Books › The Violin and its Music, 1881 › scan 68
Scan 68
The Violin and its Music, 1881
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 48. See the scan on archive.org.
1not contribute, besides imparting that knowledge to others which for the most part originated with himself. To mention alone Francesco Viola and Gabrielli as his pupils, amply marks the extent of Willaert's influence over chamber music, when in its infancy, and yet further awakens our interest in the father of the madrigal, since it was his scholar Gabrielli who was one of the chief actors, if not the principal, who rendered that distinguished service to Viols and other instruments, of emancipating them from their long dependence upon vocal music. Henceforth instruments were no longer to follow in the wake of vocal music, they had been made ripe to claim their liberation under the skilful guidance of men whose names and merits are for the most part unrecorded; when Gabrielli, or a contemporary musician came forth as their liberator and proclaimed them independent. One of their earliest charters—to continue the metaphor—is that composed and attested by this same Gabrielli, the pupil of Willaert, and entitled "Sonate a cinque per i stromenti," printed by Gardane, Venice, 1586;* the actual date of composition may be much earlier. The nephew and pupil of Gabrielli, Giovanni, followed in the steps of his uncle, and left us the earliest record of music for the Italian Violin we have any account of. Thus we find that it occupied more than a century from the period when bowed instruments were connected with the madrigal, to bring them to that state of perfection
3* Fetis, "Biographie Universelle des Musiciens."
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