[59] Compare Byrd’s Cantiones Sacræ, 1575, where the pieces are divided in this way, e.g., Pars Prima, Pars Secunda.
[60] Meaning that the fingers were held straight out, and consequently only the first, second, and third (in so-called “German” notation, 2, 3 and 4) would be in common use, the ends being nearly of a length.
[61] It is difficult to set the limits of what is possible in such matters; e.g.—John Jenkins wrote a “Fancy” for three viols, before 1667, which modulates from F major through the whole set of flat keys, up to G flat, whence he coolly turns a rather sharp corner home to F. No one would have dared to suppose this possible.
[62] This might well be. Compare the first phrase of the Recitative, which precedes Dido’s dying song in Purcell’s “Dido and Æneas,” with the first phrase of Wolfram’s recitative before the “Star” song in “Tannhäuser.”
[63] This coloratura means the elaborate ornamentation with which Corelli used to overlay the plain written violin part. Joachim’s edition gives Corelli’s own version of the sonatas as he himself used to play them.
[64] These in France were usually arranged adagio, allegro, adagio; in Italy, allegro, adagio, allegro, but in both countries they had found very early a stereotyped form for the succession of their movements.—[Author’s Note.]
[65] Such things are found as late as Mozart; cf. overture to Zauberflöte.
[66] The true origin of imitative counterpoint is almost certainly the Rota, what is nowadays called a Round. This sort of infinite canon was already perfect in the thirteenth century in England. No doubt the Rota itself was invented by an accident.
[67] The “first” and “second” subjects are often very clearly distinct in the binary form of Scarlatti. The “second subject” is not a mere continuation of the “first” in the subordinate key, as more generally it is in J. S. Bach, but it is another melody altogether.
[68] The movement here described is apparently the “Presto” on page 25 of the first volume of Mr Thomas Roseingrave’s edition of Scarlatti. The groups, so-called, of “five semiquavers,” are of four descending semiquavers, followed by a crotchet, making five notes altogether.