Scan 310
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians ed. by J. A. Fuller Maitland, 1910
20 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 277. See the scan on archive.org.
1philosophy, is crammed full of learning, and contains ideas which at that date were new and original.1
3Villoteau's fame rests not on this book, but on his share in La Description de l'Égypte, the magnificent work in twenty vols. folio (eleven being plates), which took seventeen years to publish (1809–1826), and which reflected so much credit on Conté and Jomard, the distinguished secretaries of the commission. The musical portions are: (1) On the present condition of music in Egypt; researches and observations historical and descriptive made in the country (240 pp., October, 1812); (2) A description, historical, technical, and literary, of musical instruments in use among the Orientals (170 pp., 1813, with three plates engraved by Dechamel); (3) A dissertation on the different kinds of musical instruments to be seen on the ancient monuments of Egypt, and on the names given them in their own language by the first inhabitants of the country (26 pp.); (4) The music of ancient Egypt (70 pp., 1816).
5Now that Egypt and the East are familiar ground, it is easy to refute some of Villoteau's hypotheses, or to prove him wrong on minor points; but recollecting how little was known before him of the subjects he treated with so much learning and care, we may realise how much we owe to his patience and penetration. As a student, and unversed in matters of business, Villoteau made no profit either out of his position or his labours. Three-parts ruined by a notary, whom he had commissioned to buy him a property in Touraine, he had to leave Paris for Tours, where he owned a small house. Here he lived on his own slender resources, and on certain small sums allowed him by government for a French translation of Meibom's Antiquae musicae auctores VII (1652), which however was never published. The MS., now in the library of the Conservatoire, is in three columns, the original Greek, and translations into Latin and French, all in Villoteau's hand.
7During his last years, Villoteau wrote a Traité de Phonétésie, now lost, which was not approved by the Institut de France, and consequently not published. He died at Tours, April 27, 1839, aged nearly eighty. g. c.
9VINA, or Bin, the most important of Indian musical instruments. In Northern India its form is a bamboo finger-board, supported on two gourds acting as resonators. Four strings are stretched over a series of fixed frets from 19 to 22 in number (at intervals of a semitone), and there are three other shorter strings not passing over the finger-board. The four fretted strings are usually tuned to f', c', g, and c, two of the other three to c'', and c', and the third to either e or a according to the rāga, or mode, performed. In the variety used in Southern India a similar arrangement of the seven strings is usually found, but the frets are not necessarily fixed, and there is only one gourd which supports the finger-board at the end near the head, the hollow cavity at the other end being built up with staves after the manner of the lute. The metal strings are played either with the finger-nails or with plectra; the instrument is held over the left shoulder, the lower gourd of the two, or the hollow body, resting on the right knee. Detailed descriptions of the instruments in both varieties, with illustrations, will be found in Capt. C. R. Day's Music and Musical Instruments of Southern India, and the northern variety is figured in Hipkins and Gibb's Musical Instruments.
11VINCENT, THOMAS, an oboist, and composer who flourished about the middle of the 18th century. He was born, probably, about 1720, and became the pupil of MARTINI, who taught him his method of playing, by which the oboe, hitherto of coarse tone, became valuable as a solo instrument. He was, perhaps, son of Richard Vincent, an earlier musician of whom little is known, and brother of James Vincent, a song composer of the same period as Thomas. He was one of the founders of the Royal Society of Musicians.
13About 1748 Thomas Vincent issued 'A Sett of Familiar Lessons for the Harpsichord,' op. 2, published by John Cox, London, and 'Six Solos for a Hautboy, German Flute, Violin, or Harpsichord.'
15Several songs 'Composed by Mr. Vincent' are to be found in Watt's 'Musical Miscellany,' vol. iv. 1730, but it is not certain whether they are by James Vincent, whose full name appears on single songs, or Thomas Vincent. Eitner gives the date of Thomas Vincent's death as May 10, 1783, but omits reference by which the date can be verified.
17VINCI, LEONARDO, born at Strongoli in Calabria in 1690, was a pupil of Gaetano Greco at the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo in Naples. His first known work was a comic opera in Neapolitan dialect, 'Lo cecato fauzo' (Il falso cieco), produced at the Teatro de' Fiorentini in 1719. The Gazzetta di Napoli of April 25 informs us that the opera met with a great success, and that the composer was Maestro di Cappella to the Prince of Sansevero. The Prince of Sansevero, it will be remembered, was also a patron of Alessandro Scarlatti. This opera was followed by others of the same sort, 'Le zite ngalera' (1722) being the earliest of which the music has survived. Florimo mentions a serious opera, 'La Stratonice,' as having been produced in 1720, but no trace of it is to be found. The earliest extant example of his serious style is 'Silla Dittatore,' produced on
191 According to Fétis, its success was so small that the publisher exported or destroyed all the unsold copies, a fact which would account for its present scarcity, but as the copyright was Villoteau's own property, and it had been entered at Galland's, it is difficult to believe a story so much to the discredit of a respectable bookseller like Renouard.
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