York Minster: 900 years of music iconography. Part 2 of 2: The instruments of the magnificent pulpitum or Kings Screen, 1473–1500.

Photograph © Ian Pittaway.

In the first article about York Minster, we spanned nearly 900 years of music iconography from circa 1030 to 1915, with an actual 11th century oliphant in the crypt, and carvings of a pipe and tabor, harps, trumpets, gitterns, lutes, nakers, violin, timbrel, and portative organ.

Photograph © Ian Pittaway.

This second article is dedicated to one outstanding feature of York Minster, the pulpitum or Kings Screen, with 56 carvings of instruments from 1473–1500: shawms, bagpipes, trumpets, transverse flute, recorder, double recorder, lutes, bray harps, gitterns, rotas, fiddles, symphonie, tromba marina, portative organs, positive organ, clavicimbalum, cymbals, fool’s percussion, triangle, nakers, and singers.

Photograph © Ian Pittaway.

This article therefore acts as a survey of instruments played in England in the last quarter of the 15th century, including some of the instruments lesser-known in the modern early music revival: the rota, the tromba marina, and the clavicimbalum.

Each carving of an instrument is photographed and described, accompanied by a video of each instrument playing music from the time.

Photographs © Ian Pittaway.

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Wired for sound: the bandora and orpharion

In the early music revival, many renaissance and baroque instruments have received their due recognition: the lute in its various forms, the viol family, early violins, recorders, guitars and keyboards, for example. Less familiar and less played are two related instruments, the bandora and orpharion. Both were strung with wire and plucked, they shared the same scalloped shape and fanned frets, and both were particularly popular in England. The deep pitch of the larger bandora made it eminently suitable as the plucked bass of the mixed consort, while the orpharion shared the tuning and repertoire of the renaissance lute and was considered an interchangeable alternative.

This article gives a brief history of both instruments, with indications of their respective repertoires, the descriptive testimonies of contemporaneous writers, some lost related instruments, and videos of both the bandora and orpharion being played.

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