Identifier: orchestraitsinst00sing (find matches)
Title: The orchestra and its instruments
Year: 1917 (1910s)
Authors: Singleton, Esther, d. 1930
Subjects: Orchestra Musical instruments
Publisher: New York : The Symphony society of New York
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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en will scream, helaughingly said when he wrote the part. Regarding Haydns quartets we have the followingclever and humorous analysis by Stendhal: An intelligent woman said that when she hearda quartet of Haydns she fancied herself present atthe conversation of four agreeable persons. Shethought that the first violin had the air of an eloquentman of genius of middle age who supported a con-versation, the subject of which he had suggested.In the second violin she recognized a friend of thefirst, who sought by all possible means to displayhimself to advantage, seldom thought of himself andkept up the conversation rather by assenting to whatwas said by the others than by advancing any ideasof his own. The alto was a grave, learned and sen-tentious man. He supported the discourse of thefirst violin by laconic maxims, striking for their truth.The bass was a worthy old lady, rather inclined tochatter, who said nothing of much consequence, andyet was always desiring to put in a word. But she
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HAYDN By Gutenbrunn THE ORCHESTRA 201 gave an additional grace to the conversation, andwhile she was talking, the others had time to breathe.It was, however, evident that she had a secret in-clination for the alto, which she preferred to the otherinstruments. Stendhal, who knew Haydn well, also writes: You must know, my friend, that before Haydn,no man had conceived the idea of an Orchestra com-posed of eighteen kinds of instruments. He is theinventor of prestissimo, the very idea of which madethe old square toes of Vienna shudder. In music,as in everything else, we have little conception ofwhat the world was a hundred years back; the Allegro,for instance, was only an Andantino. In instrumental music Haydn has revolutionizedthe details as well as the masses. It is he who hasobliged the wind instruments to execute pianissimo. In the same way as Leonardo da Vinci sketchedin a little book which he always carried with himthe singular faces he met with, Haydn also carefullynoted down the p

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