triangle – Early Music Muse

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

Ian Pittaway Agricola Martin, bagpipes, bray harp, broken consort, Bruegel Pieter the Elder, clavicembalum, clavichord, clavicimbalum, clavicymbalum, clavicytherium, clavisimbalum, clavisymbalum, consort, cymbals, double recorder, drum, Dunstaple John, English consort, farting, fiddle, Fight Between Carnival and Lent by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, flute, fools, gittern, harp, harpsichord, iconography, lute, mixed consort, monochord, nakers, organ, organistrum, Pavel Žídek of Prague, portative organ, positive organ, Praetorius Michael, psaltery, recorder, rommelpot, rota, rote, rothe, rotta, sampogna, shawm, simfonia, sinfonye, spinet, symfenyge, symphonia, symphonie, transverse flute, triangle, tromba marina, trumpet, viella, vielle, Virdung Sebastian, virginal, York Minster 17th September 202517th September 2025 4 Comments

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

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.

This article therefore acts as a survey of instruments played in England in the last quarter of the 15^th 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.

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, organistrum, recorder, shawm, slide trumpet, Strichnotation, symphonia, symphonie, Temptation of Saint Anthony (Bosch painting), triangle, trumpet, vielle à roue 1st June 202128th June 2025 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?