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Scan 46
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 1922
15 lines. Read by computer on 5 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1and over the cavity thus formed was glued a short pine belly, pierced with two trefoil-shaped sound-holes, and fitted with a bridge and sound-
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5post. The player either rested the curved end of the instrument lightly against the breast, or else held it like the violin, between the chin and the collar-bone, and bowed it like the violin. It had three stout gut strings, tuned like the lower strings of the violin (A, D, G). Its tone was loud and harsh, emulating the female voice, according to a French poem of the 13th century.
7Quidam rebecam arcuabant,
8Muliebrem vocem confingentes.1
10An old Spanish poem speaks of 'el rabé gritador,'2 or the 'squalling rebec.' This powerful tone made it useful in the mediæval orchestra; and Henry the Eighth employed the rebec in his state band. It was chiefly used, however, to accompany dancing; and Shakespeare's musicians in Romeo and Juliet, Hugh Rebeck, Simon Catling (Catgut), and James Soundpost, were undoubtedly rebec-players. After the invention of instruments of the viol and violin type it was banished to the streets of towns and to rustic festivities, whence the epithet 'jocund' applied to it in Milton's L'Allegro. It was usually accompanied by the drum or tambourine. It was in vulgar use in France in the 18th century, as is proved by an ordinance issued by Guignon in his official capacity as 'Roi des Violons' in 1742, in which street-fiddlers are prohibited from using anything else; 'Il leur sera permis d'y jouer d'une espèce d'instrument à trois cordes seulement, et connu sous le nom de rebec, sans qu'ils puissent se servir d'un violon à quatre cordes sous quelque prétexte que ce soit.' A similar order is extant, dated 1628, in which it is forbidden to play the treble or bass violin 'dans les cabarets et les mauvais lieux,' but only the rebec. The rebec was extinct in England earlier than in France. It is now totally disused, and no specimen was known until, at the exhibition of Musical Instruments at Milan in 1881, six genuine specimens were shown. Representations of it in sculpture, painting, manuscripts, etc., are abundant. The illustration is from an Italian painting of the 13th century engraved in Vidal's Instruments à Archet. [The custom of playing songs in unison with the voice, which came into vogue in the 15th century, resulted in the classification of rebecks into definite 'sets' answering in pitch to the Treble, Alto, Tenor, and Bass voices. Martin Agricola, in his Musica Instrumentalis, 1528, gives woodcuts of a 'set' of rebecks which he calls Discant, Altus, Tenor, and Bassus. E. H. A.] E. J. P.
12REBEL, JEAN FÉRY, born in Paris about 1661, [the son of JEAN, a singer in the service of the French court, from 1661 to his death in 1692.] After a precocious childhood he entered the Opéra as a violinist. In 1703 he produced 'Ulysse,' opera in five acts with prologue, containing a pas seul for François Prévôt to an air called 'Le Caprice,' for violin solo. The opera failed, but the Caprice remained for years the test-piece of the ballerine at the Opéra. After this success, Rebel composed violin solos for various other ballets, such as 'La Boutade,' 'Les Caractères de la Danse' (1715), 'Terpsichore' (1720), 'La Fantaisie' (1727), 'Les Plaisirs Champêtres,' and 'Les Éléments.' Several of these were engraved, as were his sonatas for the violin. In 1713 he was accompanist at the Opéra, and in 1717 was one of the '24 violons,' and by 1720 'compositeur de la chambre' to the King. [This latter office he resigned in 1727, in favour of his son François, and later passed on to him the duties of conductor of the Opéra, which he had fulfilled for many years.] He died in Paris, 1746 or 1747, and was buried on Jan. 3, 1747. [His sister, ANNE-RENÉE, born 1662, became one of the best singers of the court, and from the age of eleven years, appeared in the ballet, etc. She was married in 1684 to Michel Richard de LALANDE (see vol. ii. p. 623), and she died in 1722.]
14Jean-Féry's son FRANÇOIS, born in Paris, June 19, 1701, at thirteen played the violin in the Opéra orchestra. It seems to have been at Prague, during the festivities at the coronation of Charles VI. in 1723, that he became intimate with François Francoeur; the two composed conjointly, and produced at the Académie, the following operas:—'Pyrame et Thisbé' (1726); 'Tarsis et Zélie' (1728); 'Scanderbeg' (1735); 'Ballet de la Paix' (1738); 'Les Augustales' and 'Le Retour du Roi' (1744); 'Zélindor,' 'Le Trophée' (in honour of Fontenoy, 1745); 'Ismène' (1750); 'Les Génies tutélaire' (1751); and 'Le Prince de Noisy' (1760); most of which were composed for court fêtes or public rejoicings. [Rebel
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