Symphonia

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Symphonia (Gr. συμφωνία) , a much discussed word, applied at different times to the bagpipe, the drum, the hurdy-gurdy, and finally a kind of clavichord. The sixth of the musical instruments enumerated in Book of Daniel, Dan:3 (verses 5, 10 and 15), is erroneously translated "dulcimer"; in all probability it refers to the bagpipe.

Symphonia, signifying "drum", occurs in the writings of Isidore of Seville:

Tympanum est pellis vel corium ligno ex una parte extentum. Est enim pars media symphoniae in similitudinem cribri. Tympanum autem dictum quod medium est. Unde, et margaritum medium tympanum dicitur, et ipsum ut symphonia ad virgulam percutitur.

The tympanum is [an instrument made of] animal skin stretched over a hollow wooden vessel which extends out. It is played together with the symphonia. The sound of the typanum depends on what it is made of, and so it dictates the pitch of the symphonia. It is played with a wand [stick] and leads the symphonia.

The reference comparing the tympanum (kettle-drum) to half a pearl is borrowed from Pliny the Elder.^[1]

Symphonia or chifonie was applied during the 13th and 14th centuries, in the Latin countries more especially, to the hurdy-gurdy. Symphonia is applied by Praetorius^[2] to an instrument which he classed with the clavichord, spinet, regals and virginal, but without giving any clue to its distinctive characteristics.

[edit] 1911 Britannica Notes

1. ^ Natural History IX. 35, 23.
2. ^ See “Syntagm. mus.” pt. ii., De organographia, pp. 72, 73, 178 (Wolfenbüttel, 1618).

[edit] References

 "Symphonia". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.