God wants our life to be a song. He has written the music for us in His Word and in the duties that come to us in our places and relations in life. The things we ought to do are the notes set upon the staff. To make our life beautiful music we must be obedient and submissive. Any disobedience is the singing of a false note, and yields discord.--_J. R. Miller._
We sometimes see a change of expression in our companion, and say, His father or his mother comes to the windows of his eyes, and sometimes a remote relative. In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin--seven or eight ancestors at least--and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.
The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
The sphere-harmony of a Shakespeare, of a Goethe, the cathedral music of a Milton, the humble, genuine lark-notes of a Burns.
The music in his laughter had a way of rounding off the missing notes in her soul.
Angels had been present on many august occasions, and they had joined in many a solemn chorus to the praise of their Almighty Creator. They were present at the creation: "The morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." They had seen many a planet fashioned between the palms of Jehovah, and wheeled by His eternal hands through the infinitude of space. They had sung solemn songs over many a world which the Great One had created. We doubt not, they had often chanted, "Blessing and honor, and glory, and majesty, and power, and dominion, and might, be unto Him that sitteth on the throne," manifesting Himself in the work of creation. I doubt not, too, that their songs had gathered force through ages. As when first created, their first breath was song, so when they saw God create new worlds, then their song received another note; they rose a little higher in the gamut of adoration. But this time, when they saw God stoop from His throne and become a babe hanging upon a woman's breast, they lifted their notes higher still; and reaching to the uttermost stretch of angelic music, they gained the highest notes of the divine scale of praise and they sang, "Glory to God _in the highest_," for higher in goodness they felt God could not go. Thus their highest praise they gave to Him in the highest act of His Godhead.--_Spurgeon._
Nor was Praeneste's founder wanting there, Whom fame reports the son of Mulciber: Found in the fire, and foster'd in the plains, A shepherd and a king at once he reigns, And leads to Turnus' aid his country swains. His own Praeneste sends a chosen band, With those who plow Saturnia's Gabine land; Besides the succor which cold Anien yields, The rocks of Hernicus, and dewy fields, Anagnia fat, and Father Amasene- A num'rous rout, but all of naked men: Nor arms they wear, nor swords and bucklers wield, Nor drive the chariot thro' the dusty field, But whirl from leathern slings huge balls of lead, And spoils of yellow wolves adorn their head; The left foot naked, when they march to fight, But in a bull's raw hide they sheathe the right. Messapus next, (great Neptune was his sire,) Secure of steel, and fated from the fire, In pomp appears, and with his ardor warms A heartless train, unexercis'd in arms: The just Faliscans he to battle brings, And those who live where Lake Ciminia springs; And where Feronia's grove and temple stands, Who till Fescennian or Flavinian lands. All these in order march, and marching sing The warlike actions of their sea-born king; Like a long team of snowy swans on high, Which clap their wings, and cleave the liquid sky, When, homeward from their wat'ry pastures borne, They sing, and Asia's lakes their notes return. Not one who heard their music from afar, Would think these troops an army train'd to war, But flocks of fowl, that, when the tempests roar, With their hoarse gabbling seek the silent shore.
The day after this conversation Natasha put on the old dress which she knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the whole empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt cheerful. "What's the good of making so much of it? Things are nice as it is," she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the room, not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with each step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair of shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of the toe as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a mirror she glanced into it. "There, that's me!" the expression of her face seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. "Well, and very nice too! I need nobody."
"Good evening. You're here, too! How glad I am to find you here, too! Gentlemen, gentlemen, I--" (He addressed the Polish gentleman with the pipe again, evidently taking him for the most important person present.) "I flew here.... I wanted to spend my last day, my last hour in this room, in this very room ... where I, too, adored ... my queen.... Forgive me, _panie_," he cried wildly, "I flew here and vowed-- Oh, don't be afraid, it's my last night! Let's drink to our good understanding. They'll bring the wine at once.... I brought this with me." (Something made him pull out his bundle of notes.) "Allow me, _panie_! I want to have music, singing, a revel, as we had before. But the worm, the unnecessary worm, will crawl away, and there'll be no more of him. I will commemorate my day of joy on my last night."
I told her stories as long as she would listen to them; and then for a change I took her out into the gallery. The hall lamp was now lit, and it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants passing backwards and forwards. When the evening was far advanced, a sound of music issued from the drawing-room, whither the piano had been removed; Adele and I sat down on the top step of the stairs to listen. Presently a voice blent with the rich tones of the instrument; it was a lady who sang, and very sweet her notes were. The solo over, a duet followed, and then a glee: a joyous conversational murmur filled up the intervals. I listened long: suddenly I discovered that my ear was wholly intent on analysing the mingled sounds, and trying to discriminate amidst the confusion of accents those of Mr. Rochester; and when it caught them, which it soon did, it found a further task in framing the tones, rendered by distance inarticulate, into words.
26. _Pedal_ or _organ point_ is the sustaining of a single note in the bass (or, in the case of an _inverted pedal_, in an upper part) while the harmonies move independently. Unless the harmonies are sometimes foreign to the sustained note, it does not constitute a pedal. In modern music pedals take place on either the tonic or the dominant, other pedal-notes being rare and of complex meaning. Double pedals (of tonic and dominant, with tonic below) are not unusual. The device is capable of very free treatment, and has produced many very bold and rich harmonic effects in music since the earlier works of Beethoven. It probably accounts for many so-called "essential discords." Entry: 26
The works which Euler published separately are: _Dissertatio physica de sono_ (Basel, 1727, in 4to); _Mechanica, sive motus scientia analytice exposita_ (St Petersburg, 1736, in 2 vols. 4to); _Einleitung in die Arithmetik_ (ibid., 1738, in 2 vols. 8vo), in German and Russian; _Tentamen novae theoriae musicae_ (ibid. 1739, in 4to); _Methodus inveniendi lineas curvas, maximi minimive proprietate gaudentes_ (Lausanne, 1744, in 4to); _Theoria motuum planetarum et cometarum_ (Berlin, 1744, in 4to); _Beantwortung_, &c., or Answers to Different Questions respecting Comets (ibid., 1744, in 8vo); _Neue Grundsatze_, &c., or New Principles of Artillery, translated from the English of Benjamin Robins, with notes and illustrations (ibid., 1745, in 8vo); _Opuscula varii argumenti_ (ibid., 1746-1751, in 3 vols. 4to); _Novae et correctae tabulae ad loca lunae computanda_ (ibid., 1746, in 4to); _Tabulae astronomicae solis et lunae_ (ibid., 4to); _Gedanken_, &c., or Thoughts on the Elements of Bodies (ibid. 4to); _Rettung der gottlichen Offenbarung_, &c., Defence of Divine Revelation against Free-thinkers (ibid., 1747, in 4to); _Introductio in analysin infinitorum_ (Lausanne, 1748, in 2 vols. 4to); _Scientia navalis, seu tractatus de construendis ac dirigendis navibus_ (St Petersburg, 1749, in 2 vols. 4to); Theoria motus lunae (Berlin, 1753, in 4to); _Dissertatio de principio minimae actionis, una cum examine objectionum cl. prof. Koenigii_ (ibid., 1753, in 8vo); _Institutiones calculi differentialis, cum ejus usu in analysi Infinitorum ac doctrina serierum_ (ibid., 1755, in 4to); _Constructio lentium objectivarum_, &c. (St Petersburg, 1762, in 4to); _Theoria motus corporum solidorum seu rigidorum_ (Rostock, 1765, in 4to); _Institutiones calculi integralis_ (St Petersburg, 1768-1770, in 3 vols. 4to); _Lettres à une Princesse d'Allemagne sur quelques sujets de physique et de philosophie_ (St Petersburg, 1768-1772, in 3 vols. 8vo); _Anleitung zur Algebra_, or Introduction to Algebra (ibid., 1770, in 8vo); _Dioptrica_ (ibid., 1767-1771, in 3 vols. 4to); _Theoria motuum lunae nova methodo pertractata_ (ibid., 1772, in 4to); _Novae tabulae lunares_ (ibid., in 8vo); _Théorie complète de la construction et de la manoeuvre des vaisseaux_ (ibid., 1773, in 8vo); _Éclaircissements sur établissements en faveur tant des veuves que des morts_, without a date; _Opuscula analytica_ (St Petersburg, 1783-1785, in 2 vols. 4to). Entry: EULER
FLAGEOLET, in music, a kind of _flute-à-bec_ with a new fingering, invented in France at the end of the 16th century, and in vogue in England from the end of the 17th to the beginning of the 19th century. The instrument is described and illustrated by Mersenne,[1] who states that the most famous maker and player in his day was Le Vacher. The flageolet differed from the recorder in that it had four finger-holes in front and two thumb-holes at the back instead of seven finger-holes in front and one thumb-hole at the back. This fingering has survived in the French flageolet still used in the provinces of France in small orchestras and for dance music. The arrangement of the holes was as follows: 1, left thumb-hole at the back near mouthpiece; 2 and 3, finger-holes stopped by the left hand; 4, finger-hole stopped by right hand; 5, thumb-hole at the back; 6, hole near the open end. According to Dr Burney (_History of Music_) the flageolet was invented by the Sieur Juvigny, who played it in the _Ballet comique de la Royne_, 1581. Dr Edward Browne,[2] writing to his father from Cologne on the 20th of June 1673, relates, "We have with us here one ... and Mr Hadly upon the flagelet, which instrument he hath so improved as to invent large ones and outgoe in sweetnesse all the basses whatsoever upon any other instrument." About the same time was published Thomas Greeting's _Pleasant Companion; or New Lessons and Instructions for the Flagelet_ (London, 1675 or 1682), a rare book of which the British Museum does not possess a copy. The instrument retained its popularity until the beginning of the 19th century, when Bainbridge constructed double and triple flageolets.[3] The three tubes were bored parallel through one piece of wood communicating near the mouthpiece which was common to all three. The lowest notes of the respective tubes were [Musical<b> notes: D B G] Entry: FLAGEOLET
The best edition of his works was published at Stockholm, edited by J.G. Carlén, with biographical notes, illustrations and music (5 vols., 1856-1861); see also monographs on Bellman by Nils Erdmann (Stockholm, 1895) and by F. Niedner (Berlin, 1905). Entry: BELLMAN
DES PRÉS, JOSQUIN (c. 1445-1521), also called DEPRÉS or DESPREZ, and by a latinized form of his name, JODOCUS PRATENSIS or A PRATO, French musical composer, was born, probably in Condé in the Hennegau, about 1445. He was a pupil of Ockenheim, and himself one of the most learned musicians of his time. In spite of his great fame, the accounts of his life are vague and the dates contradictory. Fétis contributed greatly towards elucidating the doubtful points in his _Biographie universelle_. In his early youth Josquin seems to have been a member of the choir of the collegiate church at St Quentin; when his voice changed he went (about 1455) to Ockenheim to take lessons in counterpoint; afterwards he again lived at his birthplace for some years, till Pope Sixtus IV. invited him to Rome to teach his art to the musicians of Italy, where musical knowledge at that time was at a low ebb. In Rome Des Prés lived till the death of his protector (1484), and it was there that many of his works were written. His reputation grew rapidly, and he was considered by his contemporaries to be the greatest master of his age. Luther, who was a good judge, is credited with the saying that "other musicians do with notes what they can, Josquin what he likes." The composer's journey to Rome marks in a manner the transference of the art from its Gallo-Belgian birthplace to Italy, which for the next two centuries remained the centre of the musical world. To Des Prés and his pupils Arcadelt, Mouton and others, much that is characteristic in modern music owes its rise, particularly in their influence upon Italian developments under Palestrina. After leaving Rome Des Prés went for a time to Ferrara, where the duke Hercules I. offered him a home; but before long he accepted an invitation of King Louis XII. of France to become the chief singer of the royal chapel. According to another account, he was for a time at least in the service of the emperor Maximilian I. The date of his death has by some writers been placed as early as 1501. But this is sufficiently disproved by the fact of one of his finest compositions, _A Dirge (Déploration) for Five Voices_, being written to commemorate the death of his master Ockenheim, which took place after 1512. The real date of Josquin's decease has since been settled as the 27th of August 1521. He was at that time a canon of the cathedral of Condé (see Victor Delzant's _Sépultures de Flandre_, No. 118). Entry: DES
The greater number of Martini's sacred compositions remain unprinted. The Liceo of Bologna possesses the MSS. of two oratorios; and a requiem, with some other pieces of church music, are now in Vienna. _Litaniae atque antiphonae finales B. V. Mariae_ were published at Bologna in 1734, as also twelve _Sonate d'intavolatura_; six _Sonate per l'organo ed il cembalo_ in 1747; and Duetti da camera in 1763. Martini's most important works are his _Storia della musica_ (Bologna, 1757-1781) and his _Saggio di contrapunto_ (Bologna, 1774-1775). The former, of which the three published volumes relate wholly to ancient music, and thus represent a mere fragment of the author's vast plan, exhibits immense reading and industry, but is written in a dry and unattractive style, and is overloaded with matter which cannot be regarded as historical. At the beginning and end of each chapter occur puzzle-canons, wherein the primary part or parts alone are given, and the reader has to discover the canon that fixes the period and the interval at which the response is to enter. Some of these are exceedingly difficult, but Cherubini solved the whole of them. The _Saggio_ is a learned and valuable work, containing an important collection of examples from the best masters of the old Italian and Spanish schools, with excellent explanatory notes. It treats chiefly of the tonalities of the plain chant, and of counterpoints constructed upon them. Besides being the author of several controversial works, Martini drew up a _Dictionary of Ancient Musical Terms_, which appeared in the second volume of G. B. Doni's _Works_; he also published a treatise on _The Theory of Numbers as applied to Music_. His celebrated canons, published in London, about 1800, edited by Pio Cianchettini, show him to have had a strong sense of musical humour. Entry: MARTINI
No one has approached Orlando in the ingenuity, quaintness and humour of his tone-painting. He sometimes descends to extremely elaborate musical puns, carrying farther than any other composer since the dark ages the absurd device of setting syllables that happened to coincide with the _sol-fa_ system to the corresponding _sol-fa_ notes. But in the most absurd of such cases he evidently enjoys twisting these notes into a theme of pregnant musical meaning. The quaintest instance is the motet _Quid estis pusillanimes_ [Magnum Opus, No. 92 (69)] where extra _sol-fa_ syllables are introduced into the text to make a good theme in combination with the syllables already there by accident! (_An nescitis Justitiae Ut Sol [Fa Mi] Re Laxatas_ _habenas possit denuo cohibere?_). The significance of these euphuistic jokes is that they always make good music in Orlando's hands. There is musical fun even in his voluminous parody of the stammering style of word-setting in the burlesque motet _S.U.Su. PER. per. super F.L.U._, which gets through one verse of a psalm in fifteen minutes. Entry: LASSO
Almost all the orders of birds are well represented, and the marvellous variety of forms found in the eastern Himalaya is only rivalled in Central and South America. Eagles, vultures and other birds of prey are seen soaring high over the highest of the forest-clad ranges. Owls are numerous, and a small species, _Glaucidium_, is conspicuous, breaking the stillness of the night by its monotonous though musical cry of two notes. Several kinds of swifts and nightjars are found, and gorgeously-coloured trogons, bee-eaters, rollers, and beautiful kingfishers and barbets are common. Several large hornbills inhabit the highest trees in the forest. The parrots are restricted to parrakeets, of which there are several species, and a single small lory. The number of woodpeckers is very great and the variety of plumage remarkable, and the voice of the cuckoo, of which there are numerous species, resounds in the spring as in Europe. The number of passerine birds is immense. Amongst them the sun-birds resemble in appearance and almost rival in beauty the humming-birds of the New Continent. Creepers, nuthatches, shrikes, and their allied forms, flycatchers and swallows, thrushes, dippers and babblers (about fifty species), bulbuls and orioles, peculiar types of redstart, various sylviads, wrens, tits, crows, jays and magpies, weaver-birds, avadavats, sparrows, crossbills and many finches, including the exquisitely coloured rose-finches, may also be mentioned. The pigeons are represented by several wood-pigeons, doves and green pigeons. The gallinaceous birds include the peacock, which everywhere adorns the forest bordering on the plains, jungle fowl and several pheasants; partridges, of which the chikor may be named as most abundant, and snow-pheasants and partridges, found only at the greatest elevations. Waders and waterfowl are far less abundant, and those occurring are nearly all migratory forms which visit the peninsula of India--the only important exception being two kinds of solitary snipe and the red-billed curlew. Entry: 6
Written down this seems a mere unintelligible jumble, but could we hear it, as sounded by the pipers, with due regard for the rhythmical value of notes, it would be a very different matter. Alexander Campbell[10] relates that a melody had to be taken down or translated "from the syllabic jargon of illiterate pipers into musical characters, which, when correctly done, he found to his astonishment to coincide exactly with musical notation." Entry: 1
Those instruments of which the tones and compass are most suitable for polyphonic melody are for the most part high in pitch; a circumstance which, in conjunction with the practice (initiated by the monodists and ratified by science and common sense) of reckoning chords upwards from the bass, leads to the conclusion that the instruments which hold the main threads in the design shall be supported where necessary by a simple harmonic filling-out on some keyed instrument capable of forming an unobtrusive background. The chords necessary in this part, which with its supporting bass is called the _continuo_, were indicated by figures; and the evanescent and delicate tones of the harpsichord lent themselves admirably to this purpose where solo voices and instruments were concerned. For the support of the chorus the more powerful organ was necessary. It is in the attempt to supply the place of this _continuo_ (or _figured bass_) by definite orchestral parts that modern performances, until the most recent times, have shown so radical an incapacity to grasp the nature of 18th-century instrumentation. The whole point of this filling-out is that, the polyphonic design of the main instruments being complete in itself, there is no room for any such additional inner parts as can attract attention. In the interest of euphony some harmonious sound is needed to bridge the great gap which almost always exists between the bass and the upper instruments, but this filling out must be of the softest and most atmospheric kind. Bach himself is known to have executed it in a very polyphonic style, and this for the excellent reason that plain chords would have contrasted so strongly with the real instrumental parts that they could not fail to attract attention even in the softest tones of the harpsichord or the organ, while light polyphony in these tones would elude the ear and at the same time perfectly bridge over the gap in the harmony. There seems no good reason why in modern performances the pianoforte should not be used for the purpose; if only accompanists can be trained to acquire the necessary delicacy of touch, and can be made to understand that, if they cannot extemporize the necessary polyphony, and so have to play something definitely written for them, it is not a mass of interesting detail which they are to bring to the public ear. A lamentable instance of the prevalent confusion of thought on this point is shown by the vocal scores of the Bach cantatas corresponding to the edition of the _Bach Gesellschaft_ (which must not be held responsible for them). In these Bach's polyphonic designs are often obliterated beneath a mass of editorial counterpoint (even where Bach has carefully written the words "_tasto solo_," i.e. "no filling out"). The same comments apply to the attempts sometimes made to fill out the bare places in 18th-century clavier music. There is no doubt that such filling out was often done on a second harpsichord with stops of a very light tone; but, if it cannot be done on the modern pianoforte in a touch so light as to avoid confusion between it and the notes actually written as essential to the design, it certainly ought not to be done at all. The greater richness of tone of the modern pianoforte is a better compensation for any bareness that may be imputed to pure two-part or three-part writing than a filling out which deprives the listener of the power to follow the essential lines of the music. The same holds good, though in a lesser degree, of the resources of the harpsichord in respect of octave-strings. To sacrifice phrasing, and distinctness in real part-writing, to a crude imitation of the richness produced mechanically on the harpsichord by drawing 4-ft. and 8-ft. registers, is artistically suicidal. The genius of the modern pianoforte is to produce richness by depth and variety of tone; and players who cannot find scope for such genius in the real part-writing of the 18th century will not get any nearer to the 18th-century spirit by sacrificing the essentials of its art to an attempt to imitate its mechanical resources by a modern _tour de force_. Entry: INSTRUMENTATION