1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rebec

REBEC, or (Med. Fr. rubèbe, rebelle, rebec, gigue; Ger. Rubeba, Rebek, Geige, Lyra; Ital. ribeba, ribeca, lyra; Sp. rabel, rabeca, ravé, rabé), a medieval stringed instrument played with a bow, derived from the Oriental rebab. Like the rebab (q.v.), the rebec assumed at first one of two forms the pear-shaped body with a wide base, strung with three strings, or the long, narrow pear- or boat-shaped body with two strings and, in addition, the other Oriental characteristics of the rebab, i.e. the vaulted back, the absence of ribs and pegs set in the back of the head. Except for the addition of a fingerboard, what is now recognised as the rebec underwent no structural development and never entered the domain of art. When the guitar-fiddle and the oval vielle with five strings made their appearance in Europe, apparently during the 11th century, a number of hybrids combining characteristics of both types of construction spread rapidly over western Europe.

A spoon-shaped instrument, in most cases without neck, the head being joined directly to the wide shoulders of the body, must not be confounded with these hybrids; the compass and capabilities of the instrument, which sometimes had but one single string, must have been extremely limited. What the name of the instrument was in the various ages is not known, but it may be classed with the rebab and rebec, from which it only differs in the outline of the body. The present writer discovered an Oriental archetype on a small terra-cotta figure in the style of the Gandhara school, unearthed at Yotkan on the site of the ancient Khotan. The round head is fastened directly to the shoulders, the three strings are thrown into relief by deep indentations, the bridge tail-piece has three notches. The instrument (assigned to some period between the 5th and 8th centuries A.D.) may be compared with the European medieval type, such, for instance, as the bowed spoon-shaped rebec on the capital of the left pillar in the miniature of King David and his musicians, belonging to the 10th-century psalter of Labeo Notker at St Gallen; also with the musicians' lyra on the western doorway of the church at Moissan; and with the British Museum Add. MS. 17333, in which several of these spoon-shaped, neckless instruments are to be found.

{{EB1911 Fine Print|The boat-shaped rebec survived as the sordino or pochette, an instrument widely used by dancing masters until the 19th century, when it was abandoned for the kit, a diminutive violin. The pochette, as its name in French and also in German (Taschengeige) indicates, was small enough to be carried in the pocket; it measured from 15 to 18 in. and was played with a correspondingly small bow. The 15th- and 16th-century rebec or geige, as the pear-shaped variety was called in Germany {gigue in France), is figured by Sebastian Virdung; there were three strings tuned to G, D, A, and it had a finger-board cut in one piece with the sound-board in some cases and forming a step. Some writers consider that the addition of the finger-board constituted the difference between the geige and the rebec. Facts hardly support this theory, since the lyra teutonica in the 9th or 11th century already had a finger-board, and Farabi, the Arabic scholar of the 10th century, who was equally familiar with the Greek, Persian and Arabic musical systems, distinctly states that the rebab was also known as the lyra. The modern Greek rebec with three strings is to this day played by rustic musicians under the name of lyra. Moreover, in Germany, bowed instruments of all kinds were at first known as geige, in contradistinction to those whose strings were plucked, classed together as cytharas or some word derived from it, the most modern example of which is the zither. With the rise of the viols and later of the violin, which represent the most perfect type of construction for stringed instruments, the rebec tribe, inferior in every respect and without artistic merit, was gradually relegated beyond the pale, and by the 18th century had fallen into disuse except in certain rural districts, where for outdoor music, their shrill, penetrating tone continues to endear them to itinerant and village musicians.}} (K. S.)