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Scan 102
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 1916
22 lines. Read by computer on 7 September 2026. Printed page 74. See the scan on archive.org.
1brass band, where variety of timbre is less attainable, it answers its purpose well, and can better be played on horseback, from its upright bell. The name is also given to the saxhorn in B♭, but this is best distinguished as the Baritone. The scale and compass of this and the other Saxhorns are given under that word. W. H. S.
3ALTNIKOL, JOHANN CHRISTOPH, born at Berna in Silesia, was a pupil of Sebastian Bach's in Leipzig from 1745. On Bach's recommendation, he was appointed organist at Niederwiesa near Greifenberg in 1747, and of S. Wenceslaus, Naumburg, in 1748. He married Bach's daughter, Elisabeth Juliane Friderike, on Jan. 20, 1749, and died in July 1759. The royal library at Berlin contains two clavier sonatas in autograph, and a church cantata; the Singakademie at the same place possesses a five-part motet, and in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge is a four-part Ricercare. None of his works were printed.
5ALTO (from the Latin altus, high, far removed). The male voice of the highest pitch, called also counter-tenor, i.e. contra, or against the tenor. In the 16th and early part of the 17th centuries the compass of the alto voice was limited to the notes admissible on the stave which has the C clef on its third line; i.e. to the notes a sixth above and a sixth below 'middle C.' Later, however this compass was extended by bringing into use the third register of the voice, or 'falsetto,' a register often strongest with those whose voices are naturally bass. The falsetto counter-tenor, or more properly counter-alto, still to be found in cathedral choirs, dates—if musical history is to be read in music—from the restoration of Charles II., who doubtless desired to reproduce at home, approximately at least, a class of voice he had become accustomed to in continental chapels royal and ducal. The so-called counter-tenor parts of Pelham Humphreys, his contemporaries and successors, habitually transcend those of their predecessors, from Tallis to Gibbons, by at least a third [but in this connection it must be remembered that in the interval between them the pitch had changed. See Zeitschrift of the Int. Mus. Ges. ii. 331.] The contralto part is properly written on the stave which has C on its second line; it consequently extends from the eighth above middle C to the fourth below. This stave is now obsolete, and the part for which it is fitted is, in England, written either on the alto stave, for which it is too high, or on the treble stave for which it is too low. On the continent the stave which has the C clef on the first line is sometimes used for it. For the female alto voice see Contralto.
7ALTO is also the Italian term for the Tenor violin, called alto, or alto di viola, as distinguished from basso di viola, because, before the invention, or at least before the general adoption of the violin, it used to take the highest part in compositions for string-instruments, corresponding to the soprano part in vocal music. For further particulars see Viola.
9ALTRA VOLTA (Ital. 'another turn'), a term in use during the early part of the 18th century for ENCORE, a word which has now entirely superseded it.
11ALVARY, MAX (properly ACHENBACH) son of the painter Andreas Achenbach, born May 3, 1858, at Düsseldorf, was a pupil of Stockhausen, and made his début as a dramatic tenor at Weimar. He won great success in New York, especially as a Wagner-singer, in the years 1884-89. He sang the part of Tristan at Bayreuth in 1891, and appeared at Covent Garden, June 8, 1892, as Siegfried, his best part. His voice was of fine quality, though a little apt to go out of tune; he had a very handsome stage-presence. He died at his country-seat near Gross-Tabarz in Thuringia, Nov. 7, 1898.
13ALVSLEBEN. See OTTO-ALVSLEBEN.
15ALWOOD, RICHARD, priest and composer, lived about the middle of the 16th century. A six-part mass by him entitled 'Praise Him praiseworthy' is in the Forrest-Heyther part books at Oxford, and there are seven pieces of his for the organ in Add. MSS. 30,485 and 30,513. One of these, a 'Voluntarye,' is printed in the Appendix to Hawkins's History of Music.
17AMATI, a family of celebrated Italian violin-makers, who lived and worked at Cremona, and are generally regarded as the founders of the Cremona school. The family ranked as a patrician one.
191. ANDREA, the eldest, appears to have been born in 1520 and to have died after April 1611. Possibly he was a pupil of one of the great Brescia makers, Gaspar da Salo or Maggini. In spite of some similarity his violins certainly differ materially in shape and workmanship from the works of these older masters. Very few authentic instruments of his make are extant, and those are not in good preservation. They retain the stiff upright Brescian soundhole, but in almost every other respect mark a great advance upon the productions of the olderschool. Andrea worked mostly after a small pattern; the belly and back very high; the varnish of amber colour; the wood, especially that of the belly, most carefully chosen; the scroll beautifully chiselled; the general outline extremely graceful. A few violoncellos and tenors of this master are also known. The tone of his instruments is clear and silvery, but, probably owing to their small size and high elevation, not very powerful. The fourth string is particularly weak.
212. NICOLO, younger brother of Andrea (not to be confounded with Nicolo son of Geronimo) appears to have made basses in preference to
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