“Symphonie” by Schulz 31Oct08 | 0

“The allegros of the best chamber symphonies contain great and bold ideas, free handling of composition, seeming disorder in the melody and harmony, strongly marked rhythms of different kinds, powerful bass melodies and unisons, concerting middle voices, free imitations, often a theme that is handled in the manner of a fugue, sudden transitions, and digressions from one key to another [...] strong shadings of the forte and piano, and chiefly of the crescendo, which, if it is employed at the same time as a rising and increasingly expressive melody, can be of the greatest effect. Added to this comes the art of connecting all voices in and with one another so that their sounding at the same time allows only one single melody to be heard, which requires no accompaniment, but to which each voice contributes its part. Such an allegro is to the symphony what a Pindaric ode is to poetry.”

J.A.P. Schulz, “Symphonie” in Allgemeine Theorie der schönen Künste, ed. J.G. Sulzer (Leipzig, 1771-74) [1]

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[1] Quoted in CHURGIN, B.: “The Symphony as Described by J.A.P. Schulz (1774): a Commentary and Translation”, Current Musicology, 29 (1980), pp.7-16.

who said...

"[Beethoven] went in his usual (I might say, ill-bred) manner to the instrument as if half-pushed, picket up the violoncello part of Steibelt's quintet in passing, placed it (intentionally?) upon the stand upside down and with one finger drummed out a theme of the first few measures. Insulted and angered, he improvised in such a manner that Steibelt left the room before he finished, would never again meet him and, indeed, made it a condition that Beethoven should not be invited before accepting an offer."

F.W. Wegeler & F. Ries, Biographische Notizen über Ludwig van Beethoven (Koblenz, 1838)

"[...] the king [Charles II of Spain] eagerly asked me if I had heard Matheuchi sing, when he would come, and if he was impertinent or not, and as if there were no army in the world, nor Milanese state, completely forgot such matters, but this is not surprising given that all his ministers, or most of them, have had the same experience [...]"

Letter of Carlos Felipe Spinola y Colonna to the duke of Medinaceli (1698)

"I was in St Alban's Abbey and I was intrigued: they were building a new organ and I went up to - I suppose it must have been - the verger and I said, 'Is the organ baroque?' And he said, 'No, it's in perfectly good order.'"

John Tavener, The Music of Silence, A Composer's Testament (Faber ISBN 0571200885)

"The Second Harpsichordist will go only to the last rehearsal, sending the Third One to the previous, who won't read more high Clef than Soprano, trying to play without using the Thumbs, don't follow the Numbers, play always the Sixth, don't meet up with the Master, and close all the second Parts of Arias with major thirds, etc. etc. etc."

Benedetto Marcello, Il teatro alla moda (1720)