MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. - I. IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. Among the Hebrews, music was practiced chiefly in religious manifestations by the priestly class, in the Temple and outside it, and therefore possessed an eminently sacred character. No exact information is available concerning the musical instruments they used, either with regard to their construction or to the precise terminology of each; valuable points of reference are provided by Egyptian, Assyrian, and Phoenician civilization, from which Israel drew inspiration for its instrumental types.
Among stringed instruments, the Bible most frequently mentions the nébhel, or large harp, probably of Phoenician origin, with 12 strings, which, according to the historian Josephus, was played with the fingers; the hinnār, or smaller harp, of lesser sonorous power and lower range, with ten strings, played with a plectrum and apparently similar in form to the Greek kithara: this was David’s favorite instrument for accompanying the singing of his psalms and his dances around the Holy Ark. Wind instruments are more numerous; among them was the šōphār, made from a ram’s horn, which, given the small number of sounds at its disposal (tonic, fifth, and octave), was not used for melodies but for signals: it is the only one still in use today in the Synagogue for the religious service celebrating the New Year; the maghrēphāh was a syringe with a very powerful sound; the bavāsrah was a long silver trumpet, played by the priests (Solomon assembled 120 of them for the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple; two bāyāsrah are depicted in an interior bas-relief of the Arch of Titus); the hāllī was a double-reed wind instrument of the oboe family; the 'ighābh was a shepherd’s flute: it was used in the First Temple and is mentioned only in Psalm 150. Of the many percussion instruments, by far the most important were those required for the ritual of sacred dances, which formed an integral part of Israelite liturgy: first and foremost the tōph, a kind of tambourine with which the prophetess Miriam accompanied herself while singing the Song of Moses (Ex. 15, 20), and which Jephthah’s daughter combined with dancing (Iud. 11, 34); other instruments of this kind were the bronze cymbals or small plates, the ṣelsēlim, played by the Levites, of which the mēsiltajim, or castanets, may be regarded as a variant; the sālīlim (triangles), used like the tōph, especially by women to accompany themselves in dancing; and the mēnā'an'im, or sistrums, of which many examples are found in museums. As for the bells (pa'āmānim) of Egyptian derivation, which the high priest wore attached to the hem of his robe, it cannot be said that they had a musical function; rather, they formed part of the ensemble of attributes accompanying the supreme priestly dignity.
Of particular interest is the assembly of Hebrew musical instruments in the permanent orchestra of the Temple: the minimum number of 12 players (12 being a sacred number, corresponding to the identical number of singers, as with the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 strings of the great nébhel, etc.) consisted of 2 nébhel (which could reach 6), 9 hinnār (which could be increased without limit), 2 hāllī (which could reach the number of 12 and took part only on certain feast days), and a pair of cymbals, that is, two small plates. This basic nucleus was considerably enlarged on the occasion of special celebrations, to as many as hundreds and sometimes thousands of performers. The Jewish historian Josephus gives us an account particularly of these mass performances in his Antiquities of the Jews, which, together with the Miṣnāh (ca. 220 A.D.), constitute the most important sources on this subject.
II. IN THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST CENTURIES. — Instruments not only have no place in official practice, but are severely prohibited by all the Fathers, who see in them signs of paganism. The Roman world had inherited from the Greeks the principal types of instruments, represented by the kithara and the lyre among stringed instruments, and by the various families of auloi among wind instruments. Some of the Fathers explain the abundance of instruments among the Jews as a special gift of God granted to the weakness of their spirit, and St. John Chrysostom extends this notion also to Christian communities recently converted from idolatry; this confirms the unofficial use of instruments, such as the tambourine and the psaltery, even among the first Christians. Clement of Alexandria tolerates the lyre and the kithara because they were used by King David, but permits their use only at the agapae.
III. IN THE MIDDLE AGES. - With regard to the m. i. used in the Church after the first centuries and in the early Middle Ages, it is not easy to provide complete and exact information. Walafrid Strabo gives us an account of a considerable instrumental practice, speaking in particular of the Abbey of Reichenau, whose school, opened in 824, provided an education comprising the theory and practice of singing, as well as the art of playing various instruments: organ, harp, flute, trumpet, trombone, cornet, triangular cither, and three-stringed lyre. In the Monastery of s. Gallen too, the sons of noblemen received from Tutilo a complete instrumental education: « in omnium genere fidium et fistularum », as Ekkehard writes in De casibus monasterii Sancti Galli. In other chronicles and in many medieval treatises, instruments were accorded an increasingly prominent place and fuller documentation, also adapting to the growing development of dance music. In the female monasteries of the 10th century, the organistrum had also become widespread. It was a kind of viol operated by a wheel beneath the strings rather than by a bow and, because it was an almost mechanical rather than an artistic instrument, was called « viola da orbo »: in Italy it was commonly called « ghironda », in France « vielle (à roue) », and in England « hurdy-gurdy ». It had 4–6 strings (2 of them with a fixed sound, functioning as a drone, and the others movable by means of buttons) and, in its larger models, was played by two people. After the year one thousand, with the emergence of the first polyphonic forms, there also arose a system of accompanying the singing with certain instruments, which were intended to reinforce and replace the vocal parts; but it cannot be stated precisely which instruments, or how many, were used, for example, in the Choir of Notre Dame in Paris, although this is one of the best-known. On the occasion of a great celebration in a church in Ghent in 1389, the use of trumpets, clarions, and instruments of every kind is attested by Jean Froissart (1338–c. 1410). With the ars nova, the instruments taking part in sacred functions became more numerous and more closely connected with the very character of the compositions: traces of the participation of organs and trumpets are found, for example, in the lower voices of Machaut’s Mass, which have an instrumental character, and in the Trent codices, works in which irregular intervals, excessively abundant melismatic figures, and unusual fragmentation of the words beneath the notes reveal the remnants of instrumental performances.
Percussion instruments in the Middle Ages (kettledrums, crotals, tambourines, bells, bronze cymbals, etc.) belonged to the jongleurs and generally to secular music, especially dance music. One of the oldest stringed instruments is the harp, which goes back to the Hebrew « nébhel » and, in Europe, to the « cithara Anglica », or Irish harp. The harp was widely used in the churches of France and Spain; in the latter, in particular, its use was preserved until relatively recent times in the Cathedral of Pamplona. Other stringed instruments are the lyre, psaltery, cither, lute, cistro, and guitar; the virginal, spinet, and harpsichord are plucked instruments, whereas the clavichord (ancestor of the piano) is a percussion instrument. Among the latter, all of them keyboard instruments, the virginal was the one most widely used in female monasteries. It arose in the 15th century and underwent particular development in the 1600s; it was rectangular in shape and had a very soft tone. A typical bowed instrument used since the Middle Ages in female monasteries and prevalent especially in the 17th century was the « tromba marina », elongated in shape, with a hexagonal soundbox open underneath, fitted with a neck and taller than a person. It had one, or at most two, strings and was played with a bow, held resting against one shoulder. It was called trompette marine in France and Trumscheitt and Nonnengeige (nuns’ fiddle) in Germany.
A rudimentary and very ancient type of wind instrument is the Greek « syrinx », or Pan flute, to which may be added the various flutes, recorders and transverse flutes, flageolets, the ocarina, and the organ; clarinets and saxophones, moreover, are single-reed instruments (the reed being a flexible lamella situated near the mouthpiece, which opens and closes the tube containing the air), whereas the oboes, bassoons, and con-
