[THE ORCHESTRA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY.]
BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE.
I suppose that every one who enjoys music likes to hear either a band or an orchestra. There is something very inspiring and fine about a performance where a great many people take part.
It is always well, even in the most delightful music, to stop and think how much you enjoy because you understand it; that is, if you are a student, and I am addressing myself chiefly to young people who are studying music.
Is not an orchestra a confusing sight in one way? You look at all the violins and violoncellos, the flutes, the hautboys, the wind instruments, and finally the conductor, and even if he waves his baton ever so knowingly, you wonder how he knows just what to do.
I think the conductor of an orchestra always looks like the possessor of some curious secret. His baton goes here and there; he waves it in a rhythmical or sharp fashion, and yet if you look closely you will see that not one in the orchestra but feels that he is his leader. There is a regular meaning in everything he does.
There are very few portions of musical history so interesting to me as the orchestra. To-day we have such excellent music in public orchestras that I suppose we forget there ever was a time when even musicians were not sure how orchestras ought to be arranged. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there were flutes and many stringed instruments; but the people who played on them did not know that they might be used harmoniously together. I am sure that seems almost funny to you now, but it undoubtedly was the case.
You see, music was in just that unformed condition then that they did not know what they could do with it. Now we will try and think a little, and see when orchestras began, and how they gradually prospered.
To go very far back, I must tell you that certain instruments, like lutes and lyres, were used among the ancients. I think they played them in concert. At all events, they had a dim idea that, performed upon together, they would sound well. But it was not until the sixteenth century—in 1581—that anything like a real orchestra was known. And just here I want to tell you what the word itself means.