The cittern or cithren ( Fr. ''cistre'', It. ''cetra'', Ger. ''Cister,'' Sp. ''cistro, cedra, cítola'') is a stringed instrument dating from the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

citole The citole was a String instrument, string musical instrument, closely associated with the medieval fiddles (viol, vielle, Geige, gigue) and commonly used from 1200–1350."CITOLE, also spelled Systole, Cythole, Gytolle, &c. (probably a Fr. d ...

(or cytole). Its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...

. It was also easier to play, smaller, less delicate and more portable. Played by people of all social classes, the cittern was a popular instrument of casual music-making much like the

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

is today.

History

Pre-modern citterns

The cittern is one of the few metal-strung instruments known from the

Renaissance music Renaissance music is traditionally understood to cover European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, later than the Renaissance era as it is understood in other disciplines. Rather than starting from the early 14th-century ''ars nova'', the mus ...

period. It generally has four courses of strings (single, pairs or threes depending on design or regional variation), one or more courses being usually tuned in octaves, though instruments with more or fewer courses were made. The cittern may have a range of only an octave between its lowest and highest strings and employs a re-entrant tuning – a tuning in which the string that is physically uppermost is not the lowest, as is also the case with the five-string

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and in modern forms is usually made of plastic, where early membranes were made of animal skin. ...

and most

ukulele The ukulele ( ; ); also called a uke (informally), is a member of the lute (ancient guitar) family of instruments. The ukulele is of Portuguese origin and was popularized in Hawaii. The tone and volume of the instrument vary with size and con ...

s for example. The tuning and narrow range allow the player a number of simple chord shapes useful for both simple song accompaniment and dances, though much more complex music was also written for it.The Oxford Companion to Music - ''cittern'' Its bright and cheerful timbre make it a valuable counterpoint to gut-strung instruments. The Spanish

bandurria The bandurria is a plucked chordophone from Spain, similar to the mandolin and bandola, primarily used in Spanish folk music, but also found in former Spanish colonies. Instrument development Prior to the 18th century, the bandurria had a ro ...

, still used today, is a similar instrument.

16th to 18th centuries

From the 16th until the 18th century the cittern was a common English barber shop instrument, kept in waiting areas for customers to entertain themselves and others with, and popular

sheet music Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed Book, books or Pamphlet, pamphlets ...

for the instrument was published to that end. The top of the pegbox was often decorated with a small carved head, perhaps not always of great artistic merit; in

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

's ''

Love's Labour's Lost ''Love's Labour's Lost'' is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s for a performance at the Inns of Court before Queen Elizabeth I. It follows the King of Navarre and his three companions as ...

'', the term "cittern-head" is used as an insult: :: HOLOFERNES: What is this? :: BOYET: A cittern-head. :: DUMAIN: The head of a bodkin. :: BIRON: A Death's face in a ring. Just as the

was enlarged and bass-extended to become the

theorbo The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck that houses the second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box with a flat top, typically with one or three sound holes decorated with rose ...

and chitarrone for continuo work, so the cittern was developed into the ceterone, with its extended neck and unstopped bass strings, though this was a much less common instrument. Gérard Joseph Deleplanque (1723-1784) was a luthier from

Lille Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...

who made
wide variety of instruments
including citterns. The instrument maker Johann Wilhelm Bindernagel (around 1770-1845), who worked in

Gotha Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...

, made
mixed guitar-cittern
under the name "Sister" or "German Guitar", which was equipped with seven gut strings. The leading 18th-century Swedish songwriter Carl Michael Bellman played mostly on the cittern, and is shown with the instrument (now in the National Museum, Stockholm) in a 1779 portrait by Per Krafft the elder.

Modern citterns

In Germany, the cittern survives under the names '' Waldzither'' and ''Lutherzither''. The last name comes from the belief that

Martin Luther Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...

played this instrument. Also, the names ''Thüringer Waldzither'' in Thüringer Wald, ''Harzzither'' in the Harz mountains, '' Halszither'' in German-speaking Switzerland are used. There is a tendency in modern German to interchange the words for cittern and

zither Zither (; , from the Greek ''cithara'') is a class of stringed instruments. The modern instrument has many strings stretched across a thin, flat body. Zithers are typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers or a ...

. The term waldzither came into use around 1900, to distinguish citterns from zithers. The cittern family survives as the Corsican cetara and the Portuguese guitar. The ''guitarra portuguesa'' is typically used to play the popular traditional music known as

fado Fado (; "destiny, fate") is a music genre which can be traced to the 1820s in Lisbon, Portugal, but probably has much earlier origins. Fado historian and scholar Rui Vieira Nery states that "the only reliable information on the history of fado ...

. In the early 1970s, using the guitarra and a 1930s archtop Martin guitar as models, English luthier Stefan Sobell created a "cittern", a hybrid instrument primarily used for playing folk music, which has proved to be popular with folk revival musicians.

Bibliography

* ''Musick's Delight on the Cithren'', John Playford (1666). * ''Musick's Delight on the Modern Cittern'', Robin Alexander Lucas, Vol.I. (2021) ISBN 9781838438500; Vol.II. (2022) ISBN 9781838438517; Vol.III. (2023) ISBN 9781838438524; Vol. IV. (2024) ISBN 9781838438531.
''Méthode pour Apprendre à Pincer du Cistre, ou Guitare Allemande''
Charles Pollet (1786).

References

External links

Renovata Cythara: The Renaissance Cittern Pages

Stefan Sobell website

Doc Rossi website

* ttps://cittern.co.uk Cittern Press(publisher of printed tune books for the modern cittern) Citterns and cittern research at the Musikinstrumenten-Museum der Universität Leipzig
Cittern, possibly by Petrus Raitta, England, 1579
at the National Music Museum
Cittern, Urbino, ca. 1550
at the National Music Museum
Decorated Cittern by Joachim Tielke, Hamburg, ca. 1685
at

The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the third-largest museum in the world and the largest art museum in the Americas. With 5.36 million v ...

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