Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 1.djvu/292

280 Museum. There are besides many masses and motets in other editions of Petrucci's, and MSS. exist in the royal library at Munich as well as in the pontifical chapel. [ J. R. S. B. ]

BRUNETTI,, a violin-player and composer, was born at Pisa in 1753. He was a pupil first of his father, an able musician, and afterwards of the celebrated Nardini at Florence, whose style of playing and composing he adopted with considerable success. The greater part of his life he spent at Madrid, attached to the court of the Prince of Asturias, afterwards Charles IV. Here he came into close connection with Boccherini, then at the height of his fame as a performer and composer, and appears gradually to have superseded that artist in the favour of the court and the public. With the symphonies, serenades, and other instrumental works which he wrote for the King and the Duke of Alba he was eminently successful. They appear to be very much in the style of Boccherini; but on the whole inferior to the works of that master. Brunetti died at Madrid in 1808. His numerous compositions—published at Paris—consist of symphonies, serenades, sextets, quintets, and violin-duets. Over 200 works of his remain in MS. [ P. D. ]

BRUNI,, a violinist and composer, born at Coni in Piedmont in 1759 [App. p. 567 "Feb. 2"]. He was a pupil of Pugnani, and lived from 1771 at Paris, first as orchestral player at the Italian Opera, and afterwards as conductor of the Opéra Comique. He wrote sixteen operas, some of which achieved considerable success, although now entirely forgotten.

For the violin he wrote four sets of sonatas, several concertos, ten quartets, and twenty-eight sets of violin duets, the latter well known to professors as useful pieces for teaching purposes, also a 'Methode de Violon,' and a 'Methode pour l'Alto-viola.' He died in 1823. [ P. D. ]

BRUNI,, an Italian primo uomo who was singing at Florence in the winter of 1784. In 1793 he sang in London. He improved in voice and style, but was still weak, when compared with his predecessors. He distantly recalled Rubinelli. [ J. M. ]

BUGLE (Eng. and Fr.; Germ. Flügelhorn, Ital. Tromba). A treble instrument of brass or copper, differing from the trumpet in having a shorter and more conical tube, with a less expanded bell. It is played with a cupped mouthpiece. In its original form the bugle is the signal horn for the infantry, as the trumpet is for the cavalry, and it is usually tuned in C, with an extra B&#x266d; crook, or in E&#x266d;. Only five sounds are required for the various calls and signals. These are the intermediate open notes of the tube, from C below the treble stave to G above it. Eight sounds however can in all be obtained, by the addition of the B&#x266d; and C above high G, and the octave of the lowest C, which though feeble and of poor tone is the real fundamental note. With these additions the entire compass is as follows:—

Two methods have been adopted for bridging over the gaps between the open notes of this instrument, viz. keys and valves. The key-bugle, called also the 'Kent bugle' and 'Regent's bugle,' which was extremely popular some forty years ago, has been entirely superseded by the valve system. No doubt the latter, as in the cornet and euphonium, preserves the whole length of tube for the higher notes, and thus gains power and fulness; but it is a question whether the keyed instrument does not produce more accurate intonation and a tenderer quality of tone. This however is a matter to which English bandmasters seem perfectly indifferent, although the Flügelhorn and the key-bugle are still to be heard with effect in the superb bands of Austria.

In the ordinary bugle valves are often added as an attachment, of which the bugle itself becomes the bell. [ W. H. S. ]

BÜLOW,, born Jan. 8, 1830, at Dresden. The foremost pianist of that most advanced school of pianoforte playing, founded by Chopin and developed by Liszt. A first-rate conductor, and a musician whose technical attainments and complete knowledge of the art from its germs to its very latest development can be rivalled by few contemporaries and surpassed by none. As a pianist his repertoire comprehends the master-works of all styles and schools, from the early Italians to the present day; it would in fact be difficult to mention a work of any importance by any composer for the pianoforte which he has not played in public, and by heart. His prodigious musical memory has enabled him also as a conductor to perform feats which have never before been attempted, and will in all likelihood not be imitated. The distinctive peculiarity of both his playing and conducting may be set down as a passionate intellectuality. One notices at every step that all details have been thought about and mastered down to the minutest particle; one feels that all effects have been analysed and calculated with the utmost subtlety, and yet the whole leaves an impression of warm spontaneity. This is the highest praise which can be awarded to an executant. It does not, perhaps, apply to all of Bülow's appearances in public, but it applies strictly to his performances at their best; and it is but bare justice to measure the achievements of a great artist as one measures a mountain chain, by the peaks rather than by the valleys. The analytical and reconstructive powers just emphasised render his editions of classical pianoforte works, such as those of Beethoven's sonatas, variations, and bagatelles, from op. 53 upwards, of Cramer's studies, of selections from Sebastian and Emanuel Bach, from Handel, Scarlatti, etc.—in which he has indicated the most refined phrasing and 