Violin mute history - earliest commercially available mute/earliest mute design
I'm writing a paper on violin mutes at the moment, and I was wondering if anyone knew what the first commercially available mute is? I've found some patents on Google Scholar from 1917 but it's not clear to me whether there were any earlier such inventions in regular use! The first document about muting is by Marin Mersenne from 1636, but he was talking about accessories, not purpose-built mutes. Any help would be much appreciated!
Replies (6)
Found this comment on Wikipedia... it might lead somewhere.
"One of the earliest examples in the use of muted string instruments is found in Act II of Jean-Baptiste Lully's Armide, when the entire string section sporadically plays with mutes."
Yeah, I saw that. I didn't notice a reference for it, however, and I'm sure there are earlier musical examples.
Based on the wiki page, I googled the composer's name + mute and got some other hits. For instance, this page mentions that Lully was the first to write for muted strings. You might find some more info by tweaking your search parameters.
http://www.allmusic.com/composition/armide-opera-lwv-71-mc0002408815
And another...
https://academic.oup.com/em/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/em/caw061/2503238/Muted-violins-from-Lully-to-Haydn?redirectedFrom=fulltext
I've seen the Muted violins from Lully to Haydn article, but hadn't spotted the other - thanks. Any more help would be much appreciated!
accidental double post
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November 17, 2016 at 02:46 PM · Any ideas on this? I'm running out of leads...