Barbiton

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Greece 460-450 B.C. A woman holds a barbiton.

The barbiton, or barbitos (

stringed instrument related to the lyre known from Greek and Roman classics
.

The Greek instrument was a

medieval times, the same name was used to refer to the barbat; a different instrument that is a variety of lute
.

Error in the use of names

The

Aegean
.

Throughout this article barbiton refers only to the Anatolian / Aegean instrument, and barbat is the only name used to refer to the lute-family instrument from
Persia
.
Differences between the barbat and the barbiton
Barbat Barbiton
The barbat has always had a
finger board
for changing the pitch of the strings. 		The barbiton has never had a
finger board
; its strings’ pitch could not be changed without retuning.
Like all instruments in the lute family, different chords are played on the barbat by fingering the pitch of the strings. Like all instruments in the lyre / kithara family, different chords were played on the strings by resting fingers against strings for the unwanted notes, to silence them.
For most chords all of the strings of the barbat would sound for any one chord. For all chords, only a few of the barbiton's strings would sound; most of its strings were silent for any one chord.

Since neither instrument was familiar to European musicians of the late Middle Ages – both had fallen out of use in the occident sometime between the mid-Imperial period and the end of the Roman empire – the error was neither caught nor corrected. The mistake seems to be perpetually dredged up from the earlier erroneous texts.

Descriptions of the Ancient Greek barbiton

The barbiton (

vase paintings, and statuary
.

  • Woman playing a barbiton, Greek, Attic, 490-480 BC, terracotta, red-figure technique - Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University
    Woman playing a barbiton, Greek, Attic, 490-480 BC, terracotta, red-figure technique - Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University
  • Woman with barbiton, from red-figure amphora, Greece, circa 460-450 B.C. The larger instrument would play deeper notes than a smaller lyre (seen hanging above the woman).
    Woman with barbiton, from red-figure amphora, Greece, circa 460-450 B.C. The larger instrument would play deeper notes than a smaller lyre (seen hanging above the woman).
  • 5th century BCE. Lyra or barbitos from the Tomb of the Diver.
    5th century BCE. Lyra or barbitos from the Tomb of the Diver.
  • 5th century BCE. Lyra or barbitos from the Tomb of the Diver.
    5th century BCE. Lyra or barbitos from the Tomb of the Diver.
  • Barbitos in Nordisk familjebok (1904–1926). This lyre has features not seen in ancient artwork of lyres, especially the large circular soundhole.
    Barbitos in Nordisk familjebok (1904–1926). This lyre has features not seen in ancient artwork of lyres, especially the large circular soundhole.

String count

The Sicilian poet, Theocritus (xvi. 45), calls the barbitos an instrument of many strings, i.e. more than seven, which was by the Hellenes considered to be a perfect number, and matched the number of strings customary in the kithara.[3]

Pitch

Asia Minor) sings that his barbitos "only gives out erotic tones"[3] – a remark which could have been metaphorical, but could also be a literal reference to the instrument's being tuned in the Greek harmonia called Ιαςτιαν (Iastian).[2]

Pollux[5] calls the barbiton a barymite instrument (from βάρυς, "heavy", and μίτος, "string"); both the literal and figurative meanings describing an instrument that produces very deep sounds. These would have been re-enforced by the barbiton's larger soundbox, compared to a kithara or a much smaller phorminx (folk lyre). The strings were twice as long as those of the phorminx and hence sounded about an octave lower.[3]

Pindar (in Athen. xiv. p. 635), in the same line wherein he attributes the introduction of the instrument into Greece to Terpander, tells us one could magadize, i.e. play in two parts at an interval of an octave on the two instruments.[3]

Popularity

Although in use in Asia Minor, Italy, Sicily, and Greece, it is evident that the barbiton never won for itself a place in the affections of ancient Greeks; it was regarded as a barbarian instrument affected by those only whose tastes in matters of art were unorthodox. It had fallen into disuse in the days of Aristotle, but reappeared under the Romans.[1][6] The word barbiton was frequently used for the kithara or lyre.[2]

Summary

In spite of the few meagre shreds of authentic information extant concerning this somewhat elusive instrument, it is possible nevertheless to identify the barbiton as it was known among the Greeks and Romans. From the Greek writers we know that it was a deep toned instrument, with pitch range of at least two octaves, that had enough features in common with the lyra and kithara, to warrant their classification as a family of related instruments.[3]

Barbat

A later, unrelated instrument, is described by the Persians and Arabs as a kind of rebab or lute, or a chelys-lyre,[7] It was first introduced into Europe through Asia Minor by way of Greece, and centuries later into Spain by the Moors, amongst whom it was in the 14th century known as al-barbet.[8]

At some period not yet determined, which we can but conjecture, the barbat approximated to the form of the large lute. The barbat is sometimes mistakenly translated as “barbiton”, but it is not like the instrument depicted on Greek vase paintings.

The real barbat

The barbat was a variety of

Chosroes II (590-628 CE), who excelled in playing upon the instrument. From a later translation of part of the same author into German[11]
we obtain the following reference to Persian musical instruments:

Die Sänger stehen bei seinem Gastmahl; in ihrer Hand Barbiton(i) und Leyer(ii) und Laute(iii) und Flöte(iv) und Deff (Handpauke).
Mr. Ellis, of the Oriental Department of the British Museum, has kindly supplied the original Persian names translated above, i.e. (i) barbut, (ii) chang, (iii) rubāb, (iv) nei.

The barbut and rubab thus were different instruments as late as the 19th century in Persia. There were only slight differences, if any, between the rebab and the lute before rebab became a bowed instrument: Before that point, both had vaulted backs, a pear-shaped body and joined neck, and gut strings, originally plucked by the fingers.[3]

The barbat is not a Greek barbiton

The Greek barbiton, however, although it underwent many changes, retained until the end the characteristics of the instruments of the Greek kithara / lyra family, whose strings were strummed and plucked, whereas the rebab was sounded by means of the bow at the time of its introduction into Europe.[3]

The instrument called barbiton was known in the early part of the 16th century[12] and during the 17th century. It was a kind of theorbo or bass-lute, but with one neck only, bent back at right angles to form the head. Robert Fludd[13] gives a detailed description of it with an illustration:

Inter quas instrumenta non nulla barbito simillima effinxerunt cujus modi sunt illa quae vulgo appellantur theorba, quae sonos graviores reddunt chordasque nervosas habent.[3]

Ordinary people called it a theorbo (vulgo appellantur theorba), but Fludd identified it with the instrument of classic Greece and Rome and called it a "barbiton" (barbito). This theorbo / barbiton had nine pairs of gut strings, each pair in unison.

tortoiseshell instruments. Claude Perrault,[15] writing in the 18th century, states that "les modernes appellent notre luth barbiton" (the moderns call our lute barbiton). Constantijn Huygens[16] writes that he learnt to play the "barbiton" in a few weeks, but that it took two years to learn the cittern.[3]

Modern sound reconstruction

The Greek barbitos is part of the Lost Sounds Orchestra,

syrinx
.

The sounds of the barbitos are being digitally recreated by the ASTRA project, which uses

Physical modeling synthesis to simulate the barbitos sounds.[18] Due to the complexity of this process the ASTRA project uses grid computing,[19]
to model sounds on hundreds of computers throughout Europe simultaneously.

Mysterious third, unnamed, mixed lyre / rebab

Barbiton, from a bas-relief in the Louvre, Achilles at Scyros.

Musicologist Kathleen Schlesinger identified a stringed instrument of unknown name that combines the characteristics of both lyre and rebab; It is represented in least four different ancient sculptures:[20] She writes:

It has the vaulted back and gradual narrowing to form a neck which are typical of the rebab and the stringing of the lyre. In outline it resembles a large lute with a wide neck, and the seven strings of the lyre of the best period, or sometimes nine, following the “decadent lyre”. Most authors in reproducing these sculptures showing it represent the instrument as boat-shaped and without a neck, as, for instance, Carl Engel. This is because the part of the instrument where neck joins body is in deep shadow, so that the correct outline can hardly be distinguished, being almost hidden by hand on one side and drapery on the other.[3]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites:
    Susemihl-Hicks (1894) Aristotle, Politics, viii. (v.), 6th ed., pp. 604 (=1341a 40) and 632;
    Daremberg and Saglio, Dict. d'ant. gr. et rom.
  2. ^ a b c
    ISBN 0-19-814975-1
    .
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Schlesinger, Kathleen (1911). "Barbiton" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 387–388.
  4. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: Bergk (1882) Poetae Lyrici Graeci, 4th ed., p. 291, fr. 143 [113]; and p. 311, 23 [1], 3; and 14 [9], 34, p. 306
  5. ^ Pollux, Julius. Onomasticon. iv. ch. 8, § 59.
  6. ^ See Schlesinger (1911)[3] article "Lyre", p 1450, for more references to the classical authors.
  7. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: Johnson's Persian-Arabic-English dictionary: barbat, a harp or lute, barbatzan, player upon lute, pl.barabit; G. W. Freytag, Lexicon Arabico-Latinum, i. p. 103; barbal (Persian and Arabic), batbitus, genus testudinis, plerumque sex septamve chordis instructum (rotundam habet formam in Africa); Lexicon Aegidii Forcellini (Prato, 1858); Martianus Capella (i. 36) "Barbito aurataque chely ac doctis fidibus personare"; G.B. Doni, Lyra Barberina, ii. index
  8. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: Enumeration of Arab Musical Instruments, xiv. c.
  9. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: See (Lucknow, 1822) The Seven Seas, a dictionary and grammar of the Persian language, by Ghazi ud-din Haidar, king of Oudh, in seven parts (only the very long title of the book is in English). A review of this book in German with copious quotations by von Hammer-Purgstall (Vienna, 1826) Jahrbucher der Literatur, Bd. 35 and 36; names of musical instruments, Bd. 36, p. 292 et seq. See also R.G. Kiesewetter (Leipzig, 1843) Die Musik der Araber, nach Originalquellen dargestellt, p. 91, classification of instruments.
  10. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: The Seven Seas, part i. p. 153; Jahrb. d. Literatur, Bd. 36, p. 294.
  11. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: Fr. Ruckert (Gotha, 1874) Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der Perser, nach dem 7ten Bde. des Hefts Kolzum, p. 80.
  12. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: Jacob Locher (Basil, 1506) Navis Stultifera, titulus 7, illustration of a small harp and lute with the legend nec cytharum tangit nec barbiton.
  13. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: Robert Fludd (Oppenheim, 1617) Historia Utriusque Cosmi, tom. i. tract ii. part ii. lib. iv. cap. i. p. 226.
  14. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: Lyra Barberina, vol. ii. index, and also vol. i. p. 29.
  15. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: Claude Perrault (Amsterdam, 1727) "La musique des anciens", Oeuvres complètes, tom. i. p. 306.
  16. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: Constantijn Huygens (Haarlem, 1817) De Vita propria sermonum inter liberos libri duo. See also Edmund van der Straeten, La Musique aux Pays-Bas, vol. ii. p. 349.
  17. ^ "Lost Sounds Orchestra". Archived from the original on 2009-09-02. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
  18. ^ "ASTRA". Archived from the original on 15 January 2015. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
  19. ^ "grid computing". Archived from the original on 5 September 2015. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
  20. ^ Schlesinger (1911)[3] cites: (a) See C. Clarac, Musée du Louvre, vol. i. pl. 202, no. 261. (b) Accompanying illustration. [See also Kathleen Schlesinger, "Orchestral Instruments", part ii., "Precursors of the Violin Family," fig. 108 and p. 23, pp. 106–107, fig. 144 and appendix.] (c) Sarcophagus in the cathedral of Girgenti in Sicily, illustrated by Carl Engel, Early History of the Violon Family, p. 112. A cast of preserved in the sepulchral basement at the British Museum. Domenico (Palermo, 1834) Lo Faso Pietra-Santa, le antichrita della Sicilia, vol. 3, pl. 45 (2), text p. 89. (d) C. Zoega (Giessen, 1812) Antike Basreliefe von Rom, atlas, pl. 98, sarcophagus representing a scene in the story of Hippolytus and Phaedra.
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