View source for Cittern

{{Short description|Plucked string instrument}}
{{redirect-distinguish|Cither|zither|gittern}}
{{Infobox Instrument
|name   = Cittern
|names  = [[French language|Fr]]. ''cistre'', [[Italian language|It]]. ''cetra'', [[German language|Ger]]. ''Cister, Zister'', [[Spanish language|Sp]]. ''cistro, cedra, cítola''
|image  = MuseuMusicaBCN 8845.jpg
|image_size = 
|caption=  Cittern exhibited at the <br>[[Music Museum of Barcelona]]
|classification = [[String instrument]] ([[plucked string instrument|plucked]])
|hornbostel_sachs = [[List of musical instruments by Hornbostel-Sachs number: 321.322|321.322-5]]
|hornbostel_sachs_desc = [[necked box lute]]<!-- : string instrument with a box-like shaped body and a long neck -->, plucked with fingers
|developed = 16th century
|range  =
|related= {{collapsible list|
* [[Cetra]]
* [[Citole]]
* [[Ceterone]]
* [[English guitar]]
* [[Portuguese guitar]]
* [[Halszither]]
* [[Waldzither]]
* [[Zither]]
}}
}}

The '''cittern''' or '''cithren''' ([[French language|Fr]]. ''cistre'', [[Italian language|It]]. ''cetra'', [[German language|Ger]]. ''Cister,'' [[Spanish language|Sp]]. ''cistro, cedra, cítola'')<ref>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Cittern|volume=6|pages=399–400}}</ref> is a stringed instrument dating from the [[Renaissance]]. Modern scholars debate its exact history, but it is generally accepted that it is descended from the [[medieval]] [[citole]] (or cytole). Its flat-back design was simpler and cheaper to construct than the [[lute]]. It was also easier to play, smaller, less delicate and more portable. Played by people of all social classes, the cittern was a popular instrument of casual music-making much like the [[guitar]] is today.

== History ==
=== Pre-modern citterns ===
{{multiple image
|direction = horizontal
|align = right
|total_width = 400
|header =
|image1 = Arxicistre.tif
|image2 = Cittern MET DP163302.jpg
|image3 = Sir Joshua Reynolds - Portrait of Mrs. Froude.jpg
|footer = From left to right, '''1''': Archicitter, Laurent, Louis-Sigismond, c. 1774–89; '''2''': [[Bell cittern]] by Joachim Tielke, c. 1865; '''3''': Painting by Sir [[Joshua Reynolds]] of Mrs. Froude playing an [[English guitar]] or cittern, 1762
}}
The cittern is one of the few metal-strung instruments known from the [[Renaissance music]] period (others being gut-strung). It generally has four courses of strings (single, pairs or threes depending on design or regional variation), one or more courses being usually tuned in octaves, though instruments with more or fewer courses were made. The cittern may have a range of only an octave between its lowest and highest strings and employs a [[Reentrant tuning|re-entrant tuning]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.cittern.theaterofmusic.com/faq/index.html |title=The Renaissance Cittern Site: Frequently Asked Questions about the Renaissance Cittern |publisher=Cittern.theaterofmusic.com |date=2012-06-21 |access-date=2013-07-15}}</ref> &ndash; a tuning in which the string that is physically uppermost is not the lowest, as is also the case with the five-string [[banjo]] and most [[ukulele]]s for example. The tuning and narrow range allow the player a number of simple [[Chord (music)|chord]] shapes useful for both simple song accompaniment and dances, though much more complex music was also written for it.<ref name="oxford-companion">The Oxford Companion to Music - ''cittern''</ref> Its bright and cheerful timbre make it a valuable counterpoint to gut-strung instruments. The Spanish [[bandurria]], still used today, is a similar instrument.

=== 16th to 18th centuries ===
{{multiple image
|direction = horizontal
|align = right
|total_width = 350
|header =
|image1 = Stringed_instruments_-_Musical_Instrument_Museum,_Brussels_-_IMG_3919.JPG
|image2 = Sister_(Deutsche_Guitarre)_by_Johann_Wilhelm_Bindernagel,_Gotha_(1800),_Inv.-Nr.621,_MfM.Uni-Leipzig.jpg
|footer = From left to right, '''1''': Stringed instruments in [[Musical Instrument Museum, Brussels]], including two citterns by Gérard Joseph Deleplanque; '''2''': The Sister (Deutsche Guitarre) by Johann Wilhelm Bindernagel.
}}
From the 16th until the 18th century the cittern was a common English [[barber|barber shop]] instrument, kept in waiting areas for customers to entertain themselves and others with, and popular [[sheet music]] for the instrument was published to that end.<ref name="oxford-companion"/> The top of the pegbox was often decorated with a small carved head, perhaps not always of great artistic merit; in [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Love's Labour's Lost]]'', the term "cittern-head" is used as an insult:<ref>{{cite web|last1=Shakespeare|first1=William|title=Love's Labours Lost|url=http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lll/full.html|access-date=22 January 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Dilworth|first1=John|title=How well did Shakespeare know the violin?|url=http://www.thestrad.com/cpt-latests/how-well-did-shakespeare-know-the-violin/|access-date=22 January 2015|orig-year=2009|date=21 April 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150122121603/http://www.thestrad.com/cpt-latests/how-well-did-shakespeare-know-the-violin/|archive-date=22 January 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

:: HOLOFERNES: What is this?
:: BOYET: A cittern-head.
:: DUMAIN: The head of a bodkin.
:: BIRON: A Death's face in a ring.

Just as the [[lute]] was enlarged and bass-extended to become the [[theorbo]] and [[chitarrone]] for [[Figured bass|continuo]] work, so the cittern was developed into the [[ceterone]], with its extended neck and unstopped bass strings, though this was a much less common instrument.

Gérard Joseph Deleplanque (1723-1784) was a luthier from [[Lille]] who made a [https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/504251 wide variety of instruments], including citterns.

The instrument maker Johann Wilhelm Bindernagel (around 1770-1845), who worked in [[Gotha]], made a [http://www.studia-instrumentorum.de/MUSEUM/zist_sister.htm mixed guitar-cittern] under the name "Sister" or "German Guitar", which was equipped with seven gut strings.

The leading 18th-century Swedish songwriter [[Carl Michael Bellman]] played mostly on the cittern, and is shown with the instrument (now in the National Museum, Stockholm) in a 1779 portrait by [[Per Krafft the elder]].<ref>{{cite book | url=https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/5776/4/Poulopoulos%202011.pdf | title=The Guittar in the British Isles, 1750-1810 (PhD Thesis) | publisher=University of Edinburgh | author=Poulopoulos, Panagiotis | year=2011 | pages=199}}</ref>

=== Modern citterns ===
{{multiple image
|align=right
|direction = horizontal
|total_width= 250
|header = Modern citterns
|image1 = Portugueseguitarlisbon.jpg
|image2 = Hamburger_waldzither.jpg
|footer = ''(Left)'': [[Portuguese guitar]] at a music shop, 2010; ''(right)'': Hamburger [[Waldzither]]
}}
In Germany, the cittern survives under the names ''[[Waldzither]]'' and ''Lutherzither''. The last name comes from the belief that [[Martin Luther]] played this instrument. Also, the names ''Thüringer Waldzither'' in Thüringer Wald, ''Harzzither'' in the Harz mountains, ''[[Halszither]]'' in German-speaking Switzerland are used.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.atlasofpluckedinstruments.com/cittern.htm |title=cittern |publisher=ATLAS of Plucked Instruments |access-date=2013-07-15}}</ref> There is a tendency in modern [[German language|German]] to interchange the words for cittern and [[zither]]. The term [[waldzither]] came into use around 1900, to distinguish citterns from zithers.

The cittern family survives as the Corsican [[cetara]] and the [[Portuguese guitar]]. The ''guitarra portuguesa'' is typically used to play the popular traditional music known as [[fado]]. In the early 1970s, using the guitarra and a 1930s archtop Martin guitar as models, English luthier Stefan Sobell created a "cittern", a hybrid instrument primarily used for playing folk music, which has proved to be popular with folk revival musicians.<ref>{{cite book|title=American Lutherie: The Quarterly Journal of the Guild of American Luthiers|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qxw9AQAAIAAJ|year=2006|publisher=The Guild|page=9}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Frets|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8E_aAAAAMAAJ|year=1980|publisher=GPI Publications}}</ref>

==See also==
{{See also|Lute#History and evolution of the lute}}
* [[Chitarra Italiana]]
* [[English guitar]]
* [[Russian guitar#Derivation|Russian guitar]]
* [[Stringed instrument tunings]]
* [[Martina Rosenberger]]

==Bibliography==
* ''Musick's Delight on the Cithren'', John Playford (1666).
* ''Musick's Delight on the Modern Cittern'', Robin Alexander Lucas, Vol.I. (2021) ISBN 9781838438500; Vol.II. (2022) ISBN 9781838438517; Vol.III. (2023) ISBN 9781838438524; Vol. IV. (2024) ISBN 9781838438531.
* [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k319108n/ ''Méthode pour Apprendre à Pincer du Cistre, ou Guitare Allemande''], Charles Pollet (1786).

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Cittern}}
* [http://cittern.theaterofmusic.com/ Renovata Cythara: The Renaissance Cittern Pages]
* [http://www.sobellinstruments.com/ Stefan Sobell website]
* [http://www.docrossimusic.com/ Doc Rossi website]
* [http://www.studia-instrumentorum.de/MUSEUM/zistern.htm Zistern: Europäische Zupfinstrumente von der Renaissance bis zum Historismus] 
* [https://cittern.co.uk Cittern Press] (publisher of printed tune books for the modern cittern)
Citterns and cittern research at the [[Museum of Musical Instruments of the University of Leipzig|Musikinstrumenten-Museum der Universität Leipzig]]
* [http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/PluckedStrings/Citterns/English/13500/Cittern13500.html Cittern, possibly by Petrus Raitta, England, 1579] at the [[National Music Museum]]
* [http://orgs.usd.edu/nmm/PluckedStrings/Citterns/Italian/3386/Cittern3386.html Cittern, Urbino, ca. 1550] at the [[National Music Museum]]
* [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/musd/ho_1985.124.htm Decorated Cittern by Joachim Tielke, Hamburg, ca. 1685] at [[The Metropolitan Museum of Art]]

{{Mandolin family instruments}}
{{Lute}}
{{Classical guitar}}
{{Renaissance music}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Early musical instruments]]
[[Category:String instruments]]
[[Category:Mandolin family instruments]]
[[Category:Swiss musical instruments]]
[[Category:Celtic musical instruments]]
[[Category:English musical instruments]]
[[Category:Scottish musical instruments]]