Books › Old violins, 1905 › scan 137
Scan 137
Old violins, 1905
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 119. See the scan on archive.org.
1and in Elizabeth's time Italian influence is as marked in English music as it is in the Shakspearian drama, or in these gorgeous brocades, silks, and tapestries that still dazzle us behind glass at the South Kensington Museum, or in such Elizabethan gems of Renaissance architecture as Knole and Hatfield, which seem to touch as with the glory of a foreign world the palatial seats "of our old nobility."
3Modern music rises in Elizabeth's reign with Monte Verde and the discovery of the octave and the perfect cadence.
5Along with it rise the Italian singing-schools of Naples; whilst the viols, improved to meet the new demands, culminate in the Brescian, Maggini and the Cremonese Amati patterns (the very word Madrigala, the hymn of the Mother of God, is Italian and cloisteral), and the viols which accompanied such part-songs were doubtless of Italian origin.
7But, for all that, the viols were genuinely naturalised and acclimatised in England, and for a short time it seemed as if England were even going to lead the art of viol manufacture.
9The father of Galileo the astronomer declared in 1583 that the best lutes were at that time made in England, and we know that lute-making and viol-making so invariably went together that in France and Italy the violin-maker is to this day called a "lutier"; and J. J. Rousseau remarks, a little loosely perhaps: "The viol passed from the Italians to the English, who first began to compose and play har-
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.