Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/109

REGISTRATION. back again; when open it should be powerful enough to be passed on to from the great organ without a violent contrast, when the tone can be reduced gradually by closing it; the reverse proceeding being adopted in returning to the great-manual. It is possible to add stops on the great-manual in the course of playing, so as hardly to make any perceptible break, by choosing a moment when only a single note is being sounded; the addition of a stop at that moment is hardly noticed by the hearer, who only finds when the other parts come in again that the tone is more brilliant. If it be a flue-stop that is to be added, a low note is the best opportunity, as the addition of a more acute stop of that class is least felt there; if a reed is to be added, it should be drawn on a high note, as the reed tone is most prominently felt in the lower part of the scale. It should be added that it is absolutely inadmissible to delay or break the tempo to gain time for changing a stop; the player must make his opportunities without any such license.

Tolerably close imitations of orchestral effects are possible on the organ, and an immense number of 'arrangements' of this kind have been but as it is at best but an imperfect imitation, this is not a pursuit to be encouraged. On the other hand, arrangements of piano music for the organ, provided that a careful selection is made of that which is in keeping with the character of the instrument, may often be very interesting and artistically valuable, as giving to the music a larger scale and new beauties of tone and expression, and affording scope for the unfettered exercise of taste and feeling in the invention of effects suitable to the character of the music.

The foregoing remarks may, we hope, afford some answer to the question so often asked by the uninitiated, 'how do you know which stops to use?' but it must be added that a sensitive ear for delicacies of timbre is a gift of which it may be said, nascitur, non fit; and no one will acquire by mere teaching the perception which gives to each passage its most suitable tone-colouring. [ H. H. S. ]

REGONDI, of doubtful parentage, born at Geneva in 1822. His reputed father was teacher in the Gymnasium of Milan. The child to have been an infant phenomenon on guitar, and to have been sacrificed by his father, who took him to every court of Europe, excepting Madrid, before he was nine years old. He arrived in England in 1831 or 1832 [App. p770 "in June 1831"]; and Giulio seems never to have left the United Kingdom again except for two concert tours in Germany, one with Herr Lidel, the violoncello player in 1841, the other with Mad. Dulcken in 1846. On the former of these tours he played both the guitar and the melophone (whatever that may have been), and evoked enthusiastic praises from the correspondents of the A. M. Zeitung in Prague and Vienna for his extraordinary execution on both instruments, the very artistic and individual character of his performance, and the sweetness of his cantabile. The concertina was patented by Sir Charles Wheatstone in 1829 [see ], but did not come into use till Regondi took it up. He wrote two concertos for it, and a very large number of arrangements, as well as of original compositions, among which a graceful piece, 'Les Oiseaux,' was perhaps the most favourite. He also taught it largely, and at one time his name was to be seen in almost all concert programmes. He was a great friend of Molique's, who wrote for him a Concerto for the Concertina (in G) which he played with great success at the Concert of the Musical Society of London, Apr, 20, 1864. When he went abroad for his second tour, his performance and the effect which he got out of so unpromising and inartistic an instrument astonished the German critics. (See the A. M. Zeitung for 1846, p. 853.) Regondi appears to have been badly treated by his father and to have had wretched health, which carried him off on May 6, 1872. He was a fine linguist and a very attractive person. His talent was exquisite, and in better circumstances he might have been one of the really great artists. [ G. ]

REHEARSAL (Fr. Repetition, Ger. Probe). In the case of Concerts, a performance preliminary to the public one, at which each piece included in the programme is played through at least once, if in MS. to detect the errors inevitable in the parts, and in any case to study the work and discover how best to bring out the intentions of the composer, and to ensure a perfect ensemble on the part of the performers. In England, owing to many reasons, but principally to the over-occupation of the players, sufficient rehearsals are seldom given to orchestral works. The old rule of the Philharmonic Society (now happily to be altered) was to have one rehearsal on Saturday morning for the performance on Monday evening, and this perhaps set the example. Unless the music is familiar to the players this is not enough. No new works can be efficiently performed with less than two rehearsals; and in the case of large, intricate, and vocal works, many more are requisite. We have it on record that Beethoven's E♭ Quartet, op. 127, was rehearsed seventeen times before its first performance; the players therefore must have arrived at that state of familiarity and certainty which a solo player attains with a concerto or sonata.

An ingenious method of adding to the attraction of a series of concerts has been sometimes adopted in England of late years by making the rehearsals public; but a rehearsal in face of a large well-dressed audience, unless the conductor and performers are above ordinary human weaknesses, is no rehearsal in the true sense of the word, and can be of little or no avail for the efficient performance of the music.

In the case of Operas, every practice of either chorus, principals, or orchestra, separately or together, is termed a rehearsal. These will sometimes continue every day for six weeks or two months, as the whole of the voice-music, dialogue, and action has to be learnt by heart. Whilst the chorus is learning the music in one part of the theatre, the principals are probably at work with