Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 1.djvu/544

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532 FLIGHT.

FLAGEOLET.

Flageolet as on the first.' From the examples it appears that in this case the two instruments play in thirds; intervals larger than this being possible in a few cases. The two tubes are set in a single block and blown by one mouthpiece. Contrivances were added for silencing one of the two pipes when required, but they seem to have been often blown in unison to a single note. The instrument, though still within the memory of some, has entirely and most deservedly gone out of use. No music of importance seems to have been composed for it.

The single English and French Flageolets are still to be met with, chiefly in dance music. The former has been described as a simple form of Flute à bec. The latter is a far more complicated instrument, possessing two holes for the thumbs at the back and four in front for the two first fingers of the two hands. Indeed it is distinctly a descendant of the old Flageolet given above. The half-stopping of the left hand thumb-hole by means of a grooved plate for the thumb-nail, and the introduction of the tip of the right little finger into the small everted bell at the bottom of the instrument, are devices peculiar to this difficult but rather ineffective instrument. Its compass is two octaves and three semitones from G on the treble stave. A full Method is published by Bousquet.

The Flageolet is never found in orchestral scores, but there is a tradition of some authority that the solo part in 'O ruddier than the cherry,' marked in the score as 'Flauto,' was played in Handel's time on the flageolet; and Mr. Sullivan has introduced it with excellent effect in the part of Dr. Daly in his 'Sorcerer.'

[ W. H. S. ]

FLAMAND-GRÉTRY, Louis Victor, born 1764, married the niece of Grétry, and bought 'l'Ermitage,' near Montmorency, long the alternate residence of Rousseau and Grétry, and the burial place of the latter. An offer he made, but subsequently withdrew, of presenting Grétry's heart to Liége, the native place of the composer, involved him in a long and ruinous lawsuit, which finally went against him. He died in Paris, July 1843.

[ M. C. C. ]

FLAT. A term employed in the sense of lowering; an artist sings or plays flat when his notes are below the right pitch. B flat is a semitone lower than B, E flat than E, and so on; to 'flatten' (baisser) a sound or an instrument is to make it lower than before, just as to 'sharpen' it is to raise it. The sign used to denote this flattening in music is ♭, called a flat—Fr. bémol; Ital. Bemolle; Germ. Be. It has been already shown under Accidentals and B (p. 19a and 107) how the signs of the flat (♭) and natural (♮) were derived from two forms of the letter b. A double flat is a descent of two semitones, and is marked by ♭♭. The flat of a note is not the same pitch (does not give the same number of vibrations) as the sharp of the note a tone below it, though on a keyed instrument the two are represented by the same black key; nor are B and E the same as C♭ and F♭—and so on. This will be explained under Interval.

In German musical nomenclature the notes are flattened by adding es to the letter, as Es, Des, Ges, etc., A flat is As, and B flat B, though Hes has been used. Double flats are Deses, etc. The ♭ and ♯ in German literature were formerly used to express minor and major, as G♭ for G minor, D♯ for D major, and even E♭ for E minor, and As♯ for A flat major. (See the earlier Indexes of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung for frequent instances of this strange usage.) Such ambiguities are now avoided by the use of the words dur and moll for major and minor.

[ G. ]

FLAT FIFTH is an interval which is less by one semitone than a perfect fifth, and is dissonant.

FLAUTO TRAVERSO (Ital.; Fr. Flute traversière). The distinguishing name of the Flute with a lateral mouthpiece, held across the performer, as opposed to the Flute à bec or Flageolet, held straight in front. [Flute.]

[ W. H. S. ]

FLEMING, Alexander, minister of the Scotch Church, author of two small treatises in favour of the introduction of organs into Scotch churches (Glasgow 1808), the first suggestion of the kind since the Reformation.

[ M. C. C. ]

FLIEGENDE HOLLÄNDER, DER. Opera in 3 acts, words and music by Richard Wagner; produced at Dresden, Jan. 2, 1843. In London at Drury Lane, as L'Ollandese dannato, July 23, 1870; and by Carl Rosa, as the Flying Dutchman, at the Lyceum, Oct. 1876; at Covent Garden as Il Vascello fantasma, June 16, 77.

The words were sold by Wagner to the manager of the Grand Opéra in 1841, set by Dietsch as Le Vaisseau fantôme, and brought out there Nov. 9, 1842.

[ G. ]

FLIGHT, Benjamin, an eminent organ builder, born about 1767, was the son of Benjamin Flight, who, in the latter part of the last century, carried on, in partnership with John Kelly, under the style of 'Flight and Kelly,' the business of organ building at Exeter Change. Young Flight learned the art of constructing organs from his father. About the year 1800 he commenced business, in partnership with Joseph Robson, in Lisle Street, Leicester Square, under the style of 'Flight and Robson.' They afterwards removed to St. Martin's Lane, where they constructed and for many years publicly exhibited the Apollonicon. [See Apollonicon.] The partnership was dissolved in 1832, after which Flight, in conjunction with his son, J. Flight, who had long actively assisted him, carried on business in St. Martin's Lane, as 'Flight and Son.' [App. p.636 "Messrs. Gray & Davison bought Robson's share of the business after the dissolution of the partnership."] Flight invented many improvements in organ building which prepared the way for still superior mechanism. Amongst them was an apparatus for steadying the wind, added to the bellows during a reparation of Father Schmidt's organ at Trinity College, Cambridge, which preceded, and possibly suggested, the concussion bellows. B. Flight died