Books › The violin and its music, 1881 › scan 35
Scan 35
The violin and its music, 1881
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 13. See the scan on archive.org.
1engaged, many of them being men of much eminence, and so kindly were they treated by the Duke that it is written, "had the heavenly choir been suddenly dismissed, they would straightway have made for the court of Munich, there to find peace and retirement." This establishment furnishes us with some notion of the musical arrangements of the time. It would appear that for general purposes the wind and brass instruments were separated from the strings; the former accompanying the mass on Sundays and festivals. In the chamber all took part in turn. At a banquet the wind instruments were used during the earlier courses, and afterwards the stringed instruments were introduced. This description of the use to which the Viols were put would seem to accord with Montaigne's, in his journal, written in 1580, where he says he heard, at Kempster, in Bavaria, one of the ministers preach to a very thin congregation, and "when he had done, a psalm was sung to a melody a little different from ours. At each stave the organ (which had been but lately erected) played admirably, making a kind of response to the singing." Further on Montaigne adds, "As a newly-married couple went out of church, the Violins(?)* and Tabors accompanied them." Though it would appear from these extracts that Viols were not used inside the German churches at this date,
3* Dr. Burney concludes from this passage that Violins were common in Germany.
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