vielle à roue

Jheronimus Bosch and the music of hell. Part 3/3: Music and musicians in the complete works of Bosch

Ian Pittaway Adoration of the Magi (Bosch painting), Allegory of Gluttony and Lust (Bosch painting), bagpipes, bestiaries, Bosch Hieronymous, Bosch Jheronimus, bray harp, Flood (Bosch workshop painting), fools, Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch painting), harp, Haywain (Bosch painting), Hermit Saints triptych (Bosch painting), hurdy gurdy, iconography, jongleurs, Last Judgement (Bosch painting), Last Judgement (pseudo-Bosch painting), lute, minstrels, morris dance, morris dancing, pipe and tabor, Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things (pseudo-Bosch painting), shawm, Ship of Fools (Bosch painting), simfonie, simfony, sinfonie, Singers in the Egg (Bosch drawing), Strichnotation, symfony, symphonia, symphonie, Temptation of Saint Anthony (Bosch painting), trumpet, vielle à roue, Visions of the Hereafter (Bosch painting) 0 Comment

In Part 1, we explored the modern myth that the ‘music’ on the backside of a sinner in Jheronimus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights is real and playable. We saw that it is not Gregorian notation, as is repeatedly claimed, but a faux and unreadable imitation of Strichnotation. As the present article will show, Bosch painted equally faux and unreadable Strichnotation in two more paintings and one drawing.   

In Part 2, we surveyed all the musical imagery and the overall schema of The Garden of Earthly Delights, exploring historical sources for the meaning of each musician punished in hell, their instruments used as torture devices against them.    

That leads us to the central question of this third and final article on Bosch’s relationship with music. Here we survey the rest of Bosch’s entire works, his paintings and drawings, for music and musicians. Every musical image is presented with a brief description and explanation, referencing literature Bosch would have known. The sum total of Bosch’s musical depictions raises the question: What was the nature of his beliefs that he imagined all musicians as wicked sinners and monstrous creatures who are eternally punished in hell? We search for answers in his locality, his biography, and the clues he left with his brush.   

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Jheronimus Bosch and the music of hell. Part 2/3: The Garden of Earthly Delights

Ian Pittaway bagpipes, bestiaries, bombard, Bosch Hieronymous, Bosch Jheronimus, bray harp, cithara, drum, Garden of Earthly Delights (Bosch painting), harp, Haywain (Bosch painting), hurdy gurdy, iconography, jongleurs, Last Judgement (Bosch painting), lute, lyre, minstrels, recorder, shawm, simfonie, simfony, sinfonie, slide trumpet, Strichnotation, symfony, symphonia, symphonie, Temptation of Saint Anthony (Bosch painting), triangle, trumpet, vielle à roue 0 Comment

In part 1, we examined the repeated claim that the hell panel of Jheronimus Bosch’s painting of 1495–1505, The Garden of Earthly Delights, includes readable Gregorian notation painted on a sinner’s bottom, and provided evidence that this is not the case.

In part 2 we explore the message about music in the whole triptych. We will see Bosch’s preaching with paint, the symbolism of sin in his Garden, featuring Lucifer’s lutes, hell’s hurdy gurdy, Beelzebub’s bray harp, Diabolus’ drum, a recorder in the rectum, Satan’s shawm, a terrifying trumpet and triangle, a brazen bagpipe, and the unplayable music on the sinner’s bottom and in the book he is lying on.

This article makes reference to literature from Bosch’s Netherlands and beyond, from his lifetime and before, to explore the rich meaning of his imagery: the nakedness of his figures, a massive mussel, oversize strawberries, a bird-man on a commode devouring sinners, demonic serpents, giant instruments of music made into instruments of torture for musical sinners, and the choir of hell.

Finally, in part 3 we seek the answer to the question posed by this painting and by all of Bosch’s work: what did Bosch have against music, and against musicians?

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On the medieval fiddle: a short introduction to the vielle

Ian Pittaway bourdon, bowed lyre, crwth, early instruments, early music, fiddle, fiddle tunings, Henry VIII, hurdy gurdy, Jerome of Moravia, jongleurs, lyre, Mary Rose, mediaeval, medieval, medieval fiddle, medieval fiddle tunings, minstrels, organistrum, organum, simfony, Tractatus de Musica, troubadours, trouvères, viella, vielle, vielle à roue, vielle tunings 2 Comments

WaltersMuseumW37f.20vA mention of the violin today is likely to conjure up images of a classical, orchestral, or jazz musician, whereas the word fiddle is more likely to suggest a traditional or folk musician, even though they’re essentially the same instrument, set up differently to suit different styles of playing. This class-based relegation of the term fiddle was not always so. Centuries before the creation of the violin there was the medieval fiddle, also known by its French name, the vielle. This brief introduction demonstrates that the playing style and sound of the medieval fiddle had more in common with the hurdy gurdy and the crwth (bowed lyre) than the modern violin. Includes illustrations and video examples.

This is one of two editions of this article, being a short introduction to the vielle, intended for the general reader. There is a longer version, The mysteries of the medieval fiddle: lifting the veil on the vielle, which has a detailed discussion of the different ways in which we can make sense of historical fiddle tunings and, in the light of that, a closely argued case for the relationship between the vielle and the crwth.  

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The mysteries of the medieval fiddle: lifting the veil on the vielle

Ian Pittaway Agricola Martin, Berkeley manuscript, bourdon, church modes, citole, crwth, fiddle, fiddle tunings, Guido of Arezzo, Guidonian hand, Henry VIII, hexachord, hurdy gurdy, Jerome of Moravia, Johannes Tinctoris, jongleurs, kithara, lira da braccio, lute, lyra da braccio, lyre, Mary Rose, medieval fiddle, medieval fiddle tunings, medieval modes, medieval scales, minstrels, modes, musica ficta, organistrum, organum, re-entrant tuning, rebec, simfony, Tractatus de Musica, troubadours, trouvères, viella, vielle, vielle à roue, vielle tunings 16 Comments

QueenMaryPsalter.Royal2BVIIf.174The vielle or medieval fiddle was the most popular instrument in its heyday for secular song accompaniment. It first appeared in western Europe in the 11th century and continued to be played until the middle of the 16th century, flourishing in the 12th and 13th centuries. There is a wealth of vielle iconography, which can tell us a great deal about the variety of its form and the context of its use. There is a medieval source for its tuning, Jerome of Moravia in the 13th century, who gives 3 tunings for 5 strings, leaving us with some puzzles as to what exactly they mean in practice, and whether they can be applied to fiddles with fewer than 5 strings. Our only renaissance tuning source is Johannes Tinctoris in the 15th century, which isn’t entirely clear in its meaning.

This page provides a detailed discussion of the different ways in which we can make sense of historical fiddle tunings and, in the light of that, a closely argued case for the relationship between the vielle and the crwth or bowed lyre, demonstrating that they were identical in style, having more in common with the hurdy gurdy family than modern bowed strings.

There are two editions of this article. This one includes detailed analysis. For a brief introduction, go to On the medieval fiddle: a short introduction to the vielle.

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The bray harp: getting a buzz from early music

Ian Pittaway arpichordium, baroque, begena, bèguèna, bray harp, Chaucer Geoffrey, Davidsharffe, early instruments, early music, Gothic harp, harp, harpichordium, hurdy gurdy, Lamento di Tristano, lyre, mediaeval, medieval, muselar, Praetorius Michael, renaissance, Robert ap Huw manuscript, rota, rote, rothe, rotta, Ur lyres, vielle à roue 16 Comments
A donkey plays bray harp while a goat sings, from the Hunterian or York Psalter, 1170.
Donkey harpist, goat singer: Hunterian/York Psalter.

The bray harp is not a sound modern ears are used to, and even most early music groups with harps don’t use the period instrument, yet it was the standard European harp of the late medieval, renaissance and early baroque periods, from the 15th century to the 1630s, and still used until the late 18th century in some places. The bray harp gets its name from the L shaped wooden pins at the base of the strings, positioned so the strings buzz against them as they vibrate: the effect was said to sound like a donkey’s bray. It’s an older idea than the bray harp, one shared by the oldest surviving stringed instruments, made four and a half thousand years ago.

This article traces the earliest evidence for the European harp, leading to the origins and popular rise of the bray harp specifically. We ask why there is so little surviving early harp music and try to come to a feasible historical answer; and along the way take in Pictish stones, illuminated Psalters, Geoffrey Chaucer, harp-playing angels and an ape playing a rota, with a video of the harp being brayed.

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