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Scan 432
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 1904
14 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 381. See the scan on archive.org.
1VOSS
3execution of the written notes in the proper rhythm. 'Vortragsbezeichnungen' are the directions for the various shades of force and kinds of expression.
5VOSS, CHARLES, born at Schmarsow, near Demmin, Sept. 20, 1815, received his musical education at Berlin, and settled in Paris in 1846, where he had a successful career as pianist and teacher, turning out a great number of pianoforte pieces to suit the taste of the day. He also wrote some worthier things, such as a concerto in F minor, which was highly praised by Mendelssohn. He died August 29, 1882. (Riemann and Baker's dictionaries.) M.
7VOSS, or VOSSIUS, GERHARD JOHANN, born about 1577 in or near Heidelberg, was Professor of Rhetoric at Leyden in 1618. He was presented by Laud to a canonry at Canterbury in 1629, and became Professor of History at Amsterdam in 1633. He died at Amsterdam, March 19, 1649. His works bearing on music are: De artis poeticae natura ac constitutione, 1647, and De quatuor artibus popularibus grammatica, gymnastica, musica et graphica liber, 1650. His seventh child, Isaac Voss, born 1618 at Leyden, was in 1649–52 at the court of Christina of Sweden, was given the degree of D.C.L. at Oxford in 1670, and was presented by Charles II. to a vacant prebend in the royal chapel of Windsor on May 12, 1673. In the same year appeared, anonymously, his important contribution to musical literature, De poematum cantu et viribus rythmi, a treatise on the alliance of poetry with music. There are some curious criticisms on the work by Roger North in the Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 32,531, fol. 53. For the details of his career, and the list of his works, the reader is referred to the Dict. of Nat. Biog. He died at Windsor, Feb. 21, 1688–89.
9VOX HUMANA, VOIX HUMAINE. An organ stop of 8-feet tone and of the reed family, but with very short capped pipes, which therefore reinforce only the overtones of the fundamental. The pipe for the CC note, which would in the case of an ordinary reed-stop be nearly 8 feet in length, is here often only 13 inches. The pipes vary little in length, and there are perceptible breaks in the timbre. As its name implies, the stop is supposed to resemble the human voice. Burney (Present State, Germany, vol. ii. p. 303), speaking of the specimen in the Haarlem organ, says, 'It does not at all resemble a human voice, though a very good stop of the kind: but the world is very apt to be imposed upon by names; the instant a common hearer is told that an organist is playing upon a stop which resembles the human voice, he supposes it to be very fine, and never inquires into the propriety of the name or the exactness of the imitation. However, I must confess, that of all the stops I have yet heard which have been honoured by the appellation of Vox humana, no one, in the treble part, has ever yet reminded me of anything human, so much as of the cracked voice of an old woman of ninety, or, in the lower parts, of Punch singing through a comb.' This more than century-old description is by no means out of date. In acoustically favourable buildings, and when only just audible, the stop has sometimes a weird effect which is not unimpressive, but distinctness is quite fatal. The Vox humana should be placed in a box of its own inside the swell box. It is nearly always used with the tremulant. Opinions differ as to its capacity for combining pleasantly with other registers, and this depends upon the kind of stop. There are instances where it gives a piquant quality to other light stops. Its voicing is very delicate and it is liable to get soon out of tune, but a great improvement in this respect can be made by careful scaling, and by giving attention to the consonance of the tube.
11VROYE, THÉODORE JOSEPH DE, Belgian writer on music, born August 19, 1804, at Villers-la-Ville, between Ottignies and Fleurus (Belgium), was ordained priest in 1828, and devoted all his spare time to the study of plain-song and the liturgical singing of the church. In 1835 he was appointed Canon and Precentor of the Cathedral of Liége, and conducted the services with a care and taste which produced remarkable results. He published a 'Vespéral' (1829), a 'Graduel' (1831), and a 'Processionale' (1849) which have passed through many editions in Belgium; also, a 'Traité du Plain-Chant' (1839), a 'Manuale Cantorum' (1849) and a 'Rituale Romanum' (1862). His last work, 'De la Musique Religieuse' (1866), written in conjunction with the Chevalier Van Elewyck, is a collection of documents and observations relating to the Congresses of Paris (1860) and Mechlin (1863–64) on service music. De Vroye died at Liége, July 19, 1873.
13VUILLAUME, JEAN BAPTISTE, was born at Mirecourt, Vosges, Oct. 7, 1798. This family of violin-makers was founded by Claude Vuillaume, of Mirecourt (1625), who married a daughter of the old violin-maker, François Médard, of Nancy. It was by his father, Claude Vuillaume (born 1772, died 1834, at Mirecourt), who married Anne Leclerc, that the subject of this article was initiated into the mysteries of his craft. At the age of nineteen he went to Paris where he worked with François Chanot until 1821, when he quitted Chanot's establishment to enter that of Lété, the organ-builder, who was Pique's son-in-law. Lété had been a member of the firm Chanot-Lété — Simon ainé et Payonne, and besides his organ-building dabbled in fiddle-making with Vuillaume, at 20 Rue Pavée St. Sauveur, where his business was known as Lété et Vuillaume. In 1828 Vuillaume terminated his association with Lété, establishing himself at 46 Rue Croix des Petits Champs, and in the same year he married
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