William Brohinsky wrote:
I have spent an enjoyable week researching the chekker. At least it
was more enjoyable than just sitting around healing.
Anyway, I was able to acquire some of the papers associated with the
Christopher Page article and the Early Music article itself:
"The Myth of the Chekker", Christopher Page, EM Vol7, No.4, Keyboard
Issue 1 (Oct.,1979) pp 482-489, Oxford University Press
(http://www.jstor.org/stable/3126484)
"Four More 15th-Century Representations of Stringed Keyboard
Instruments", Christopher Page and Lewis Jones) Galpin Society
Journal, Vol 31 (May 1978), pp 151-155, Galpin Society
(http://www.jstor.org/stable/841204)
"Toward an Identification of the Chekker", Edwin M Ripin (op. post.)
Galpin Society Journal, Vol 28 (Apr 1975) pp 11-25, Galpin Society
(http://www.jstor.org/stable/841566)
"The Canon and Eschaquiel of the Arabs", Henry George Farmer, Journal
of the Royal Asiatic ZSociety of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 2 (Apr
1926) pp 239-256 (http://www.jstor.com/stable/255220946)
While the background of the last three articles is good to have, it
can be summarized fairly succinctly: The chekker, called at various
times in history by the terms eschiquier, exaquier, chekker,
Schachtbrett, eschaquiel, exquaquiel, exaquir, echiquier, eschequier
Virginal, and assumed at various times to be synonymous with or
derived from al-shaquira (Farmer), "an instrument seeming like organs
which sounds like strings" (King John I of Aragon), manicordium
(Ryet),and therefore an upright harpsichord, clavichord (Ripin), and
dulce melos (Arnault de Zwolle), either is or isn't a mysterious
instrument of which no existing example can be produced, or is a mere
synonym for an instrument that is extent.
Much time is spent on the excheqer, a 5' x 10' board covered with a
cloth "bought in Easter term" with rulings "a full span" or a foot
apart. (Ripin's translation of a medieval diologus ascribed to
"Richard, son of Nigel".) Ripin simultaneously presumes the rulings to
be a reminder of parallel stringed instruments, although the lines
seem to have been both parallel and perpendicular, ala checker board
(or chess board). It is interesting that the chekker is first
recognized as being referred to in 1360 (according to the first
reference in Rippin's Appendix, which quotes 14th to 16th Century
instances) as leschequier, and the excheqer description (with the
ruled lines a foot or span apart) is from a 12th C source, while the
drawings presented date from 15thC and later sources.
Page starts by deconstructing Farmer's association between Al-shaquira
and eschiquir, kindly not pressing the comparison between Farmer and
Iago...
"But yet, I say,
If imputation and string circumstances
Which lead directly to the door of truth
Will give you satisfaction, you might have't."
..making the chekker controversy entertaining if not necessarily educating.
The final score is chekker 1, musicologists 0, as Page concludes that
Gerson's drawings of the chessboard-shaped excheqer, as a "potent
image for the medieval mind," is the best indicator of the shape of
the chekker, at least least at some time. He also figures that the
chekker cannot be isolated to a single type of action, even from its
close positional association in medieval poetry with clavichords or
monochords. His conclusion is that we need more pictorial sources
which are well-connected to mechanisms that resemble the excheqer
before we can begin to guess whether the Chekker was a specific kind
of instrument, or as multi-valued as "Instrument" might have been in
Praetorius' time.
Clearly,Marc Lewon has grasped the situation, and has assigned the
value chekker to something, secure in the knowledge that no one now
stands to dispute with him, and that, if at sometime in the future
definitive evidence arises to prove that his instrument is not a
chekker, he can still be utterly correct to rename it "ex-chekker"!
ray
Great summary! As I understand it, Marc Lewon is in a number of
ensembles and he doesn't appear to be the leader or artistic director:
He plays the lute, gittern, vielle and he sings. The members of the
groups he is in all seem to be ex-students of the Schola Cantorum of
Basel. When I emailed him about the dulce melos, he referred me to the
player of that instrument. (I emailed her but she hasn't replied - No
she just did this second - really friendly and positive!). I've looked
all over Marc's site and links to the ensembles he is in but I can't
find a chekker player anywhere!
His site is here:
http://www.lewon.de/index.php?lg=en
and if you dig around (and the links to the ensembles) there are lots
(lots) of mp3s and other things.
He's a very fast gittern player! The playing is very pert and springy.
Corina Marti plays a claviciterium on a CD, 'Von Edler Art' with
Michael Gondko on gittern and lute - this is more delicate than springy
and Gondko's lute playing is just exquisite. My local library has an old
set of complete Dufay by the Medieval Ensemble of London and some of the
pieces are played on a clavicitherium and and it sounds like an
onanistic skeleton in its final throes. Corina Marti's instrument - and
playing - is of a different order.
Stuart
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