The Selection of Instruments

The ensembles Leones and Les haulz et les bas created the core of this Instrument Museum while recording the audio samples for the research project. The aim was for the users to get to know the instruments employed in the recordings as well as their sound characteristics and possibilities outside the context of an ensemble recording. The audio samples and the entries in the Instrument Museum are interlinked with each other, so that a particular instrument can be selected from an audio sample for individual viewing or, conversely, a single instrument can be followed and listened to in various ensemble combinations. Although the recordings of the two ensembles include a number of important instruments of the period, they are by no means exhaustive. This is why further examples from other recordings have been added to the museum. The instruments of the alta capella, omnipresent in the iconography of the time (e.g. » C. Musician Angels; » I. Instrumentalists at the Court of Maximilian I) – i.e. the ‘loud’ instrumental ensembles consisting, among other things, of shawm, bombard, slide trumpet and sackbut in various combinations – can be heard in the recordings of Les haulz et les bas: see, for example » Hörbsp. ♫ La la hö hö; » Hörbsp. ♫ Tandernaken; » Hörbsp. ♫ O rosa bella (four-part), as well as some of recordings by the Basel Domenico Project: e.g. » Hörbsp. ♫ Fortunosa (Seigneur Lyon); » Hörbsp. ♫ Reale & Saltarello. The ‘quiet’ instruments, which were used both as solo instruments and in various bassa capella combinations, can be heard in recordings by Ensemble Leones: e.g.  » Hörbsp. ♫ Freu dich, du weltlich creatúr; » Hörbsp. ♫ Soyt tart tempre) as well as in audio samples taken from other recordings, including La Mouvance (e.g. » Hörbsp. ♫ Maria, keusche muter zart, La Mouvance) and the Basel Domenico Project (» Hörbsp. ♫ Belreguardo). These include the vielle, lute, gittern, harp, dulcemelos (a special form of the late medieval hammered dulcimer) and transverse flute.

Certain special instruments that appear frequently in the iconography in various contexts have also been considered. These include pipe and tabor – a combination of the one-handed flute and drum – which was extremely important in the dance music of the period and was played by a single musician, as well as the bagpipes, which were often played in alta capella combinations. The frequently illustrated Jew’s harp or jaw harp has been included here as a representative of the instruments that Sebastian Virdung called ‘dorliche instrumenta’ (foolish instruments) in his 1511 publication and that “eyn ietlicher paur mag kennen” (‘any peasant will know’)[1], which included noisemakers and signalling instruments as well as those that could imitate animal sounds, such as bells, hunting horns, humming pots and bird whistles.

The Instrument Museum also contains two instruments of emerging humanism in Italy, whose musical practice was known in the Austrian regions, and  from the late 15th century particularly in centres such as Innsbruck: the lira da braccio (a Renaissance adaptation of the medieval vielle, which allowed chordal accompaniment and can be seen in the hands of Apollo in Albrecht Dürer’s Celtis Box, c. 1508) and the cetra (one of the few metal-strung instruments of the period and also an early ‘Orphean’ instrument).

Keyboard instruments play an important role in the iconography and especially in the preserved sources of instrumental music (» C. Organs and organ music; » C. Music for keyboard instruments). Most of the surviving tablatures from this period were written for keyboard instruments and set the standard for arrangements on other instruments. In the Instrument Museum, this is represented by the organ, the main public keyboard instrument, and the clavicytherium, an upright version of the clavicymbalum and, like the latter, an instrument for private use.

Iconography and contemporary accounts include a number of other important instruments not yet included in the Instrument Museum. The reason for this is that in most cases they were not part of the project recordings. For a few instrument families including the psaltery, there is also no significant modern tradition of reconstructing instruments and playing techniques.

Also missing here is the recorder (which appears in iconography from the 14th century onwards, both as a solo instrument and in ensembles, usually made up of several recorders)[2], and a few other keyboard instruments, including the clavicymbalum (invented by Hermann Poll (» G. Hermann Poll) in 1397) and the clavichord. The chekker (French: eschaquier, German: Schachtbrett) is occasionally mentioned in connection with keyboard instruments. It is thought to have been a form of table psaltery played with quills. Another lacuna in the museum’s collection is the area of percussion instruments (drums, timpani, frame drums, bells, etc.), which were mainly used for military, dance and processional music, i.e. repertoires for which few musical sources have survived from the late Middle Ages. The Instrument Museum is not intended to be an encyclopaedic compendium. However, future additions should include some of the instruments listed above.