[14] See “Shakespeare and Music,” pp. [169]-171, for other English examples.
[15] “The English call it quite appositely by the name ‘Consort’ (from Latin consortium) when several persons with various instruments, such as ... etc. ... play together in sweet concord with one another.”
[16] It is misleading to say “in six parts.” There are six voices, but the canon proper only takes four. The other two sing, independently of the canon, a “bussing bass,” founded alternately on Do and Re.
[17] In the early seventeenth century it was matter of complaint in England that “French songs” and instrumental music “in the Italian manner” were more popular than necessary.
[18] These were also called by the plain English name “fancies.”
[19] When Sir Toby says to the caper-cutting Sir Andrew: “I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the star of a galliard,” may he not refer to one of these dedications of dances to noblemen?
[20] Drehleier. The instrument referred to is of the ninth century.
[21] Bundfrei and gebunden, the former only was capable of striking any combination of notes at once—e.g., four or five adjacent semitones.
[22] One of the many names of what we know best as “harpsichord.”
[23] What were known as “short octaves” were to be seen almost in our own time in certain old organs. For three centuries the following or a similar arrangement was practised. Supposing the lowest notes of the keyboard ran thus: E, F, F sharp, G, G sharp, the first E being that under the bass staff. But when the E key was put down, the note sounded was the C a third below; when the F sharp key was played, the resulting note was the D below; the G sharp key produced the low E, which should have had its own key to itself. Thus the keyboard, which apparently stopped at E under the bass staff, really had D and C below, arranged to sound on two other keys. So to produce a diatonic scale beginning from the low C of the violoncello, the keys actually played had to be: E, F sharp, G sharp, F, G, etc., which would produce C, D, E, F, G, etc.