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The baryton is a bowed
string instrument String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the s ...
similar to the
viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...
, but distinguished by an extra set of sympathetic but also pluckable strings. It was in regular use in Europe until the end of the 18th century.


Design

The baryton can be viewed as a sort of augmented bass
viol The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...
. It is similar in size to the latter instrument and likewise has six or seven strings of gut (typically D G C E A D, although ''
scordatura Scordatura (; literally, Italian for "discord", or "mistuning") is a tuning of a string instrument that is different from the normal, standard tuning. It typically attempts to allow special effects or unusual chords or timbre, or to make certain p ...
'' was used), arranged over a
fret A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical instru ...
ted fingerboard and played with a bow. The instrument is held vertically and is supported by the player's legs (rather than with an end-pin as in the modern
cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, ...
). The baryton differs from the bass viol in having an additional set of wire strings. These perform two functions: they vibrate sympathetically with the bowed strings, enriching the tone, and they can also be plucked by the left thumb of the performer, creating a contrasting tonal quality. As can be seen in the illustration, the bowed strings are placed on the left, where they can be easily fingered by the player's left hand. The plucked strings are on the right; they are reachable by the player's thumb from the rear, where the back of the instrument's neck is left open.


History


The historical baryton

There are only about 50 historical barytons for which we have evidence, either in the form of documents or the instrument itself. Many of the latter have been modified from their original form. Thus, tracing the history of the baryton is a difficult task. Concerning the origin of the baryton, Pamplin suggests that "the instrument probably originated in England in the early 17th century when the characteristics of two instruments, the
viola da gamba The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...
and the bandora, were combined into one hybrid instrument".Pamplin (2009) Early evidence for the existence of the baryton is found in
Marin Mersenne Marin Mersenne, OM (also known as Marinus Mersennus or ''le Père'' Mersenne; ; 8 September 1588 – 1 September 1648) was a French polymath whose works touched a wide variety of fields. He is perhaps best known today among mathematicians for ...
's work ''Cogitata Physico-Mathematica'' (1644). According for Fruchtman, "Mersenne stated that the English constructed a viol or lyre much admired by King James. The instrument had six bowed strings as well as metal strings behind the neck. The thumb of the left hand plucked the metal strings, which were made to sound with the bowed notes. If this information is accurate, the baryton must have been known in England before 1625, the end of King James' reign." The earliest baryton that survives today dates from 1647; it was made by Magnus Feldlen in Vienna and is currently in the musical instrument collection of the
Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including perform ...
in London. In London a performance at Marylebone Gardens was announced in 1744, Mr Ferrand was to perform on "the Pariton, an instrument never played on in public before". The instrument was never particularly popular, but "it acquired a certain cachet in courtly circles, particularly in south Germany and Austria" (Pamplin). The compositions for the instrument by Haydn and his students and colleagues represented a last hurrah for the baryton; by the early 19th century it had gone out of style and ceased to attract new compositions. The Haydn-era baryton was different from earlier versions in a crucial respect: the sympathetic strings were tuned a full octave higher than previously. This helped the baryton to stand out from the other instruments (viola, cello) in the baryton trio, the primary form in which Haydn wrote. Since the Haydn oeuvre tends to dominate the field today, the Haydn-type tuning has become the standard.


Modern revival

The baryton was "completely neglected" (Hsu) in the nineteenth century, but in the twentieth, with the rise of the authentic performance movement in classical music, new barytons were built and played. Initially, these instruments were heavily constructed, more in the manner of a cello than a bass viol (they were thus sometimes called "cellitons"), but (much as with the parallel
history of the harpsichord The harpsichord was an important keyboard instrument in Europe from the 15th through the 18th centuries, and as revived in the 20th, is widely played today. Origins The New Grove musical dictionary summarizes the earliest historical traces of th ...
revival) eventually lighter instruments were constructed that more closely followed their historical antecedents. Probably the first person to initiate the revival of the baryton was Christian Döbereiner in Munich. In 1934 he ordered a copy of an instrument by Simon Schödler (1782) from the renowned luthier, Ferdinand Wilhelm Jaura in Munich. The first performance in modern times on that baryton took place in Munich in 1936, which featured a trio by Haydn. This instrument forms part of the Vazquez Collection of Historical String Instruments and is frequently employed in performance by the Orpheon Foundation. A complete documentation of the Jaura Baryton is available at the Orpheon Foundation web site. Among the modern active baryton players are Jeremy Brooker, Kazimierz Gruszczyński, Balázs Kakuk (Haydn Baryton Trio of Budapest), José Manuel Hernández, John Hsu, Roland Hutchinson, José Vázquez, Kenneth Slowik and Matthew Baker (Valencia Baryton Project). With the revival of the baryton, a body of recorded work has gradually emerged. Several ensembles have produced recordings of individual works, and the Esterházy Ensemble (Michael Brüssing, baryton) has issued a set of recordings that cover the entire Haydn oeuvre. The Swiss composer
Klaus Huber Klaus Huber (30 November 1924 – 2 October 2017) was a Swiss composer and academic based in Basel and Freiburg. Among his students were Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Jarrell, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Toshio Hosokawa, Wolfgang Rihm, and Kaija Saariaho ...
has written an important solo part for the instrument in his work (2004).


Repertoire

Of the repertoire for this instrument, the best known works are the 175 compositions written by
Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have le ...
for his patron, Prince
Nikolaus Esterházy Nicholas is a male given name and a surname. The Eastern Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Anglican Churches celebrate Saint Nicholas every year on December 6, which is the name day for "Nicholas". In Greece, the name and its ...
, who enjoyed playing this instrument. Of these, 126 are trios for viola, cello and baryton. They were written in the earlier part of Haydn's career, from 1762 to 1775. Andreas Lidel was also noticeable for his compositions that included baryton.


Nomenclature

According to the ''
Oxford English Dictionary The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...
'', the name of the instrument is a loan word from French ''baryton'' or Italian ''baritono'', and ultimately derives from Greek ''bary-'' + ''tonos'' 'deep-pitched'. Alternate spellings include: bariton, barydon, paradon, paridon, pariton, viola paradon, viola di bordoni,
talian Talian may refer to: *Talian dialect Talian (or Brazilian Venetian, , , but ) is a dialect of the Venetian language, spoken primarily in the Serra Gaúcha region in the northeast of the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. It is also spoken ...
viola di bardone,
erman Erman Rašiti may refer to: Given name * Erman Bulucu (born 1989), Turkish footballer * Erman Eltemur (born 1993), Turkish karateka * Erman Güraçar (born 1974), Turkish footballer * Erman Kılıç (born 1983), Turkish footballer * Erman Kunter (b ...
viola di bordone. The name lyra bastard is also sometimes used, though technically speaking it is incorrect.


Notes


References

*Fruchtman, Efraim (1962) The baryton: its history and its music re-examined. ''Acta Musicologica'' 34:2-17. *Gartrell, Carol (2003) Towards an inventory of antique barytons. ''Galpin Society Journal'' 56:116-131. *Hsu, John (1986) Program notes for his performance of trios #97, 111 87, and 101 with violist David Miller and cellist Fortunato Arico on ASV (GAU 104, 1986). *Pamplin, Terence M. (2009) "Baryton", in David Wyn Jones, ed., ''Oxford Composer Companions: Haydn''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. *Sadie, Julie Anne and Terence M. Pamplin (no date, accessed 20 February 2012) "Baryton", in ''Oxford Music Online''.


External links


The first modern Baryton, by Ferdinand Wilhelm JauraRoland Hutchinson and the Baryton
(demonstration video at YouTube)
Burgksteiner: Divertimento for baryton trio
(performance on YouTube)
Songs with baryton accompaniment
by Prince Pal Esterhazy (performance on YouTube)
International Baryton SocietyEsterházy Ensemble
{{Authority control Joseph Haydn String instruments with sympathetic strings Viol family instruments