Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/764

* INSTITUTO HISTORICO. 676 INSTRUMENTATION. INSTITUTO HISTORICO E GEOGRA- PHICO BHAZILEIRO, .nsK-t.-To'tA e>l..'i,- kA fi ja'«i-gia'fi^-kA brii'zo-lya'rd (Port., Brazilian Historical and Geograpliioal Institute). A so- ciety founded at Uio de Janeiro in 1839. Its organ, the JCctista Trimcnsal, is devoted to the publication of historical and geographical docu- ments. INSTRUMENT (Lat. instrumcntum, tool, from iiixlnun. to construct, from in, in -|- struviv, to build). A term of law to describe any formal written or printed document by which legal rights are created. Thus a deed of con- veyance, a last will and testament, a memo- randum of agreement, a promissory note, a bill of lading, a bond, a mortgage, are all legal in- struments: but the term is not properly ap- plicable to r.n entry in a book of account, or to a niemorai'iluin made for the sake of evidence or for jicrpctuating testimony. INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC. A term applied to music pcrldinud exclusively on instruments, as distinguisheil from tli.it ])erfornicd by voices, or even voices with instrumental accompaniment. Even in ancient Greece purely instrumental nuisic was known. In the si.xth century n.c. Sacadas of Argos is said to have performed publicly on the aulas ((lute) at the Pythian Games. In the same century Agelaus of Tegea won great distinction as a perfonuer on the killmra. Hut instrumental music as performed by a numl)er of instruments was unkn(]wn. The Greek orches- tra served only to accompany the voices. Har- mony being unknown to the Greeks, such ac- companiment was flothing more than a perform- ance of the vocal part in unison or octaves upon the instruments. With the use of stringed instruments ])layed by a bow a new phase of instrumental nuisie began. The fiddle was brought over from the Orient, and soon became the instrument upon which the troubadours ac- companied their songs. It was also adopted by the wandering fiddlers {fahrende flpielleule) of the Middle Ages. The oldest compositions written expressly for instrumental performance were dances. But the style of these is entire- ly vocal. It is during the sixteenth century that the first traces of an individual instru- mental style are perceptible. It wa.s the keyed instruments wliicii contributed to a differentia- tion between the vocal and instnimental styles. As they were unable to produce sustained tones or chords, composers .soon discovered that broken chords and figuration were better adapted to "these instruments. Even in compositions for the •organ this principle was adopted; and before long the new style of figuration, and rapid note pro- .:gression, were also adopted for orchestral instru- ments. Three instruments have become promi- nent in the development of the instrumental forms, viz. the organ, violin, and pianoforte. 'The great organists took from the vocal style the fugue. The instrumentjil fugue reached its growtli in the masterpieces of .1. S. Bach, which to this ■day still are unrivaled. The violin and piano- forte developeil the sonata form, which is re- garded as the highest of all instrumental forms. The cyclical forms can be tr.iced to two main sources, viz. the old dances and the Florentine musical drama. By uniting a number of dances (all in the same kej'l the suitr originated. The •older operas were opened by an instrumental prc- llude which originally was nothing more than a madrigal arranged for instruments. But soon a special instrumental composition took its place. The form of this sinfonia, as it wa.s called, was taken from the aria. i.e. it had three parts. A, B, A, of which the third was a repetition of the first. Gradually the three parts were detached and appeared as separate movements. Composers paid s|M^cial attention to the first movement, from which gradually the sonata form was evolved. A sonata was originally any instrumental work (ehielly ]x'rformeu on a keyed instrument with strings) as opposed to a vocal one. Then 'sonata' was applied to a cyclical composition for piano. The great sonatists of the eighteenth century (tliovigh composing for the violin) retained the name. The form was finally established by Haydn and filled with the loftiest contents by the genius of Beclhovcii. The symphony is nothing else than a sonata of large dimensions for orches- tra. Trios, quartets, concerts, etc., are all so- natas for a particular group of instruments. In- strumental music to-day is divided into absolute and programme music. The former kind is music written for its own .sake; the latter attenipt,s to portray definite ideas according to a given pro- gramme. See Cyclic.vl Fohm.s; Overtire; Pro- OK.MME Mrsic; So.t. ; Suite; Sympiio.N'Y. INSTRUMENTATION, or Orchestration. The art of arranging the parts of an orchestral composition for the various instruments. Al- though from the beginning of the sixteenth cen- tury composers wrote for various conibinntions of instruments, instrumentation has become a real art only quite recently. The Gabriel is, for instance, employed violins in their instrumental works, but had no idea of the true character of this instrument. They used it only, like the trombones, for sustained notes. Even the instru- mentation of Bach and Handel is very primitive. Gluck seems to have been the first to use the various instruments with a conscious purpose and a knowledge of their peculiar ch-iracter. Haydn and Mozart made scarcely any advance in instrumentation over Gluck. In the works of Beethoven we find for the first time each instru- ment speaking its own language, and with him the nrl of instrumentation may be said to begin. Weber accomplished for the opera orchestra what Beethoven had dune for the sympliony orchestra. In the works of Wagner and Berlioz instrumenta- tion reached its culmination. .Just as there is a special style of writing for the pianoforte (Kla- viersatz) so there is also one for the orchestra (Orchestersatz). It is not suflicient for a com- poser to know thoroughly the compass and pe- culiarities of each instrument. Effective instru- mentation requires also the proper distribution of the separate tones of a chord among the vari- ous instruments. Thus, if a composer should write the C major chord for trombones in suc- cessive thirds, c. e. p. the effect would be a con- fused mass of sound ; whereas the proper effect would be obtained by writing c, <7, e'. The science of instrumentation teaches the pupil the com- pass and peculiarities of the different instru- ments, as well a.s their combinations. But talent for instrumentation and orchestral writing is in- dependent of purely creative talent, altlioiigh as a rule the two are combined. Chopin, liowever, is an example of a great composer wlio was al- most destitute of any talent for instrumentation; whereas Wagner, the consummate master of orchestral writing, wrote a very amateurish