A Gallery of Sounds

In addition to its function as a kind of extended glossary for the audio samples, the Instrument Museum also serves other purposes. It offers an ‘acoustic gallery’ of music in the late Middle Ages, from the private music-making of the urban and aristocratic classes (» I. Music and ceremony in Maximilian’s Innsbruck; » I. Instrumentalists at the Court of Maximilian I) to the representative musical demonstrations in public spaces (» D. Royal Entry; » E. Musiker in der Stadt). Certain types of instruments were often combined to form specific ensembles. In addition to the well-known distinction between the alta (loud) and the bassa (soft) instruments, there were also preferred groupings within the latter, such as duos of vielles or lutes. The instruments in this museum can be found throughout Central and Western Europe in the late Middle Ages (such as the wind instruments of the alta capella and the vielle), but there are also instruments of more regional significance (such as the dulcemelos, which was more common in Austria than in other regions) or those associated with specific repertoires and milieus.

A significant part of the sound of a piece of music depends on the instruments used. It is therefore of considerable significance that no clear instrumentation directions are known for virtually any of the recorded audio samples. The choices of instrumentation made by the different ensembles have a substantial influence on the listener’s perception of a composition. It is an established fact that the alta capella did not only play signal and dance music, but also vocal polyphony on their instruments. As for the question of which instrument took on which function in these polyphonic settings, the most plausible solution proved to be the use of two instruments from the same family for the compositional core of cantus and tenor, namely shawm and tenor shawm (or pommer), in order to achieve an optimal sound blend. Additional voice parts could have been taken over by other instruments of the same family, or by the slide trumpet or (later) the trombone.

Throughout the Middle Ages, the vielle was considered the most suitable instrument for the accompaniment of monophony. However, its use implies a whole sound-world that we can only deduce from circumstantial evidence and approach through practical experimentation.[3] The often flat bridges in the illustrations suggest that several strings were frequently or even customarily bowed together – a technique that Hieronymus de Moravia already hinted at and which seems plausible in view of the later development of the instrument into the (chordal) lira da braccio. Using instruments to accompany monophony opens up a world of sound that can’t be deduced from the notation of the songs alone, and the possibilities of the accompanying instruments determine the sound of the song. In the 15th century, besides the ubiquitous vielle, these included mainly the harp and the lute. The Instrument Museum should therefore also enable users to better understand the choices that musicians made about instrumentation, and to follow these choices on individual instruments.