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Scan 45
Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1927
22 lines. Read by computer on 5 September 2026. Printed page 3. See the scan on archive.org.
1and St. Thomas Aquinas, in Paris; and large organs for the cathedrals of Rochelle, Rennes, Viviers, Tulle, Châlons-sur-Marne, Bayeux and Amiens, and for churches, convents and chapels at St. Denis, Orleans, Caen, Châlons, Picpus and Versailles. He repaired and enlarged organs in the cathedrals of Mende, Moulins, Rheims, Evreux and Nevers, and in the churches of St. Etienne du Mont, St. Philippe du Roule, The Assumption and St. Louis d’Antin in Paris. He also built many organs for South America. In 1831 Abbey was employed, at the instance of Meyerbeer (who had introduced the instrument into the score of his opera 'Robert le Diable,' then about to be produced), to build an organ for the Opéra at Paris, which instrument continued to be used there until it was destroyed, with the theatre, by fire in 1873. Abbey was the first who introduced into French organs the English mechanism and the bellows invented by Cummins. His example was speedily followed by the French builders, and from that period may be dated the improvements in organ-building which have raised the French builders to their present eminence. He left two sons, E. and J. Abbey, to carry on the business of organ-builders in Versailles. W. H. H.
3ABBEEY GLEE CLUB, THE, was founded on Jan. 9, 1841, by a few old choir-boys of Westminster Abbey and their friends, the object being to cultivate the practice of glee singing and glee composition.1 The Club has been one of those which has kept alive in modern times the old English tradition of glee singing.
5J. L. Hopkins was the first president until his appointment to Rochester. Meetings were held on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays in the month at Herbert’s Hotel, Bridge Street, Westminster.
7The Adelphi Glee Club, started in 1832, was merged into the Abbey Glee Club about 1845. For many years the meetings were held at the Freemasons’ Tavern, but since 1885 at the Caxton Hall, Westminster. Many well-known musicians have been members, the number being limited to 150. The subscription is two guineas with an entrance fee.
9Richard E. Webster (afterwards Lord Alverstone) joined in 1867, and was president from 1900 till his death. Edward Ford North succeeded him. The present president (1925) is the Hon. Robert H. Lyttelton, and the secretary and librarian since 1905 is Mr. Henry King, who has supplied the information for this notice.
11ABBREVIATIONS. The abbreviations employed in music are of two kinds, namely, the abridgment of terms relating to musical expression, and the true musical abbreviations by the help of which certain passages, chords, etc., may be written in a curtailed form, more especially in manuscript, to the greater convenience of both composer and performer.
13Abbreviations of the first kind need receive no special consideration here; they consist for the most part of the initial letter or first syllable of the word employed—as for instance, p. for piano, cresc. for crescendo, and their meaning is everywhere sufficiently obvious. Those of musical passages are indicated by signs, as follows:
15The continued repetition of a note or chord is expressed by a stroke or strokes across the stem, or above or below the note if it be a semibreve (Ex. 1), the number of strokes denoting the subdivision of the written notes into quavers, semiquavers, etc., unless the word tremolo or tremolando is added, in which case the repetition is as rapid as possible, without regard to the exact number of notes played. On bowed instruments the rapid reiteration of a single note is easy, but in pianoforte music an octave or chord becomes necessary to produce a tremolo, the manner of writing and performing which is shown in Ex. 2.
17The division of a long note into short ones is sometimes indicated by dots.
19When a long note has to be repeated in the form of triplets or groups of six, the figure 3 or 6 is usually placed over it in addition to the stroke across the stem, and the note is sometimes, though not necessarily, written dotted.
211 See 'Laws' of the Abbey Glee Club and Musical World, 1841.
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