great advantage. About 1725 he was appointed organist of St. Paul's, Covent Garden, and subsequently organist of Fulham Church. On May 10, 1737, he was sworn in organist of the Chapel Royal in the room of Jonathan Martin, deceased, upon which he relinquished his place at Fulham. He composed much church music: his well-known Service in F, a Te Deum in D, and two anthems were printed by Arnold, and another anthem by Page; others are in MS. in the books of the Chapel Royal. He published 'The Whole Book of Psalms for one, two, three, four and five voices, with a thorough bass for the harpsichord,' 2 vols. fol. But the work by which he is best known is his 'Eighteen Canzonets for two and three voices, the words chiefly by Matthew Prior,' which enjoyed a long career of popularity, and two of which—'Haste, my Nanette,' and 'I, my dear, was born to-day'—are still occasionally heard. An autograph MS. by him, containing 4 melodies in some of the ancient Greek modes, for 4 voices with instrumental accompaniments, the fruit, doubtless, of his association with Pepusch, is amongst Dr. Cooke's MS. collections now in the library of the Royal College of Music. Upon the death of Dr. Pepusch he became the possessor, by bequest, of one half of the Doctor's valuable library. He died 1758.
TRAVERSO (Ger. Querflöte), the present form of flute, held square or across (à travers) the performer, in distinction to the flute à bec, or flageolet with a beak or mouthpiece, which was held straight out, as the clarinet and oboe are. It came in early in the 18th century, and was called the 'German flute' by Handel and others in this country. In Bach's scores it is called Flauto traverse, Traverso, and Traversiere. [See Flute.]
TRAVIATA, LA ('The misguided one'). Opera in 3 acts; libretto by Piave, music by Verdi. Produced at Teatro Fenice, Venice, March 6, 1853; at the Théâtre Italien, Paris, Dec. 6, 1856; at Her Majesty's Theatre, London (débût of Mlle. Piccolomini), May 24, 1856; in English at Surrey Theatre, June 8, 1857. The opera was written in a single month, as is proved by the autograph in possession of Ricordi.
TREATMENT OF THE ORGAN. The organ, as the most powerful, complicated, and artificial instrument, is naturally the most difficult to manage. The pleasure of producing large volumes of sound is a snare to almost all players; the ability to use the pedals with freedom tempts many to their excessive employment; the bitter brilliance of the compound stops has a surprising fascination for some. Draw all the stops of a large organ and play the three notes in the bass stave (a).
At least one pipe speaks each note of the bunch of sounds placed over the chord. If this cacophony is the result of the simplest chord, some idea, though faint, may be formed of the effect produced by the complex combinations of modern music. Of course no sound-producing instrument is free from these overtones, but their intensity does not approach that of their artificial imitations. We have all grown up with these noises in our ears, and it would be impossible to catch a first-rate musician and make him listen for the first time to an elaborate fugue played through upon a full organ; if we could, his opinions would probably surprise us.
The reserve with which great musicians speak of the organ, and the unwillingness to write music for it (the latter, no doubt, to be accounted for partly on other grounds) are noticeable; but we meet occasionally with expressions of opinion which probably represent the unspoken judgment of many and the half-conscious feeling of more.
The mechanical soulless material of the organ. (Spitta, Life of Bach, vol. i. p. 284.)
Another day he (Mendelssohn) played on the organ at St. Catherine's Church, but I confess that even Mendelssohn's famous talent, like that of many other eminent organists, left me quite cold, though I am far from attributing this to any want in their playing. I find it immensely interesting to stand by an organist and watch the motions of his hands and feet whilst I follow on the music, but the excessive resonance in churches makes it more pain than pleasure to me to listen from below to any of those wonderful creations with their manifold intricacies and brilliant passages. (F. Hiller, 'Mendelssohn,' Transl. p. 185.)
With reference to compound stops, Berlioz says (Traité d'Instrumentation, p. 168):—
Les facteurs d'orgue et les organistes s'accordent à trouver excellent l'effet produit par cette résonnance multiple … En tout cas ce singulier precedé tendrait toujours à donner à l'orgue la resonnance harmonique qu'on cherche inutilement à éviter sur les grands pianos à queue.
In the same connexion Helmholtz (Sensations of Tone, Ellis's translation) writes:—
The latter (compound stops) are artificial imitations of the natural composition of all musical tones, each key bringing a series of pipes into action which correspond to the first three or six partial tones of the corresponding note. They can be used only to accompany congregational singing. When employed alone they produce insupportable noise and horrible confusion. But when the singing of the congregation gives overpowering force to the prime tones in the notes of the melody, the proper relation of quality of tone is restored, and the result is a powerful well-proportioned mass of sound.
It may be well then, without writing an organ tutor, which is beyond the scope of such a work as this, to give a few hints on the management of the organ.
The selection and combination of stops is a matter of considerable difficulty, partly because stops of the same name do not produce the same effect. Undoubtedly much larger use should be made of single stops. The most important stop of all—the open Diapason—is very seldom heard alone, being nearly always muffled by a stopped Diapason, and yet when used by itself it has a clear distinctive tone very pleasant to listen to. Reeds too, when good, are much brighter when unclouded by Diapason tone, and this is especially the case with a Clarinet or Cremona, though both are coupled almost always with a stopped Diapason. Organ-builders seem to have a craze on this point. The writer has often noticed that they ask for the two to be drawn together. The
