Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/24

8 greatest brilliancy, not only for his unmatched powers as an organist, but also for his skill, fancy, and charming versatility on the clavicymbel. The town bought him for public service a new 'clavecimpbel' from Antwerp at a cost of 200 gulden; and the instrument seems to have travelled with him all over the country.

What was published however by Sweelinck in his life-time was entirely vocal music, and includes—besides occasional canons, marriage-songs, etc., his 'Chansons françaises' (3 parts, Antwerp, 1592–4), 'Rimes françaises et italiennes' (Leyden 1612), and the great collections of sacred music on which, with his organ works, his fame chiefly rests. These are the 'Pseaumes mis en musique' for 4–8 voices (published in several editions at Leyden, Amsterdam, and Berlin), and the 'Cantiones Sacrae' (Antwerp 1619). A Regina Cœli from the latter, 3 Chansons, and 8 Psalms in 6 parts have been lately reprinted, in organ-score, by the Association for the History of Dutch Music (pts. i, v, vii, and vi; Utrecht and Amsterdam, 1869–1877); which has also published for the first time seven of Sweelinck's organ works (pt. iii.) [.]

The psalms make an interesting link between the tranquillity of the old polyphonists and the rhythm of modern music. Formally they stand nearest to the earlier style, but the strictness of their counterpoint, the abundance of imitation and fugue in them, does not hinder a general freedom of effect, very pure and full of melody, to a greater degree than is common in works of the time. The organ pieces are also historically of signal importance. Though they may not justify the claim made for Sweelinck as 'the founder of instrumental music,' they at all events present the first known example of an independent use of the pedal (entrusting it with a real part in a fugue), if not with the first example of a completely developed organ-fugue.

It is as an organist and the founder of a school of organists that Sweelinck had most influence, an influence which made itself felt through the whole length of northern Germany. In the next generation nearly all the leading organists there had been his scholars: his learning and method were carried by them from Hamburg to Danzig. His pupil Scheidemann handed down the tradition to the great Reincke —himself a Dutchman—from whom, if we accept a statement supported alike by unanimous testimony and by exhaustive analysis of their works, it turned to find its consummation in Sebastian Bach. [ R. L. P. ]

SWELL (HARPSICHORD). The desire for a power of increase and decrease on keyboard instruments like the harpsichord and organ, so as to emulate the bow instruments, and even the human voice, in that flow and ebb which are at the foundation of form no less than of expression, has led to the contrivance of mechanical swells as the only possible approach to it. A swell was first attempted on the Organ; the harpsichord swell was introduced by Robert Plenius in a sostenente variety of the instrument, named by him 'Lyrichord,' and is described (in 1755) as the raising of a portion of the lid or cover of the instrument by means of a pedal. Kirkman adopted this very simple swell, and we find it also in many small square pianos of the last century. About 1765 Shudi introduced the Venetian swell, and patented it in 1769. This beautiful piece of joinery is a framing of louvres which open or close gradually by means of a pedal (the right foot one) and thus cause a swell, which may be as gradual as the performer pleases. Shudi bequeathed this patent to John Broadwood, who inherited it on the death of Shudi in 1773. When the patent expired, Kirkman and others adopted it, and it was fitted to many old harpsichords, and even to pianos, but was soon proved unnecessary in an instrument where power of nuance was the very first principle.

The English organ-builders perceived the great advantage of Shudi's Venetian swell over the rude contrivance they had been using [see, vol. ii. p. 596a], and it became generally adopted for organs, and has since been constantly retained in them as an important means of effect. [ A. J. H. ]

SWELL-ORGAN. The clavier or manual of an organ which acts upon pipes enclosed in a box, such box having shutters, by the opening of which, by means of a pedal, a crescendo is produced. The shutters are made to fold over each other like the woodwork of a venetian blind, hence the expressions 'Venetian Swell' and 'Venetian Shutters' sometimes found in specifications. To the swell-organ a larger number of reed-stops is assigned than to other manuals. [App. p.797 "The sentence in lines 5–8 of article is to be corrected, as the Venetian Swell was not named from the Venetian blind, but the Venetian blind so called because it was worked on the same principle as the harpsichord swell."]

The first attempt at a 'swelling organ' was made by Jordan in 1712. The crescendo was obtained by raising one large sliding shutter which formed the front of the box. The early swell-organs were of very limited compass, sometimes only from middle C upwards, but more generally taken a fourth lower, namely, to fiddle G. For many years the compass did not extend below Tenor C, and even now attempts are sometimes made to reduce the cost of an organ by limiting the downward compass of the Swell; but in all instruments with any pretension to completeness the Swell manual is made to CC, coextensive with the Great and Choir. [See, vol. ii. p. 596, etc.; also 604.] [ J. S. ]

SWERT, DE,. An eminent violon-cellist, born Aug. 16, 1843, at Louvain, where his father was Capellmeister at the Cathedral. He was grounded in the cello and in music by his father, and afterwards took lessons from Servais in preparation for the Brussels 