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In Nov. 1888 a meeting was held by Somers Clarke, W. J . Birkbeck, H. B. Briggs, Brown, Nottingham, Athelstan Riley and B. Luard Selby, a t which was formed the above Society with the following objects : (1) To be a centre of information in England for students of Plain-song and Medieval Music, and a means of communication between them and those of other countries. (2) To publish facsimiles of important MSS., translations of foreign works on the subject, adaptations of tiie plain-song to the English use, and such other works as may be desirable. (3) To form a catalogue of all plain-song and measured music in England, dating not later than the middle of the 16th century. (4) To form a thoroughly proficient choir of limited numbers, with wliich to give illustrations of Plain-song and Mediaeval Music. The subscription is

a wire-string instrument invented or evolved from the many forms current about the year 1600, by Daniel Farrant, son of the organist of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and afterwards one of the court musicians to James I. and Charles I. Playford (Introduction to the Skill of Musiclc) says it was an excellent instrument not much unlike a lute, and according to an illustration given by Randle Holme (Academy of Armory, 17th century) it had from 25 to 40 strings and resembled more nearly the later H a r p - l u t e (q.v.). Queen Elizabeth was particularly partial to the Poliphant and was a proficient performer upon it. Fa r rant also produced another wire-string instrument of the cittern or pandore class called the ' S tump,' of which, however, no description exists. F . w. G .

(b. circa 1595 ; d. Nov., 1659), ' an English pupil of Monteverdi,' 1 son i Ro described by Arkwright in an interesting ac count of P orter fn Mus. A n t. lv. 236. 234 PORTA of Henry Porter, Mus.B. Oxon. 1600, was sworn gentleman of the Chapel Royal without pay, Jan. 5, 1616, ' for the next place th a t should fall void by the death of any tenor ' ; a contingency which happened on Jan. 27, 1617, in the person of Peter Wright, and Porter was sworn in his place on Feb. 1. In 1632 he published ' Madrigales and Ayres of two, three, foure and five vovces, with th e continued bass, with Toccatos, Sinfonias and Rittornelles to them af ter th e manne r o f Consort Musique. To be performed with the Harpsechord, Lutes, Theorbos, Basse-Vioil, two Violins or two Viols.' This book is somewhat similar in character to th a t of Martin P e e k s o n (q.v.), and like Peerson Porter stands between the madrigalists and the Restoration composers. But he has an individual style of his own, and a special feature of i t is the use of rapidly reiterated notes upon a single syllable of the words. This device he undoubtedly borrowed from Monteverdi, whose pupil he was. Porter explains the purpose of i t in his ' address to the practicioner ' a t the beginning of the volume ; ' In the Songs which are set forth with Division where you find many Notes in a place after . * -* m "*- . this manner m rule or space they are set to express the Trillo ' (see O r n a m e n t s , V o c a l ). The following is an example of this in Porter's work : Ye that ful - - fll, ful - fll His com- The only known copy of this book was formerly in the Christie-Miller collection a t Burnham Court and is now in the British Museum. Both Hawkins and Burney mention a collection bearing the title of * Ayres and Madrigals for two, three, four and five voices, with a thorough bass for the organ or Theorbo Lute, the Ita lian way,' dated 1639, which may probably have been a second edition of the same work. In 1639 Porter was appointed master of the choristers of Westminster Abbey. After losing both his places on the suppression of the choral service in 1644, he found a patron in Sir Edward Spencer. In 1657 he published * M ottets of Two Voyces for Treble or Tenor and Basn with the Continued B ass o r Score. To be performed to an O rgan, U arpsycon, Lute o r Bass-viol.' Porter was buried a t St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, Nov. 30, 1659. His ' Divine Hymns,' advertised by Playford in 1664, was perhaps identical with ' The Psalms of George Sandys set to Music for two Voyces with a Thorough-bass for the Organ,' which was published about 1671. w . H . H . ; with addns. E . H . F .

an ornament of the keyboard instruments not used in the classical French school and possessing no equivalent English name, though it is in fact a short shake and in effect an inverted Mordent (q.v.). 1. Written. Played. The Pralltriller is characterised by C. P. E. Bach as the most agreeable and a t the same time the most indispensable of all graces, but also the most difficult. He says th a t it ought to be made with such extreme rapidity that, even when introduced on a very short note, the listener must not be aware of any loss of value. The proper, and according to some writers the only, place for the introduction of the Pralltriller is on the first of two notes which dcscend diatonically, a position which the Mordent cannot properly occupy. This being the case, there can be no doubt th a t in such instances as the following, where the Mordent is indicated in a false position, the Pralltriller is in reality intended, and the sign is an error either of the pen or of the press. 2. Mozart. Rondo in D. Nevertheless the Mordent is occasionally, though very rarely, met with on a note followed by a note one degree lower, as in J . S. Bach's fugue in C in Book II. of the 1 48.' This is, however, the only instance in Bach's works with which the writer is acquainted. When the Pralltriller is preceded by an appoggiatura, or a slurred note one degree above the principal note, its entrance is slightly delayed (Ex. 3), and the same is the case if the Mordent is preceded by a note one degree below (Ex. 4). 3. W. F. Bach, Sonata in D. i. J. S. Bach, Sarabande from ' Suite auglaise No. 3.' -1 1- f - --r- - 1------1 Bp _ C. P. E. Bach says th a t if this occurs before a pause the appoggiatura is to be held very long, and the remaining three notes to be ' snapped up ' very quickly, thus-5. Written. _ riaycd. e m T ^ r The earlier writers drew a distinction between the Prailtriller and the so - called Schneller (schnellen, ' to fillip '). This grace was in all respects identical with the Prailtriller, b u t it was held th a t the latter could only occur on a descending diatonic progression (as in Ex. 1), while the Schneller might appear on detached notes. I t was also laid down th a t the Schneller I was always to be written in small notes, thus- while the sign a v only indicated the Prailtriller. Turk observes, nevertheless, th a t tho best composers have often made use of tho sign in cases where the indispensable diatonic progression is absent, and have thus indicated the Prailtriller where the Schneller ' was really intended. This is, however, of no consequence, since the two ornaments are essentially the same, and Turk himself ends by saying ' the enormity of this crime may be left for the critics to determine.' Both Mordent and Prailtriller occur very frequently in the works of Bach and his immediate successors ; perhaps the most striking instance of the lavish use of both occurs in the first movement of Bach's ' Capriccio on the Departure of a Brother,' which though only seventeen bars in length contains no fewer than 17 Mordents and 30 Prailtriller. r . t.

comic opera in a prologue and 3 acts ; written by W. S. Gilbert, music by Sullivan. Produced Savoy Theatre, Jan. 5, 1884. M.

(1) For tho musical recitation of tho prose translation of the Psalms see articles A n t i p h o n , G r e g o r i a n T o n e s , I n f l e x i o n , P s a l m o d y , R e s p o n s o r i a l P s a l m o d y , C h a n t and C h a n t i n g . (2) For tho musical settings of metrical versions of the Psalms, see H y m n and P s a l t e r . (3) The elaborate settings of entire psalms, whether for chorus alone, for solo voices, or for combinations of voices and instruments, are mentioned under the names of their composers.

(mid-17th cent.), singing master, etc. of Harlem, composed ' Kusjes ' (Little Kisses), songs a 3, 4 and 5 v. 2nd edition, 1641 ; ' 'I Sof van Jubal ' (the prayse of Jubal), p u t into Latin verse by various poets, a 4, 5 and 6 v. with basso continuo, 1643 ; second book, op. 4, 3-6 v. 1645; also various occasional ' symphonias,' etc. (See Q.-L.)

The Greek iravdovpa ; Arabic tanbur, now rendered tamboura, is of great a n tiq u i ty ; and the long, straight - necked, stringed instrument with comparatively small body contrasted with the pear-shaped lute, has been handed down from the distant civilisations of Egypt and Babylon to the pandoura and C o l a s c i o n e {q.v.) of Southern Europe (see P L A T E X X I I I . No. 4), the various tambouras ; of Bulgaria, Turkey and India, tho Chinese i ' san-hsien ' or ' sientze * and the Japanese * samisen ' and other Eastern descendants and representatives. The Egyptian instrument is depicted on * * " E t su p ra calamos unco percurrere labro."-Lucretius. Thifl line dearly indicates the identity of the instrument.' monuments of a great age, and in the early wall paintings (c. 1580 B .C . ) there are indications of a fretted finger-board. For the supposed name of this instrument see N e f e r . The ancient Greeks were acquainted with an instrument of the kind which they called TrauSovpa; there is good reason to suppose it preceded the lyre, but for open-air music the latter had the better chance, and became ultimately the national Hellenic stringed instrument of the classic and Graeco-Roman periods. Julius Pollux (iv. 60), and Athenaeus (iv. 183), quote Pythagoras for the ascription of the Tra.vdoupa to the Troglodytes of the Persian Gulf, who made it of laurel, which grew near the sea-shore. With reference to the Asiatic ' tanbur,' A1 Farabi, the greatest Arabic writer on music (d. a . d . 950), has preserved for us, in his description of the tanbur of Bagdad, an echo of the past, the characteristic note and accordance of the old ' pagan ' scale, which preceded the Persian and Arabic invasions. This note, the septimal whole tone and 7-8 ratio (the equal temperament semitone 2'31), must have been the original Arabic ' wosta ' or middle finger-note on the finger-board, equivalent to the index finger or Liehanos on the lyre which was the characteristic tone of the old Greek soft diatonic genus (naa.Kos). Dr. Land (Recherches sur Vhistoire de la gamme arabe, Leyden, 1884)saw in thisscale a distortion, from , the constant practice of instruments, of a natural scale, an intuition with which he credits the j ancient Persians, but this mental recognition of harmonious intervals implies the conception of modern harmony in which we are educated, but in which the musicians of the ancient world, Persians, Indians or Greeks, certainly were not. Instead of this the more mechanical adaptation of the finger-board to the hand accounts for th a t conception of the tetrachord we find with the ancient Greeks, and can now trace to the still older civilisation of Babylon and Nineveh. A1 i Farabi sees music, theoretical and practical, through Greek spectacles of th a t later age in 1 which he wrote, and his tanbur of Khorassan, like his lute, is the music of Islam translated into Greek. The arithmetical reasonings of philosophers who sought to explain the musical scale could never have been, excepting in the larger intervals, the practical ar t of musicians; limmas and commas were evolved from a simpler diatonic system enriched to suit the finer ears of the time with small intervals; of which we have within the last hundred years the quarter tone analysis of Mechaga, a mathematician and musician of Damascus, and the third tone (Pythag. 0 . 680) insisted upon as the unit by Villoteau (Description de I'Egypte, tomes xiii et xiv, 8vo, Paris, 1823), who was one of the scientific expedition sent by Napoleon I. to Egypt, and who brought back a collection of instruments now, unhappily for the settlement of a much-debated question, no longer to be found. The intention of Dr. Land's admirable and essential book is in the main polemic, to upset the dictum of Villoteau, since reproduced by musical historians such as Fetis, Ambros andKiesewetterin collaboration with Hammer- Purgstall, but the battle remains undecided, as the great Arabic authorities, A1 Farabi, Caxio'ddin, Abdo'lgadir and others were as obviously making their native musical material Greek, as the Japanese are trying to Europeanise their own to-day. To find the real Arabic music we must take the advice of the traveller Dr. Landberg, and penetrate among the Bedouin inhabitants of the interior. We find in Mechaga a diatonic framework, but with neuter, not minor or major thirds ; the latter, when they occur, are subordinate. The hypo or plagal mode with the minor seventh called 'Ochag, c, d, e ,f, g, a, b?, c, is advanced to the first place before R a s t ,/ , g, a, b->, c, d, e, f , but th a t the latter was once regarded as the original is proved by the names of the notes which follow Rast, thus ' Dou-kah,' the second, 'Sik-hah,' the third,and 'Tchar-kah,'the fourth. As in India, in the present day, it is possible th a t small intervals were in use for a refined expression or for grace. (See I n d i a n M u s i c . ) But in the pandoura or tamboura we find a diatonic scale which has much in common with the flutes or auloi of antiquity, and of Eastern music to-day. Villoteau has given magnificent engravings of tambouras after the very preeiso drawings of Auguste Herbin, which form pa rt of the atlas of La Description de I'Egypte. Their accuracy suggested to Dr. Land the desirability | of minutely measuring the finger-boards, in tho absence of the instruments themselves, to compare with the results with Villoteau's text. He has given the results in millimetres sometimes carried to two places of decimals for the Bulgarian ta n b u r ; the large Turkish, the small and large Persian, and one simply called ' d 'orient.' With these he has compared calculated intervals against Villoteau's naming and the nearest Pythagorean or harmonic intervals, the result of which is, however, impaired by the influence of tension when the intervals are stopped upon the finger-board, unavoidable in producing the note, and tending always to sharpen the vibration number. This will be more perceptible as the sounds ascend from the diminished length of the string. In Dr. Land's tables no exact gradation is noticeable, although the diatonic intervals including the neuter thirds and sixths and minor seventh are not remote. But with thirds of the whole tone, to which Dr. Land has not given attention, the results very frequently come as near. The modern Egyptian or Arabian, and the various Indo-Chinese varieties of the tamboura have no frets, but there are marks on the fingerboard of the Japanese samisen th a t are guides to the intervals required. The small Turkish tamboura called Ehaz, a very beautiful-looking instrument, has twenty-three frets. (See F r e t .) The first syllable of many of these names points to a common derivation from a root perhaps expressive of tension. A. J. h. ; rev. f . w. g.

(b. Merthyr Tydvil, May 21, 1841 ; d. Penarth, Feb. 17, 1903), composer, who enriched Welsh hymnody with a number of fine tunes,1 came of poor Welsh parents, the mother a superior woman with much music in her nature. There is a great deal of singing and brass-band-playing among the Welsh workmen, and a t chapel and elsewhere the boy soon picked up enough to show th a t he had a real talent. At 10, however, he was forced to go to the puddling furnaces and to stop all education of any kind. In 1853 his father emigrated to the United States, and in 1854 the family followed him. After a few years Joseph returned from America, and then received some instruction in music from John Abel Jones of Merthyr and John Price of Rhymney. In 1862 he won prizes a t the Llandudno Eisteddfod. He then went again to i See * Abe rystwyth ' English Hymnal, No. 87 America, and during his absence there a prize was adjudged to him a t the Swansea Eisteddfod of 1863, for a harmonised hymn tune. I ts excellence roused the attention of Brinley Richards, one of the musical adjudicators of the meeting, and a t his instance a fund was raised for enabling Parry to return to England and enter the R.A.M. The appeal was well responded to by Welshmen here and in the States, and in Sept. 1868 he entered the Academy and studied under Sterndale Bennett, Garcia and Steggall. He took a bronze medal in 1870 and a silver one in 1871, and an overture of his to ' The Prodigal Son ' (Mab Afradlon) was played a t the Academy in 1871. He was appointed professor of music a t the University College, Aberystwyth, and soon after took his Mus.B. degree at Cambridge, proceeding, in May 1878, to th a t of Mus.D. a t the same university. In 1888 he was appointed to the musical lectureship of the University College of South Wales, Cardiff; and in 1896 a t the Llandudno Eisteddfod was presented with a cheque for

(b. Como, near Milan, 1798 ; d. there, Apr. 1, 1865), came of a Jewish family named Negri. She is said to have received her first instruction from the maestro di cappella a t Como, Bartolomeo Lot t i ; but, a t the age of 15, she was admitted into the Conservatoire a t Milan, under Asiolo. Her voice was then heavy and strong, but unequal and very hard to manage ; she never, in fact, succeeded in producing certain notes without some difficulty ; and, even in the zenith of her powers, there still remained a slight veil which was not dissipated until she had sung through a few scenes of an opera. In 1815 she left the Conservatorio; and, after trying her first theatrical steps on an amateur stage, she made her debut in the theatres of Brescia, Parma and Leghorn, and later in Paris. A year later, 1816, she and her husband, Pasta, a tenor, were engaged by Ayrton, a t a salary of