Books › Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1927 › scan 848
Scan 848
Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1927
21 lines. Read by computer on 4 September 2026. Printed page 764. See the scan on archive.org.
1de l’art de l’antiquité, vol. iv.) In Wales the bowed crwth was highly esteemed, and at the close of the 12th century Giraldus Cambrensis mentions it as one of the three favourite instruments of the Welsh. The form shown on PLATE LXXXVII. No. 4 is that adopted at a later date: four strings lie over the finger-board and two are placed at the side, as frequently found in the 16th-century lyra-viols: these two strings were bowed or plucked by the left-hand thumb at will, and the arrangement suggests that the instrument was primarily designed for accompaniment: an old Welsh treatise (B.M. Add. MSS. 14,939) informs us that on it were played ‘the four principal chords,’ and ‘the twenty-four musical measures,’ i.e. set successions of tonic and dominant chords. For the easier fingering of these chords the bridge is set aslant as on the orpharion and, no doubt, the neck was ‘fretted’ with gut as in the lutes and viols. There is no sound-post, but the left foot of the bridge passes through the circular sound-hole and rests on the flat back of the instrument, as still to be seen in the rustic Greek lyra, a form of rebec.
3Edward Jones (Musical Relics of the Welsh Bards, 1794) gives the tuning as at (a); Bingley (Musical Bibliography, 1814) as at (b).
5(a) 6 5 4 3 2 1
6(b) 6 5 4 3 2 1
8Off the finger-board. On the finger-board.
10Bingley’s tunings of the strings on the finger-board should certainly be an octave lower, as the length of string is that of the viola, and a writer in the middle of the 18th century calls the crwth ‘a sort of tenor fiddle.’ Genuine specimens of this instrument are now very rare: one is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, S. Kensington, and another is in the Corporation Museum at Warrington — both 18th-century instruments. There is also one at Aberystwyth. Aged performers on the crwth certainly lingered on in Wales till almost the middle of the last century, but the name is now given to the violin by the country-folk as crowd is in England.
12The crwth trithant or 3-stringed crwth is no doubt identical with the rebec, which in the 16th century was called a crowd. F. W. G.
14CRYSTAL PALACE SATURDAY CONCERTS (1855–1901) were one of the most important concert-giving institutions of London and were conducted throughout by August MANNS (q.v.). On Oct. 14, 1855, Manns was engaged as conductor of the Crystal Palace band. The music there was at that time in a very inchoate condition, the band was still a wind band, and the open Centre Transept was the only place for its performances. Under the efforts of the new conductor things soon began to mend. He conducted a ‘Saturday Concert’ in the ‘Bohemian Glass Court’ the week after his arrival; through the enlightened liberality of the directors the band was changed to a full orchestra, a better spot was found for the music, adjoining the Queen’s rooms (since burnt) at the north-east end, and at length, through the exertions of Robert Bowley, then General Manager, the concert-room was enclosed and roofed in, and the famous Saturday Concerts began, and were continued with a constant advance, both in the value and variety of the selections and the delicacy and spirit of the performances, until 1901.
16The concerts, which began with the first Saturday in October, lasted, with an interval at Christmas, till the end of April. The orchestra consisted of 16 first and 14 second violins, 11 violas, 10 violoncellos and 10 double basses, with single wind, etc. The programmes usually contained two overtures, a symphony, a concerto, or some minor piece of orchestral music, and four songs. The distinguishing feature of the concerts was their choice and performance of orchestral music. Not to mention the great works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Spohr, Weber and other time-honoured classics, the audience were familiar with Schumann’s symphonies and overtures, and with Schubert’s symphonies and ‘Rosamunde’ music, at a time when those works were all but unknown in the concert-rooms of the metropolis. Mendelssohn’s ‘Reformation Symphony’ was first played here; so was his overture to ‘Camacho’; Brahms’s symphonies, pianoforte concertos, variations on a theme of Haydn and ‘Song of Destiny’; Raff’s various symphonies; Liszt’s ‘Ideale’; Rubinstein’s symphonies; Goetz’s symphony, concerto and overtures; Smetana’s ‘Vltava’; Schubert’s symphonies in chronological order; Wagner’s ‘Faust’ overture; Sullivan’s ‘Tempest’ music and symphony in E; Benedict’s symphony in G minor, and many other works were obtained (often in MS.) and performed before they were heard in any other place in the metropolis. Bennett’s ‘Parisina’ was first played there after an interval of a quarter of a century. A very great influence was exercised in the renaissance of English music by the frequent performance of new works of importance by Mackenzie, Parry, Stanford, Cowen and others.
18A disposition was apparent in the managers1 of the concerts to present the audience with pieces of special interest; such as the MS. works of Schubert, and of Mendelssohn; Beethoven’s arrangement of his violin concerto for the piano, and his overture ‘Leonora
201 The enterprising character of the programmes was primarily due to Grove himself.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.