Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 60
Scan 60
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 38. See the scan on archive.org.
1viols became instruments of fixed sounds and tempered. This usage was continued to the first half of the eighteenth century, although the violin had been freed from these shackles nearly one hundred and fifty years.
3There was evidently a great variety in the construction of viols, at the period when true music began to appear and harmony became more refined. This change took place towards the end of the fourteenth century, by the happy efforts of three musicians, superior to their time: Dufay, Binchois, and Dunstaple*. The whole range of the art was then comprised in the harmony produced by the union of the different species of voices. That which applied to voices, therefore, it was desired to make applicable to instruments; and as there are acute voices, called soprano, less acute, termed contralto, medium voices, or tenors, and grave, called basses, the idea was conceived of making, in all kinds of instruments, complete families which should represent these four species of voices. Thus, viols, hautboys, flutes, cornets, &c. had their soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, and sometimes even their double bass. This division, which became established in the fifteenth century, was maintained during the sixteenth and seventeenth, or rather has not ceased up to the present time, at least for bow-instruments. The most common instruments had their quartett, complete: thus we see, in the work of Agricola, the treble, alto, tenor, and bass of the rebec, each mounted with three strings, with a triangular bridge, the summit of which supported the middle string,
5* Dunstable appears to be the preferable orthography.—Tr.
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