1.
Double bass
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The double bass, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra. It is an instrument and is typically notated one octave higher than sounding to avoid excessive ledger lines below the staff. The double bass is the modern bowed string instrument that is tuned in fourths, rather than fifths, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2. The instruments exact lineage is still a matter of some debate, the double bass is a standard member of the orchestras string section, as well as the concert band, and is featured in concertos, solo and chamber music in Western classical music. The bass is used in a range of genres, such as jazz, 1950s-style blues and rock and roll, rockabilly, psychobilly, traditional country music, bluegrass, tango. The double bass is played either with a bow or by plucking the strings, in orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed. In jazz, blues, and rockabilly, pizzicato is the norm, Classical music uses just the natural sound produced acoustically by the instrument, so does traditional bluegrass. In jazz, blues, and related genres, the bass is typically amplified with an amplifier and speaker, the double bass stands around 180 cm from scroll to endpin. However, other sizes are available, such as a 1⁄2 or 3⁄4 and these sizes do not reflect the size relative to a full size, or 4⁄4 bass, a 1⁄2 bass is not half the size of a bass but is only slightly smaller. It is typically constructed from several types of wood, including maple for the back, spruce for the top and it is uncertain whether the instrument is a descendant of the viola da gamba or of the violin, but it is traditionally aligned with the violin family. While the double bass is nearly identical in construction to other violin family instruments, like other violin and viol-family string instruments, the double bass is played either with a bow or by plucking the strings. In orchestral repertoire and tango music, both arco and pizzicato are employed, in jazz, blues, and rockabilly, pizzicato is the norm, except for some solos and also occasional written parts in modern jazz that call for bowing. In classical pedagogy, almost all of the focus is on performing with the bow and producing a good bowed tone, some of these articulations can be combined, for example, the combination of sul ponticello and tremolo can produce eerie, ghostly sounds. Classical bass players do play pizzicato parts in orchestra, but these parts generally require simple notes, vibrato is used to add expression to string playing. In general, very loud, low-register passages are played with little or no vibrato, mid- and higher-register melodies are typically played with more vibrato. The speed and intensity of the vibrato is varied by the performer for an emotional and musical effect, in jazz, rockabilly and other related genres, much or all of the focus is on playing pizzicato. In jazz and jump blues, bassists are required to play extremely rapid pizzicato walking basslines for extended periods, as well, jazz and rockabilly bassists develop virtuoso pizzicato techniques that enable them to play rapid solos that incorporate fast-moving triplet and sixteenth note figures. In jazz and related styles, bassists often add semi-percussive ghost notes into basslines, to add to the rhythmic feel and to add fills to a bassline
2.
Musical instrument classification
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Throughout history, various methods of musical instrument classification have been used. The most commonly used system divides instruments into string instruments, woodwind instruments, brass instruments and percussion instruments, the oldest known scheme of classifying instruments is Chinese and dates from the 3rd millennium BC. It grouped instruments according to the materials they are made of. However, the Chou-Li, an anonymous treatise compiled from sources in about the 2nd century BC, had the following order, metal, stone, clay, leather, silk, wood, gourd. The same order was presented in the Tso Chuan, attributed to Tso Chiu-Ming, more usually, instruments are classified according to how the sound is initially produced. The modern system divides instruments into wind, strings and percussion, the scheme was later expanded by Martin Agricola, who distinguished plucked string instruments, such as guitars, from bowed string instruments, such as violins. Classical musicians today do not always maintain this division, but distinguish between wind instruments with a reed and those where the air is set in motion directly by the lips, many instruments do not fit very neatly into this scheme. The serpent, for example, ought to be classified as a brass instrument, however, it looks more like a woodwind instrument, and is closer to one in many ways, having finger-holes to control pitch, rather than valves. Keyboard instruments do not fit easily into this scheme, for example, the piano has strings, but they are struck by hammers, so it is not clear whether it should be classified as a string instrument or a percussion instrument. Ottoman encyclopedist Hadji Khalifa also recognized the three classes in his Kashf al-Zunun an Asami al-Kutub wa al-Funun, a treatise on the origin. The division pervades Tboli thought about cosmology, social characters of men and women, victor-Charles Mahillon later adopted a system very similar to this. This scheme was taken up by Erich von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs who published an extensive new scheme for classication in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie in 1914. Their scheme is used today, and is most often known as the Hornbostel-Sachs system. Electrophones, such as the guitar or electric bass, which produce sound through electricity and is required to be plugged in to an amplifier. Later Sachs added a category, electrophones, such as theremins. Modern synthesizers and electronic instruments fall in this category, within each category are many subgroups. The system has been criticised and revised over the years, in 1932, comparative musicologist André Schaeffner developed a new classification scheme that was exhaustive, potentially covering all real and conceivable instruments. The Kpelle of West Africa also use this system and they distinguish the struck, including both beaten and plucked, and the blown
3.
Musical instrument
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A musical instrument is an instrument created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument, the history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have used for ritual, such as a trumpet to signal success on the hunt. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment, Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications. The date and origin of the first device considered an instrument is disputed. The oldest object that some refer to as a musical instrument. Some consensus dates early flutes to about 37,000 years ago, many early musical instruments were made from animal skins, bone, wood, and other non-durable materials. Musical instruments developed independently in many populated regions of the world, however, contact among civilizations caused rapid spread and adaptation of most instruments in places far from their origin. By the Middle Ages, instruments from Mesopotamia were in maritime Southeast Asia, development in the Americas occurred at a slower pace, but cultures of North, Central, and South America shared musical instruments. By 1400, musical instrument development slowed in areas and was dominated by the Occident. Musical instrument classification is a discipline in its own right, Instruments can be classified by their effective range, their material composition, their size, etc. However, the most common method, Hornbostel-Sachs, uses the means by which they produce sound. The academic study of instruments is called organology. Once humans moved from making sounds with their bodies—for example, by using objects to create music from sounds. Primitive instruments were designed to emulate natural sounds, and their purpose was ritual rather than entertainment. The concept of melody and the pursuit of musical composition were unknown to early players of musical instruments. A player sounding a flute to signal the start of a hunt does so without thought of the notion of making music. Musical instruments are constructed in an array of styles and shapes
4.
Cello
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The cello or violoncello is a bowed or plucked string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. The strings from low to high are generally tuned to C2, G2, D3 and A3 and it is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin and viola and the double bass. The cello is used as a musical instrument, as well as in chamber music ensembles, string orchestras, as a member of the string section of symphony orchestras. It is the second-largest and second lowest bowed string instrument in the symphony orchestra. Cello parts are written in the bass clef, but both tenor clef and treble clefs are used for higher-range parts, both in orchestral/chamber music parts and in solo cello works. A person who plays the cello is called a cellist or violoncellist, in a small Classical ensemble, such as a string quartet, the cello typically plays the bass part, the lowest-pitched musical line of the piece. In orchestra, in Baroque era and Classical music period, the cello plays the bass part. In Baroque era music, the cello is used to play the basso continuo bassline, in a Baroque performance, the cello player might be joined by other bass instruments, playing double bass, viol or other low-register instruments. The name cello is a contraction of the Italian violoncello, which means little violone, in modern symphony orchestras, it is the second largest stringed instrument. Thus, the name contained both the augmentative -one and the diminutive -cello. By the turn of the 20th century, it had become common to shorten the name to cello and it is now customary to use cello without apostrophe as the full designation. Viol is derived from the viola, which was derived from Medieval Latin vitula. Cellos are tuned in fifths, starting with C2, followed by G2, D3 and it is tuned in the same intervals as the viola, but an octave lower. Unlike the violin or viola but similar to the double bass, the cello is most closely associated with European classical music, and has been described as the closest sounding instrument to the human voice. The instrument is a part of the orchestra, as part of the string section. A large number of concertos and sonatas have been written for the cello, among the most well-known Baroque works for the cello are Johann Sebastian Bachs six unaccompanied Suites. The Prelude from the First Suite is particularly famous, romantic era repertoire includes the Robert Schumann Concerto, the Antonín Dvořák Concerto as well as the two sonatas and the Double Concerto by Johannes Brahms. The cello is increasingly common in traditional music, especially Scottish fiddle music
5.
Bass violin
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Bass violin is the modern term for various 16th and 17th-century bass instruments of the violin family. They were the ancestor of the modern cello. Bass violins were usually larger than the modern cello. Contemporary names for these instruments include basso de viola da braccio, basso da braccio, or the generic term violone, with its F-holes and stylized C-bouts it also more closely resembled the viola da braccio. The name bass violin is sometimes used for the double bass. Occasionally historians have used the bass violin to refer other various instruments of the violin family which were larger than the alto violin or viola. This use can be synonymous with harmony violin, after the 1950s, the term bass violin may refer to a bass instrument of the violin octet. The bass violin was developed in Italy in the first half of the century, to be in consort with the violin. The first builder was possibly Andrea Amati, as early as 1538, the first specific reference to the instrument was probably made by Jambe de Fer in his treatise Epitome Musical. One of the first known instances of a composer explicitly calling for the violin was Monteverdi in Orfeo. The viol, or viola da gamba, was introduced to Italy from Spain around 1490, before the introduction of the viol, no bowed instrument existed in the region which was played in the a gamba position. The viola da gamba was also larger, and therefore could play much lower notes than the other fiddles that existed in Italy at that time. One of the qualities that was almost certainly adopted by the Italian violin makers from the early Spanish viols was the C-bout, which they soon stylized. At some point in the early to mid-sixteenth century, an Italian maker set out to create a violone that was closely matched, in appearance, tuning. Judging by artistic representations of the period, this may have been a gradual development. For example, there are depictions of instruments that appear to be bass violins, innovations in the design of the bass violin that ultimately resulted in the modern violoncello were made in northern Italy in the late 17th century. They involved a shift to a smaller type and the higher tuning in C2–G2–D3–A3. The new type found its ultimate consolidation and standardisation in works of the famous violin builder Antonio Stradivari around 1700, many existing bass violins were literally cut down in size in order to convert them into cellos
6.
Viol
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All members of the viol family are played upright between the legs like a modern cello, hence the Italian name viola da gamba was sometimes applied to the instruments of this family. This distinguishes the viol from the violin family, the viola da braccio. A player of the viol is commonly known as a gambist, violist /ˈvaɪəlɪst/, violist shares the spelling, but not the pronunciation, of the word commonly used since the mid-20th century to refer to a player of the viola. It can therefore cause confusion if used in print where context does not clearly indicate that a player is meant, though it is entirely unproblematic. Vihuelists began playing their instruments with a bow in the second half of the 15th century. An influence in the playing posture has been credited to the example of Moorish rabab players, the viol is unrelated to the much older Hebrew stringed instrument called a viol. This ancient harp-like instrument was similar to the kinnor or nabla, Stefano Pio argues that a re-examination of documents in the light of newly collected data indicates an origin different from the vihuela de arco from Aragon. According to Pio, the viol had its origins and evolved independently in Venice, the fifth string, already present in some specimens of these violette as a drone, was incorporated into the neck when they were expanded in size. This was then surpassed by a string, named basso. Initially the family of shared common characteristics but differed in the way they were played. The increase in the dimensions of the viola determined the birth of the viol, Viols most commonly have six strings, although many 16th-century instruments had only four or five strings. Viols were strung with gut strings of lower tension than on the members of the violin family, gut strings produce a sonority far different from steel, generally described as softer and sweeter. Viols are fretted in a similar to early guitars or lutes, by means of movable wrapped-around. A low seventh string was added in France to the bass viol by Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, whose students included the French gamba virtuoso. Also, the painting Saint Cecilia with an Angel by Domenichino shows what may be a seven-string viol. Viols were first constructed much like the vihuela de mano, with all surfaces, top, back, however, some viols, both early and later, had carved tops, similar to those more commonly associated with instruments of the violin family. The ribs or sides of early viols were usually quite shallow, rib depth increased during the course of the 16th century, finally coming to resemble the greater depth of the classic 17th-century pattern. The flat backs of most viols have a sharply angled break or canted bend in their close to where the neck meets the body
7.
Violin family
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The violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the 16th century. At the time the name of family of instruments was violas da braccio which was used to distinguish them from the viol family. The standard modern violin family consists of the violin, viola, cello, instrument names in the violin family are all derived from the root viola, which is a derivative of the Medieval Latin word vitula. A violin is a viola, a violone is a big viola or a bass violin. The instruments of the family may be descended in part from the lira da braccio. The playing ranges of the instruments in the violin family overlap each other, the ranges are as follows, violin, G3 to E7, viola, C3 to A6, violoncello, C2 to A5, and double-bass, E1 to C5. Both the violin and viola are played under the jaw, the viola, being the larger of the two instruments, has a playing range that reaches a perfect fifth below the violins. The cello is played sitting down with the instrument between the knees, and its range reaches an octave below the violas. The double bass is played standing or sitting on a stool, with a range typically reaches a minor sixth. While the cello, the viola and the violin are indisputable members of the violin or viola da braccio family. Others point out that correlation does not imply causation and say that these similarities are either arbitrary or that they arose from causes other than a relationship to the viol family. Its origins aside, it has historically used as the lowest member of the violin family. All string instruments share similar form, parts, construction and function, however, instruments in the violin family are set apart from viols by similarities in shape, tuning practice and history. Violin family instruments have four each, are tuned in fifths, are not fretted and have four rounded bouts while always having a sound post. The instruments of the family are the most used bowed string instruments in the world today. The violin is used extensively in fiddle music, country music. The double bass plays a part in both classical and jazz music forms. One of the most popular and standardized groupings in classical chamber music and this similarity in the manner of sound production allows string quartets to blend their tone colour and timbre more easily than less homogeneous groups
8.
Fret
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A fret is a raised element on the neck of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the width of the neck. On most modern western fretted instruments, frets are metal strips inserted into the fingerboard, on some historical instruments and non-European instruments, frets are made of pieces of string tied around the neck. Frets divide the neck into fixed segments at intervals related to a musical framework, on instruments such as guitars, each fret represents one semitone in the standard western system, in which one octave is divided into twelve semitones. Fret is often used as a verb, meaning simply to press down the string behind a fret, fretting often refers to the frets and/or their system of placement. Pressing the string against the fret reduces the length of the string to that between the bridge and the next fret between the fretting finger and the bridge. This is damped if the string were stopped with the fingertip on a fretless fingerboard. Frets make it easier for a player to achieve an acceptable standard of intonation. Furthermore, a fretted fingerboard makes it easier to play chords accurately, a disadvantage of frets is that they restrict pitches to the temperament defined by the fret positions. A player may still influence intonation, however, by pulling the string to the side to increase string tension and this technique is often used by electric guitarists of all genres, and is an important part of sitar playing. On instruments with frets that are thicker off the fingerboard, string tension, sometimes a player can pull the string toward the bridge or nut, thus lowering or raising the string tension and pitch. However, except for instruments that accommodate extensive string pulling, like the sitar, since the intonation of most modern western fretted instruments is equal tempered, the ratio of the distances of two consecutive frets to the bridge is 212, or approximately 1.059463. Theoretically, the twelfth fret should divide the string in two exact halves, to compensate for the increase in string tension when the string is pressed against the frets, the bridge position is adjusted slightly so the 12th fret plays exactly in tune. Fan frets (also fanned frets, slanted frets, or multi-scale, Frets are generally perpendicular to the instruments neck centerline, on a fanned fretboard, the frets are angled with only one center fret perpendicular to the neck’s centerline. This gives the strings more length and the higher strings shorter length. The idea is to more accurate tuning and deeper bass. Some think that fanned frets might be more ergonomic, fanned frets first appeared on the 16th century Orpharion, a variant of the cittern, tuned like a lute. John Starrett revived the idea in the seventies on his innovative instrument
9.
Violin
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The violin is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. It is the smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use, smaller violin-type instruments are known, including the violino piccolo and the kit violin, but these are virtually unused in the 2010s. The violin typically has four strings tuned in fifths, and is most commonly played by drawing a bow across its strings. Violins are important instruments in a variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical tradition and in varieties of folk music. They are also used in genres of folk including country music and bluegrass music. Electric violins are used in forms of rock music, further. The violin is sometimes called a fiddle, particularly in Irish traditional music and bluegrass. The violin was first known in 16th-century Italy, with further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries. In Europe it served as the basis for stringed instruments used in classical music, the viola. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or equal it, many of these trade instruments were formerly sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier or violinmaker, the parts of a violin are usually made from different types of wood and on the use of a pickup and an amplifier and speaker). Violins can be strung with gut, Perlon or other synthetic, the earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked. Similar and variant types were probably disseminated along East-West trading routes from Asia into the Middle East, the first makers of violins probably borrowed from various developments of the Byzantine lira. These included the rebec, the Arabic rebab, the vielle, the earliest pictures of violins, albeit with three strings, are seen in northern Italy around 1530, at around the same time as the words violino and vyollon are seen in Italian and French documents. One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the instrument, including its tuning, is from the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, by this time, the violin had already begun to spread throughout Europe. The violin proved very popular, both among street musicians and the nobility, the French king Charles IX ordered Andrea Amati to construct 24 violins for him in 1560, one of these noble instruments, the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin. The Messiah or Le Messie made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 remains pristine and it is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford
10.
Renaissance music
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Renaissance music is vocal and instrumental music written and performed in Europe during the Renaissance era. From this changing society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular the style of the Franco-Flemish school. The invention of the press in 1440 made it cheaper and easier to distribute music and musical theory texts on a wider geographic scale. Prior to the invention of printing, songs and music that were written down and music theory texts had to be hand-copied, demand for music as entertainment and as a leisure activity for educated amateurs increased with the emergence of a bourgeois class. These musicians were sought throughout Europe, particularly in Italy, where churches and aristocratic courts hired them as composers, performers. This reversed the situation from a hundred years earlier, opera, a dramatic staged genre in which singers are accompanied by instruments, arose at this time in Florence. Opera was developed as an attempt to resurrect the music of ancient Greece. Music was increasingly freed from constraints, and more variety was permitted in range, rhythm, harmony, form. In the Renaissance, music became a vehicle for personal expression, composers found ways to make vocal music more expressive of the texts they were setting. Secular music absorbed techniques from sacred music, and vice versa, popular secular forms such as the chanson and madrigal spread throughout Europe. Courts employed virtuoso performers, both singers and instrumentalists, Music also became more self-sufficient with its availability in printed form, existing for its own sake. Precursor versions of familiar modern instruments developed into new forms during the Renaissance. These instruments were modified to responding to the evolution of musical ideas, Early forms of modern woodwind and brass instruments like the bassoon and trombone also appeared, extending the range of sonic color and increasing the sound of instrumental ensembles. From the Renaissance era, notated secular and sacred music survives in quantity, including vocal and instrumental works, an enormous diversity of musical styles and genres flourished during the Renaissance. These can be heard on recordings made in the 20th and 21st century, including masses, motets, madrigals, chansons, accompanied songs, instrumental dances, beginning in the late 20th century, numerous early music ensembles were formed. One of the most pronounced features of early Renaissance European art music was the reliance on the interval of the third. Polyphony – the use of multiple, independent melodic lines, performed simultaneously – became increasingly elaborate throughout the 14th century, the beginning of the 15th century showed simplification, with the composers often striving for smoothness in the melodic parts. The modal characteristics of Renaissance music began to break down towards the end of the period with the use of root motions of fifths or fourths
11.
Baroque music
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Baroque music is a style of Western art music composed from approximately 1600 to 1750. This era followed the Renaissance music era, and was followed in turn by the Classical era, Baroque music forms a major portion of the classical music canon, being widely studied, performed, and listened to. The Baroque period saw the creation of tonality, an approach to writing music in which a song or piece is written in a particular key, during the Baroque era, professional musicians were expected to be accomplished improvisers of both solo melodic lines and accompaniment parts. A characteristic Baroque form was the dance suite, while the pieces in a dance suite were inspired by actual dance music, dance suites were designed for listening, not for accompanying dancers. During the period, composers and performers used more elaborate ornamentation, made changes in musical notation. Many musical terms and concepts from this era, such as toccata, fugue, dense, complex polyphonic music, in which multiple independent melody lines were performed simultaneously, was an important part of many Baroque choral and instrumental works. The word baroque comes from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning misshapen pearl, the term Baroque is generally used by music historians to describe a broad range of styles from a wide geographic region, mostly in Europe, composed over a period of approximately 150 years. The systematic application by historians of the baroque to music of this period is a relatively recent development. In 1919, Curt Sachs became the first to apply the five characteristics of Heinrich Wölfflins theory of the Baroque systematically to music, all of these efforts resulted in appreciable disagreement about time boundaries of the period, especially concerning when it began. In English the term acquired currency only in the 1940s, in the writings of Bukofzer, nevertheless, the term has become widely used and accepted for this broad range of music. It may be helpful to distinguish the Baroque from both the preceding and following periods of musical history, the Baroque period is divided into three major phases, early, middle, and late. Although they overlap in time, they are dated from 1580 to 1630, from 1630 to 1680. In reference to music, they based their ideals on a perception of Classical musical drama that valued discourse, the early realizations of these ideas, including Jacopo Peris Dafne and LEuridice, marked the beginning of opera, which were a catalyst for Baroque music. Concerning music theory, the widespread use of figured bass represents the developing importance of harmony as the linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony is the end result of counterpoint, and figured bass is a representation of those harmonies commonly employed in musical performance. With figured bass, numbers, accidentals or symbols were placed above the bassline that was read by keyboard instrument players such as players or pipe organists. The numbers, accidentals or symbols indicated to the player what intervals she should play above each bass note. The keyboard player would improvise a chord voicing for each bass note and this led to the idea that certain sequences of chords, rather than just notes, could provide a sense of closure at the end of a piece—one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality
12.
Classical period (music)
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The dates of the Classical period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about the year 1730 and the year 1820. This article is about the period in most of the 18th century to the early 19th century, though overlapping with the Baroque. The Classical period falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods, Classical music has a lighter, clearer texture than Baroque music and is less complex. It is mainly homophonic, using a melody line over a subordinate chordal accompaniment. It also makes use of style galant which emphasized light elegance in place of the Baroques dignified seriousness, variety and contrast within a piece became more pronounced than before and the orchestra increased in size, range, and power. The harpsichord was replaced as the keyboard instrument by the piano. Instrumental music was considered important by Classical period composers, vocal music, such as songs for a singer and piano, choral works, and opera were also important during this period. Ludwig van Beethoven is regarded either as a Romantic composer or a Classical period composer who was part of the transition to the Romantic era, Franz Schubert is also a transitional figure, as were Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Luigi Cherubini, and Carl Maria von Weber. The period is referred to as the era of Viennese Classic or Classicism, since Gluck, Mozart, Haydn, Salieri. In the middle of the 18th century, Europe began to move toward a new style in architecture, literature, and this style sought to emulate the ideals of Classical antiquity, especially those of Classical Greece. Classical music was still linked to aristocratic Court culture and supported by absolute monarchies. Classical music used formality and emphasis on order and hierarchy, in contrast with the richly layered music of the Baroque era, Classical music moved towards simplicity rather than complexity. In addition, the size of orchestras began to increase. The remarkable development of ideas in natural philosophy had already established itself in the public consciousness, in particular, Newtons physics was taken as a paradigm, structures should be well-founded in axioms and be both well-articulated and orderly. This move meant that chords became a more prevalent feature of music. As a result, the structure of a piece of music became more audible. The new style was encouraged by changes in the economic order. As the 18th century progressed, the nobility became the patrons of instrumental music, while public taste increasingly preferred lighter
13.
String quartet
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A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – two violin players, a viola player and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group. The string quartet is one of the most prominent chamber ensembles in classical music, with most major composers, from the mid to late 18th century onwards, writing string quartets. The string quartet was developed into its current form by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, ever since Haydns day the string quartet has been considered a prestigious form and represents one of the true tests of the composers art. With four parts to play with, a composer working in anything like the key system has enough lines to fashion a full argument. The closely related characters of the four instruments, moreover, while they cover in combination an ample compass of pitch, do not lend themselves to indulgence in purely colouristic effects. Thus, in ways the string quartet is pre-eminently the dialectical form of instrumental music. Quartet composition flourished in the Classical era, with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, in the 21st century it remains an important and refined musical form. Some quartets play together for years in ensembles which may be named after the first violinist. Well-known string quartets can be found in the list of string quartet ensembles, the early history of the string quartet is in many ways the history of Haydns journey with the genre. However, these composers showed no interest in exploring the development of the quartet as a medium. The origins of the quartet can be further traced back to the Baroque trio sonata. A very early example is a sonata for string ensemble by Gregorio Allegri that might be considered an important prototype string quartet. By the early 18th century, composers were often adding a third soloist, thus when Alessandro Scarlatti wrote a set of six works entitled Sonata à Quattro per due Violini, Violetta, e Violoncello senza Cembalo, this was a natural evolution from the existing tradition. The string quartet in its now accepted form came about with Haydn, even the composition of Haydns earliest string quartets owed more to chance than artistic imperative. Haydns early biographer Georg August Griesinger tells the story thus, The following purely chance circumstance had led him to try his luck at the composition of quartets. A Baron Fürnberg had a place in Weinzierl, several stages from Vienna, and he invited from time to time his pastor, his manager, Haydn, Fürnberg requested Haydn to compose something that could be performed by these four amateurs. Haydn went on to nine other quartets around this time. These works were published as his Op.1 and Op.2, one quartet went unpublished and they have five movements and take the form, fast movement, minuet and trio I, slow movement, minuet and trio II, and fast finale
14.
Viola
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The viola is a string instrument that is bowed or played with varying techniques. It is slightly larger than a violin and has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century it has been the middle or alto voice of the family, between the violin and the cello. The strings from low to high are generally tuned to C3, G3, D4. In the past, the viola varied in size and style as did its names, the Italians often used the term, viola da braccio meaning literally, of the arm. Brazzo was another Italian word referring to the viola which the Germans adopted in the form, the French had their own names, Cinquiesme was a small viola, Haute Contre was a large viola and Taile meant Tenor. In the modern era, the French use the term Alto, the viola had enjoyed popularity in the heyday of five-part harmony up until the eighteenth century, taking three lines of the harmony and occasionally playing the melody line. Music that is written for the viola differs from that of most other instruments in that it uses the alto clef. Viola music switches to the treble clef when there are sections of music written in a higher register to make the notes easier to read. The viola often plays the voices in string quartets and symphonic writing. The viola occasionally plays a major, soloistic role in orchestral music, examples include Don Quixote by Richard Strauss and Harold en Italie by Hector Berlioz. In the earlier part of the 20th century, more composers began to write for the viola, encouraged by the emergence of specialized soloists such as Lionel Tertis and William Primrose. English composers Arthur Bliss, York Bowen, Benjamin Dale, Frank Bridge, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams all wrote substantial chamber, many of these pieces were commissioned by, or written for Lionel Tertis. William Walton, Bohuslav Martinů, Toru Takemitsu, Tibor Serly, Alfred Schnittke, Paul Hindemith wrote a substantial amount of music for viola, including the concerto Der Schwanendreher. The concerti by Paul Hindemith, Béla Bartók, and William Walton are the big three of viola repertoire, the viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size violas body is between 25 mm and 100 mm longer than the body of a violin, with an average length of 41 cm. Small violas typically made for children typically start at 30 cm, for a child who needs a smaller size, a fractional-sized violin is often strung with the strings of a viola. Unlike the violin, the viola does not have a full size. The body of a viola would need to measure about 51 cm long to match the acoustics of a violin, there have been several experiments intended to increase the size of the viola, in the interest of improving the instruments sound
15.
Musicology
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Musicology is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology is part of the humanities, a scholar who participates in musical research is a musicologist. Traditionally, historical musicology has been the most prominent sub-discipline of musicology, in the 2010s, historical musicology is one of several large musicology sub-disciplines. Historical musicology, ethnomusicology, and systematic musicology are approximately equal in size, Ethnomusicology is the study of music in its cultural context. Cognitive musicology is the set of surrounding the computational modeling of music. Musical knowledge is applied in medicine, education, and music therapy—which, Music history or historical musicology is concerned with the composition, performance, reception, and criticism of music over time. Like the comparable field of art history, different branches and schools of historical musicology emphasize different types of musical works, there are also national differences in various definitions of historical musicology. In theory, music history could refer to the study of the history of any type or genre of music, in practice, these research topics are more often considered within ethnomusicology and historical musicology is typically assumed to imply Western Art music of the European tradition. The methods of historical musicology include source studies, paleography, philology, style criticism, historiography, musical analysis, Music historians may examine issues in a close focus, as in the case of scholars who examine the relationship between words and music for a given composers art songs. New musicology is a term applied since the late 1980s to a body of work emphasizing cultural study, analysis. Such work may be based on feminist, gender studies, queer theory, or postcolonial theory, or the work of Theodor Adorno. Charles Rosen, however, retorts that McClary, sets up, like so many of the new musicologists, a man to knock down, the dogma that music has no meaning. Ethnomusicology, formerly comparative musicology, is the study of music in its cultural context and it is often considered the anthropology or ethnography of music. Jeff Todd Titon has called it the study of making music. Some ethnomusicologists primarily conduct historical studies, but the majority are involved in long-term participant observation, or combine ethnographic, therefore, ethnomusiological scholarship can be characterized as featuring a substantial, intensive fieldwork component, often involving long-term residence within the community studied. Closely related to ethnomusiology is the branch of sociomusicology. For instance, Ko proposed the hypothesis of Biliterate and Trimusical in Hong Kong sociomusicology, the first journal focusing on popular music studies was Popular Music, which began publication in 1981. The same year an academic society devoted to the topic was formed
16.
Soprano
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A soprano is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The sopranos vocal range is from approximately middle C =261 Hz to high A =880 Hz in choral music, in four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody. The soprano voice type is divided into the coloratura, soubrette, lyric, spinto. The lyric soprano is the most common female singing voice, the word soprano comes from the Italian word sopra, as the soprano is the highest pitch human voice, often given to the leading female roles in operas. The term soprano is also based on the Latin word superius which, like soprano, the word superius was especially used in choral and other multi-part vocal music between the 13th and 16th centuries. The soprano has the highest vocal range of all voice types, a soprano and a mezzo-soprano have a similar range, but their tessituras will lie in different parts of that range. The low extreme for sopranos is roughly A3 or B♭3, within opera, the lowest demanded note for sopranos is F3. Often low notes in higher voices will project less, lack timbre, however, rarely is a soprano simply unable to sing a low note in a song within a soprano role. The high extreme, at a minimum, for non-coloratura sopranos is soprano C, a couple of roles have optional E♭6s, as well. In the coloratura repertoire several roles call for E♭6 on up to F6, in rare cases, some coloratura roles go as high as G6 or G♯6, such as Mozarts concert aria Popoli di Tessaglia. Or the title role of Jules Massenets opera Esclarmonde, while not necessarily within the tessitura, a good soprano will be able to sing her top notes full-throated, with timbre and dynamic control. In opera, the tessitura, vocal weight, and timbre of voices, a singers tessitura is where the voice has the best timbre, easy volume, and most comfort. Within the soprano voice type category are five generally recognized subcategories, coloratura soprano, soubrette, lyric soprano, spinto soprano, the coloratura soprano may be a lyric coloratura or a dramatic coloratura. The lyric coloratura soprano is a very agile light voice with a high upper extension capable of fast vocal coloratura, Light coloraturas have a range of approximately middle C to high F with some coloratura sopranos being able to sing somewhat higher or lower. Dramatic coloraturas have a range of approximately low B to high F with some coloratura sopranos being able to sing higher or lower. In classical music and opera, a soubrette soprano refers to both a type and a particular type of opera role. A soubrette voice is light with a bright, sweet timbre, a tessitura in the mid-range, the soubrette voice is not a weak voice, for it must carry over an orchestra without a microphone like all voices in opera. The voice, however, has a lighter weight than other soprano voices with a brighter timbre
17.
Figured bass
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Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era, provided the harmonic structure of the music. The phrase is shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing the continuo part are called the continuo group. The titles of many Baroque works make mention of the section, such as J. S. Bachs Concerto for Two Violins, Strings. The makeup of the group is often left to the discretion of the performers. At least one instrument capable of playing chords must be included, such as a harpsichord, organ, lute, theorbo, guitar, regal, or harp. In addition, any number of instruments play in the bass register may be included, such as cello, double bass, bass viol. The most common combination, at least in modern performances, is harpsichord and cello for instrumental works and secular works, such as operas. Harps, lutes, and other instruments are more typical of early 17th-century music. The keyboard player realizes a continuo part by playing, in addition to the bass line, notes above it to complete chords. The figured bass notation, described below, is a guide, but performers are expected to use their musical judgment. Experienced players sometimes incorporate motives found in the instrumental parts into their improvised chordal accompaniment. Modern editions of music usually supply a realized keyboard part, fully written out in staff notation for a player. With the rise in historically informed performance, however, the number of performers who are able to improvise their parts from the figures, as Baroque players would have done, has increased. Basso continuo, though a structural and identifying element of the Baroque period, continued to be used in many works, mostly sacred choral works. An example is C. P. E. Bachs Concerto in D minor for flute, strings and basso continuo. Examples of its use in the 19th century are rarer, but they do exist, masses by Anton Bruckner, Beethoven, the phrase tasto solo indicates that only the bass line is to be played for a short period, usually until the next figure is encountered. This instructs the chord-playing instrumentalist not to play any improvised chords for a period, composers were inconsistent in the usages described below. Especially in the 17th century, the numbers were omitted whenever the composer thought the chord was obvious, early composers such as Claudio Monteverdi often specified the octave by the use of compound intervals such as 10,11, and 15
18.
Bassline
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It is also used sometimes in classical music. In solo music for piano and pipe organ, these instruments have an excellent lower register that can be used to play a deep bassline, on organs, the bass line is typically played using the pedal keyboard and massive 16 and 32 bass pipes. Basslines in popular music often use riffs or grooves, which are simple, appealing musical motifs or phrases that are repeated, with variation. The bass differs from other voices because of the role it plays in supporting and defining harmonic motion. It does so at levels ranging from immediate, chord-by-chord events to the harmonic organization of a entire work. Bassline riffs usually emphasize the chord tones of each chord, which helps to define a songs key, at the same time, basslines work along with the drum part and the other rhythm instruments to create a clear rhythmic pulse. The type of rhythmic pulse used in basslines varies widely in different types of music, in swing jazz and jump blues, basslines are often created from a continuous sequence of quarter notes in a mostly scalar, stepwise part called a walking bass line. In Latin, salsa music, jazz fusion, reggae, electronica, in bluegrass and traditional country music, basslines often emphasize the root and fifth of each chord. In classical music such as string quartets and symphonies, basslines play the same harmonic and rhythmic role, however, most popular musical ensembles include an instrument capable of playing bass notes. In the 1890s, a tuba was often used, from the 1920s to the 1940s, most popular music groups used the double bass as the bass instrument. Starting in the 1950s, the bass guitar began to replace the bass in most types of popular music, such as rock and roll, blues. By the 1970s and 1980s, the bass was used in most rock bands. The double bass was used in some types of popular music that recreated styles from the 1940s and 1950s such as jazz, traditional 1950s blues, jump blues, country. In some popular bands, keyboard instruments are used to play the bass line. In organ trios, for example, a Hammond organ player performs the basslines using the pedal keyboard. In some types of music, such as hip-hop or house music. Basslines are especially important in many forms of dance and electronic music, such as electro, drum and bass, dubstep, and most forms of house and trance. In these genres, basslines are almost always performed on synthesizers, either physical, such as the Minimoog, chinese orchestras use the zhōng ruǎn and dà ruǎn for creating basslines
19.
Root (chord)
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In music theory, the concept of root is the idea that a chord can be represented and named by one of its notes. It is linked to harmonic thinking—to the idea that vertical aggregates of notes can form a single unit and it is in this sense that one speaks of a C chord or a chord on C—a chord built from C and of which the note C is the root. When a C chord is referred to in Classical music or popular music without a reference to what type of chord it is, it is assumed a C major triad, which contains the notes C, E and G. The root needs not be the note, the lowest note of the chord, the concept of root is linked to that of the inversion of chords. In this concept, chords can be inverted while still retaining their root, in tertian harmonic theory, that is in a theory where chords can be considered stacks of third intervals, the root of a chord is the note on which the subsequent thirds are stacked. For instance, the root of a such as C Major is C. Regardless of whether a chord is in position or in an inversion. Four-note seventh chords have four possible positions, five-note ninth chords know five positions, etc. but the root position always is that of the stack of thirds, and the root is the lowest note of this stack. With chord types, such as chords with added sixths or chords over pedal points, more than one possible chordal analysis may be possible. For example, in a piece of music, the notes C, E, G, A, sounded as a chord. Deciding which note is the root of this chord could be determined by considering context, and its low note considered as the root, or as an inversion of the same, second, fourth, sixth, etc. in which cases the upper note is the root. Johannes Lippius, in his Disputatio musica tertia and Synopsis musicae novae, is the first to use the triad, he also uses the term root. Thomas Campion, A New Way of Making Fowre Parts in Conterpoint, London, c1618, notes that chords are in first inversions, the bass is not. a true base. Campion’s true base is the root of the chord, full recognition of the relationship between the triad and its inversions is generally credited to Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Traité d’harmonie. The concept of root has some basis in the properties of harmonic sounds. When two notes or more notes from the series are played at the same time, people sometimes perceive the fundamental note of the series. This property has been used in building for the production of low notes by resultant tones. Andreas Werckmeister’s Harmonologia describes the major triad in root position and in first inversion in terms of the harmonic series, but this description cannot be extended to the minor triad
20.
Peter Lely
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Sir Peter Lely was a painter of Dutch origin, whose career was nearly all spent in England, where he became the dominant portrait painter to the court. Lely was born Pieter van der Faes to Dutch parents in Soest in Westphalia, Lely studied painting in Haarlem, where he may have been apprenticed to Pieter de Grebber. He became a master of the Guild of Saint Luke in Haarlem in 1637 and he is reputed to have adopted the surname Lely from a heraldic lily on the gable of the house where his father was born in The Hague. He arrived in London in around 1641, which was marked by the death of Anthony van Dyck in December and his early English paintings, mainly mythological or religious scenes, or portraits set in a pastoral landscape, show influences from Anthony van Dyck and the Dutch baroque. Lelys portraits were well received, and he succeeded Anthony van Dyck as the most fashionable portrait artist in England and he became a freeman of the Painter-Stainers Company in 1647 and was portrait artist to Charles I. His talent ensured that his career was not interrupted by Charless execution, and he served Oliver Cromwell, whom he painted warts and all, in the years around 1650 the poet Sir Richard Lovelace wrote two poems about Lely – Peinture and See what a clouded majesty. After the English Restoration in 1660, Lely was appointed as Charles IIs Principal Painter in Ordinary in 1661, with a stipend of £200 per year, Lely became a naturalised English subject in 1662. The young Robert Hooke came to London to follow an apprenticeship with Lely before being given a place at Westminster School by Richard Busby, demand was high, and Lely and his large workshop were prolific. After Lely painted a head, Lelys pupils would often complete the portrait in one of a series of numbered poses. As a result, Lely is the first English painter who has left a mass of work. On Lely’s death in 1680 his executors employed a dozen such slaves to complete for sale the many unfinished canvases stacked about his studio and his most famous non-portrait work is probably Nymphs by a fountain in Dulwich Picture Gallery. Lely played a significant role in introducing the mezzotint to Britain and he encouraged Dutch mezzotinters to come to Britain to copy his work, laying the foundations for the English mezzotint tradition. He died soon afterwards at his easel in Covent Garden, while painting a portrait of the Duchess of Somerset, and was buried at St Pauls Church, Covent Garden. Some items in it which had acquired by Lely from the Commonwealth dispersal of Charles Is art collections. He was replaced as court portraitist by Sir Godfrey Kneller, also a German-born Dutchman, whose style drew from Lelys, between them they established the basic English portrait style followed by less fashionable painters for decades. Amongst Lelys pupils were John Greenhill and Willem Wissing, a horse was also named after him, finishing fourth in the 1996 Grand National. Peter Lelys works Millar, Oliver Lely, Sir Peter Grove Dictionary of Art,19, pp. 119–125 Millar, Oliver Sir Peter Lely 1618-80, National Portrait Gallery,1978. Painting in Britain 1530 to 1790, fourth Edition, New York, Viking Penguin,1978
21.
Pipe organ
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The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through organ pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre. Most organs have multiple ranks of pipes of differing timbre, pitch, a pipe organ has one or more keyboards played by the hands, and a pedalboard played by the feet, each keyboard has its own group of stops. The keyboard, pedalboard, and stops are housed in the organs console, the smallest portable pipe organs may have only one or two dozen pipes and one manual, the largest may have over 20,000 pipes and seven manuals. A list of some of the most notable and largest pipe organs in the world can be viewed at List of pipe organs. The origins of the organ can be traced back to the water organ in Ancient Greece, in the 3rd century BC. By the 6th or 7th century AD, bellows were used to supply organs with wind, beginning in the 12th century, the organ began to evolve into a complex instrument capable of producing different timbres. A pipe organ with great leaden pipes was sent to the West by the Byzantine emperor Constantine V as a gift to Pepin the Short, King of the Franks, in 757. Pepins son Charlemagne requested a similar organ for his chapel in Aachen in 812, by the 17th century, most of the sounds available on the modern classical organ had been developed. From that time, the organ was the most complex man-made device - a distinction it retained until it was displaced by the telephone exchange in the late 19th century. Pipe organs are installed in churches, synagogues, concert halls, schools and they are used in the performance of classical music, sacred music, secular music, and popular music. The beginning of the 21st century has seen a resurgence in installations in concert halls, the organ boasts a substantial repertoire, which spans over 500 years. The organ is one of the oldest instruments used in European classical music that has commonly been credited as having derived from Greece. Its earliest predecessors were built in Ancient Greece in the 3rd century BC. The word organ is derived from the Greek όργανον, a term for an instrument or a tool, via the Latin organum. The Greek engineer Ctesibius of Alexandria is credited with inventing the organ in the 3rd century BC and he devised an instrument called the hydraulis, which delivered a wind supply maintained through water pressure to a set of pipes. The hydraulis was played in the arenas of the Roman Empire, the 9th century Persian geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih, in his lexicographical discussion of instruments, cited the urghun as one of the typical instruments of the Eastern Roman Empire. It was often used in the Hippodrome in the capital of Constantinople
22.
Organ stop
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An organ stop is a component of a pipe organ that admits pressurized air to a set of organ pipes. Its name comes from the fact that stops can be used selectively by the organist, some can be on, the term can also refer to the control that operates this mechanism, commonly called a stop tab, stop knob, or drawknob. On electric or electronic organs that imitate a pipe organ, the terms are often used, with the exception of the Hammond organ and clonewheel organs. The term is sometimes used as a synonym for register. Registration is the art of combining stops, the phrase pull out all the stops has entered general usage, for deploying all available means to pursue a goal. Organ pipes are organized within the organ according to note and timbre. A set of pipes producing the same timbre for each note is called a rank, while each key on a pipe organ controls a note which may be sounded by different ranks of pipes, alone or in combination. The use of stops enables the organist to selectively turn off certain ranks in order to produce different combinations of sounds, a stop may be linked to a single rank, or to multiple ranks. While nowadays one speaks of drawing a stop to select a particular rank or set of ranks, when the organist desires a rank to sound, he or she operates the corresponding control at the console, allowing wind to flow to the pipes. Likewise, the organist can deny wind to the pipes by operating the control in the opposite direction. Common stop controls include stop knobs, which move in and out of the console, and stop tabs, some organs, particularly smaller historical organs from England or Spain, feature divided registers, in which there are two stop knobs for certain ranks. One stop knob will control the upper portion of the keyboard, over the course of the history of the pipe organ, there have been several different designs by which stops are actuated. In the longest-standing design, known as the slider chest, there is a strip of material called a slider which fits underneath a given rank of pipes, the slider has small holes drilled in it, one for each pipe in the rank. When the stop is set such that pipes are inactive, the holes are misaligned with the pipes, when the stop is set such that the pipes are active, the slider moves over, aligning the holes with the pipes, allowing air to reach them. Because the slider chest was developed before the advent of electricity, many organs originally built with mechanical actuators have been retrofitted with electric actuators. Other common designs include the spring chest, the valve chest. The term unification refers to the practice of expanding the resources of an organ without adding extra pipes by making notes available to different stops from the same rank of pipes. For example, an 8′ Gedeckt may also be available as a 4′ Gedeckt
23.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
24.
Baryton
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The baryton is a bowed string instrument similar to the viol, but distinguished by an extra set of plucked strings. It was in use in Europe until the end of the 18th century. The baryton can be viewed as a sort of augmented bass viol and it is similar in size to the latter instrument and likewise has six or seven strings of gut, arranged over a fretted fingerboard and played with a bow. The instrument is held vertically and is supported by the players legs, the baryton differs from the bass viol in having an additional set of wire strings. As can be seen in the illustration, the strings are placed on the right. The plucked strings are on the left, they are reachable by the thumb from the rear. Of the repertoire for this instrument, the best known works are the 175 compositions written by Joseph Haydn for his patron, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, of these,126 are trios for viola, cello and baryton. They were written in the part of Haydns career, from 1762 to 1775. There are only about 50 historical barytons for which we have evidence, many of the latter have been modified from their original form. Thus, tracing the history of the baryton is a difficult task, early evidence for the existence of the baryton is found in Marin Mersennes work Cogitata Physico-Mathematica. According for Fruchtman, Mersenne stated that the English constructed a viol or lyre much admired by King James, the instrument had six bowed strings as well as metal strings behind the neck. The thumb of the left hand plucked the strings, which were made to sound with the bowed notes. If this information is accurate, the baryton must have known in England before 1625. The earliest baryton that survives today dates from 1647, it was made by Magnus Feldlen in Vienna and is currently in the instrument collection of the Royal College of Music in London. In London a performance at Marylebone Gardens was announced in 1744, Mr Ferrand was to perform on the Pariton, the instrument was never particularly popular, but it acquired a certain cachet in courtly circles, particularly in south Germany and Austria. The Haydn-era baryton was different from earlier versions in a crucial respect and this helped the baryton to stand out from the other instruments in the baryton trio, the primary form in which Haydn wrote. Since the Haydn oeuvre tends to dominate the field today, the Haydn-type tuning has become the standard. The baryton was completely neglected in the century, but in the twentieth, with the rise of the authentic performance movement in classical music, new barytons were built
25.
Division viol
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John Playford mentions the division viol in his A Brief Introduction of 1667, describing it as smaller than a consort bass viol, but larger than a lyra viol. As suggested by its name, the viol is intended for highly ornamented music. The division viol also had a large range with the tuning D–G–c–e–a–d. The division viol may be connected with the viola bastarda. Music for the viol was mainly linear, although there were occasionally lyra-like passages. Both of these are used as references by those interested in historically informed performance on the viol. Division viol, Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy, Division, Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy, grovemusic. com. The Division Viol A Brief Introduction
26.
Pardessus de viole
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The pardessus de viole is the highest-pitched member of the viol family of instruments. It is a string instrument with either five or six strings. The pardessus first appeared in the early 18th century, and was played by women. The pardessus de viole is the smallest of the viol family and its size is similar to the violins, and its range is correspondingly similar. The strings are made of gut and the top string was tuned to g, like the treble viol, the pardessus de viole was almost never used to play accompaniment chords, but was always a melody instrument. When played, it is played upright on the lap with a bow, unlike the treble viol and other viol instruments, the pardessus usually has only five strings. The five string pardessus is tuned in fifths and fourths, while six stringed pardessus are tuned like other viols in fourths with a third, like on the treble viol, players disagreed on whether the pardessus should be fingered with diatonic fingering or chromatic fingering. The pardessus de viole was invented around the year 1700, violins had begun emerging in Italy, and the pardessus was developed to allow people accustomed to viols to play violin music. With a sound reminiscent of the viol to audiences unaccustomed to the sound of the violin. The pardessus was often played by women, as the method of holding the pardessus in ones lap was considered more lady-like than holding a violin on the shoulder. Tina Chancey describing and playing a pardessus de viole Discussion of the pardessus, with a performance beginning at 17,05 Painting of a noblewoman holding a pardessus
27.
Viola bastarda
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Lyra bastarda is a common misnomer for the baryton. Viola bastarda refers to a virtuosic style of composition or extemporaneous performance. In the viola bastarda style, a composition is reduced to a single line, while maintaining the same range as the original, and adding divisions, improvisations. The style flourished in Italy in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, the first use of the term was by Girolamo Dalla Casa in a 1584 treatise. Rognonis Selva de varii passaggi was the treatise on viola bastarda technique. Earlier bastarda compositions were accompanied by viol consort or plucked instrument such as the lute or harpsichord, later compositions were accompanied by continuo bass. The last composer to write for the bastarda was Vincenzo Bonizzi, in Alcune opere di diverse auttori a diverse voci, viola bastarda music is written for standard viol tuning, in fourths with a third in the middle. It may be related to the English division viol, viola bastarda, Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy, grovemusic. com. Division viol, Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy, Italy from c1580, Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy, grovemusic. com
28.
Baryton trios (Haydn)
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Joseph Haydn wrote 123 trios for the combination of baryton, viola, and cello. In addition, there are three trios for baryton, cello, and violin, considered part of the same series, as Sisman notes, they are the most intensively cultivated genre of Haydns earlier career. The baryton is a string instrument of the viol family played in Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries. It has six or seven strings of gut, arranged over a fretted fingerboard, when the gut strings are bowed, the wire strings vibrate sympathetically, enriching the tone. The wire strings may also be plucked by the left thumb. Haydn began composing baryton trios in 1765, at the time he had been working for the princes of the Esterházy family since 1761, and since 1762 for the newly reigning Prince Nikolaus. Nikolaus had previously played the viola da gamba, but in 1765 he purchased a baryton, in the same year, Haydn received an official reprimand from the prince for neglecting his duties, for details of this episode see Gregor Werner. Haydn responded vigorously to this command, and his efforts met with the Princes approval. On 4 January 1766, Esterházy wrote to his administrator, I have this moment received from Hayden three pieces which please me very much, over the next ten years Haydn wrote nearly 200 compositions for various ensembles with baryton. Of these, the predominant genre was the baryton trio, whenever Haydn had completed 24 trios, he had the set richly bound in leather and gold. According to barytonist John Hsu, the last trios actually date from 1775, the trios, being written for amateur performance, are generally shorter and less ambitious than the Haydns more famous series of symphonies and string quartets. In almost all cases, they consist of just three movements, when there is a slow movement, it is usually the first movement and is followed by a second movement in fast tempo. The first movement can also be a work in sonata form. There is always a minuet, which is placed either as the movement or as the finale. Non-minuet finales are characteristically in fast tempo, in general, the first and last movements are in the home key of the trio and the middle movement in a closely related key. Only two of the trios are in a minor key, Hsu conjectures that when the Prince played baryton trios, the viola part was taken by Haydn, and the cello part by whoever was the cellist in the Princes orchestra at the time. In the music itself, the baryton part normally takes the melodic line, as Oliver Strunk wrote, the trios are not chamber-music in the accepted sense of the word, but accompanied solos. Prince Nicholas was no democrat where music was concerned and cared little about sharing honors with the musicians who assisted him
