Scan 104
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians ed. by J. A. Fuller Maitland, 1910
16 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 83. See the scan on archive.org.
1THEORY
3THEORY. A term often used in England to express the knowledge of Harmony, Counterpoint, Thorough-bass, etc., as distinguished from the art of singing or playing, which is in the same way called 'Practice.' 'The theory and practice of music' is an expression often heard, and to be interpreted as above. G.
5THESIS (from θέσις, a putting down), an ancient musical term, the opposite of ARSIS. [See vol. i. p. 118b.] The Greeks used the two words in connection with the dance, Arsis being the raising of the foot and Thesis the putting of it down. The Romans used Arsis of the raising of the voice, and so as the equivalent of strength; Thesis of the dropping of the voice, indicating weakness. So in music Arsis indicates the strong accent, Thesis the weak part of the bar or beat. L. M'C. L. D.
7THESPIS, OR THE GODS GROWN OLD. Comic opera in two acts; words by W. S. Gilbert, music by Arthur Sullivan. Produced at the Gaiety Theatre, Dec. 26, 1871, the tenor part being taken by Toole. It ran eighty nights consecutively, but has not been revived. 'Thespis' was thus the first of the series of Gilbert-Sullivan pieces which have proved so popular. G.
9THIBAUD, JACQUES, violinist, was born at Bordeaux, Sept. 27, 1880. His father was his first teacher till the age of thirteen, when he was sent to Paris to the Conservatoire, studying under Marsick, and gaining in 1896 a premier prix. To supplement his modest means he played for some years in the Café Rouge, and was heard there by Edouard Colonne, who was struck with his talent, and engaged him for his orchestra. On one occasion, the leader being unable to play the incidental solo in an orchestral work, Jacques Thibaud was asked to take his place, and did so with such conspicuous success that he became a regular soloist at the Colonne concerts, appearing no less than fifty-four times during the winter of 1898, and completely establishing his fame in Paris. Since then he has travelled as a soloist in America (1903) and in every European musical centre. He has visited England several times, playing chamber music at the Popular Concerts and solos on most of our concert-platforms. In his own country he plays a good deal in concerted music with his two brothers, one a pianist and the other a violoncellist of ability. He is in the foremost rank of living violinists, a representative player of the French classic school, producing not a large, but an exceptionally pure and lovely tone, bowing with elegance, and in rapid passages he is as accurate as Sarasate. In the playing of cantabile passages he has a caressing style peculiar to himself, and is yet by no means wanting in virility. After the French composers he is heard at his best in the concertos and sonatas of Mozart, of which he gives an exquisite account. He played for some time on a violin by Carlo Bergonzi, but is now the possessor of the fine Stradivari which was once the property of Baillot.
11THIBAUT, ANTON FRIEDRICH JUSTUS, born Jan. 4, 1772, at Hameln on the Weser, studied law at Göttingen, became tutor at Königsberg, and law-professor at the University of Kiel, then at Jena, and in 1805 at Heidelberg, where he remained till his death, March 25, 1840. The Archduke of Baden made him Geheimrath. He was an ardent admirer of the old Italian church-composers, especially of Palestrina, and founded a society for the practice of such music at his own house. Mendelssohn writes with the greatest enthusiasm about Thibaut, 'There is but one Thibaut,' he says, 'but he is as good as half a dozen. He is a man.' Again in a letter to his mother from Heidelberg, dated Sept. 20, 1827, is the following characteristic passage. 'It is very singular, the man knows little of music, not much even of the history of it, he goes almost entirely by instinct; I know more about it than he does, and yet I have learned a great deal from him, and feel I owe him much. He has thrown quite a new light on the old Italian church music, and has fired me with his lava-stream. He talks of it all with such glow and enthusiasm that one might say his speech blossoms. I have just come from taking leave of him, and as I was saying that he did not yet know the highest and best of all, for that in John Sebastian Bach the best of everything was to be found, he said "Goodbye, we will knit our friendship in Luis de Vittoria" (Palestrina's favourite pupil, and the best exponent of his traditions), "and then we shall be like two lovers, each looking at the full moon, and in that act no longer feeling their separation."'1
13One of Thibaut's greatest services to the cause of art was his collection of music, which included a very valuable series of Volkslieder of all nations. The catalogue was published in 1847 (Heidelberg) and Thibaut's widow endeavoured to sell it to one of the public libraries of Germany, but was unable to do so till 1850, when it was acquired for the court library of Munich. Of still greater value is his book Ueber Reinheit der Tonkunst (Heidelberg, 1825, with portrait of Palestrina; 2nd edition, 1826). The title does not indicate (as his friend Bähr observes in the preface to the 3rd edition, 1853) purity either of construction or execution, but purity of the art itself. The treatise may justly claim to have exercised a moral influence. Thibaut maintains that as there is music which acts as a powerful agent in purifying and cultivating the mind, so there is music which has as depraving an influence as that exercised by immoral literature. From this point of view he urges the necessity of purity in music, and sets himself firmly against all that is shallow, common, unhealthy, or frivolous. His idea of
151 See The Mendelssohn Family, vol. i. p. 138.
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