Brockhampton-by-Ross, Herefordshire

More musicians

When my recent post on the medieval carvings at Adderbury provoked some interest, I found myself being rather apologetic about the lack of precision in some of those vigorous, if rustic, sculptures. One carving of a person playing a stringed instrument, probably a rebec, showed the musician holding it in a rather odd way. But how do you hold a rebec, anyway? As with skinning a cat, there's more than one way, apparently.

Questions such as these sent me rummaging in my archives for other images of medieval musicians – or musicians portrayed in a medieval style. Then I remembered Christopher Whall's windows in the wonderful Arts and Crafts church at Brockhampton-by-Ross, one of which shows angel musicians. I'm not going to apologise (again!) for the somewhat moppet-like faces of these young angels (the most recent Pevsner volume for Herefordshire calls them 'somewhat sentimental'). There's too much else to like – the beautiful drawing and rich colours for a start. And then the way one suddenly realises, having studied the details for a minute, that these angel musicians are perched in the branches of trees.

So I offer you a string player and an angel blowing at a woodwind instrument. I'll try not to get tied into too many knots trying to decipher what the instruments are. The stringed one has the indented waist and sideways-protruding pegs of the viol family; the wind instrument to me has the look of a shawm (an ancestor of the oboe). I expect Whall took them from earlier depictions of instruments in medieval art – from other stained glass windows or from carvings. I think they're worth celebrating for themselves.

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For readers who have not heard a shawm, and would like to know what it sounds like, there's a recording of a shawm here.

Adderbury, Oxfordshire

A medieval band

Among the dozens of carvings on the outside aisle walls of the church at Adderbury in Oxfordshire are several representing musicians. Although time-worn (they’re 14th-century, after all), they still bear some detail, and it’s possible to make out what instruments are being played. And I know I have at least one reader who knows plenty more about early instruments than i do, who’ll no doubt put me right if I slip up.

My first picture (above) shows a woman playing a small organ – the kind that you can carry around and that is therefore called a portative organ (it’s also sometimes referred to as an organetto). It has a rank of small pipes, plainly visible in the carving, and at the bottom, there would be a tiny keyboard, which you play with one hand. The other hand operates bellows, on the back of the instrument, to supply the pipes with wind. Most people today think of organs as church instruments, but portative organs were also used in secular music in the Middle Ages.*

Next is a man playing a hurdy-gurdy. There’s not much clear detail left in the carving, but the instrument has a crank-handle, which the player turns using his right hand. This turns a wheel, which rubs against strings that run along the top of the hurdy-gurdy. Some of the strings sound whenever the wheel turns, to provide a continuous note or drone; another string is controlled by a keyboard, to play the melody. None of this is clear in the carving, but there’s a video here of a hurdy-gurdy player explaining how his instrument works – as well as the derivation of its curious name.

Another carving shows a string player. I think the instrument is a rebec, which is played with a bow, like a violin. It has a pear-shaped body that tapers into the neck and was held in various ways – along the arm or at the shoulder or even resting on the player’s leg.

Finally, the rhythm section is represented by this drummer. He plays a pair of drums, which the carver has shown quite large – bigger than the drummer’s head, anyway. Pairs of drums (including the small copper-bowled drums called nakers) were often played in the Middle Ages. These seem to be snare drums – the thin gut snare is clearly visible on the left-hand drum and I think I can see a trace of one on the right-hand drum too.

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* Although in many cases we don't know exactly which instruments played which pieces – medieval music manuscripts often give the notes without allocating them to a specific instrument.