Scan 62
The American history and encyclopedia of music, 1908
20 lines. Read by computer on 11 September 2026. Printed page 39. See the scan on archive.org.
1aphony
2Loss of tone of the voice resulting in thickness of speech, caused by inflammation or other disorder of the larynx; so called from its derivation from the Greek, meaning speechless.
3aplomb (ä-plôn) Fr. n.
4A plumb or perpendicular line: hence steadiness; coolness; firmness; exactness of time.
5apollino
6A mechanism combining the qualities and powers of several instruments and capable of playing them separately or all together. It was invented and constructed by one Mr. Plimpton and exhibited about 1820 in Boston and New York. It contained a great number of different instruments: twenty-five flageolets, twenty-five imitations of birds, twenty-five trumpets, twenty-five clarinets, four bugles, eight French horns, ten serpents, twelve bassoons, twenty-eight flutes, twenty-eight fifes, thirty-seven strings on violins and violoncellos, thirty-seven strings on harps, cymbals, bass drum, bagpipes, harmonicas, and twenty-five music glasses, all in one mechanism. It combined the music of a full organ, a brass band, an orchestra and an Æolian harp.
7Apolla lyra
8An improvement on the psalmmelodicon, a wood-wind instrument, with twenty-five keys and eight finger holes and capable of imitating several orchestral instruments. It was invented by Weinrich of Heiligenstadt in 1828 and in 1832 it was improved by Leo Schmidt, who called it apollo lyra. This instrument was shaped like a lyre, having an enlarged bass and two sets of free reeds acted upon by two rows of touches. The lower row acts on one set of reeds, and the upper can be made to act on all the reeds by means of a coupling mechanism. Wind is supplied to the reeds by a bellows filled by means of a sliding piston, worked by the left hand of the player.
9apollon
10A large lute or theorbo, having twenty single strings, invented in 1678 by a Persian musician named Prompt.
11appollonicon
12A very large organ and orchestrion, or mechanical organ, invented in 1812 by Flight and Robson of London and manufactured by them from 1812 to 1817. It had nineteen hundred pipes, the lowest being twenty-four feet long with an opening of twenty-three inches and pitched at G G G and the highest sounding A in altissimo. Of the forty-five stops some gave excellent imitation of orchestral instruments, as flute, oboe, horn and trombone. A pair of kettledrums within the organ case were struck by cunningly contrived mechanism. There were five manuals, the middle one having a scale of five octaves, the others each having a scale of two octaves; these manuals were detached from the body of the organ and the performers sat facing the audience. The mechanical part consisted of three barrels, two feet in diameter, eight feet long, and each acting on a separate division of the organ. In their revolution they admitted wind to the pipes and regulated and worked the stops through complex but instantaneous acting machinery. In order to perform very long pieces mechanically, spiral barrels were introduced in which the pins that acted on the rest of the mechanism to produce the sounds were disposed in spiral lines instead of in circles. Additional barrels were added at times, which played other pieces.
13The appollonicon was exhibited in the rooms of Flight and Robson in St. Martins Lane and daily concerts were given on it for many years. Purkis, an organist, played on the keyboard on Saturday afternoons. It was taken down about 1840 and its parts used in constructing other organs.
14apollonion
15An instrument invented by J. H. Vollner of Angersbach in 1800. It consisted of a piano having a double keyboard, combined with organ pipes of two, four and eight feet pitch, that is, of the compass of from c to b on the treble clef, and on the bass clef, and from C two lines below the bass clef to B on its second line. It had also an automatic performer.
16apotome (ä-pōt'-ō-mē) Grk. n.
17The Greeks divided their interval of a whole tone into two unequal parts, the greater of which was called the apotome. The difference between the two parts was very minute and was the outcome of the extremely intricate musical theory in which the Greeks delighted.
18appassionatamente (äp-päs-si-ō-nä'-tā-měn-tě) It. adj.
19Passionately: with intense feeling.
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