Sambuca
An ancient string instrument.
What it means
Sambuca is the name of an ancient string instrument mentioned in Greek and Latin sources. According to the descriptions, it was a harp-like instrument with several strings of differing length and a high sound. Exact details of construction, number of strings, and tuning are not established, since no instruments survive and the sources' statements are brief and partly contradictory. The same name is used in later centuries for quite different instruments, which additionally complicates identification.
Musical use
The mentions place the sambuca in the context of the entertainment and festive music of antiquity; it is sometimes named in the same breath as other plucked instruments. Because harp-like instruments have no fingerboard, their stock of notes is fixed by the tuning, and the music moves within this frame. Little more can be said about its use without speculating: notated sources from antiquity are rare, and from them it cannot be inferred which instrument was meant in each case. The term is therefore of interest above all as evidence for the variety of ancient string instruments. Ancient authors such as Athenaeus mention the sambuca as an instrument with a high, bright sound; pictorial evidence, however, cannot be unambiguously assigned to one instrument type.
Performance practice
An established performance practice cannot be described. Whoever works with reconstructions of ancient plucked instruments works with the general principles of such instruments: the stock of notes is fixed by tuning before playing, the deliberate damping of individual strings is as important as the plucking, and the tone colour is controlled through the point of attack. Statements in catalogues and reference works about this instrument should be checked against the source situation, since they often carry forward older conjectures.
Performance practice
In the Middle Ages, according to some sources, the name also designated the bagpipe or the hurdy-gurdy, which complicates identification. Gut strings demand frequent retuning and protection from moisture. For programme texts it holds to disclose the source situation and not to present reconstructions as established tradition.