Scan 691
GROVE'S DICTIONARY OF MUSIC AND MUSICIANS IN FIVE VOLUMES, 1908
20 lines. Read by computer on 5 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 629. See the scan on archive.org.
1grand') and the 'Claviol,' which was in form like a cabinet piano, with ringbow mechanism for the sostinente, were introduced to the public in a concert at Philadelphia, by the inventor, June 21, 1802. There is a description of the Claviol in Rees's Cyclopædia, 1819, and also in the Mechanic's Magazine for 1845, No. 1150, p. 123. About Hawkins himself there are interesting particulars in Scribner's Magazine (1880), in an article on 'Bordertown and the Bonapartes.' Hawkins was in England in 1813 and 1814, exhibiting his Claviol, and in the latter year complained of his idea being appropriated by others through the expiration of his patent. He afterwards lived here and was a prominent member of the Institution of Civil Engineers. Isaac Mott's 'Sostinente Piano Forte,' patented by him in 1817, was a further development of the idea, and is fully described in the patent, No. 4098. Mott claimed the power to increase or diminish the tone at will; and by rollers acting on silken threads, set in action by a pedal, the 'sostinente' was brought into action or stopped. Mott's instrument had some success, he being at the time a fashionable pianoforte-maker. See PIANO-VIOLIN and MELOPIANO.1 [See also p. 95 of Hipkins's History of the Pianoforte.]
3A. J. H.
5SOTO, FRANCISCO, born 1534, at Langa in Spain, entered the college of the Pope's Chapel, June 8, 1562. He was a friend of St. Philip Neri, and in December 1575 took the direction of the music in the Oratory founded by him. He also founded the first Carmelite convent in Rome. He published the 3rd and 4th books of Laudi Spirituali (1588, 1591) in continuation of the two edited by G. Animuccia, and died as Dean of the Pope's Chapel, Sept. 25, 1619. G.
7SOTTO VOCE, 'under the voice,' in an undertone; a direction of frequent occurrence in instrumental as well as vocal music. M.
9SOUBIES, ALBERT, born in Paris, May 10, 1846, was educated at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, but, after studying for the legal profession, music was too strong for him, and he entered the Conservatoire, where he studied under Savard, Bazin, and Guilmant. His first essay as a writer on music, a career in which he has had remarkable success, was in the continuation of the Almanach Duchesne under the title of Almanach des Spectacles (1874 onwards). His principal work has been a history of music in a series of small volumes arranged under different countries: Allemagne et Russie occupy two volumes; L'Espagne, three more; Le Portugal, La Hongrie, et la Bohême, three; Suisse and Hollande, one each; Belgique, two; États Scandinaves, three; and Îles Britanniques, two. Les Grands Théâtres Parisiens is in four volumes, dealing respectively with the Comédie Française, the Opéra (for sixty-seven years), the Opéra-Comique (for sixty-nine years), and the Théâtre Lyrique, 1851-70. Une Première par jour was crowned, with other of Soubies's works, by the Académie, and other non-musical books are in his list. He has collaborated with Ch. Malherbe in the Histoire de l'Opéra-Comique (1840-1887), Mélanges sur Richard Wagner, L'Œuvre dramatique de Richard Wagner, and in a Précis de l'histoire de l'Opéra-Comique, the last under the name of B. de Lomagne. He has written for the Soir since 1876, and for the Revue de l'Art dramatique since 1885. He is a frequent contributor to the Guide Musical, the Ménestrel, etc.
11G. F.
13SOUND-BOARD or SOUNDING-BOARD.
14I. In the organ the sound-board is the upper portion of the wind-chest, upon which the pipes stand.
16(no line here) one of two readings
17II. In the pianoforte the sound-board is usually called the BELLY. See vol. i. p. 293b.
19SOUND-HOLES, or ff HOLES (Fr. ouïe; Ital. occhi; Ger. Schalloch). The two apertures in the form of italic f's which face one another in the bellies of violins—and the instruments of that family—on either side of the bridge. These exercise a powerful influence upon the tone, regulating as they do the entire system of vibrations of the various parts of the instruments, by governing the amount of air which is contained within the body. Scientific investigation has proved that the best tonal results are arrived at when the contained mass of air in the body of a violin answers to 512 vibrations (i.e. answering to middle C), and for this reason that standard of vibration has been generally adopted by all good violin-makers since the days of Stradivarius, whose violins are perfect examples of this system. The principle, however, cannot be applied by way of extension to the viola, or violoncello, a fact which was proved by those large violoncellos made by 17th century luthiers in accordance with violin measurements by mere augmentation, all of which have had to be reduced in size. According to M. Savart (Mémoire sur la Construction des Instruments à Cordes et à Archet) the pitch of the viola being a fifth below that of the violin, and an octave above the violoncello, the instrument should contain a mass of air answering to 341·33 vibrations (f: a system, however, not generally followed); and the violoncello, being pitched a fifth plus an octave below the violin, should give 170·66 vibrations (F)—neither of which, again, can be said to be arbitrary laws. The form of the ff holes and their position are therefore matters of great importance. Savart at first questioned the necessity of curved sound-holes, but his later experiments proved that any deviation from the f form, where the belly was arched, had a disastrous effect upon the tone of the instrument. He also tested the effect of dispensing with one sound-hole by covering it
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