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Scan 515
Grove's Dictionary of music and musians, 1910
18 lines. Read by computer on 12 September 2026. Printed page 455. See the scan on archive.org.
1SIMONE BOCCANEGR A
3C. INSTRUMENTAL AND CHAMBER MUSIC.
5Pianoforte concerto (op. 19); clarinet concerto (op. 30); fantasia for violoncello (op. 42); two pianoforte trios (opp. 16 and 25); string quartet (op. 24); quartet for 2 cornets-à-piston and alto and tenor trombones (op. 23); 22 ensemble pieces for wind instruments (op. 26); 4 septets; 4 sextets, 6 quintets; 8 quartets.
6A considerable number of pieces for one and two pianos; pieces for violin and pianoforte, including the popular 'Berceuse' (op. 28); a Mass (op. 22); three female choruses (op. 33) and upwards of 80 songs.
7R. N.
9SIMONE BOCCANEGR A. An opera in three acts, with prologue; libretto by Piave, music by Verdi. Produced at the Fenice Theatre, Venice, March 12, 1857; remodelled and rescored, with a fresh libretto by Boito, and reproduced at La Scala, Milan, March 24, 1881.
11SIMONETTI, ACHILLE, violinist and composer, was born at Turin, June 12, 1859. In early youth he studied the violin under Signor Gamba, and composition under Maestro Pedrotti, late Principal of Rossini's Conservatorio in Pesaro. Later, proceeding to Genoa, he placed himself into the hands of Camillo Sivori, who took great interest in him, and whose clear-cut style and Italian temperament are reflected in his playing. After some successful appearances in Marseilles and Lyons he went to Paris to receive further tuition from Charles Dancla (violin), and Massenet (counterpoint), passed four winters at Nice, and then visited England to fulfil an engagement to tour with the Marie Roze Company and B. Schönberger the pianist. His present headquarters are in London, where he is frequently heard as soloist and member of the so-called 'London Trio' (Simonetti, Amina Goodwin, and W. E. Whitehouse), whilst he occasionally visits Vienna and other continental cities. Besides a series of graceful solos for the violin, which have achieved considerable popularity, he has written two sonatas for violin and pianoforte and two string quartets. He plays on a Carlo Bergonzi violin. W. W. C.
13SIMOUTRE, NICOLAS EUGÈNE, a French violin-maker, the patentee of certain inventions by which he claims to improve the tone of violins and instruments of that class—either of defective or feeble timbre. The son of a luthier, he was born at Mirecourt, April 19, 1839, and was first the pupil of his father, then of Darche in Paris, and lastly of Roth in Strasburg. He began work as an independent maker at Basle in 1859, and there published in 1883 his brochure entitled Aux Amateurs du Violon. In 1886 a second brochure—Un Progrès en Lutherie appeared, a German edition being published at the same time entitled Ein Fortschritt in der Geigenbaukunst (Rixheim, 1886, 2nd edition, 1887). In 1889 he brought out a small 'Supplément' to the above pamphlets. The two last-named works deal mainly with his inventions. The principal of these, called 'Le Support Harmonique,' was based upon Savart's scientific discovery that the belly of a violin vibrates unequally. Testing the nodal lines formed by sand distributed upon the belly of a violin when in vibration, Mons. Simoutre observed that the fibres of the wood vibrated in alternate sections, i.e. one and three vibrated in unison, likewise two and four, and that the vibrations of one and two were as much in opposition to one another, as were three and four. Starting from this point, he applied himself to the discovery of a system which should stop the vibrations of alternate fibre sections so as to allow the rest to vibrate in unison, and this he claims to do with his patent 'Support Harmonique.' Briefly, this invention consists in glueing two small sections of wood—variable in form and dimensions according to the effect required—upon the centre of the belly and back of the violin transversely. This method, he considered, concentrated the vibrations near the sound-post—where they are most numerous—and by so doing, increased the sonority of the instrument so furnished, and at the same time prevented the belly from sinking under the pressure of the bridge. Various experiments for ascertaining the best thickness and forms of the 'Support Harmonique' resulted in the discovery that an innovation in the form of the bass bar was necessary where the new system was employed. A semi-detached bar slightly scooped out at the centre, and glued only at each end to the belly of the violin, was patented by Mons. Simoutre, that form proving most efficacious where the violin was free from cracks, etc. A third patent applies to the setting of the sound-post in one of the two small circular grooves made for it in the lower 'Support Harmonique.' In 1890 this maker settled in Paris at 38 Rue de l'Echicquier, where he worked for many years in partnership with his son.—Von Lutgendorff, Die Geigen und Lautenmacher, and Mons. Simoutre's works already mentioned.
15SIMPLIFICATION SYSTEM (Organ). This refers to a method formerly in use of planting all the pipes of an organ in semitonal or chromatic order, to simplify the mechanism, but now discontinued for various reasons. (See VOGLER.)
17SIMPSON, CHRISTOPHER, a distinguished 17th century viola-da-gamba player, famous in his day both as an executant and a theoretic musician. Very little is known of his life, and the exact date of his birth remains problematical, but the few facts that have come to light reveal him to have been the son of a Yorkshire yeoman—a descendant of some Nottinghamshire Simpsons, who spelt their name with a y (vide Harl. MS. 5800)—a man commended by his fellows for his upright habits, and a staunch upholder of the Cavalier Party against the Parliament. He joined the Royalist army under the command of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, in 1643. He alludes in a passing phrase to the hardships and poverty he endured at this period in his
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