Books › Old violins, 1910 › scan 26
Scan 26
Old violins, 1910
14 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 20. See the scan on archive.org.
1But in the early days of violin genesis the instrument was quite subordinate to the voice; it only gradually conquered its independence with the emergence of the string trio and string quartet. It would happen thus:—
3Two people would meet to sing, and the missing tenor or bass voice would be supplied by a viola; or three would meet who could not sing at all, when it would occur to them that the vocal parts might be played instead, and with even more accuracy perhaps than the very average voices would attain to.
5The instrumental trio and quartet thus at once came into being.
7Next, music would be written independently for such combinations, and the voices would be egged out altogether, and presently the treble or violin would show a tendency to throw the others into the shade, and at last be thought worthy of a solo all to itself, and thus the independent position of the instrument would quickly be established.
9All attempts to date exactly the stages of this differentiation of the violin tribe are likely to be misleading.
11You cannot say exactly when perspective was discovered or rediscovered by the Italian painters, it developed gradually; and so the violin developed gradually, born of new musical needs and new musical knowledge.
13In the midst of the old chaotic world of viol noises that preceded it, the struggle to displace the old viol
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