The study of instinct is in the genetic treatment of evolutionary
science a study in heredity. The favouring bionomic conditions are those
of a relatively constant environment under which relatively stereotyped
responses are advantageous. If the environment be complex, there is a
corresponding complexity in instinctive behaviour. But adjustment to a
complex environment may be reached in two ways; by instinctive
adaptation through initially stereotyped behaviour; or by plastic
accommodation by acquired modifications. The tendency of the evolution
of intelligence is towards the disintegration of the stereotyped modes
of response and the dissolution of instinct. Natural selection which,
under a uniform and constant environment, leads to the survival of
relatively fixed and definite modes of response, under an environment
presenting a wider range of varying possibilities leads to the survival
of plastic accommodation through intelligence. This plasticity is,
however, itself hereditary. All intelligent procedure implies the
inherited capacity of profiting by experience. Instinctive in the
popular sense, it does not fall within the narrower definition of the
term; it is more conveniently described as innate. It is important to
grasp clearly the distinction thus drawn. A duckling only a few hours
old if placed in water swims with orderly strokes. The stimulus of water
on the breast may be regarded as a sensory presentation which is
followed by a definite and adaptive application of behaviour. But this
specific application is dependent upon a prolonged racial preparation of
the organism to respond in this particular way. Such response is
instinctive. It is wholly due, as such, to racial preparation. Compare
the case of a boy who learns to ride a bicycle. This is not wholly due,
as such, to racial preparation, but is also partly due to individual
preparation. The boy no doubt inherits a capacity for riding a bicycle,
otherwise he could never do so. But he has to learn to ride none the
less. Individual experience is a condition which without the innate
capacity cannot take effect. Instinct involves inherited adaptation;
intelligence, an inherited power, embodied in the higher nerve-centres,
of accommodation to varying circumstances.
See C. Lloyd Morgan, _Habit and Instinct_ (1896), and _Animal
Behaviour_ (1900); G. J. Romanes, _Mental Evolution in Animals_
(1883), and _Natural History of Instinct_ (1886); Lord Avebury, _On
the Instincts of Animals_ (1889); Marshall, _Instinct and Reason_
(1898); Mills, _Nature of Animal Intelligence_ (1898); St George
Mivart, _Nature and Thought_ (1882), and _Origin of Human Reason_
(1899); E. Wasmann, _Zur Entwickelung der Instincte_ (1897), _Instinct
und Intelligenz im Tierreich_ (1899, Eng. trans. 1903); G. and C.
Peckham, _Instincts and Habits of Solitary Wasps_ (1898); see also the
bibliography (section "Instinct and Impulse") in Baldwin's _Dict. of
Philosophy and Psychology_. (C. Ll. M.)
INSTITUTE (from Lat. _instituere_, to establish or set up), something
established, an institution, particularly any society established for an
artistic, educational, scientific or social purpose. The word seems to
have been first applied in English to such institutions for the
advancement of science or art as were modelled on the great French
society, the _Institut National_ (see ACADEMIES). It is thus the name of
such societies as the Royal Institute of British Architects, the
Imperial Institute and the like. It is extended to similar
organizations, particularly to educational, on a smaller or local scale,
such as Mechanics' or Workmen's Institutes, and is sometimes applied to
charitable foundations. In the United States the word is, in a
particular sense, applied to periodic classes giving instruction in the
principles of education to the teachers of elementary and district
schools. The term "institute" is often used to translate the Lat.
_institutio_, in the sense of a treatise on the elements of any subject,
and particularly of law or jurisprudence; thus the compilation of the
principles of Roman law, made by order of the emperor Justinian, is
known as _Justinian's Institutes_, and hence Coke's treatise on English
law, of which the first part is better known as _Coke upon Littleton_,
is called _The Institute_. The same title is borne by Calvin's work on
the elements of the Christian doctrine. In Scots law "institute" is the
person named, in a settlement or testament to whom an estate is first
limited; those who follow, failing him, are termed "substitutes."
INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH, the name generally applied both in the British
Isles and in America to a type of church which supplements its ordinary
work by identifying itself in various ways with the secular interests of
those whom it seeks to influence. The idea of such extension of function
grew out of the recognition of the fact that the normal activities of
church work entirely failed to retain the interest of a large class of
the population to whom the ritual formality of ordinary services was
unacceptable. Various attempts were made to overcome this deficiency,
e.g. by modifying the form of service or of some services, by the
addition to the ordinary services of more or less informal meetings
(e.g. the Pleasant Sunday Afternoon services), by specially excusing
persons from wearing the normal church-going attire in holiday resorts,
and by holding services out of doors. The principle underlying all these
changes is systematized in the Institutional Church which, in addition
to its main building for specifically religious services, provides
other rooms or buildings which during the week are open for the use of
members and friends. Lectures, concerts, debates and social gatherings
are organized; there are reading rooms, gymnasiums and other recreations
rooms; various clubs (cycling, cricket, football) are formed. The
organization of the whole is subdivided into special departments managed
by committees. By these various means many persons are attracted into
the atmosphere of the church's work who could not be induced to attend
the formal services.
This expansion of normal church work may be traced back in England to at
least as early as 1840, but the full development of the Institutional
Church belongs only to the latter years of the 19th century. The chief
example in England is Whitefield's Central Mission in Tottenham Court
Road, London, a church which, in addition to an elaborate organization
on the lines above described, has an official journal. In the United
States the movement may be said to date from about 1880. The name
"Institutional" was first applied to Berkeley Temple, Boston, by Dr
William Jewett Tucker, then president of Dartmouth College. The obvious
criticism that this epithet emphasizes the administrative and secular
side to the exclusion of the spiritual led to the tentative adoption of
other titles, e.g. the "Open Church," the "Free Church," the former of
which is the more commonly used. In 1894 was formed the "Open and
Institutional Church League" at New York, which held a number of
conventions and served as a headquarters for the numerous separate
churches. In connexion with this league was formed the "National
Federation of Churches and Christian Workers," which held a convention
in 1905.
See C. Silvester Horne, _The Institutional Church_ (London, 1906); G.
W. Mead, _Modern Methods in Church Work_ (New York, 1897); R. A.
Woods, _English Social Movements_ (New York, 1891).
INSTRUMENT (Lat. _instrumentum_, from _instruere_, to build up, furnish,
arrange, prepare), that which can be used as a means to an end, hence a
mechanical contrivance, implement or tool; the word is more particularly
applied to the implements of applied science, in mathematics, surgery,
surveying, &c., while those of the handicrafts are generally known as
"tools." A specific use of the term is for the various contrivances used
to produce musical sounds, "musical instruments."
In law an "instrument" is any formal or written document by which
expression is given to a legal act or agreement. This is a classical use
of the Lat. _instrumentum_, a document, record. The term may be used in
a wide sense, as a mere writing, meant only to form a record, or in a
particular sense with reference to certain statutes. For example, the
Stamp Act 1891 defines an instrument as an expression including every
written document; for the purposes of the Forgery Act 1861 a post-office
telegram accepting a wager has been defined as an instrument. In
expressions such as "deed, will, or other written instrument" the word
means any written document under which a right or liability, legal or
equitable, exists.
INSTRUMENTATION. "Instrumentation" is the best term that can be found
for that aspect of musical art which is concerned with timbre. The
narrower term "orchestration" is applied to the instrumentation of
orchestral music. Since the most obvious differences of timbre are in
those of various instruments, the art which blends and contrasts timbre
is most easily discussed as the treatment of instruments; but we must
use this term with philosophic breadth and allow it to include voices.
Instrumentation is in all standard text-books treated as a technical
subject, from the point of view of practical students desirous of
writing for the modern orchestra. And as there is no branch of art in
which mechanical improvements, and the consequent change in the nature
of technical difficulties, bear so directly upon the possibilities and
methods of external effect, it follows that an exclusive preponderance
of this view is not without serious disadvantage from the standpoint of
general musical culture. There is probably no other branch of art in
which orthodox tradition is so entirely divorced from the historical
sense, and the history, when studied at all, so little illuminated by
the permanent artistic significance of its subjects. When improvements
in the structure of an instrument remove from the modern composer's
memory an entire category of limitations which in classical music
determined the very character of the instrument, the temptation is easy
to regard the improvement as a kind of access of wisdom, in comparison
with which not only the older form of the instrument, but the part that
it plays in classical music, is crude and archaic. But we should do
better justice to improvements in an instrument if we really understood
how far they give it, not merely new resources, but a new nature. And,
moreover, those composers who have done most to realize this new nature
(as Wagner has done for the brass instruments) have also retained, to an
extent unsuspected by their imitators, the definite character which the
instrument had in its earlier form.
As it is with mechanical improvements, so is it to a still greater
degree with changes in the function of timbre in art. Throughout the
19th century so fatal was the hold obtained on the popular mind by the
technical expert's view of instrumentation, that it was impossible to
hear the works of Handel and Bach without "additional accompaniments"
conceived in terms of art as irrelevant to those of 18th-century
polyphonys as the terms of Turnerian landscape are irrelevant to the
decoration of the outside walls of a cathedral. There is some reason to
hope that the day of these misconceptions is passed; although there is
also some reason to fear that on other grounds the present era may be
known to posterity as an era of instrumentation comparable, in its
gorgeous chaos of experiment and its lack of consistent ideas of harmony
and form, only to the monodic period at the beginning of the 17th
century, in which no one had ears for anything but experiments in
harmonic colour. We do not propose to concern ourselves here with those
technical subjects which are the chief concern of standard treatises on
instrumentation. Our task is simply to furnish the general reader with
an account of the types of instrumentation prevalent at various musical
periods, and their relation to other branches of the art.
_The Vocal Style of the 16th Century._--In the 16th century
instrumentation was, in its normal modern sense, non-existent; but in a
special sense it was at an unsurpassable stage of perfection, namely, in
the treatment of pure vocal harmony. In every mature period of art it
will be found that, however much the technical rules may be collected in
one special category, every artistic category has a perfect interaction
with all the others; and this is nowhere more perfectly shown than when
the art is in its simplest possible form of maturity. Practically every
law of harmony in 16th-century music may be equally well regarded as a
law of vocal effect. Discords must not be taken unprepared, because a
singer can only find his note by a mental judgment, and in attacking a
discord he has to find a note of which the harmonic meaning is at
variance with that of other notes sung at the same time. Melody must not
make more than one wide skip in the same direction, because by so doing
it would cause an awkward change of vocal register. Two parts must not
move in consecutive octaves or fifths, because by so doing they
unaccountably reinforce each other by an amount by which they impoverish
the rest of the harmony. Thus we justify, on grounds of instrumentation,
laws usually known as laws of harmony and counterpoint. Apart from such
considerations, 16th-century vocal harmony shows in the hands of its
greatest masters an inexhaustible variety of refinements of vocal
colour. A volume might be written on Orlando di Lasso's art of so
crossing the voices as to render possible successions of chords which,
on a keyed instrument where such crossing cannot be expressed, would be
a horrible series of consecutive fifths; the beauty of the device
consisting in the extreme simplicity of the chords, combined with the
novelty due to the fact that these chords cannot be produced by any
ordinary means without incorrectness.
_Decorative Instrumentation._--In the 17th century the use of
instruments became a necessity; but there were at first no organized
ideas for their treatment except those which were grounded on their use
as supporting and imitating the voice. The early 17th-century attempts
at their independent use and characterization are historically
interesting, but artistically almost barbarous. Sometimes they achieve
rare beauty by accident. Heinrich Schutz's _Lamentatio Davidi_ is
written for a bass voice accompanied by four trombones and organ. The
trombone parts are on exactly the same material as the voice, which in
fact forms with them a five-part fugue-texture. The effect is
magnificent, and admirably suited to the dignity of the trombone.
Moreover, the opening theme is formed of slow arpeggios; and the more
modern harmonic elements, though technically chromatic, consist, from
the modern point of view, rather in swift changes between nearly related
keys than in chromatic blurring of the main key. All this, especially in
a writer like Schutz, who is saturated with every progressive tendency
of the time, seems to point to a deep sense of the appropriate style of
trombone writing. Yet, so insensible is Schutz to the euphony of his own
work, that he proposes, as an alternative for the first and second
trombones, two violins an octave higher, the other parts remaining
unaltered! Imagination boggles at the vileness of this effect.
The chief work done in instrumentation in the 17th century is
undoubtedly that of the Italian writers for the violin, who developed
the technique of that instrument until it proved not only more
resourceful but more artistically organized than that of the solo voice,
which by the time of Handel had become little better than an acrobatic
monstrosity. In the art of Bach and Handel, instrumentation, as
distinguished from choral writing, has attained a definite artistic
coherence. Choral writing itself has become different from what it was
in the 16th century. The free use of discords and of wider intervals,
together with the influence of the florid elements of solo-singing,
enlarged the bounds of choral expression almost beyond recognition,
while they crowded into very narrow quarters the subtleties of
16th-century music. These, however, by no means disappeared; and such
devices as the crossing of parts in the second Kyrie of Bach's _B Minor
Mass_ (bars 7, 8, 14, 15, 22, 23, 50) abundantly show that in the hands
of the great masters artistic truths are not things which a change of
date can make false.
But the treatment of instruments in Bach and Handel has a radical
difference from that of the art which was soon to succeed it. It has
precisely the same limitation as the treatment of form and emotion; it
cannot change as the work proceeds. Its contrasts are like those of an
architectural scheme, not those of a landscape or a drama. It admits of
the loveliest combinations of timbre, and it can alternate them in
considerable variety. Modern composers have often produced their most
characteristic orchestral effects with fewer contrasting elements than
Bach uses in his _Trauer-Ode_, in the pastoral symphony in his
_Christmas Oratorio_, in the first chorus of the cantata _Liebster Gott,
wann werd' ich sterben_, and in many other cases; but the modern
instrumental effects are as far outside Bach's scope as a long passage
of preparation on the dominant leading to the return of a first subject
is beyond the scope of a gigue in a suite. Bach's conception of the
function of an instrument is that it holds a regular part in a
polyphonic scheme; and his blending of tones is like the blending of
colours in a purely decorative design.
Those instruments of which the tones and compass are most suitable for
polyphonic melody are for the most part high in pitch; a circumstance
which, in conjunction with the practice (initiated by the monodists and
ratified by science and common sense) of reckoning chords upwards from
the bass, leads to the conclusion that the instruments which hold the
main threads in the design shall be supported where necessary by a
simple harmonic filling-out on some keyed instrument capable of forming
an unobtrusive background. The chords necessary in this part, which with
its supporting bass is called the _continuo_, were indicated by figures;
and the evanescent and delicate tones of the harpsichord lent themselves
admirably to this purpose where solo voices and instruments were
concerned. For the support of the chorus the more powerful organ was
necessary. It is in the attempt to supply the place of this _continuo_
(or _figured bass_) by definite orchestral parts that modern
performances, until the most recent times, have shown so radical an
incapacity to grasp the nature of 18th-century instrumentation. The
whole point of this filling-out is that, the polyphonic design of the
main instruments being complete in itself, there is no room for any such
additional inner parts as can attract attention. In the interest of
euphony some harmonious sound is needed to bridge the great gap which
almost always exists between the bass and the upper instruments, but
this filling out must be of the softest and most atmospheric kind. Bach
himself is known to have executed it in a very polyphonic style, and
this for the excellent reason that plain chords would have contrasted so
strongly with the real instrumental parts that they could not fail to
attract attention even in the softest tones of the harpsichord or the
organ, while light polyphony in these tones would elude the ear and at
the same time perfectly bridge over the gap in the harmony. There seems
no good reason why in modern performances the pianoforte should not be
used for the purpose; if only accompanists can be trained to acquire the
necessary delicacy of touch, and can be made to understand that, if they
cannot extemporize the necessary polyphony, and so have to play
something definitely written for them, it is not a mass of interesting
detail which they are to bring to the public ear. A lamentable instance
of the prevalent confusion of thought on this point is shown by the
vocal scores of the Bach cantatas corresponding to the edition of the
_Bach Gesellschaft_ (which must not be held responsible for them). In
these Bach's polyphonic designs are often obliterated beneath a mass of
editorial counterpoint (even where Bach has carefully written the words
"_tasto solo_," i.e. "no filling out"). The same comments apply to the
attempts sometimes made to fill out the bare places in 18th-century
clavier music. There is no doubt that such filling out was often done on
a second harpsichord with stops of a very light tone; but, if it cannot
be done on the modern pianoforte in a touch so light as to avoid
confusion between it and the notes actually written as essential to the
design, it certainly ought not to be done at all. The greater richness
of tone of the modern pianoforte is a better compensation for any
bareness that may be imputed to pure two-part or three-part writing than
a filling out which deprives the listener of the power to follow the
essential lines of the music. The same holds good, though in a lesser
degree, of the resources of the harpsichord in respect of
octave-strings. To sacrifice phrasing, and distinctness in real
part-writing, to a crude imitation of the richness produced mechanically
on the harpsichord by drawing 4-ft. and 8-ft. registers, is artistically
suicidal. The genius of the modern pianoforte is to produce richness by
depth and variety of tone; and players who cannot find scope for such
genius in the real part-writing of the 18th century will not get any
nearer to the 18th-century spirit by sacrificing the essentials of its
art to an attempt to imitate its mechanical resources by a modern _tour
de force_.
_Symphonic Instrumentation._--The difference between decorative and
symphonic instrumentation is admirably shown by Gluck. In the famous
dedicatory letter of his _Alceste_ he mentions among other conceptions
on which his reform of opera was to be based, that the co-operation of
the instruments ought to be regulated in proportion to the interest and
the passion, a doctrine of which the true significance lies in its
connexion with other conditions of opera which are incompatible with the
polyphonic treatment of instruments as threads in a decorative scheme.
The date of this famous letter was 1767, but after _Alceste_ Gluck was
still able to use material from earlier work; and the overture to
_Armide_ is adapted from that of _Telemacco_, written in the year of
Bach's death (1750).
To write an account of symphonic instrumentation in any detail would be
like attempting a history of emotional expression; and all that we can
do here is to point out that the problem which was, so to speak, shelved
by the polyphonic device of the _continuo_, was for a long time solved
only by methods which, in any hands but those of the greatest masters,
were very inartistic conventions. In the new art the concentration of
attention upon _form_, as a more important source of dramatic interest
and climax than _texture_, resulted in a neglect of polyphony which
seriously damaged even Gluck's work, and which always had the grave
inconvenience that while the new methods of blending and contrasting
instruments stimulated an increase in the variety, if not in the size of
orchestras, there was at the same time extreme difficulty in finding
occupation for the members of the lower middle class of the orchestra in
ordinary passages. On the other hand, it is significant how everything
in the development of new instruments seems to suggest, and be suggested
by, the new methods of expression. The invention of the damper-pedal in
the pianoforte epitomizes the difference between polyphony and symphonic
art, for it is the earliest device by which sounds are produced and
prolonged in a way contrary to the spirit of "real" part-writing. It is
possible to conceive of any number of notes struck and sustained by the
fingers as consisting of so many quasi-vocal parts; but when a series of
single sounds is played and each sound continues to vibrate by means of
a pedal which prevents the dampers from falling on the strings, then we
are conscious that the sounds have been produced as from one part, and
that they nevertheless combine to form a chord; and this is as remote
from the spirit of polyphonic part-writing as modern English is from
classical Greek.
The pianoforte trios of Haydn are perhaps the only works of first-rate
artistic importance in which there is no doubt that the earlier stages
of the new art do not admit of sufficient polyphony to give the
instruments fair play. Haydn finds the pianoforte so completely capable
of expressing his meaning that he is at a loss to find independent
material for any accompanying instruments; and the violoncello in his
trios has, except perhaps in four passages in the whole collection of
thirty-three works, not a note to play that is not already in the bass
of the pianoforte; while the melodies of the violin are, more often than
not, doubled in the treble. Yet there is a certain difference between
this and the work of a poor artist whose designs are threadbare. It
would be impossible to add a note to Haydn's trio; the only question is
how to account for the superfluity of much of the string parts and how
to make the trios effective in performance. It is sometimes suggested
that the 'cello part is best omitted and these works played as violin
sonatas. But experiment shows that in this condition much of the violin
part sounds incomplete; and the truth appears to be that Haydn is
thinking, like any modern composer, of the opposition of two solid
bodies of tone--the pianoforte and the stringed instruments. And it will
be found that the method of performance which most nearly justifies the
instrumental effect of these otherwise beautiful works is that in which
the pianoforte player regards himself as frequently doubling the
stringed instruments, and not vice versa. He should therefore in all
such passages play extremely lightly, so as to give the violin and
'cello the function of drawing the main outline. In the time of Bach
such writing was beautifully suited to enliven the dry glitter of the
harpsichord, and Bach's duets for clavier and violin seem to have been
sometimes played as trios with a violoncello playing from the clavier
bass. But this was ineffective with the pianoforte, and is only
explicable in Haydn as a survival. His trios were, indeed, published
under the title of "pianoforte sonatas with accompaniment of violin and
violoncello"; but this in no way militates against the above remarks as
to their proper method of performance nowadays, when we take into
consideration the greater strength of tone of the modern pianoforte,
especially in the bass, and the fact that in no case could a violinist
consent to play as an accompaniment such melodies as that at the
beginning of the G major trio known as No. 1.
For Mozart there never was any such _embarras de richesse_ in any
combination of instruments. His music is highly polyphonic, and modern
in its instrumental treatment throughout. It was lucky for the
development of instrumentation (as in all branches of music during the
change from polyphonic to formal design) that whenever the texture is
not polyphonic the natural place for melody is on the surface: in other
words, when the accompaniment is simple the tune is generally on the
top. Haydn, when he was not tempted by the resources of an instrument so
complete in itself as the pianoforte, soon learnt to write artistically
perfect string quartets in which the first violin, though overwhelmingly
the most important part, is nevertheless in perfect balance with the
other members of the scheme, inasmuch as they contribute exactly what
their pitch and the little polyphonic elaboration admissible by the
style will enable them to give. In the treatment of the orchestra
volumes might be written about Haydn's and Mozart's sense of fitness, as
shown in Haydn's experiments and Mozart's settled methods. Where they
consent to any practical custom from practical necessity they also
consent because it is artistically right for them, and if it had not
been artistically right they would have soon swept it away. For example,
it has often been said that the extent to which their orchestral viola
parts double the basses is due, partly to bad traditions of Italian
opera, and partly to the fact that viola players were, more often than
not, simply persons who had failed to play the violin. This was in many
cases true, and it is equally true that Mozart and Haydn often had no
scruple in following the customs of very bad composers. But, when we
look at the many passages in which the violas double the basses, we
shall do well to consider whether there is room in the harmonic scheme
for the violas to do anything else, and whether the effect would not be
thin without them. As music becomes more polyphonic the inner parts of
the orchestra become more and more emancipated. Already Mozart divides
his violas into two parts quite as often as he makes them play with the
basses. In Beethoven's orchestration there is almost always room for an
independent viola part. There is not room for one together with an
independent violoncello part; the wonderful use of muted solo
violoncellos in the slow movement of the _Pastoral Symphony_ being a
special effect, like the earlier instance in Haydn's 12th _Salomon
Symphony_. Otherwise, when Beethoven has anything special for the
violoncellos to say, he invariably softens and deepens their singularly
incisive cantabile tones by doubling them with the violas. In the
orchestras of his day this was perhaps the only safe proceeding for
players unaccustomed to such responsibilities, and that may have been
one of Beethoven's reasons for it. But it is equally certain that the
pure violoncello tone in large masses belongs to a distinctly different
region of orchestral effect. Haydn's numerous examples of independent
violoncello melodies are almost all either marked _solo_ or written for
such small orchestras that they would be played as solos.
Similar principles apply in infinite detail to the treatment of wind
instruments, and we must never lose sight of them in speculating as to
the reasons why the genius of Beethoven was able to carry
instrumentation into worlds of which Haydn and Mozart never dreamt, or
why, having gone so far, it left anything unexplored. A subject so vast
and so incapable of classification cannot be discussed here, but its
aesthetic principles may be illustrated by the extreme case of the
trumpets and horns, which in classical times had no scale except that of
the natural harmonic series. This could be fixed, within certain limits,
at whatever pitch suited the composition; but on the horn it could be
only very partially filled out by notes of a muffled quality produced by
inserting the hand into the bell of the instrument, a device impossible
on the trumpet. These instruments thus produced, in Haydn's and
Beethoven's times, a very remarkable but closely limited series of
effects, which, as Sir George Macfarren pointed out in the article
"Music" in the 9th edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, gave them
a peculiar character and function in strongly asserting the main notes
of the key. An instance of this characteristic function, specially
remarkable because the composer has taken exceptional measures for it,
is Beethoven's overture to _Fidelio_. It is in E major, while Beethoven
chooses to use trumpets in C. The only note which these can play in E
major is the tonic, to which they are accordingly confined until the
recapitulation of the second subject. This is unexpectedly placed in C
major, the remotest key reached in the overture, and one that had
already appeared in an impressive passage in the introduction which
foreshadows the reference in the first act to the hero in his dungeon
("Der kaum mehr lebt und wie ein Schatten schwebt"). In this key the
trumpets blaze out with an effect which entirely depends upon their
restricted part hitherto. On a sufficient acquaintance with the work
this would probably have revealed the essential nature of the instrument
to a hearer unacquainted with technicalities, and revealed it rather as
a characteristic than as a limitation. A still more remarkable instance
will be found in the third statement of the theme of the finale of the
9th symphony. When the trumpets take it up they make a remarkable change
at its 11th bar, for no other reason than that one of the notes, though
perfectly within their scale, and, indeed, already produced by them in
the very same bar, is so harmonized as to suggest the freedom of an
instrument with a complete scale. This passage shows that if Beethoven
had had the modern trumpet at his disposal, while he would no doubt
freely have used its resources, he would nevertheless have maintained
its character as an instrument founded on the natural scale, and would
have agreed with Brahms that the nobility and purity of its tone depends
upon its faithful adherence, at least within symphonic limits, to types
of melody suggestive of that scale.
This brings us to the latest radical change effected in instrumentation,
the change from symphonic to dramatic principles. It will be convenient
to take one supreme composer as the artist who has dealt so consistently
with the essentials of the new style that he may be conveniently
regarded as its creator. Even with this limitation the subject is too
vast for us to enter into details.
_Dramatic Instrumentation._--There is hardly one of Wagner's orchestral
innovations which is not inseparably connected with his adaptation of
music to the requirements of drama; and modern conductors, in treating
Wagner's orchestration, as the normal standard by which all previous and
contemporary music must be judged, are doing their best to found a
tradition which in another fifty years will be exploded as thoroughly as
the tradition of symphonic additional accompaniments is now exploded in
the performances of Bach and Handel. The main difference between
symphonic and modern dramatic orchestration depends on this: that in a
symphony any important incident will probably be heard again within five
minutes, in every circumstance of formal symmetry and preparation that
can attract the attention. This being so, it is absurd in a symphony to
use only such orchestral colours as would be fit for dramatic moments
which are not likely to recur for an hour or two, if they recur at all.
Such a passage as bars 5 to 8 in the first movement of Beethoven's 8th
symphony is as unintelligible from the point of view of Wagnerian opera
as the opening of the _Rheingold_ is unintelligible from the point of
view of symphony. But both are quite right. The modern Wagnerian
conductor is apt to complain that Beethoven, in his four-bar phrase,
drowns a melody which lies in the weakest register of the clarinet by a
crowd of superfluous notes in oboes, horns and flutes. The complainer
entirely overlooks the fact that this is the kind of music in which such
a phrase will certainly be heard again before we have time to forget it;
and as a matter of fact the strings promptly repeat it _fortissimo_ in a
position which nothing can overpower. A crowd of instruments that seemed
at first to overwhelm it in sympathetic comments is perfectly dramatic
and appropriate on the symphonic scale. On the operatic scale
established by Wagner such detail is simply lost. Far greater polyphonic
detail of another kind is no doubt possible, but it requires far longer
time for its expression. It cannot change so rapidly. It engages the ear
more exclusively, and therefore it needs an accuracy and an elaboration
of paraphernalia quite irrelevant to symphonic art. The accuracy and the
paraphernalia are equally exemplified in all Wagner's additions and
alterations of the classical orchestral scheme, for these all consist in
completing the families of instruments so that each timbre can be
presented pure in complete harmony. But the greatness of Wagner is shown
in the fact that with all the effect his additions have in
revolutionizing the resources of orchestration, he never regards his
novelties as substitutes for the natural principles of instrumental
effect. His brass instruments have lost nothing of their ancient
nobility. In his gigantic designs it inevitably happens that
instrumental resources are strained to their utmost, and there is,
perhaps, hardly anything which the makers and players of instruments can
be trained to do which is too remote to be demanded by some extreme
dramatic necessity in Wagner's scheme. But it is always some such
extreme necessity that demands it, and never an appetite too jaded for
natural resources. The crucial example of this is what Richard Strauss
has ingeniously called the "al fresco" treatment of instruments in large
orchestral masses (Berlioz-Strauss, _Instrumentationslehre_, edition
Peters). Experience shows that in the modern orchestra there is safety
in numbers, and that passages may with impunity be written for
thirty-two violins which no single player can execute clearly. Whether
this justifies Wagner's successors and imitators in showing a constant
preference for passages of which not even the general outline is
practicable; whether it justifies a state of things in which the normal
compass of every instrument in an advanced 20th-century score would
appear to be about a fifth higher than any player of that instrument
will admit; whether it proves that it is artistically desirable that
when there are eight horns in the orchestra their material should be
indistinguishable from pianoforte writing, and that, in short, the part
of every instrument should look exactly like the part of every
other--such questions are for posterity to decide. At present we can
only be certain that the criterion according to which Brahms, being a
symphonic writer, has no mastery of orchestration whatever, is not a
criterion compatible with any sense of symphonic style. It is therefore
not a criterion which can do justice to the principles of Wagner's
non-symphonic art, for its appreciation thereof is inevitably one-sided.
Least of all can it conduce to the formation of sound critical standards
for the new instrumentation which is now in process of development for
the future forms of instrumental music. These, we cannot doubt, will be
as profoundly influenced by Wagner as the sonata style was influenced by
Gluck.
Finally it must be remembered that musical euphony and emotional effect
are inseparable from considerations of harmony and polyphony. Timbre
itself is, as Helmholtz shows, a kind of harmony felt but not heard. Not
even the imagination and skill of Berlioz could galvanize into permanent
artistic life an instrumentation based exclusively upon instruments,
however suggestive his wonderful orchestral effects may have been to
contemporary and later artists, who realize that artistic effects must
proceed from artistic causes.
_Chamber-music_--The instrumentation of solo combinations is one of the
largest and most detailed subjects in the art of music. Something has
been said above as to its earlier aspects in the time of Haydn. Before
that time it was based exclusively on the use of the harpsichord either
as a means of supporting the other instruments or its also contributing
principal parts to the combination. Thus there were no string-quartets
before Haydn--at least none that can be distinguished from symphonies
for string-band.
Richard Strauss, in his edition of Berlioz's works on _Instrumentation_,
paradoxically characterizes the classical orchestral style as that which
was derived from chamber-music. Now it is true that in Haydn's early
days orchestras were small and generally private; and that the styles of
orchestral and chamber-music were not distinct; but surely nothing is
clearer than that the whole history of the rise of classical
chamber-music lies in its rapid differentiation from the coarse-grained
orchestral style with which it began. Orchestral wind-parts have been
discovered belonging to Haydn's string-quartet Op. 1, No. 5; his quartet
in D minor, Op. 9, No. 4, is already in a style which not even the most
casual listener could mistake for anything orchestral. On this
differentiation of styles rests the whole aesthetics of chamber-music;
but the subject is very subtle, and there is much, as for example in
Schubert's quartets and his C major quintet, that is inspired by
orchestral ideas without in the least vitiating the chamber-music style;
though, judged by its appearance on paper, it seems as unorthodox as the
notoriously orchestral beginnings of Mendelssohn's quartet in D and
quintet in B[flat]. The beginning of Mendelssohn's F minor quartet is,
again, a case usually, but perhaps wrongly, condemned for its
orchestral appearance on paper. Such matters cannot be decided off-hand
by the mere fact that _tremolos_ are characteristic of orchestras: the
question is whether in individual cases they have not a special
character when played by single players. Where this is so there need be
no confusion of style; but the danger of such confusion is great, and
with the rise of modern dramatic instrumentation it may be doubted
whether there are any standards of criticism in current use for
chamber-music of other than the sonata style. The development of
pianoforte technique since Beethoven has been in some ways even more
revolutionizing than that of the brass instruments; and pianoforte
instrumentation, both in solo and in chamber-music, is a study for a
lifetime.
_Orchestral Schemes Typical of Different Periods._
1. _16th Century._--We, with our stereotyped modern notions of the
grouping of voices, may get some idea of the freedom of the
16th-century composers' imagination by noting that the four-part
movements for semi-chorus or solo voices in Palestrina's Masses
present us with no fewer than seventeen different combinations of
voices, and that of these the familiar group of soprano, alto, tenor
and bass is not the most common, though it is invariable as that used
for entire four-part Masses. In three-part movements Palestrina
presents us with twelve combinations of voices. In his five-part
Masses and single movements we find eight combinations, and his
six-part Masses and single movements show eleven. And when he writes
in eight parts for a double chorus the two groups are seldom
identical.
2. _18th Century._--17th-century instrumentation may be neglected here
as having begun in chaos and ended in the schemes of the 18th-century
decorative instrumentation. The following is Bach's fullest orchestra:
the string-band, consisting (as at the present day) of violins in two
parts, violas, violoncellos, doubled (where the contrary is not
indicated) by double basses; the wind instruments (generally one to
each part, as the string-band was never large)--2 flutes, 2 or 3
oboes, or _oboe d' amore_ (a lower-pitched and gentler type), _taille_
or _oboe da caccia_ (some kind of alto oboe corresponding to the cor
anglais), bassoon, generally doubling the string basses, 2 horns, with
parts needing much greater practice in high notes than is customary
to-day, 3 (occasionally 4) trumpets, of which at least the first 2
were played by players especially trained to produce much higher notes
than are compatible with the power to produce the lower notes (the
high players were called _Clarin-Blaser_; and the others
_Principal-Blaser_); a pair of kettle-drums, tuned to the tonic and
dominant of the piece.
Handel's orchestra is less detailed. He does not seem to have found
any English trumpeters capable of playing as high parts as those of
the German _Clarin-Blaser_, and his plan seems generally to get as
many oboes and bassoons as could be procured to double the top and
bottom of his string-band. But his definite orchestral effects in
certain places (e.g. "He led them forth like sheep," in _Israel in
Egypt_, and the music of the _Witch of Endor_, and the appearance of
Samuel's spirit in Saul) are as modern as Gluck's.
3. _Symphonic Orchestration._--Mozart's full symphonic scheme requires
the string-band, 1 flute (rarely 2), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets (whenever he
could obtain them, he being the first composer who really appreciated
them, instead of regarding them either as cheap substitutes for the
_clarino_ or high trumpet of Bach, or, like Gluck and, with rare and
late exceptions, Haydn, as merely adding to the force of _tutti_
passages). Further, 2 horns, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets and a pair of
kettle-drums.
Mozart imports from church music 3 trombones for special passages in
his operas.
Beethoven almost always has 2 flutes, and invariably 2 clarinets. In
his 5th symphony he introduced 3 trombones and extended both the upper
and lower extremes of the wind-band by a piccolo and a double bassoon.
"Turkish music," i.e. the big drum, cymbals and triangle, was used by
Haydn in his _Military Symphony_, and Mozart in his _Entfuhrung_, for
reasons of "local colour"; it appears as an extreme means of climax in
the finale of Beethoven's 9th symphony.
4. _Wagner's Orchestra: Tristan und Isolde._--(Families of instruments
are connected by a brace.)
Strings: as usual, but subject to minutely complex grouping.
3 flutes (3rd to play piccolo when required).
/ 2 oboes.
| 1 cor anglais.
| 3 bassoons.
| 2 clarinets.
\ 1 bass clarinet.
4 horns. (The mechanical improvements by which horns and
trumpets acquired a complete scale have revolutionized the
nature of those instruments; and Wagner's orchestration, more
than that of any other composer, has profited by this. Yet, in
the preface to the score Wagner speaks very strongly of the
loss of the original character of the horn in the hands of
ordinary players; and goes so far as to say that, if experience
had not shown that they could be trained to play _nearly_ as
smoothly as the classical players, he would have renounced all
the advantages of the new mechanism.)
3 trumpets.
3 trombones.
1 tuba.
2 or, for safety in tuning, 3 kettle-drums.
Triangle and cymbals.
1 harp (multiplied _quant. suf._).
In _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ Wagner specifies the proportions of the
string-band as 16 first and 16 second violins, 12 violas, 12
violoncellos, 8 double basses. The rest of the orchestra consists of--
Piccolo and 3 flutes.
/ 3 oboes and cor anglais, or 4th oboe.
\ 3 bassoons, or 2 and contra-fagotto.
3 clarinets and 1 bass clarinet.
8 horns, 4 of whom are also required to play 4 specially
constructed tenor and bass tubas.
1 ordinary (double-bass) tuba.
/ 3 trumpets.
\ 1 bass trumpet. (A project of Wagner's which
instrument-makers found impracticable, so that Wagner had to
content himself with a kind of valve trombone shaped like a
trumpet.)
3 trombones and 1 double-bass trombone.
2 pairs of kettle-drums.
/ Triangle.
| Cymbals.
| Big drum.
\ Gong.
6 harps.
5. _Chamber-music._--Bach's and his contemporaries' combinations with
the harpsichord show the natural fondness, in his day, for instruments
of a tone too gentle for prominent use in large rooms, or indeed for
survival in modern times. Thus there was quite as much important solo
music for the flute as for the violin; and almost more music for the
viola da gamba than for the violoncello. A frequent combination was
flute, violin and harpsichord (very probably with a violoncello
doubling the bass), and in more than one case the violin was partly
tuned lower to soften its tone.
Classical and modern chamber-music in the sonata style consists mainly
of string-quartets for 2 violins, viola and violoncello; string-trios
(rare, because very difficult to write sonorously); pianoforte-trios
(pianoforte, violin and violoncello); pianoforte-quartets (pianoforte
with string-trio); pianoforte-quintets (pianoforte with
string-quartet); string-quintets (with 2 violas, very rarely with 2
violoncellos), and (in two important cases by Brahms) string-sextets.
Larger combinations, being semi-orchestral, especially where the
double-bass and wind instruments are used, lend themselves to a
somewhat lighter style; thus Beethoven's septet and Schubert's octet
are both in the nature of a very large serenade.
Wind instruments produce very special effects in chamber-music, and
need an exceedingly adroit technique on the part of the composer.
Magnificent examples are Mozart's trio for pianoforte, clarinet and
viola, his quintet for pianoforte, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon
(imitated by Beethoven), his quintet for clarinet and strings,
Brahms's clarinet-quintet for the same combination, and his trio for
pianoforte, violin and horn. (D. F. T.)
INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT, the name given to the decree, or written
constitution, under which Oliver Cromwell as "lord protector of the
commonwealth" governed England, Scotland and Ireland from December 1653
to May 1657.
The Long Parliament was expelled in April 1653 and the council of state
dissolved; the Little, or Nominated, parliament which followed ended its
existence by abdication; and Cromwell, officially lord general of the
army, with a new council of state, remained the only recognized
authority in the country. It was in these circumstances that the
Instrument of Government, drawn up by some officers in the army,
prominent among whom was John Lambert, was brought forward. The document
appears to have been under consideration since the middle of October
1653, but Ludlow says it was "in a clandestine manner carried on and
huddled up by two or three persons," a remark probably very near the
truth. The nominated parliament abdicated on the 12th of December 1653,
and after certain emendations the Instrument was accepted by Cromwell on
the 16th. Consisting of forty-two articles, the Instrument placed the
legislative power in the hands of "one person, and the people assembled
in parliament"; the executive power was left to the lord protector,
whose office was to be elective and not hereditary, and a council of
state numbering from thirteen to twenty-one members. The councillors
were appointed for life; fifteen were named in the Instrument itself;
and Cromwell and the council were empowered to add six. To fill
vacancies parliament must name six persons, of whom the council would
select two, the choice between these two being left to the protector. A
parliament was to meet on the 3rd of September 1654, and until that date
the protector with the consent of the council could make ordinances
which would have the force of laws. After the meeting of parliament,
however, he had no power of legislation, nor had he any veto upon its
acts, the utmost he could do being to delay new legislation for twenty
days. A new parliament must be called "once in every third year,"
elaborate arrangements being made to prevent any failure in this
respect, and for five months it could not be dissolved save with its own
consent. The parliament, composed of a single chamber, was to consist of
460 members--400 for England and Wales, and 30 each for Scotland and
Ireland--and the representative system was entirely remodelled, growing
towns sending members for the first time, and many small boroughs being
disfranchised. A large majority of the English members, 265 out of 400,
were to be elected by the counties, where voters must possess land or
personal property of the value of L200, while in the boroughs the
franchise remained unaltered. In Scotland and Ireland the arrangement of
the representation was left to the protector and the council. Roman
Catholics and all concerned in the Irish rebellion were permanently
disfranchised and declared incapable of sitting in parliament, and those
who had taken part in the war against the parliament were condemned to a
similar disability during the first four parliaments. The protector was
empowered to raise a revenue of L200,000 in addition to a sum sufficient
to maintain the navy and an army of 30,000 men, and religious liberty
was granted "provided this liberty be not extended to Popery or
Prelacy." The chief officers of state were to be chosen with the consent
of parliament, and a parliament must be summoned at once in case of war.
The practical effect of the Instrument was to entrust the government of
the three countries to the parliament for five months out of every three
years, and to the protector and the council for the remainder of the
time. Although the Instrument bristled with possibilities of difference
between parliament and protector, "it is impossible," as Gardiner says,
"not to be struck with the ability of its framers."
Having issued many ordinances and governed in accordance with the terms
of the Instrument, Cromwell duly met parliament on the 3rd of September,
and on the following day he urged the members to give it the force of a
parliamentary enactment. Many representatives objected to the provision
placing the supreme power in the hands of a single person and of
parliament, a discussion which was futile, as clause XII. of the
Instrument declared that "the persons elected shall not have power to
alter the government as it is hereby settled in one single person and a
parliament." The proceedings were soon stopped by Cromwell, who on the
12th of September explained that there was a difference between
"fundamentals" which they might not, and "circumstantials" which they
might, alter. He concluded by stating that they would be excluded unless
they subscribed a recognition to be true to the protector and the
commonwealth, and to respect the terms of clause XII. Over three hundred
members took the required step; but they proceeded to alter the
Instrument in other ways, and over the question of the control of the
army they were soon in sharp conflict with the protector. At length, on
the 22nd of January 1655, Cromwell, counting twenty weeks as five
months, dissolved parliament.
Regarding the Instrument as still in force the protector sought for a
time to rule in accordance with its provisions; but new difficulties and
growing discontent forced him to govern in a more arbitrary fashion.
However, in July 1656 he issued writs for a second parliament which met
in the following September. Many members, men of advanced views, were
excluded by the council of state, acting on the strength of clause
XVII., which declared that those elected must be "persons of known
integrity, fearing God, and of good conversation." The remainder
discussed the question of the future government of the country, and in
May 1657 Cromwell assented to the Humble Petition and Advice, which
supplanted the Instrument of Government. Gardiner says the Instrument
was "the first of hundreds of written constitutions which have since
spread over the world, of which the American is the most conspicuous
example, in which a barrier is set up against the entire predominance of
any one set of official persons, by attributing strictly limited
functions to each."
The text of the Instrument is printed in S. R. Gardiner's
_Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution_ (Oxford, 1899).
See also S. R. Gardiner, _History of the Commonwealth and
Protectorate_, vols. ii. and iii. (London, 1897-1901); L. von Ranke,
_Englische Geschichte_ (1859-1868); and T. Carlyle, _Cromwell's
Letters and Speeches_ (London, 1897-1901). (A. W. H.*)
INSUBRES ([Greek: Isombres, Insoubroi]), a Celtic people of upper Italy,
the most powerful in Gallia Transpadana, inhabiting the country between
the Adda, the Ticinus and the Alps. According to Livy (v. 34) they
appear to have been a branch of the Aedui in Gallia Transalpina, though
others assume that they were Umbrians, a view to some extent supported
by the form Is-ombr-es. Livy states that Bellovesus and his Gauls,
having crossed the Alps and defeated the Etruscans near the Ticinus,
found themselves in the territory of the Insubres (also the name of a
_pagus_ of the Aedui). Here they built a city and called it Mediolanum
(Milan), after the name of a village in their home in Gallia
Transalpina. The name Insubres thus appears applied to the inhabitants
(1) of the Aeduan _pagus_, (2) of the territory in Gallia Transpadana
occupied by Bellovesus, (3) to the founders of Mediolanum. From 222 to
195 B.C. the Insubres were frequently at war with the Romans. In 222
they were defeated at Clastidium by M. Claudius Marcellus, who gained
the _spolia opima_ by slaying with his own hand their king Viridomarus
(Virdumarus), and in 194 they were finally subdued by L. Valerius
Flaccus.
See H. Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_ (1902) ii. 179; A. Holder,
_Altkeltischer Sprachschatz_, ii. (1904).
INSURANCE, a term meaning generally "making oneself safe against"
something, but specially used in connexion with making financial
provision against certain risks in the business of life. The terms
Assurance and Insurance are in ordinary usage synonymous, but in the
profession "assurance" is confined to the "life" business, and
"insurance" to fire, marine and other miscellaneous risks. Assurance was
the earlier term, and was used of all forms of insurance
indiscriminately till the end of the 16th century. Insurance--in its
earlier form, "ensurance"--was first applied to fire risks (see note
_s.v._ "Insurance" in the _New English Dictionary_).