Name (Geigenwerck) given by Hans Haiden to an instrument of his own invention, probably the most successful and certainly the most influential of all bowed keyboard instruments. Haiden produced a working example of his instrument by 1575 and an improved version in 1599, for which he received an imperial privilege in 1601. He described this version in a pamphlet, Musicale instrumentum reformatum (Nuremberg, n.d., and 1610; Lat. trans. 1605). His account in the latter was quoted in full by Praetorius (1618), who also provided the only surviving picture of the instrument, which resembled a rather bulky harpsichord (see illustration). At various times Haiden used gut or wire strings, with parchment-covered wire strings in the bass. The bowing action was provided by five parchment-covered wheels against which the individual strings (one for each note) could be drawn by the action of the keyboard. These wheels were turned by means of a treadle. Haiden claimed that the instrument was capable of producing all shades of loudness, of sustaining notes indefinitely, and of producing vibrato. The principle of a string instrument bowed with a rosined wheel and played with a keyboard is used in the hurdy-gurdy, known throughout Europe since the 12th century. Diaries of Leonardo da Vinci show that he also applied his ingenuity to producing various devices employing bowed strings. Vincenzo Bolcione in Florence produced an instrument in 1608 which played a ‘consort of viols’ (Davari, 40); this was probably also a Geigenwerk. An instrument made in Spain in the first half of the 17th century, and apparently based on Haiden’s writings, is in the Instrument Museum of the Brussels Conservatory. As late as the second decade of the 18th century, there was a Geigenwerk in the Medici Collection in Florence, made by David Haiden, Hans’s son, and another at Dresden was examined by J.G. Schröter. (see Haidenfamily, (2) and (4).) Several other inventors also modelled bowed keyboard instruments on Haiden’s Geigenwerk (see Sostenente piano, §1).
PraetoriusSM, ii, 67–72
PraetoriusTI, pl.iii
G. Kinsky: ‘Hans Haiden: der Erfinder der Nürnbergischen Geigenwerks’, ZMw, vi (1923–4), 193–214
F.J. de Hen: ‘The Truchado Instrument: a Geigenwerk?’, Keyboard Instruments, ed. E.M. Ripin (Edinburgh, 1971, 2/1977), 17–26
S. Davari: ‘Notizie di fabbricatori d’organi e d’altri instrumenti’, Atti e Memorie [Accademia Virgiliana di Mantova] new ser., xliii (1975), 29–47
S. Marcuse: A Survey of Musical Instruments (London, 1975), 308ff
E. Winternitz: Leonardo as a Musician (New Haven, CT, 1982)
C.W. Simons: The History of Mechanically Bowed Keyboard Instruments With a Description of Extant Examples (diss., U. of Iowa, 1996)
For further bibliography, see Sostenente piano
EDWIN M. RIPIN/DENZIL WRAIGHT