of the last two hundred years, the string quartet has remained its
chief factor. Its voice cannot grow monotonous or cloying, for,
besides its innate qualities, it commands a more varied manner of
expression than all the other instruments combined. The viol, which
term I shall use generically to indicate all the instruments of the
quartet, is the only instrument in the band, except the harp, that can
play harmony as well as melody. Its range is the most extensive; it is
more responsive to changes in manipulation; it is endowed more richly
than any other instrument with varieties of timbre; it has an
incomparable facility of execution, and answers more quickly and more
eloquently than any of its companions to the feelings of the player. A
great advantage which the viol possesses over wind instruments is
that, not being dependent on the breath of the player, there is
practically no limit to its ability to sustain tones. It is because
of this long list of good qualities that it is relied on to provide
the staff of life to instrumental music. The strings as commonly used
show four members of the viol family, distinguished among themselves
by their size, and the quality in the changes of tone which grows out
of the differences in size. The violins (Appendix, Plate I.) are the
smallest members of the family. Historically they are the culmination
of a development toward diminutiveness, for in their early days viols
were larger than they are now. When the violin of to-day entered the
orchestra (in the score of Monteverde's opera "Orfeo") it was
specifically described as a "little French violin." Its voice, Berlioz
says, is the "true female voice of the orchestra." Generally the
violin part of an orchestral score is two-voiced, but the two groups
may be split into a great number. In one passage in "Tristan und
Isolde" Wagner divides his first and second violins into sixteen
groups. Such divisions, especially in the higher regions, are
productive of entrancing effects.
[Sidenote: _Violin effects._]
[Sidenote: _Pizzicato._]
[Sidenote: _"Col legno dall'arco."_]
[Sidenote: _Harmonics._]
[Sidenote: _Vibrato._]
[Sidenote: _"Con sordino."_]
The halo of sound which streams from the beginning and end of the
"Lohengrin" prelude is produced by this device. High and close
harmonies from divided violins always sound ethereal. Besides their
native tone quality (that resulting from a string stretched over a
sounding shell set to vibrating by friction), the violins have a
number of modified qualities resulting from changes in manipulation.
Sometimes the strings are plucked (_pizzicato_), when the result is a
short tone something like that of a banjo with the metallic clang
omitted; very dainty effects can thus be produced, and though it
always seems like a degradation of the instrument so pre-eminently
suited to a broad singing style, no less significant a symphonist than
Tschaikowsky has written a Scherzo in which the violins are played
_pizzicato_ throughout the movement. Ballet composers frequently
resort to the piquant effect, but in the larger and more serious forms
of composition, the device is sparingly used. Differences in quality
and expressiveness of tone are also produced by varied methods of
applying the bow to the strings: with stronger or lighter pressure;
near the bridge, which renders the tone hard and brilliant, and over
the end of the finger-board, which softens it; in a continuous manner
(_legato_), or detached (_staccato_). Weird effects in dramatic music
are sometimes produced by striking the strings with the wood of the
bow, Wagner resorting to this means to delineate the wicked glee of
his dwarf _Mime_, and Meyerbeer to heighten the uncanniness of
_Nelusko's_ wild song in the third act of "L'Africaine." Another class
of effects results from the manner in which the strings are "stopped"
by the fingers of the left hand. When they are not pressed firmly
against the finger-board but touched lightly at certain places called
nodes by the acousticians, so that the segments below the finger are
permitted to vibrate along with the upper portion, those peculiar
tones of a flute-like quality called harmonics or flageolet tones are
produced. These are oftener heard in dramatic music than in
symphonies; but Berlioz, desiring to put Shakespeare's description of
Queen Mab,
"Her wagon-spokes made of long spinner's legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web;
The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams--"
into music in his dramatic symphony, "Romeo and Juliet," achieved a
marvellously filmy effect by dividing his violins, and permitting some
of them to play harmonics. Yet so little was his ingenious purpose
suspected when he first brought the symphony forward in Paris, that
one of the critics spoke contemptuously of this effect as sounding
"like an ill-greased syringe." A quivering motion imparted to the
fingers of the left hand in stopping the strings produces a
tremulousness of tone akin to the _vibrato_ of a singer; and, like the
vocal _vibrato_, when not carried to excess, this effect is a potent
expression of sentimental feeling. But it is much abused by solo
players. Another modification of tone is caused by placing a tiny
instrument called a sordino, or mute, upon the bridge. This clamps
the bridge, makes it heavier, and checks the vibrations, so that the
tone is muted or muffled, and at times sounds mysterious.
[Sidenote: _Pizzicato on the basses._]
[Sidenote: _Tremolo._]
These devices, though as a rule they have their maximum of
effectiveness in the violins, are possible also on the violas,
violoncellos, and double-basses, which, as I have already intimated,
are but violins of a larger growth. The _pizzicato_ is, indeed,
oftenest heard from the double-basses, where it has a much greater
eloquence than on the violins. In music of a sombre cast, the short,
deep tones given out by the plucked strings of the contra-bass
sometimes have the awfulness of gigantic heart-throbs. The difficulty
of producing the other effects grows with the increase of difficulty
in handling the instruments, this being due to the growing thickness
of the strings and the wideness of the points at which they must be
stopped. One effect peculiar to them all--the most used of all
effects, indeed, in dramatic music--is the _tremolo_, produced by
dividing a tone into many quickly reiterated short tones by a rapid
motion of the bow. This device came into use with one of the earliest
pieces of dramatic music. It is two centuries old, and was first used
to help in the musical delineation of a combat. With scarcely an
exception, the varied means which I have described can be detected by
those to whom they are not already familiar by watching the players
while listening to the music.
[Sidenote: _The viola._]
The viola is next in size to the violin, and is tuned at the interval
of a fifth lower. Its highest string is A, which is the second string
of the violin, and its lowest C. Its tone, which sometimes contains a
comical suggestion of a boy's voice in mutation, is lacking in
incisiveness and brilliancy, but for this it compensates by a
wonderful richness and filling quality, and a pathetic and inimitable
mournfulness in melancholy music. It blends beautifully with the
violoncello, and is often made to double that instrument's part for
the sake of color effect--as, to cite a familiar instance, in the
principal subject of the Andante in Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
[Sidenote: _The violoncello._]
[Sidenote: _Violoncello effects._]
The strings of the violoncello (Plate II.) are tuned like those of
the viola, but an octave lower. It is the knee-fiddle (_viola da
gamba_) of the last century, as the viola is the arm-fiddle (_viola da
braccio_), and got its old name from the position in which it is held
by the player. The 'cello's voice is a bass--it might be called the
barytone of the choir--and in the olden time of simple writing, little
else was done with it than to double the bass part one octave higher.
But modern composers, appreciating its marvellous capacity for
expression, which is next to that of the violin, have treated it with
great freedom and independence as a solo instrument. Its tone is full
of voluptuous languor. It is the sighing lover of the instrumental
company, and can speak the language of tender passion more feelingly
than any of its fellows. The ravishing effect of a multiplication of
its voice is tellingly exemplified in the opening of the overture to
"William Tell," which is written for five solo 'celli, though it is
oftenest heard in an arrangement which gives two of the middle parts
to violas. When Beethoven wished to produce the emotional impression
of a peacefully rippling brook in his "Pastoral" symphony, he gave a
murmuring figure to the divided violoncellos, and Wagner uses the
passionate accents of four of these instruments playing in harmony to
support _Siegmund_ when he is pouring out the ecstasy of his love in
the first act of "Die Walküre." In the love scene of Berlioz's "Romeo
and Juliet" symphony it is the violoncello which personifies the
lover, and holds converse with the modest oboe.
[Sidenote: _The double-bass._]
The patriarchal double-bass is known to all, and also its mission of
providing the foundation for the harmonic structure of orchestral
music. It sounds an octave lower than the music written for it, being
what is called a transposing instrument of sixteen-foot tone. Solos
are seldom written for this instrument in orchestral music, though
Beethoven, with his daring recitatives in the Ninth Symphony, makes it
a mediator between the instrumental and vocal forces. Dragonetti and
Bottesini, two Italians, the latter of whom is still alive, won great
fame as solo players on the unwieldy instrument. The latter uses a
small bass viol, and strings it with harp strings; but Dragonetti
played a full double-bass, on which he could execute the most
difficult passages written for the violoncello.
[Sidenote: _The wood-winds._]
Since the instruments of the wood-wind choir are frequently used in
solos, their acquaintance can easily be made by an observing amateur.
To this division of the orchestra belong the gentle accents in the
instrumental language. Violent expression is not its province, and
generally when the band is discoursing in heroic style or giving voice
to brave or angry emotion the wood-winds are either silent or are used
to give weight to the body of tone rather than color. Each of the
instruments has a strongly characteristic voice, which adapts itself
best to a certain style of music; but by use of different registers
and by combinations among them, or with the instruments of the other
choirs, a wide range of expression within the limits suggested has
been won for the wood-winds.
[Sidenote: _The flute._]
[Sidenote: _The piccolo flute._]
[Sidenote: _Janizary music._]
[Sidenote: _The story of the flute._]
The flute, which requires no description, is, for instance, an
essentially soulless instrument; but its marvellous agility and the
effectiveness with which its tones can be blended with others make it
one of the most useful instruments in the band. Its native character,
heard in the compositions written for it as a solo instrument, has
prevented it from being looked upon with dignity. As a rule,
brilliancy is all that is expected from it. It is a sort of _soprano
leggiero_ with a small range of superficial feelings. It can
sentimentalize, and, as Dryden says, be "soft, complaining," but when
we hear it pour forth a veritable ecstasy of jubilation, as it does in
the dramatic climax of Beethoven's overture "Leonore No. 3," we marvel
at the transformation effected by the composer. Advantage has also
been taken of the difference between its high and low tones, and now
in some romantic music, as in Raff's "Lenore" symphony, or the prayer
of _Agathe_ in "Der Freischütz," the hollowness of the low tones
produces a mysterious effect that is exceedingly striking. Still the
fact remains that the native voice of the instrument, though sweet,
is expressionless compared with that of the oboe or clarinet. Modern
composers sometimes write for three flutes; but in the older writers,
when a third flute is used, it is generally an octave flute, or
piccolo flute (Plate III.)--a tiny instrument whose aggressiveness of
voice is out of all proportion to its diminutiveness of body. This is
the instrument which shrieks and whistles when the band is playing at
storm-making, to imitate the noise of the wind. It sounds an octave
higher than is indicated by the notes in its part, and so is what is
called a transposing instrument of four-foot tone. It revels in
military music, which is proper, for it is an own cousin to the
ear-piercing fife, which annually makes up for its long silence in the
noisy days before political elections. When you hear a composition in
march time, with bass and snare drum, cymbals and triangle, such as
the Germans call "Turkish" or "Janizary" music, you may be sure to
hear also the piccolo flute. The flute is doubtless one of the oldest
instruments in the world. The primitive cave-dwellers made flutes of
the leg-bones of birds and other animals, an origin of which a record
is preserved in the Latin name _tibia_. The first wooden flutes were
doubtless the Pandean pipes, in which the tone was produced by blowing
across the open ends of hollow reeds. The present method, already
known to the ancient Egyptians, of closing the upper end, and creating
the tone by blowing across a hole cut in the side, is only a
modification of the method pursued, according to classic tradition, by
Pan when he breathed out his dejection at the loss of the nymph
Syrinx, by blowing across the tuneful reeds which were that nymph in
her metamorphosed state.
[Sidenote: _Reed instruments._]
[Sidenote: _Double reeds._]
The flute or pipe of the Greeks and Romans was only distantly related
to the true flute, but was the ancestor of its orchestral companions,
the oboe and clarinet. These instruments are sounded by being blown in
at the end, and the tone is created by vibrating reeds, whereas in the
flute it is the result of the impinging of the air on the edge of the
hole called the embouchure, and the consequent stirring of the column
of air in the flue of the instrument. The reeds are thin slips or
blades of cane. The size and bore of the instruments and the
difference between these reeds are the causes of the differences in
tone quality between these relatives. The oboe or hautboy, English
horn, and the bassoon have what are called double reeds. Two narrow
blades of cane are fitted closely together, and fastened with silk on
a small metal tube extending from the upper end of the instrument in
the case of the oboe and English horn, from the side in the case of
the bassoon. The reeds are pinched more or less tightly between the
lips, and are set to vibrating by the breath.
[Sidenote: _The oboe._]
[Sidenote: _The English horn._]
The oboe (Plate IV.) is naturally associated with music of a pastoral
character. It is pre-eminently a melody instrument, and though its
voice comes forth shrinkingly, its uniqueness of tone makes it easily
heard. It is a most lovable instrument. "Candor, artless grace, soft
joy, or the grief of a fragile being suits the oboe's accents," says
Berlioz. The peculiarity of its mouth-piece gives its tone a reedy or
vibrating quality totally unlike the clarinet's. Its natural alto is
the English horn (Plate V.), which is an oboe of larger growth, with
curved tube for convenience of manipulation. The tone of the English
horn is fuller, nobler, and is very attractive in melancholy or dreamy
music. There are few players on the English horn in this country, and
it might be set down as a rule that outside of New York, Boston, and
Chicago, the English horn parts are played by the oboe in America. No
melody displays the true character of the English horn better than the
_Ranz des Vaches_ in the overture to Rossini's "William Tell"--that
lovely Alpine song which the flute embroiders with exquisite ornament.
One of the noblest utterances of the oboe is the melody of the funeral
march in Beethoven's "Heroic" symphony, in which its tenderness has
beautiful play. It is sometimes used effectively in imitative music.
In Haydn's "Seasons," and also in that grotesque tone poem by
Saint-Saëns, the "Danse Macabre," it gives the cock crow. It is the
timid oboe that sounds the A for the orchestra to tune by.
[Sidenote: _The bassoon._]
[Sidenote: _An orchestral humorist._]
[Sidenote: _Supernatural effects._]
The grave voice of the oboe is heard from the bassoon (Plate VI.),
where, without becoming assertive, it gains a quality entirely unknown
to the oboe and English horn. It is this quality that makes the
bassoon the humorist _par excellence_ of the orchestra. It is a reedy
bass, very apt to recall to those who have had a country education the
squalling tone of the homely instrument which the farmer's boy
fashions out of the stems of the pumpkin-vine. The humor of the
bassoon is an unconscious humor, and results from the use made of its
abysmally solemn voice. This solemnity in quality is paired with
astonishing flexibility of utterance, so that its gambols are always
grotesque. Brahms permits the bassoon to intone the _Fuchslied_ of the
German students in his "Academic" overture. Beethoven achieves a
decidedly comical effect by a stubborn reiteration of key-note, fifth,
and octave by the bassoon under a rustic dance intoned by the oboe in
the scherzo of his "Pastoral" symphony; and nearly every modern
composer has taken advantage of the instrument's grotesqueness.
Mendelssohn introduces the clowns in his "Midsummer-Night's-Dream"
music by a droll dance for two bassoons over a sustained bass note
from the violoncellos; but when Meyerbeer wanted a very different
effect, a ghastly one indeed, in the scene of the resuscitation of the
nuns in his "Robert le Diable," he got it by taking two bassoons as
solo instruments and using their weak middle tones, which, Berlioz
says, have "a pale, cold, cadaverous sound." Singularly enough, Handel
resorted to a similar device in his "Saul," to accompany the vision of
the Witch of Endor.
[Sidenote: _The double bassoon._]
In all these cases a great deal depends upon the relation between the
character of the melody and the nature of the instrument to which it
is set. A swelling martial fanfare may be made absurd by changing it
from trumpets to a weak-voiced wood-wind. It is only the string
quartet that speaks all the musical languages of passion and emotion.
The double-bassoon is so large an instrument that it has to be bent on
itself to bring it under the control of the player. It sounds an
octave lower than the written notes. It is not brought often into the
orchestra, but speaks very much to the purpose in Brahms's beautiful
variations on a theme by Haydn, and the glorious finale of Beethoven's
Fifth Symphony.
[Sidenote: _The clarinet._]
[Sidenote: _The bass clarinet._]
The clarinet (Plate VII.) is the most eloquent member of the wood-wind
choir, and, except some of its own modifications or the modifications
of the oboe and bassoon, the latest arrival in the harmonious company.
It is only a little more than a century old. It has the widest range
of expression of the wood-winds, and its chief structural difference
is in its mouth-piece. It has a single flat reed, which is much wider
than that of the oboe or bassoon, and is fastened by a metallic band
and screw to the flattened side of the mouth-piece, whose other side
is cut down, chisel shape, for convenience. Its voice is rich, mellow,
less reedy, and much fuller and more limpid than the voice of the
oboe, which Berlioz tries to describe by analogy as "sweet-sour." It
is very flexible, too, and has a range of over three and a half
octaves. Its high tones are sometimes shrieky, however, and the full
beauty of the instrument is only disclosed when it sings in the middle
register. Every symphony and overture contains passages for the
clarinet which serve to display its characteristics. Clarinets are
made of different sizes for different keys, the smallest being that in
E-flat, with an unpleasantly piercing tone, whose use is confined to
military bands. There is also an alto clarinet and a bass clarinet
(Plate VIII.). The bell of the latter instrument is bent upward, pipe
fashion, and its voice is peculiarly impressive and noble. It is a
favorite solo instrument in Liszt's symphonic poems.
[Sidenote: _Lips and reeds._]
[Sidenote: _The brass instruments._]
[Sidenote: _Improvements in brass instruments._]
[Sidenote: _Valves and slides._]
The fundamental principle of the instruments last described is the
production of tone by vibrating reeds. In the instruments of the brass
choir, the duty of the reeds is performed by the lips of the player.
Variety of tone in respect of quality is produced by variations in
size, shape, and modifications in parts like the bell and mouth-piece.
The _forte_ of the orchestra receives the bulk of its puissance from
the brass instruments, which, nevertheless, can give voice to an
extensive gamut of sentiments and feelings. There is nothing more
cheery and jocund than the flourishes of the horns, but also nothing
more mild and soothing than the songs which sometimes they sing. There
is nothing more solemn and religious than the harmony of the
trombones, while "the trumpet's loud clangor" is the very voice of a
war-like spirit. All of these instruments have undergone important
changes within the last few score years. The classical composers,
almost down to our own time, were restricted in the use of them
because they were merely natural tubes, and their notes were limited
to the notes which inflexible tubes can produce. Within this century,
however, they have all been transformed from imperfect diatonic
instruments to perfect chromatic instruments; that is to say, every
brass instrument which is in use now can give out all the semitones
within its compass. This has been accomplished through the agency of
valves, by means of which differing lengths of the sonorous tube are
brought within the command of the players. In the case of the
trombones an exceedingly venerable means of accomplishing the same end
is applied. The tube is in part made double, one part sliding over the
other. By moving his arm, the player lengthens or shortens the tube,
and thus changing the key of the instrument, acquires all the tones
which can be obtained from so many tubes of different lengths. The
mouth-pieces of the trumpet, trombone, and tuba are cup-shaped, and
larger than the mouth-piece of the horn, which is little else than a
flare of the slender tube, sufficiently wide to receive enough of the
player's lips to form the embouchure, or human reed, as it might here
be named.
[Sidenote: _The French horn._]
[Sidenote: _Manipulation of the French horn._]
The French horn (Plate IX.), as it is called in the orchestra, is the
sweetest and mellowest of all the wind instruments. In Beethoven's
time it was but little else than the old hunting-horn, which, for the
convenience of the mounted hunter, was arranged in spiral
convolutions that it might be slipped over the head and carried
resting on one shoulder and under the opposite arm. The Germans still
call it the _Waldhorn_, _i.e._, "forest horn;" the old French name was
_cor de chasse_, the Italian _corno di caccia_. In this instrument
formerly the tones which were not the natural resonances of the
harmonic division of the tube were helped out by partly closing the
bell with the right hand, it having been discovered accidentally that
by putting the hand into the lower end of the tube--the flaring part
called the bell--the pitch of a tone was raised. Players still make
use of this method for convenience, and sometimes because a composer
wishes to employ the slightly muffled effect of these tones; but since
valves have been added to the instrument, it is possible to play a
chromatic scale in what are called the unstopped or open tones.
[Sidenote: _Kinds of horns._]
[Sidenote: _The trumpet._]
[Sidenote: _The cornet._]