We may be very sure that the lutes and viols, with their complicated strings and intricate system of tuning, required virtuosi to play them artistically and romantically to suit the culture of the age; and that the Conductors had something more to do than beat time, even if they sat at the gravicembalo, or harpsichord.
Moreover, the audiences of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries were highly cultured men and women. There were also many brilliant amateur musicians. Perhaps, on the whole, amateurs reached as high a degree of excellence as they do to-day.
Lully was undoubtedly a very great Conductor; and there does not seem to have been any one after him who stood for such perfect performances as his until Wagner pointed out the path for Conductors to follow.
Wagner’s criticisms in his Art of Conducting show that the Orchestras of Europe—even the famous ones—gave interpretations of the Classic composer that we, Americans, would not tolerate; for it is no exaggeration to say that the Orchestras of our country have for many years been the most brilliant, the most finished, and the most poetic in the world. This condition we owe to the guiding minds and high artistic aims of the versatile and intellectual Conductors who have developed our Symphony Orchestras, and to the fact that no national prejudice prevents them from taking the best players from any country; the woodwind from France and Belgium; the strings from Austria; the brass from Germany; together with an ever-increasing number of young Americans who show adaptability in all the orchestral groups.
RICHARD STRAUSS CONDUCTING
CHAPTER X
THE HARP
Berlioz on the harp; construction of the harp; the harp an ancient instrument; the Egyptian harp; Greek and Roman harps; the Irish harp; quotation from Giraldus; the Welsh harp; the Scotch harp; quotation from Galilei; the Mediæval harp; improvements in the harp; Sebastian Érard; use of the harp in the Orchestra.
“The harp,” writes Berlioz, “is essentially anti-chromatic, that is to say succession by half-tones are almost out of the question for it. Its compass was formerly but five octaves and a sixth. All harps were tuned in the scale of E-flat. The skilful manufacturer, Érard, seeking to remedy the inconvenience of this system, invented the mechanism which obviated these difficulties and proposed tuning the harp in C-flat, which has been adapted by all harp-players of the present day.