BLATERPFEIFE

PLATERSPIEL  , a medieval simplified bagpipe, consisting of an insufflation tube, a bladder and a chaunter; the dcuble reed in its socket at the top of the chaunter being concealed within the bladder . In the platerspiel we recognize the early medieval chorus, a word which in medieval Latin was frequently used also for the bagpipe . In the earlier forms of platerspiels of which we possess illustrations, such as the well-known example of the 13th century reproduced by Martin Gerbert from a MS. at St Blasius, the bladder is unusually large, and the chaunter has, instead of a bell, the grotesque head of an animal with gaping jaws . At first the chaunter was a straight conical tube terminating in a bell, as in the bagpipe . The later instruments have a pipe of larger calibre more or less curved and bent back as in the cromorne . One of these appears in the 13th-century Spanish MS., known as the Cantigas de Santa Maria' in the Escurial, together with a platerspiel having two pipes, a chaunter and a drone side by side . Another is figured by Virdung (1511) . There was practically no technical difference between the bent platerspiel and the cromorne, the only distinction being the form and size of the air-chamber in which the reed was set in vibration by the compressed air forced into it through the insufflation tube or the raised slit respectively of the two instruments . The earlier form of platerspiel is found at the end of the 15th century, in the magnificent Book of Hours, known as the Sforza Book' (Brit . Mus.) . An interesting allusion to the platerspiel occurs in an old English ballad.3 Eight shepherds were playing on various instruments: " the fyrst hed ane drone bagpipe, the next hed ane pipe maid of ane bleddir and of ane reid, the thrid playit on ane trump, &c.," from which it is evident that the platerspiel retained its individuality and did not become merged in the bagpipe . (K .