sources - Nottingham eTheses - The University of Nottingham

interlocking rows, with the lowest notes nearest the player, and resting on ropes made
of straw. This latter feature gave rise to the distinctive German term for the
instrument, Strohfiedel [straw fiddle], sometimes also known as the Holz-und-Stroh.
Lacking the resonators of the modern xylophone, the bars and ropes were arranged on
a flat surface and struck with a pair of spoon-shaped mallets (again like the cimbalom)
made of wood or horn, giving a much harder, dryer sound than the modern
instrument. 17 The wooden bars were so arranged that the two central rows
corresponded approximately to the ‘white’ or natural pitches, with the outer rows
containing mainly the ‘black’ accidentals, and with some pitches duplicated so as to
facilitate the playing of faster passages, as shown in the diagrammatic representation
above.
As well as being laid out on ropes of straw, the bars were strung loosely
together, so that the entire instrument could be rolled up for carrying. The range was
variable, at most 2 2 /3 octaves, and notational convention dictated that the written
pitches (a) sounded an octave higher (b):
Ex. A6.1
At the turn of the century, there appears to have been a mini-boom of works including
a part for the xylophone: in addition to Jenůfa, the instrument features in Mahler’s
Sixth Symphony and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly (both 1904), Strauss’s Salome
(1905), Debussy’s Ibéria (1909) and Stravinsky’s L’Oiseau de feu (1910). However,
this boom owed less to the appearance of the modern ‘Deagan’ xylophone (most
European orchestras, and certainly central and eastern European orchestras, continued
17 Holland 1978, 169–70.
173