Scan 92
The New Grove Dictionary Of Music And Musicians 5 Ed. 2nd, 1904
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1Cross-relation
3'Buddhist Music', 'British Isles', 'Tibet', 'Wales', Grove 6
4PAULA MORGAN
6Cross-relation. See FALSE RELATIONS
8Cross-rhythm. The regular shift of some of the beats in a metric pattern to points ahead of or behind their normal positions in that pattern, for instance the division of 4/4 into 3 + 3 + 2 quavers, or 9/8 into 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 quavers, if every beat is shifted by the same amount, this is called SYNCOPATION
9See also POLYRHYTHM, RHYTHM
11Crot. See CRWTH
13Crotal. A hollow-sphere bell, such as a sleigh-bell, sec BFI L (1)
15Crotalum (Lat., Gk krotalon) A term usually appearing in the plural, crotala, for an instrument resembling the castanet; it was probably the most common percussion instrument of classical antiquity. It consisted of two pieces of wood, bone or bronze, held in one hand and struck together by the action of fingers and thumb. Normally a pair was held in each hand (For illustration see CLAPPERS, fig.3)
17Like other ancient percussion instruments such as the tympanum and the cymbalum their most prominent iconographic representation was in the orgiastic rites of Dionysus and Cybele, where they were depicted in the hands of dancing women and satyrs. However, their usage seems to have extended to every occasion with dancing, whether cult, theatrical or domestic, with the possible exception of highly formalized choral dancing as in the Greek tragedy of the classical period
19BIBLIOGRAPHY
20C Sachs The History of Musical Instruments (New York, 1940)
21M Wegner Griechenland, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, II/4 (Leipzig, 1963)
22G Fleischhauer Etrurien und Rom, Musikgeschichte in Bildern, II/5 (Leipzig, 1964)
24JAMES W Mc KINNON
26Crotch, William (b Norwich, 5 July 1775, d Taunton, 29 Dec 1847). English composer, organist, theorist and painter. He was a child prodigy without parallel in the history of music, and became one of the most distinguished English musicians of his day
281. LIFE. Crotch was the youngest son of Michael Crotch, a master carpenter, and his wife Isabella. At the age of about 18 months he began to pick out tunes on a small organ which his father had built, and soon after his second birthday he had taught himself to play God Save the King with the bass. He played to a large company at Norwich in February 1778, and at the beginning of November his mother began taking him on a series of tours in which his phenomenal gifts were exploited. They went first to Cambridge, then to London, where on 10 December 1778 Daines Barrington heard him play tunes 'almost throughout with chords'. On 1 January 1779 he played to the king and queen at Buckingham Palace. He could transpose into any key, and name all four notes in a chord by ear. Burney described his abilities in a report to the Royal Society on 18 February 1779. A second visit to London followed in October 1779, when an advertisement announced that 'Mrs. Crotch is arrived in town with her son, the Musical Child, who will perform on the organ every day as usual, from one o'clock to three, at Mrs. Hart's, milliner, Piccadilly'. He then toured the British Isles, appearing several times in Scotland. He could play the organ, piano and violin, had already begun to compose, and was also talented in drawing and painting. On a visit to Leicester he played to William Gardiner, who reported that he could read Handel's organ concertos at sight.
30The evidence of Crotch's precocity is incontestable, being based in part on contemporary printed accounts in many sources, including those of such qualified observers as Barrington and Burney. The fact that Crotch's ultimate achievement as a composer hardly lived up to this promise may perhaps be put down to the psychological damage he suffered as a child, when his mother dragged him from town to town to earn the wonder and the patronage of fashionable people. He was described in later life as being 'of a retiring disposition', and in old age became extremely conservative.
32From 1786 to 1788 he was at Cambridge, as assistant to Professor Randall, who called him 'Dr Crotch'. He played the organ for services at King's, Trinity and Great St Mary's church. Then he was sent to Oxford and placed in the care of the Rev A C Schomberg, tutor of Magdalen College, who began to prepare him to enter the university and take orders in the church. This plan was dropped when Schomberg's health broke down and Crotch continued his musical studies. His oratorio The Captivity of Judah, prepared under Schomberg's guidance, was performed at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, on 4 June 1789. In September 1790 Crotch was appointed organist of Christ Church, Oxford, while still only 15 years old. During this period he came much under the influence of JOHN MALCHAIR, leader of the Oxford Music Club orchestra, who like Crotch was a painter as well as a musician. He took the degree of BMus on 5 June 1794, and that of DMus on 21
341. William Crotch, aged 3: engraving by James Fittler
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