Salterio is the Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese term for either of two types of zither: the

hammered dulcimer The hammered dulcimer (also called the hammer dulcimer) is a percussion-stringed instrument which consists of strings typically stretched over a trapezoidal resonant sound board. The hammered dulcimer is set before the musician, who in more trad ...

psaltery A psaltery ( el, ψαλτήρι) (or sawtry, an archaic form) is a fretboard-less box zither (a simple chordophone) and is considered the archetype of the zither and dulcimer; the harp, virginal, harpsichord and clavichord were also inspired by ...

Concept, etymology

'' 'Salterio' ''/'' 'saltério' ''is used in Italian and Spanish where both 'psaltery' and 'dulcimer' are used in Spanish,'' 'psaltérion' ''and'' 'tympanon' ''in French,'' 'psalterium' ''in Latin. There has always been cross-over between the various terms, and it is only in the last 100 years that scholars have tried to distinguish between them, proposing that a 'psaltery' is plucked while a 'dulcimer' is hit, and that both belong to a generic 'zither' family (distinct from specific instruments called'' 'zither' ''by their players); but this usage is an abstraction and has no basis in the traditional use of these names: there are plenty of illustrations where psalteries are hit and traditions where dulcimers are plucked, the point is rather that a distinct type evolved from about 1500 in which the strings were placed in different planes, presumably to make it easier to distinguish between then when they are hit with a hammer, but after that they were still plucked in many playing traditions.

Italy

Paul Gifford and Karl-Heinz Schickhaus have researched the ''salterio'' in 18th century Italy; there are instruments with up to eight strings per course (i.e. 8 strings tuned to the same note and played all together, like a 12-string guitar or the middle and upper notes of a piano), made in places like Venice, Florence, Brescia, Milan, and Triente, and signed by ten different makers. Instruments and tuning diagrams show up to five bridges and fully chromatic tuning. They were used in upper-class circles for composed music like ''sinfonia'' and ''sonata''. A ''salterio'' was bought for the

Ospedale della Pietà The Ospedale della Pietà was a convent, orphanage, and music school in Venice. Like other Venetian ''ospedali'', the Pietà was first established as a hospice for the needy. A group of Venetian nuns, called the Consorelle di Santa Maria dell’Um ...

when

Antonio Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...

was working there; it cost more than a cheap violin, less than an expensive one. Some early 20th century writers suggest that the dulcimer in Italy was called ''salterio tedesco'' ("German psaltery"), but it is clear from Bonanni's ''Gabinetto Armonico'' that the normal word is simply ''salterio'' and that his illustration called ''salterio tedesco'' is of a German beggar girl who played one in the streets of Rome.

Spain

Pablo Minguet y Yrol's '' Reglas y advertencias ... ''(Madrid 1752) shows a '' salterio''-player playing a dance tune from written music; and in the opera'' Los amantes chasqueados'' from 1779, the soprano soloist Maria Guerrero played a ''salterio ''on stage while singing: she was evidently highly competent, if not a virtuoso. An instrument in Brussels is identified as coming from the Canary Islands and having been made in Barcelona in 1779 .

Mexico

The ''salterio'' is still occasionally played in live performances. Mexican psaltery has a trapezoidal form and is double and triple stringed. It is performed with a plectrum in each hand.

Brazil

Rogério Budasz has published a beautiful facsimile of Antonio Vieira dos Santos manuscript from about 1820 ''Cifras de música para saltério'', together with a transcription, analysis and bibliography ().

Bibliography