A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Sordini

by Alfred James Hipkins

SORDINI, Mutes^[1] or Dampers (Fr. Sourdine; Ger. Dämpfer. The term occurs in Senza sordini; Con sordini). The violin Sordino has been described and figured under Mute, and some further remarks are given below.

In the pianoforte the contrivance is called in English the damper. The first pianofortes, as we find Cristofori's and Silbermann's, were made without stops. In course of time a practice common with the harpsichord was followed in the pianoforte, and led the way to the now indispensable pedals.

The first stops were used to raise the dampers; and by two brass knobs on the player's left hand the dampers could be taken entirely off the strings in two divisions, bass and treble. C. P. E. Bach, in his 'Versuch,' makes few references to the pianoforte; but in the edition of 1797 he remarks (p. 268) that the undamped register of the Fortepiano is the most agreeable, and that, with due care, it is the most charming of keyed instruments for improvising ('fantasiren'). The higher treble of the piano is not now damped. These short strings vibrate in unison with the overtones of deeper notes, and, as a distinguished pianoforte-maker has said, give life to the whole instrument.^[2] The musical terms 'Senza sordini' and 'Con sordini' applied to the damper-stops were used exclusively by Beethoven in his earlier sonatas. He did not use the now familiar 'Ped.' or 'Pedal,' because the pedal was of recent introduction, and was less commonly employed than the stops, which every little square piano then had. The 'Genouillière' or knee-pedal replaced the damper stops in the German Grands. For the Italian words signifying Without and With dampers the signs ⊕ and 🞼 were substituted by Steibelt, and eventually became fixed as the constant equivalents. The oldest dated square piano existing, one of Zumpe's of 1766, has the damper stops; as to the Genouillière, Mozart tells us (letter, Oct. 1777) how Stein had one in his improved Grand, and M. Mahillon's Stein of 1780 or thereabouts, accordingly has one. There is one in Mozart's Walther Grand at Salzburg, and in each of the two Huhn (Berlin) Grands of 1790, or earlier, preserved at Potsdam. The action of the Genouillière consists of two levers which descend a little below the key-bottom of the piano, and meet opposite the knees of the player, who pressing the levers together, by an upward thrust moves a bar which takes the whole of the dampers off the strings.

Contemporaneously with the employment of the Genouillière was that of the piano stop (German 'Harfenzug' Fr. 'Céleste'), afterwards transferred, like the dampers, to a pedal. An interesting anonymous Louis Quinze square piano belonging to the painter M. Gosselin of Brussels, has this Celeste as a stop. Its origin is clearly the harp-stop of the harpsichord, the pieces of leather being turned over so as to be interposed between the hammers and the strings.^[3]

A note of directions for the use of the pedals prefixed to Steibelt's three sonatas, op. 35, gives an approximate date to the use of the pedals becoming recognised, and put under the composer's direction, instead of being left entirely to the fancy of the player. He says: 'The Author wishing to make more Variety on the Piano Forte finds it necessary to make use of the Pedals, by which alone the tones can be united, but it requires to use them with care, without which, in going from one chord to another, Discord and Confusion would result. Hereafter the Author in all his Compositions will make use of the following signs to denote the Pedals.

⊕ The Pedal which raises the dampers.

🞼 The Piano Pedal.

⏃ To take the foot off the Pedal that was used before.'

Steibelt's op. 35 was published in 1799, by Longman, Clementi & Co.^[4]

The leather was applied in one length to mute the strings more effectually, and was then called in French 'Sourdine.' John Broadwood was the first to put the 'sordin'—as the term occurs in his patent of 1783 upon a foot pedal; he put the dampers upon a pedal at the same time, and for fifty years the pedal-foot was cloven, to divide the dampers into bass and treble sections, as the stops had previously been divided for the same purpose. The use of the pianissimo mute was indicated by the Italian word 'Sordino.' Mr. Franklin Taylor has pointed out to the writer the use of this term in the sense of a mute as late as Thalberg's op. 41 (Ashdown's edition):—

The 'Verschiebung,' or shifting pedal, for shifting the hammer first to two strings and then to one (una corda), ultimately gained the day over the muted pedals or stops. The effect of the 'una corda' was charming, and is expressly indicated by Beethoven in his G major Concerto, in op. 106, etc. The pp and ppp soft pedal in course of time shared the fate of the divided damper pedal: such refinements were banished as being of small service in large rooms. In the six-pedal Viennese Grand of Nanette Stein at Windsor Castle, the 'Verschiebung' and 'Harfenzug' co-exist.^[5] The latter has of late years again come forward, at first in oblique pianos that could not shift, and since more generally; and has, to a certain extent, gained the favour of amateurs. The material used is cloth or felt.

[ A. J. H. ]

Most instruments are capable of having their tone dulled for particular effects, and this is accomplished by partially preventing the vibrations by the interposition of a foreign substance. Violins are muted either by placing a wooden or brass instrument [see Mute] upon the bridge, or by slipping a coin or strip of horn between the strings above the bridge. These two means produce different results. The brass mute is so heavy as to entirely extinguish the tone, especially of a small or inferior violin, while the strip of horn sometimes produces scarcely any effect at all. A penny squeezed between the bridge and tailpiece produces just the right effect. The brass mute should be reserved as a special effect of itself. On the other hand, the mutes for the Cello and Double-bass are rarely made heavy enough, and this has given rise to the erroneous idea (see Prout's Treatise on Instrumentation, pp. 23, 28) that mutes do not produce much effect on these instruments. The double-bass mutes used by the present writer are of brass, and weigh rather over a pound. They produce a beautiful veiled tone, and it is probable that larger patterned basses would bear even a heavier mute.

Brass instruments can be muted in three ways. The first and most effective is—as in 'stopping' a horn—the introduction of the closed hand or a rolled-up handkerchief into the bell. This raises the pitch of the instrument, but produces a good muffled tone. The second way is by inserting a pear-shaped piece of wood covered with leather into the bell, which it fits, small studs allowing a portion of the wind to pass. The tone thus produced is thin, nasal, and unpleasing. Wagner has frequently used it (Siegfried, Acts 1 and 2; Meistersinger, last scene) as a comic effect, imitating the sound of a toy-trumpet. The third means produces a very distant-sounding, but still more nasal quality of tone, and is known to orchestral players as the 'coffee-pot effect.' It is obtained by allowing the sound to issue from the small end of a small double cone of metal, styled the 'echo attachment.' A good cornet player can, by these three devices, produce on his instrument exact imitations of the horn, oboe, and bagpipe.

Trombones, Tubas, etc., can also be muted in the same way, though we are not aware of any instance in orchestral music. The effect of an entire military band con sordini would be very curious and striking, but almost impracticable, owing to the difficulty of keeping in tune.

It has been frequently stated that 'Berlioz muted the Clarinet by enveloping the bell in a bag of chamois leather,' and that 'The Oboes in Handel's time were muted by placing a ball of cotton wool in the bell.' But these devices only affect the bottom note of the instrument, as all others issue from the holes and not from the bell at all. The writer has tried the effect of enveloping the entire instrument in a bag of wash-leather, from which the mouthpiece alone emerges. A slit on each side admits the hands of the player, and a stifled tone is the result, not, however, of sufficiently striking peculiarity to warrant its use as a special effect; while the quick rise of temperature inside the bag throws the instrument out of tune directly.

The laying of any substance, even a handkerchief, on the kettledrums is sufficient to check the vibrations and produce a muffled effect. In the 'Dead March' the big drum is usually beaten enveloped in its cover.

Various means have been used to obtain sourdine effects from voices. Berlioz, like Gossec before him [see vol. i. 611a], has employed the device of a chorus in a room behind the orchestra ('L'Enfance du Christ') and the interposition of a veil, or curtain ('Lelio'). He has also suggested that the chorus should hold their music before their mouths, or should sing with their backs to the audience. One important effect, however, deserves more attention than it has received. French composers, especially Gounod, are fond of that striking device called à bouche fermée. The choir hums an accompaniment without words, keeping the mouth quite, or nearly, closed. But composers have lost sight of the fact that several totally distinct effects may be thus produced, and they usually confuse the matter still more by writing the sound 'A-a-a' underneath the music—just the very sound which can not possibly be produced by a closed mouth. The effect would be better designated by writing the exact sound intended, and consequently the exact position of the mouth. For instance, by closing the lips entirely, the sound of 'n' or 'm' may be hummed through the nose. By opening the lips slightly either of the vowel-sounds may be used, each making a distinct effect. Comical and quite original effects might be got by sustaining such sounds as 'z-z' (buzzed), 'r-r' (rattled), or 'ü' (pursing up the lips). These, however, do not properly belong to our subject.

The concealed orchestra at Bayreuth is a specimen of a whole orchestra with the tone veiled and covered. Opinions differ as to the satisfactory result of this plan. However good for Wagner's heavy scoring it would probably spoil such instrumentation as that of Gounod or Berlioz.

[ F. C.]

1. It will be noticed that the metaphors at the root of the Italian and English terms are deafness in the one case and dumbness in the other.
2. Even in Virdung, a.d. 1511, we find the practice of leaving sympathetic strings in the clavichords; as he says to strengthen the resonance.
3. In the article Pedals we attributed the introduction of the 'Céleste' to Sebastian Erard; but as now named we are disposed to place this kind of pedal earlier, since it was in such general use in 18th-century German pianos, the ideas of which, whether originally German or French, Erard appears at first to have adopted as the basis for his experiments.
4. Steibelt gives a description of the pedals, with his signs for them, in his 'Méthode de Piano,' first published by Janet, Paris, 1805. He names Clementi, Dussek and Cramer as having adopted his signs. They differ from and are better than Adam's (Méthode de Piano du Conservatoire), also published in Paris, 1802. Steibelt calls the 'una corda' celeste.
5. The remaining pedals in Nanette Stein's Grand are the 'Fagotzug,' by which a piece of card or stiff paper is brought into partial contact with the strings, and the 'Janissary' drum and triangle. See Stein.