Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/87

is literal. The music ends at ten, the company go at twelve.' This practice caused the concert to be commenced at a later hour than before. In 1790 a representation of Mount Ætna in eruption, with the Cyclops at work in the centre of the mountain, and the lava pouring down its side, was exhibited. The mountain was 80 feet high. In 1793 the Chevalier d'Eon fenced in public with a French professor, and about the same time regattas on the Thames in connection with the place were established. In 1802 the Installation Ball of the Knights of the Bath was given at Ranelagh, and also a magnificent entertainment by the Spanish Ambassador. These were the last occurrences of any importance; the fortunes of the place had long been languishing, and it opened for the last time July 8, 1803. On Sept. 30, 1805, the proprietors gave directions for taking down the house and rotunda; the furniture was soon after sold by auction, and the buildings removed. The organ was placed in Tetbury Church, Gloucestershire. No traces of Ranelagh remain: the site now forms part of Chelsea Hospital garden.

[ W. H. H. ]

RANK. A rank of organ-pipes is one complete series or set, of the same quality of tone and kind of construction from the largest to the smallest, controlled by one draw-stop, acting on one slider. If the combined movement of drawstop and slider admits air to two or more such series of pipes, an organ-stop is said to be of two or more ranks, as the case may be. Occasionally the twelfth and fifteenth, or fifteenth and twenty-second, are thus united, forming a stop of two ranks; but, as a rule, only those stops whose tones are reinforcements of some of the higher upper-partials of the ground-tone are made to consist of several ranks, such as the Sesquialtera, Mixture, Furniture, etc. These stops have usually from three to five ranks each, reinforcing (according to their special disposition) the ground-tone by the addition of its 17th, 19th, 22nd, 24th, 26th, 29th, that is, of its 3rd, 5th, and 8th in the third and fourth octave above. [See Sesquialtera.]

[ J. S. ]

RANSFORD, Edwin, baritone vocalist, songwriter, and composer, born March 13, 1805, at Bourton- on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, died in London July 11, 1876. He first appeared on the stage as an 'extra' in the opera chorus at the King's Theatre, Haymarket, and was afterwards engaged in that of Covent Garden Theatre. During Mr. Charles Kemble's management of that theatre he made his first appearance as Don Cæsar in 'The Castle of Andalusia,' on May 27, 1829, and was engaged soon afterwards by Mr. Arnold for the English Opera House (now the Lyceum). In the autumn of 1829, and in 1830, he was at Covent Garden. In 1831 he played leading characters under Elliston at the Surrey Theatre, and became a general favourite. In 1832 he was with Joe Grimaldi at Sadler's Wells playing Tom Truck, in Campbell's nautical drama 'The Battle of Trafalgar,' in which he made a great hit with Neukomm's song of 'The Sea.' At this theatre he sustained the part of Captain Cannonade in Barnett's opera 'The Pet of the Petticoats.' He afterwards fulfilled important engagements at Drury Lane, the Lyceum, and Dovent Garden. At Covent Garden he played the Doge of Venice in 'Othello,' March 25, 1833, when Edmund Kean last appeared on the stage, and Sir Harry in 'The School for Scandal' on Charles Kemble's last appearance as Charles Surface. His final theatrical engagement was with Macready at Covent Garden in 1837–38. He wrote the words of many songs, his best being perhaps 'In thedays when we went gipsying.' In later years his entertainments, 'Gipsy Life,' 'Tales of the Sea,' and 'Songs of Dibdin,' etc., became deservedly popular. As a genial bon camarade he was universally liked.

[ W. H. ]

RANZ DES VACHES, (Kuhreihen, Kuhreiqen; Appenzell patois Chücreiha), a strain of an irregular description, which in some parts of Switzerland is sung or blown on the Alpine horn in June, to call the cattle from the valleys to the higher pastures. Several derivations have been suggested for the words ranz and reihen or reigen. Ranz has been translated by the English 'rant,' and the French 'rondeau,' and has been derived from the Keltic root 'renk' or 'rank,' which may also be the derivation of reihen, in which case both words would mean the 'procession, or march, of the cows.' Stalder ('Schweizerisches Idiotikon') thinks that reihen means 'to reach,' or 'fetch,' while other authorities say that the word is the same as reigen (a dance accompanied by singing), and derive ranz from the Swiss patois 'ranner,' to rejoice.

The Ranz des Vaches are very numerous, and differ both in music and words in the different cantons. They are extremely irregular in character, full of long cadences and abrupt changes of tempo. It is a curious fact that they are seldom strictly in tune, more particularly when played on the Alpine horn, an instrument in which, like the Bagpipe, the note represented by F is really an extra note between F and F♯. This note is very characteristic of the Ranz des Vaches; passages like the following being repeated and varied almost ad infinitum.

^[1]

Though of little musical value, a fictitious interest has been long attached to the Ranz des Vaches owing to the surroundings in which they are generally heard. Sung to a pianoforte accompaniment in a concert-room, they would sound little better than a string of semi-barbarous cadences, but heard at dawn or at sunset in some remote Alpine valley, and sung with the strange gradations of falsetto and chest-voice softened by distance, they possess a peculiar

1. There is a curious analogy between the above and the following strain, which is sung with infinite variations in the agricultural districts near London to frighten away the birds from the seed. In both passages the F is more nearly F♯.