File:The orchestra and its instruments (1917) (14782124392).jpg

Identifier: orchestraitsinst00sing (find matches)
Title: The orchestra and its instruments
Year: 1917 (1910s)
Authors: Singleton, Esther, d. 1930
Subjects: Orchestra Musical instruments
Publisher: New York : The Symphony society of New York
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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ne so beautifully,so lightly and so swiftly that we never hear a slur,but are only conscious of a lovely and graceful effect. When the composer wants to produce a very softand veiled impression he writes on his score for thestrings con sordini. The sordino is a little brass, orwooden, article that looks like a comb. It is placedon the bridge, teeth downwards, to add weight andto deaden the vibrations. You will often see eachof the Strings take his sordino out of his waistcoatpocket and place it on the bridge of his instrumentduring the performance of a composition. Very fewcompositions are played with the sordino all the waythrough. The left hand of a violinist is, to a certain degree,mechanical and trained to get accurate intonation,perfect position and tremendous dexterity. His righthand has another kind of work to do. The bowingof a violinist is what breath is to a singer and whattouch is to a pianist. The beauty and delicacy oftone and the astonishing effects of scattering showers
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3 be THE VIOLIN 41 of notes about are all the work of the loose wrist,strong and flexible arm and yielding fingers thathold the bow and draw it across the strings. The rich, velvety, smooth and peaceful legato;the detached or short, sharp strokes; the hammered;the jumping; and the harp-like effects, the arpeggios(or open chords) swinging back and forth, are allaccomplished by the bow. Once in a great while,we hear a strange and weird effect caused by rap-ping the string lightly with the stick of the bow. Butthis is only a kind of trick that composers sometimesintroduce. Liszt calls for it in his Mazeppa; Saint-Saens in his Danse Macabre; and Strauss in AlsoSprach Zarasthustra. More often the violins (and other stringed instru-ments) play pizzicato, — that is the violinist restshis thumb against the fingerboard and plucks thestrings with the tip of his forefinger. Beethoven makes an effective use of this in theScherzo of his Fifth Symphony and so does Tschai-kowsky in the Scherzo of

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