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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: RAY-RHU |
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REBAB, or RABAB (Persian rubab;2 Arabic rebab, rababa;3 Sp. rave, rabe,' rabel, arrabel, arrabil;s Fr. rubebe; It. rubeba) , an ancient stringed instrument, having a body either pear-shaped or boat-shaped and the characteristics of vaulted back and the absence of neck; also a generic modern Arabic term applied by the Mahommedans of 'northern Africa to various stringed instruments played with a bow. As the rebab exercised a very considerable influence on the history of stringed instruments in Europe, and was undoubtedly the means through which the bow was introduced to the West, it is necessary to examine its construction before deciding whether it may be accepted as the ancestor of the violin in deference to the claim made for it by certain modern writers.6 2 F. Ruckert, Grammatik, Poetik and Rhetorik der Perser, nach dem 7" Bande des Heftes Kolzum (Gotha, 1874), p. 80. This translation of the introduction to the Seven Seas contains a reference to musical instruments; the one translated Laute (lute) is rendered in Persian rubdb, a point ascertained through the courteous assistance of Mr A. G. Ellis, of the Oriental Department, British Museum. ' Al-Farabi, loth century, translation into Latin by J. G. Kosegarten, Alii Ispahenensis Liber. Cantilenarum . . . arabice editur adjectaque translatione adnotationibusque (Greifswald, 184o), vol. i. pp. 36, 41, 105, 109, &C. 'See poem by Juan Ruiz, archipreste de Hita, 14th century, from MS. in library of the cathedral at Toledo,-quoted by Mariano Soriano Fuertes, Hist. de la Musica espannola (Madrid), vol. i. p. 105. ' From the Arabic treatise of Mahamud Ibrain Axalchi, MS. No. 69, Escorial. e See F. J. Fetis, Antoine Stradivari . Precede de recherches historiques et critiques sur ''origin et les transformations des instru- The two principal forms of rebab with which we are concerned as prototypes of European instruments of the middle ages are: (I) the long and narrow boat-shaped rebab, which may be traced back to Persia in the 8th century B.C., and is still in use in that country; and (2) the lute-shaped rebab, with rudimentary neck consisting of the gradual narrowing of the body, which has the outline of a longitudinal section of a pear. This variety became very popular in medieval Europe under the names of rebec, gigue, geige and lyra; the archetype has been traced back to moo B.C. The most characteristic feature in the construction of the rebab, and of all instruments derived from it, was the body, composed of a back originally scooped out of a solid piece of wood, to which was glued without the intermediary of ribs (an important structural feature of the violin) a flat sound-board of parchment or thin wood. The rebab-esh-sha'er, or " poet's rebab," had a body consisting of an almost rectangular box covered with parchment and sup-ported on an iron foot; the instrument was held like the modern violoncello. No evidence has yet been brought forward that the rebab-esh-sha'er was in use among the Arabs who conquered Spain in the 8th century; if the instrument was indeed ever introduced into Spain it has left no trace. The bowed instruments of the middle ages fall naturally into two distinct classes, according to the principles observed in construction. One is the type having a body formed on the model of a Greek or a Roman cithara, from which it was evolved by the addition of a neck and finger-board (see GUITAR and GUITAR-FIDDLE). Instruments of this type were at all times recognized as superior and belonging.to the realm of art, whereas type 2, derived from the Eastern rebab, never attained to any artistic development, and at the time when the first type had nearly reached its apogee the second was placed beyond the pale of art. According to Al-Farabi, the rebab had either one string
The history of the origin of the rebab had until now not gone back beyond the 7th century A.D., and has been a matter of conjecture founded on the word rubab or rubab, which is of Persian origin, and on the statement that the Arabs themselves declare they obtained the instrument from the Persians. Recent
As far as is known at present, the archetype of the rebab and lute family is the instrument shown in fig. 1. The terra-cotta figure of the musician discovered in Egypt (19056) by Professor Flinders Petrie during the course of excavations in the cemetery of Goshen 4 is Greek work of the post-Mycenaean age; it was ments a archet (Paris, 1856) ; Edward Heron Allen, Violin-making as it was and is (London, 1884) ; E. J. Payne, article " Violin " in Grove's Dictionary of Music (1st ed.). See also The Instruments of the Orchestra (London, 1910), part ii., " Precursors of the Violin Family," by Kathleen Schlesinger, where the evolution of the violin is traced from the cithara of the Greeks.' See J. P. N. Land's paper, " Recherches sur 1'histoire de la gamme arabe," VI. Intern. Orient. Congress, part ii. (Leiden, 1884) (Brit. Mus. press-mark, acad. 8806), p. 130, and also p. 56. 2 See Mariano Soriano Fuertes, loc. cit. 3 The copy of Farabi's MS., used for their translations by Kosegarten and Land, Escorial, No. 911, dates from the middle of the 12th century. See Michael Casiri, Bibl. Arab. Hisp., vol. i. p. 347, and Forkel, Allgemeine Litteratur der Musik ( Leipzig
Leipzig
Hammer
' Excavations carried out by the Brit. School of Archaeology in Egypt and by the Egyptian Research Account. See " Hyksos
Tell at Suza' amongst objects referred to the reign of Shutruk-Nakhounta, who was king of Elam c. 789 B.C. The pear-shaped instrument, wide at the base and elongated to form a neck, with the head bent back at right angles and the strings plucked by the fingers,the lute of the 6th century A.D.,is seen first on a frieze
Petersburg
Excavations carried out in ancient Khotan10 or Ilchi (Turkestan, on the caravan route to Kashgar) have brought to light further evidence of the ubiquity of the rebab type in Asia. In addition to the two principal types of rebab (fig. 3) mentioned above there is also to be found the spoon-shaped instrument with no neck and large round head (fig. 4), sometimes seen in European medieval sculptures and MSS. of the Ilth and 12th centuries." The pear-shaped rebab or lute appears also among the celel rated paintings in the Buddhist cave temples of Ajanta,12 assigned to the 6th century A.D. A later example at the British Museum, a fragment of a dish found at Rhajes or Ray,13 in northern Persia, See Laurent Grillet, Les ancee'tres du violon, &c. (Paris, 1901), tome i. p. 29. Portail occidental de l'eglise de Moissac," 12th century. ' See Delegation en Perse, by J. de Morgan (Paris, 1900), vol. i. pl. 8, Nos. 8 and 9, text, pp. 130 and 131. ' See Ormonde M. Dalton, The Treasures of the Oxus, catalogue of the Franks bequest to the British Museum, 1905, pl. xxvi. No. 190. ' See for an illustration
Petersburg
9 See J. R. Aspelin, Antiquites du nord, p. 141, No. 6o8. 'o See Ancient Khotan
" See, for instance, Psalter of Labeo Notker, loth century, Bibl. Stift St Gallen, on the top of left-hand gable pillar. Illustration
12 See reproductions by John Griffiths (London, 1896), vol. ii. pl. 105, cave I., To, e. 13 Brit. Mus., Ceramic Gallery, case A, Henderson Bequest, 1891. destroyed by Jenghiz Khan in the 13th century, has the four pegs in the side of the head. Finally, we find the instrument on the From Marc. Aurel. Stein, Ancient Khotan
from Khotan. rebab, from Khotan. doorway of the Hopital du Moristan' (Cairo), carved work of the 13th century. In all these examples it is noteworthy that the strings are vibrated by plucking them with the fingers, not by means of the bow, the use of which, in conjunction with those structural features, constitutes the violation of an acoustic principle, and therefore accounts for the failure of the instrument as Rebab and its successful development as Lute. There are, however, two early examples of bowed rebabs of Byzantine origin to be cited. A pear-shaped rebab, held like a violoncello and played by means of a very long and slender bow, is carved on one of the reliefs of an ivory casket of halo-Byzantine work of the 8th or 9th century, belonging to the Carrand Collection, Florence (see REBEC). Another bowed instrument, of still earlier date, is to be seen among the wonderful mural paintings of the necropolis and monastery of Baouit,' assigned to the 8th century at the latest, but probably dating from the 6th or 7th. The examination of all these representations of the rebab, ranging from loon B.C. to the 13th century A.D., tends to show that the instrument had its origin in the East, and was widely distributed over Asia Minor, India and Persia before the 6th century A.D. Similar archaeological documents of the middle ages suggest the possibility that we are not indebted to the Arabs alone for the introduction of the rebab and bow and of the lute into Europe by way of Spain, early in the 8th century, but that they had probably already made their way into southern and central Europe from the East through the influence of the Byzantine Empire and of the Christian East generally. It is clear also that the instruments of the rebab type were at first twanged with the fingers, and the bow was apparently not invented for the rebab but only applied to it. All arguments in favour of including the rebab among the ancestors of the violin on the score of the bow lose their force, and as the rebab possessed no structural feature in common with the violin the question may be considered settled negatively. For the European development of the rebab, see REBEC. (K. S.) End of Article: REBAB, or RABAB (Persian rubab;2 Arabic rebab, rababa;3 Sp. rave, rabe,' rabel, arrabel, arrabil;s Fr. rubebe; It. rubeba) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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