‘Hammers, strings, and whistles’: Musical Instruments of the Middle Ages

Talk and demonstration by Peter Bull

When: Monday 03 July, 13.00-14.00
Where: University House: Beechgrove Room
This event is free of charge.

Contemporary artwork provides an invaluable source of information about medieval musical instruments. This paper will include illustrations of a hammered dulcimer after the painting The Virgin and Child (c.1460) by Giovanni Boccati, a hurdy gurdy after the depiction of Hell in Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510), a recorder based on depictions in Sebastian Virdung’s Musica Getuscht (1511), as well as many other pictures of medieval lutes, gitterns, flutes, and bagpipes. The talk will combine images of contemporary artwork along with modern reproductions of the instruments and demonstrations of how they are played.