Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/175

The Royal College of Music, which thus became the successor of the Training School, was founded by the Prince of Wales at a meeting held at St. James's Palace Feb. 28, 1882, and was opened by H.R.H. on May 7 of the following year. Negotiations took place with the Royal Academy of Music with the object of a union with the two bodies; but these have hitherto unfortunately come to nothing. Like its predecessor, the College rests on the basis of endowed scholarships lasting not less than three years; but the funds for these are in this case provided by the interest of money subscribed throughout the country and permanently invested. The College opened with 50 Scholars elected by competition, of whom 15 receive maintenance in addition, and 42 Paying Students. It was incorporated by Royal Charter on May 23, 1883, and is governed by a Council, presided over by the Prince of Wales, and divided into a Finance Committee, and an Executive Committee. The staff are as follows: Director, Sir George Grove, D.C.L.; Principal Teachers, forming the Board of Professors, J. F. Bridge, Mus.D.; H. C. Deacon; Henry Holmes; Mad. Lind-Goldschmidt [App. p.776 "Mme. Lind-Goldschmidt was succeeded by Mr. Henschel, and he by Mr. A. Blume"]; Walter Parratt; C. Hubert H. Parry, Mus.D.; Ernst Pauer; C. V. Stanford, Mus.D.; Franklin Taylor; A. Visetti. Other principal teachers:—Mme. A. Goddard; John F. Barnett; G. C. Martin, Mus.D.; R. Gompertz; C. H. Howell; F. E. Gladstone, Mus.D.; J. Higgs, Mus.B.; G. Garcia, etc. Registrar, G. Watson, jun. The College possesses the extensive, rare, and valuable library of the late Sacred Harmonic Society, presented through the exertions of Sir P. Cunliffe Owen, and that of the Concerts of Antient Music, given by the Queen. The Examiners at the end of the first year were Dr. Joachim, Manuel Garcia, Otto Goldschmidt, Jos. Barnby, Dr. Stainer,and Sir F. Ouseley. [App. p.776 "Add that the number of scholarships is now (Feb. 1889) 58, of which 15 include maintenance; the number of paying students is 188. In 1887 the Alexandra House was opened, containing a beautiful concert hall, where the students' concerts are regularly held, as well as accommodation for 100 ladies, some of whom are pupils of the College.]

[ G. ]

TRAMIDAMENTE. This strange direction, with ängstlich below it as its German equivalent, is found at the Recitative with the Trumpets in the 'Agnus' of Beethoven's Mass in D, in the old score (Schotts). In the new edition of Breitkopf & Härtel it appears as 'timidamente,' which is correct Italian, and is the translation of 'ängstlich'—with distress.

[ G. ]

TRANQUILLO, an Italian term, meaning 'calmly,' 'quietly.' The notturno in Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream music is marked 'Con moto tranquillo.'

[ G. ]

TRANSITION is a word which has several different senses. It is most commonly used in a vague way as synonymous with modulation. Some writers, wishing to limit it more strictly, use it for the actual moment of passage from one key to another; and again it is sometimes used to distinguish those short subordinate flights out of one key into another, which are so often met with in modern music, from the more prominent and deliberate changes of key which form an important feature in the structure of a movement. The following example from Beethoven's Sonata in B♭, op. 106, is an illustration of the process defined by this latter meaning of the term; the transition being from F♯ minor to G major and back:—

[See Modulation.]

[ C. H. H. P. ]

TRANSPOSING INSTRUMENTS. Before pianoforte accompaniments were set in full notation, the practice of which, as Mr. W. H. Cummings has shown,^[1] was first due, about 1780–90, to Domenico Corri of Edinburgh, the entire accompaniment, at that time the most important study in keyboard playing, was from the figured bass stave, known as 'Figured,' 'Through' or 'Thorough' bass. From the varying natural pitch of voices, transposition was a necessary and much cultivated resource, and if the chromatic keyboard had been originally contrived to restore the chromatic genus of the Greeks, it was certainly very soon after permanently adopted to facilitate the practice of transposition. But the difficulties of the process seem to have very early prompted the alternative of a shifting keyboard, applied in the first instance to the diatonic arrangement of the keys, which in the 16th century was still to be met with in old organs: in other words, whatever the key might be, to play apparently in C. The oldest authority on the organ extant is the blind organist of Heidelberg, Arnold Schlick, who in 1511 published the 'Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten,' of which only one copy is now known to exist.^[2] Schlick is quoted by Sebastian Virdung, who also published his book in 1511, and (2nd cap. p. 19, Berlin reprint p. 87) has an interesting passage on transposing organs, which we will freely translate.

When an organ in itself tuned to the right pitch can be shifted a tone higher or lower, it is a great advantage to both organist and singers. I have heard years ago of a Positive so made, but I only know of one complete organ, and that one I use daily, which together with its positive, two back manuals, pedals, and all its many and rare registers, may be shifted higher and back again as often as necessity requires. For some chapels and singers ad Cantum Mensurabilem such a contrivance is specially useful. Two masses or Magnificats may be in the same tone, and set in the same notation of line and space, and yet it may be desirable to sing the one a note higher than the other. Say both masses are in the Sixth Tone, with Clef C; the counter bass going an octave lower^[3]—in the other the counter bass goes a note or more lower, to B or A^[4], which are too low for bass singers, and their voices heard against others would be

1. Vide Proceedings of the Musical Association 1880–81, pp. 19–28.
2. Reprinted in the Monatshefte für Musik-geschichte, Berlin 1869; edited with explanatory notes by Herr Robert Eitner.
3. To the C, second space of the bass clef, but evidently, as will b obvious, sounding the F lower.
4. In our pitch the double E and D.