102 BULLETIN 136, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



and Guarnerius violins. A Russian model made in Germany in 1850 

 is 55678. 



The viola has a distinctive, rather sad quality of tone and is 

 seldom used in solos. As examples of the viola we have 94839, made 

 by August Riechers, of Germany, in 1872, and an instrument (55686, 

 pi. 46c) which is a copy of a Stradivarius and was made in France. 

 It is strung with four strings, two of gut and two overspun. 



The violoncello had at first only two strings and was used as a 

 fundamental bass in the music of the church. In the fifteenth cen- 

 tury it had five strings. The present instrument has a full, rich, 

 and penetrating tone, combined with a wonderful range, making 

 it a splendid solo instrument. Three examples are exhibited, all of 

 them made in Germany. They are 55687, 94810, and 94S41, the 

 two last-named forming part of the Morris Steinert collection. 



Three small instruments of violin shape are " dancing master's 

 fiddles," or " pocket fiddles," and were formerly carried around by 

 dancing masters. They are 95292 and 95293 from Italy, dated 1700; 

 and 94867, from England, dated 1767. Some of these pocket fiddles 

 had three and some had four strings. Two other small violins are 

 for use in teaching children, 55684 being one-quarter size and 

 55685 being three-quarter size. Both were made in France and 

 strimg and tuned like large violins. 



Theodore Thomas said that the invention of the present violin 

 bow by Francois Torte made possible the modern orchestra, with its 

 shadings of tone. This remarkable bow maker was born in Paris in 

 1747 and died in 1835. Among the many violin bows in the collec- 

 tion are two copies of Torte bows (55703 and 55706), and a copy of a 

 Bausch solo bow (55705). 



INSTRUMENTS WITH KEYS 



The monochord was the beginning of stringed instruments among 

 cultured nations, as the musical bow was the beginning of stringed 

 instruments among primitive peoples. The first use of the mono- 

 chord was practical rather than musical. According to Hipkins it 

 was " a pitch-measuring string apparatus, employed, as no doubt the 

 very early organs were, as a pitch carrier or interval measurer." The 

 same authority writes that : 



Pythagoras measured a vibrating string stretched between raised bridges on 

 a resonance box, and by shifting those bridges he was enabled to accurately 

 determine the intervals of the Greek diatonic scale. It has been supposed 

 Pythagoras found the monochord in Egypt, where the principle of the stopped 

 string upon a finger board had been known, as the monuments testify, ages 

 before his time, and it may have been known in Babylonia. After Pytlnigoras 

 the monochord became in Greece * * * and in Europe generally, the 

 canon or rule for the measurement of intervals, and continued to be so em- 

 ployed up to the eleventh century and later of our era. 



