Books › The instruments of the modern orchestra & early records of the precursors of the violin family, with over 500 illustrations and plates;, 1910 › scan 39
Scan 39
The instruments of the modern orchestra & early records of the precursors of the violin family, with over 500 illustrations and plates;, 1910
4 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Growth of Instrumental Music.—With the musical Drama grew the individualism of the various instruments. The violin family in particular received great attention. The beautiful instruments turned out by the Cremona makers encouraged virtuosi to try their skill to the utmost, and composers to write solos to show off the capabilities of the instruments. The first to write a solo for the violin was Biagio Marini, who died at Padua in 1660. Till then, if an executant on a viol wished to play alone, he chose the treble part of a madrigal or part song. Marini had a host of followers who imitated him. We find the variation form invented by Vitali, and the concerto (in its elementary form) by Corelli, 1660-1708. During the second half of the seventeenth century the Overture was also invented by Lully, a Frenchman brought up in Florence, who introduced the Opera into France from Italy as well as numerous improvements in the orchestra. He was the first to use the kettle-drum in it.
3In Monteverde's days only a little prelude of eight or nine bars repeated preceded the Opera. "Lully's Overture," or the French, 1672-86, was composed of three movements, the first majestic, the second Allegro, the third a march or dance tune, and had no connection with the action of the Opera to which it was prefixed. The Scarlatti, or Italian Overture, consisted of an Allegro, a short Adagio, and a second quick movement or a repetition of the first. Handel wrote his overtures on Lully's form, much elaborated. The dance tune which so often formed the last movement of the overture was the minuet, pavane or some graceful, slow dance, and the idea does not seem to us so singular when we remember that the Ballet grew up side by side with the Opera in Paris, and that many operas contained dances. Gluck was the first to write overtures, analogous in style and sentiment to the Opera which followed, but even he did not include in his overture themes from the opera; this improvement was carried out by Mozart in his
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