Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/755

PARRY.  for piano in D minor; Partita for piano and violin in D minor; Trio for PF. and strings in B minor; Quintet for strings in E&#x266d;; two sets of 'Characteristic popular tunes of the British Isles,' arranged for PF. duet; two sets of English Lyrics, and one set of Shakespearean sonnets (songs); Choral Ode, set to Shirley's words, 'The glories of our blood and state,' from 'The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses,' Gloucester Festival, 1883; Do. 'Blest Pair of Sirens' (Milton) Bach Choir, May 17, 1887, and Hereford Festival, 1888; and Oratorio 'Judith,' Birmingham Festival, 1888. Director of R.C.M. née Grove, 1895. Knighted, Easter, 1898. [ M. ]

PARSIFAL. Add that the first performance took place at Bayreuth, July 30, 1882. On Nov. 10 and 15, 1884, it was performed as a concert under Mr. Barnby's direction at the Albert Hall, with Malten, Gudehus, and Scaria in the principal parts.

PART-BOOKS. The Polyphonic Composers of the 15th and 16th centuries very rarely presented their works to the reader in Score. Proske, indeed, tells us that examples are sometimes to be met with, both in MS. and in print, of the genuine Partitura cancellata—i.e. the true barred Score, as opposed to the semblance of a Score resulting from Hucbald's method of writing between an unlimited number of horizontal lines, or the early practice of employing, as in the Reading MS., a single Stave comprehending lines and spaces enough to include the aggregate compass of an entire composition. Moreover, the English Student will scarcely need to be reminded that our own Morley has given examples, in genuine Score, at pp. 131–142, and many other places of his 'Plaine and Easie Introduction.' But examples of this kind are the exceptions which prove the rule; since, usually, the Polyphonists preferred to issue their works in the separate Parts, and generally, in separate volumes, well known to students of mediaeval Music as 'the old Part-Books.'

Of these Part-Books, the greater number may be divided into three distinct classes.

In the first class—that of the true representative Part-Book—each Vocal-Part was transcribed, or printed, in a separate volume.

In the second class, the Parts were indeed transcribed, or printed, separately; but, in the form called, in early times, Cantus lateralis: i.e. side by side, and one above the other, in such a manner that the whole number of Parts could be seen, at one view, on the double pages of the open book, and that all the performers could sing, at once, from a single copy of the work.

In the third class, the plan employed was that known in Germany as Tafel-Musik; the Parts being arranged side-ways and upside-down, so that four performers, seated at the four sides of the little table on which the open book was placed, could each read their own Parts the right way upwards.

The most famous, and, with one exception only, by far the most perfect and beautiful specimens of the first class are those published, at Venice and Fossombrone, at the beginning of the 16th century, by Ottaviano dei Petrucci, the inventor of the art of printing Music from moveable types. Of these now exceedingly rare and costly Part-Books, more than fifty volumes have been catalogued, since the time of Conrad Gesner, who, however, in his 'Pandecta' mentions some few which cannot now be identified. Many of these are now known only by an unique exemplar, which, in some few cases, is imperfect. A rich assortment of these treasures is preserved at the Liceo Comunale at Bologna; and most of the remainder are divided between the Libraries of Vienna, Munich, and the British Museum—the last-named collection boasting eleven volumes, comprising ten complete and two imperfect sets of Parts. In the following complete list of Petrucci's publications, as far as they are now known, those in the British Museum are indicated by an asterisk, and those at Bologna, Munich, Vienna, Rome, and Berlin, by the letters B, M, V, R, and Ber.

The execution of these rare Part-Books is above all praise. The perfection of their typography would have rendered them precious to