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Scan 309
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1904
19 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1VINGT-QUATRE VIOLONS
3While swift as thought, from note to note he springs,
4Flies o'er the unerring Tones, and sweeps the sounding strings, etc.
6F. K.
8VINGT-QUATRE VIOLONS. No reader of French 'Mémoires' of the 17th century can be ignorant of the part played by ballets at the courts of Henri IV., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV. The ballet combined the pleasures of music, dancing, and the play, gave great opportunities for magnificent display, and was for nearly a century the favourite diversion of princes and grands seigneurs, thus preparing the way for opera. The passion for ballets de cour and dancing led to the formation of a special band for violinists, who, under Louis XIII., bore the name of the 'band of 24 violins of the King's chamber.' Its members, no longer mere ménestriers [see Roi des Violons, vol. iv. p. 121], became musiciens en charge, with a prospect of being eventually admitted to the Chapelle du Roi. Their functions were to play for the dancing at all the court-balls, as well as to perform airs, minuets, and rigadoons, in the King's antechamber, during his lever and public dinner, on New Year's Day, May 1, the King's fête-day, and on his return from the war, or from Fontainebleau.
10No complete list of 'the 24 violins' who enlivened the court of the melancholy Louis XIII. has yet been made, but some of their airs may be seen in the MS. collection of Philidor ainé — one of the precious possessions of the Conservatoire library. [See vol. iii. p. 703b.] The composers' names are Michel Henri, Constantin, Dumanoir, Robert Verdié, Mazuel, Le Page, Verpré, de la Pierre, de la Valle, and Lazarin, all, we conjecture, among the 24. The violinists occasionally acted in the ballets, as in the 'Ballet des doubles Femmes' (1625), when they walked in backwards, dressed as old women with masks at the back of their heads, so as to look as if they were playing behind their backs. This had a great success, and was revived by Taglioni (the father) in the masked ball in Auber's 'Gustave III.' in 1833.
12In Louis XIV.'s reign the band of 24 violins was called the 'grande bande,' and on Dumanoir's appointment as Roi des Violons, the King made him conductor, with the title of '25me violon de la Chambre.' The post, however, was suppressed at the same time with that of the Roi des ménestriers (May 22, 1697). The 'grande bande,' again called 'the 24 violins,' continued to exist till 1761, when Louis XV. dissolved it by decree (Aug. 22). During the rage for French fashions in music which obtained in Charles II.'s reign, the '24 violins' were imitated here in the 'King's music,' and became the 'four-and-twenty fiddlers all of a row' of the nursery rhyme. Meantime a dangerous rival had sprung up in its own home. In 1655 Lully obtained the direction of a party of sixteen violins, called the 'petite bande.' As violinist, leader, and composer he soon eclipsed his rival, and his brilliant career is well known. The modest position of conductor of a few musicians, whose duty was simply, like that of the 'grande bande,' to play at the King's levers, dinners, and balls, satisfied him at first, but only because it brought him in contact with the nobility, and furthered his chance of becoming 'Surintendant de la Musique' to Louis XIV. This point once gained, nothing further was heard of the 'petite bande,' and by the beginning of the next reign it had wholly disappeared.
14The 24 violins remained, but as time went on they became old-fashioned and distasteful to the courtiers. Accordingly, as fast as their places fell vacant they were filled by musicians from the Chapelle du Roi, and thus the band became independent of the community of St. Julian. After 1761 the only persons privileged to play symphonies in the King's apartments were the musicians of his 'chamber' and 'chapel.' G. c.
16WINNING, LOUISA, born at Kingsbridge, Devon, Nov. 10, 1836 (Brit. Mus. Biog.). She sang at the Plymouth Theatre when only two and a half years old, and appeared in public from 1840 to 1842, under the title of the 'Infant Sappho,' as a singer and harpist at the Adelaide Gallery, Polytechnic, and elsewhere. She afterwards received instruction in singing from Frank Mori, and on Dec. 12, 1856, was brought prominently into notice by taking the soprano part in the second and third parts of the 'Messiah' at the Sacred Harmonic Society's Concert, at a moment's notice, and 'with credit to herself,' in place of the singer engaged, who became suddenly indisposed during the performance. Miss Winning afterwards sang at the Crystal Palace, the Worcester Festival, 1857, the Monday Popular Concerts (1861), and elsewhere until her marriage with Mr. J. S. C. Heywood, in or about 1865. At her concert, on July 5, 1860, Mme. Montigny-Rémaury first appeared in England. She died in London in 1904. A. c.
18VIOL (Ital. Viola; Fr. Viole). The generic English name of the bowed instruments which succeeded the mediaeval Fiddle and preceded the Violin. The Viol was invented in the 15th century, and passed out of general use in the 18th. It differs from the violin in having deeper ribs, and a flat back, which is sloped off at the top, and was strengthened internally by cross-bars and a broad centre-piece, on which the sound-post rests. The shoulders curve upwards, joining the neck at a tangent, instead of at right angles, as in the violin. The neck is broad and thin, the number of strings being five, six, or seven; the peg-box is usually surmounted by a carved head. The sound-holes are usually of the C pattern. [See SOUND-HOLES.] The Viol was made in four principal sizes — Treble or Discant, Tenor (Viola da Braccio), Bass (Viola da Gamba), and Double Bass (Violone): the last is still in use, the
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