The Art of Music through Time

Listen to curators introduce The Art of Music through Time.

Still playable after 450 years, this spinetta embodies the spirit of Italian humanism in its sophistication and elegance. The graceful pentagonal shape of the case conforms to the layout of the strings stretched over the soundboard, and the exterior is richly decorated with panels of inlaid wood, mother-of-pearl, and tracery.

Although numerous pottery instruments survive from pre-Conquest South and Central America, little is known of how they were used before Spanish invaders ravaged the native cultures. Whistles, trumpets and rattles in animal or human form probably had ceremonial functions or served as playthings. The "whistling jar" is a 1- or 2-chambered vessel in which a whistle, often concealed by a bird's head, is sounded by blowing into the spout, or by pouring liquid from one chamber to the other to create a bird-like twittering sound. Smaller whistles in animal shapes, perhaps worn suspended from the neck, sometimes have fingerholes that allow variation of pitch.

This rare acquisition is a tour de force of Japanese decorative and musical arts that is currently unparalleled in this country. Although a strong tradition existed before then, the foundation for modern Japanese koto music were formed during the seventeenth century. This koto, with it copious inlay and remarkable metalwork by Teijo, ninth master and perhaps most skilled member of the famous Goto family of metalwork artists, documents this important musical development. It also reflects the status of its owner and the koto's role as a symbol of Japan.

Citterns are plucked stringed instruments, related to lutes and guitars, but strung with metal strings which produce a brighter and louder sound than gut strings. The cittern also has inlaid metal frets, as opposed to tied gut frets on lutes and early guitars. Players of the cittern use a plectrum to pluck the five or six courses of strings.

Primarily a folk instrument that continues to be used in traditional musical styles, the cittern was elevated to the position of an art instrument by aristocrats in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, one of whom probably originally owned this extravagant instrument.

Jacob Stainer is known as the "Father of the German violin" and his instruments were favorites of the Bach and Mozart families. They remained the most sought-after violins and violas in the world until the beginning of the 19th century. Stainer’s instruments are characterized by their very full arching, vertical f-holes with well-proportioned eyes and by their meticulous workmanship throughout.

Viols, the most esteemed bowed instruments of the late Renaissance, were only gradually displaced by the violin family. Viols differ from violins chiefly in shape, in number of strings and tuning, and in having fretted necks. All viols are played in an upright position between the knees or on the legs ("gamba" means "leg"), and the bow is held palm upward. The sound is less brilliant and quieter than that of the violin family of instruments.

"The Gould" violin has a two-piece maple back with a tight flame and a two-piece spruce top with an orange-brown varnish. Although modern performers continue to use seventeenth- and eighteenth-century stringed instruments by great makers, nearly all of the instruments have been modified in order to remain useful as performance spaces grew larger and repertoire pushed instruments to create louder sound over an extended range.

Jacob Schmid (1642–1720) was the founder of a trumpet-making workshop in Nuremberg, which flourished under his son Johann Jacob and grandson Paulus for about a century. So far, six instruments by Jacob Schmid are known to have survived, one natural trumpet, two trombones, and three horns, of which two are in the Museum's collection. The present horn is in original condition and marked with the inscription "MACHT IACOB SCHMIDT IN NURNBERG" and the master's sign, a bird with the monogram JS.

Johan Friedrich Böttger's rediscovery of hard-paste porcelain in 1708 was the basis of a new luxury industry. Makers explored all kinds of applications in the new medium. Porcelain musical instruments posed enormous problems since during drying and firing there occurred substantial shrinkage. In the kiln, wet porcelain matter shrinks by a third of its volume so large molds had to be made to guarantee the precise final dimensions of bore, finger- and embouchure hole. Wooden flutes are easily fine-tuned and voiced by drilling; porcelain, however, makes later manipulations problematic.

This richly decorated arched harp has 13 twisted silk strings of varying diameter. Each string connects to a gold-painted stringholder which runs the length of the gold-lacquered deerskin belly. The strings are secured to the neck with red-twisted cotton cords (tuning rings), which end with a gold colored metallic tassel. The sides of the instrument depict scenes from the Ramayana in gold against a black field. Often used to accompany songs, instruments like this one had their orgins in ancient India and represent one of the oldest surviving harp traditions.

Kamānches, or bowed lutes, are often elegantly inlaid or painted, but this example is decorated with minute pieces of wood, bone, and brass in a mosaic technique called ""khatam-kari."" First described in the tenth century, the kamanche is the earliest documented bowed instrument and is frequently depicted being played by angels in Persian miniatures. Held upright on its spike, it is bowed with the right hand in a palm-up position, a handgrip used when bowed instruments were introduced to Europe and one still used around the world when playing spike fiddles.

The thighbone of a lama priest is the original form of the metal trumpets in this case. A single rkang-gling ('leg bone flute') is used with a pellet drum to escape epidemics. Pairs signal the entry of ritual dancers, and perform rituals connected with fierce deities. The head of a chu-srin (Sanskrit: makara), a sea monster or a dragon, often provides a decorative metalwork bell. When the rkang-gling is made of metal, bosses decorated with trefoils cover the joints where the sections of cooper and/or silver tube are joined. The trefoil, a three cusped design, is an emblem of power and authority and is used as the head of a scepter. The chu-srin and dragon are associated with water and rain and may decorate the rkang-gling.

In Hinduism the conch shell is usually associated with the god Vishnu, Lord of the Waters, but the brass fittings on this shell indicate a link with Shaivite ritual. The mouthpiece suggests a lotus, while the heavily decorated conical end depicts rows of nagas (serpent divinities) and wreath-bearing kirtimukhas ("Faces of Glory").

Neapolitan style bowlback mandolin with seventeen inlaid nickel-silver frets on a tortoiseshell fingerboard. The bowl is extraordinarily decorated with a rich design of checkerboard pattern ivory and tortoiseshell separated by nickel-silver strips, and a profuse decoration in ivory inlay depicting a naked woman, putti playing instruments, grotesques, and floral designs. These decorative motifs continue on the fingerboard and peghead of the instrument. The maker's name is inlaid around the oblong soundhole.

This sitar with 7 melody and 13 sympathetic strings was made in 1997 by Murari Adhikari, son of Nityananda Adhikari, an early 20th-century innovator of sitar construction. Murari continued to incorporate his father's improvements that included elaborate engraving and carving, rounded frets, a concave neck, changes in bridge design, and adjustments that produce an even tone from high to low. Established in 1910 and growing out of an older company, Damodar and Sons, founded in 1882, the Calcutta firm of Kanailal and Brother prospered from the 1920s through the 1960s.