Oxford (5/2/2010)

1. On my way from Victoria Coach Station, London to Oxford.

2. Castle Mill Stream.

3-4. Oxford Castle.

5. Carfax Tower.

6. Oxford City Council.

7-8. Christ Church,

9. The Meadow Building, part of Christ Church, Oxford.

10. Christ Church Meadow.

11. Some kind of college along Merton Street.

12. Rose Lane-通往全英国最古老的花园。

13-16. The University of Oxford Botanic Garden. 因为冬天的关系，并没有百花齐放的美景看，有点可惜。

17. 未开花的Snowdrop，很可爱。

18. Magdalen College.

19. Catte St.

20. Radcliffe Camera.

21-22. The Tower of the Five Orders @ Bodleian Library.

23. 标榜着"Music"的门口。

24. The Clarendon Building.

25. The Randolph Hotel.

26. Ashmolean Museum.

27. Ceremonial trumpet in C (silver) by William Bull (important English trumpet maker in late 1600s).

28. This is a small model or later version of the monument to the composer Handel, made by Louis-François Roubiliac (1702-1763) for Westminster Abbey. The monument was paid for by a bequest of £600, which Handel left in his will for this purpose.

29-30. Like the harpsichord and the spinet, the virginal makes music by plucking strings. The virginal was chiefly a domestic instruments. Much music was written for it in the 1500s and 1600s, but surviving English virginals in playing condition like this are now extremely rare. Maker: Adamus Leversidge Londini Fecit 1670.

31. The Messiah by Antonio Stradivari (1644?-1737). This violin dates from Stradivari's 'Golden Period' of about 1700-1720. He was then at the height of his powers and had developed an ideal size and shape for making instruments. This violin owes its fame chiefly to its fresh appearance. Because it has been owned mostly by collectors and not by professional players, it has not been exposed to the wear and tear of frequent playing. One of its early owners who kept of sight but often boasted about it to his friends provoked the violinist, Delphin Alard, to say: 'Your violin is like the Messiah. It is always expected but never appears'. This, it seems, is the origin of the name by which it is now known. Although little damaged, the Messiah has been altered. The neck has been lengthened and the pegs, fingerboard and tailpiece are not original.

32. left to right: a) Small Bass Viol by Richard Blunt (late 1600s-early 1700s). This is a typical English viol with tapering shouldersm a front made from five lengths of spruce, joined along the grain, and double lines of inlay along the edges. At one time, it had a label, dated 1605, which identified the maker as Richard Blunt. This label had disappeared by the time the viol was given to the museum.

b) Bass Viol, English. early 1600s. This magnificent instruments is decorated with a complex know pattern on the back and sides and with leaves and tendrils on the front. The arms are those of Sir Charles Somerest (about 1585-1665). As is common in English viols, the front is made from five lengths of softwood. The neck, peg box and head are not original. The neck is new but the elegant peg box and head were made in France in the 1700s and must have been removed from a French viol of exceptional quality.

c) Small Bass Viol by John Rose. There were two makers called John Rose, a father who is said to have died in 1593, and his son, who continued the business. The ten or so surviving instruments attributed to John Rose are thought to be the work of the son. The back and sides of this viol are inlaid with a pattern of bands of a kind found on English viols throughout the 1600s. The front is modern and the pegs, neck, fingerboard and tailpiece are also new. Part of the peg box seems old but it has been adapted to fit the present instruments. The finely carved head of a bearded man is also old but probably did not always belong to this viol. It is an attractive instruments but it has been heavily restored.

33. The citterns is a plucked wire-strung instruments. It seems to have developed in the 1400s from the medieval citole, a small plucked instruments. The Ashmolean citterns belong to a type which developed in Italy in the late 1500s. The body is shallow and wedge-shaped when seen from the side. The neck is divided by metal frets and has a channel running along the back to allow the player's left thumb to slide easily up and down.

34. The guitars seems to have originated in Spain in the 1400s as a popular variant of the plucked form of the vihuela. Initially it had four double strings, waisted like the vihuela for ease of playing. By the mid-1500, with the addition of a fifth double string, it had developed into the form which lasted until the late 1700s. This was a slimmer instrument than the modern guitar and had a peg box angled like the head of the lute.

35-36. The harpsichord was the principal keyboard instrument in Europe from the early 1500s until the end of the 1700s. Like the virginal and the spinet, it makes music by a mechanism which plucks the strings. Jacob Kirckman came to London from Alsace in the 1730s and became one of the finest makers of harpsichords in England. This is a two manual instrument with three sets of strings and a device known as a Venetian swell which varies the volume by opening and closing a set of bars placed over the soundboard.