest the violins were used like recorder consorts, with smaller instruments to reach the higher notes. This was useful because at the time the normal technique used by violinists didn't include higher positions. The chin rest hadn't been invented yet, and the ways of holding the instrument were all over the place, meaning that when you move up to higher positions you would have trouble coming back down (moving the hand away from the chin) without dropping the instrument. So people played first position only, plus a few extra notes that can be reached by stretching while the thumb stays in place. Like today's folk fiddlers. There isn't much explicit info on this from the time, because people who only knew this way of playing didn't know what they were missing. A key source is the violin instruction book published by Leopold Mozart (father of Wolfgang Amadeus), who noted in 1756 (just after what we now regard as the official end of the Baroque period) that small violins are no longer necessary, because players can now play higher notes by shifting their hand. He also mentions that the small instruments no longer needed by grown-ups could be useful in music education for children, although he doesn't whole-heartedly support this use.
Another article in August 1984 addresses the issue of early violinists not using higher positions from the point of view of fingerings marked in the scores. This article notes that the chin rest was invented by the composer Louis Spohr (1784-1859).
I am left wondering now if cellists / viola da gamba players discovered higher positions earlier than violinists, because they can move their left hand freely anyways. Will have to investigate.
An ad that appeared in October 1980 notes that "In 1522 the Croydon Waits were beheaded for performing crumhorn consorts on comb and paper while waiting for their instruments to be delivered." The ad goes on to reassure readers that in the 20th century this couldn't happen any more, as the waiting time for their crumhorns "has been reduced to a reasonable length."
I noticed that across the whole 20 issues with all the luscious illustrations, there isn't a single picture of a nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle) even though these instruments are present in medieval iconography. Doing a word search on the online archive, there appears to be only one mention of the word nyckelharpa in the entire corpus of the journal, and that was in the review of a recording where the instrument was used. Given the popularity of the instrument in Scandinavian folk today, I am puzzled as to why the Early Music crowd chose to completely ignore it. By contrast, hurdy-gurdies are well represented. Obviously, it is difficult to do stats based on the issues I have, as they are a negative selection, left behind by earlier visitors to the collection. Somebody may have picked all issues that had a viola da gamba on the cover. But the absence of nyckelharpas is a real thing.
In November 2003, we find the late Jeremy Montagu (1927-2020) reminding us that "trump" is another name for the Jew's harp. He wrote "it is a term of historical usage ... and today safe from any potentially offensive connotation, which many of us have adopted as a result." Those were the days.
In the same issue, there is an interesting article on Quantz's flute quartets which had been rediscovered recently.
Oh and I also learned that the early music festival Tage Alter Musik Herne is still going strong and happening each year in November. Back in the last century when we were spoilt rotten by the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg (held in magnificent historic venues matching the age of the music) we were a bit snobbish about the competition from the less lovely city of Herne, but now that I have a base in Dusseldorf, I could easily attend some of the concerts at Herne.
May add further discoveries as they turn up ...
