Geigenwerk

Geigenwerk (Ger.) (Fr.: clavecinviole), *bowed keyboard instr. invented by Hans Haiden of Nürnberg ca. 1570 and perfected by him ca. 1600, the first successful instr. of its nature. Haiden's first instrs. had a continuous band acting as a bow, and gut strings; later his perfected version (he called it the instrumentum reformatum) had 5 or 6 parchment-covered steel wheels instead of the continuous band, and the gut strings, which did not hold their tuning, were replaced with brass and steel…