Books › INTRUMENTSO F THE MODERN ORCHESTRA & EARLY RECORD OF THE PRECURSORS OF THE VIOLIN FAMILY, 1910 › scan 42
Scan 42
INTRUMENTSO F THE MODERN ORCHESTRA & EARLY RECORD OF THE PRECURSORS OF THE VIOLIN FAMILY, 1910
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1basis to his operas was readily supplied from the famed workshops of Cremona, by the Amati, the Stradivari and the Guarneri; who were then producing instruments so perfect that in three hundred years they have never been surpassed. The honour of making the very first violins, however, is claimed by some writers for one Tieffenbrücker, a viol-maker of the Tyrol, and by others with more reason for Gasparo da Salo. There is no doubt that the viols with sloping shoulders owe their origin to the German minnesinger fiddles, which differed from the guitar-fiddle precisely in that important structural feature, the shoulder. The guitar-fiddle developed in Italy to the highest perfection, being known there as the lyra, from which the violin was immediately descended. The followers of Monteverde had certain practices which have re-appeared in this century, i.e., those of concealing the orchestra, and of writing an explanatory preface to their stage works.
3The Opera was at first an aristocratic luxury, performed privately at the courts of princes and noblemen, but in the seventeenth century, performances were given in the theatres. I will not attempt to trace the opera in any other country; suffice it to say that it spread rapidly from Italy to all other musical lands, where its fortunes varied according to the character of its race and its musical genius.
5Instrumental Church Music.—For centuries the Church had been content with rich polyphonic choruses in many parts, with the accompaniment of organ, viols, trumpets, trombones or cornets, or with viols alone; but the love of colour of the Venetian masters in music, no less than in painting, led them to introduce into Church music two, or sometimes even three, complete choirs, with rich (for that time) orchestral accompaniment. The founder of the Venetian school was Willaert, a Dutchman, who had studied in Paris, and his pupils, the two Gabriellis (1510 to 1613), wrote innumerable "Symphoniae Sacrae" for voices and instruments.
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