Broken Music

A “consort” consisted of six viols, usually kept in one case. When the six were played together it was called a “whole consort,” when less than the six were played it was called “a broken consort.” Sometimes applied to open chords or arpeggios.

“Here is good broken music.”

Shakespeare: Troilus and Cressida, iii. 1.

⁂ Lord Bacon in his Sylva Sylvarum gives a different explanation: he says certain instruments agree together and produce concordant music, but others (as the virginal and lute, the Welsh and Irish harps) do not accord.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.