74 ALTNIKOL AMATI

brass band, where variety of timbre is less attain- highest part in compositions for string-instru-
able, itanswers its purpose well, and can better ments, corresponding to the soprano part in
be played on horseback, from its upright bell. vocal music. For further particulars see
The name is also given to the saxhorn in Bl>, Viola. i"- d-
but this is best distinguished as the Baritone. ALTEA VOLTA (ItaL 'another turn"), a
The scale and compass of this and the other Sax- term in use during the early part of the 18th
horns are given under that word. w. H. s. century for enooke, a word which has now
ALTNIKOL, JoHANN Cheistoph, born at entirely superseded it.
Berna in Silesia, was a pupil of Sebastian ALVARY, Max (properly ACHENBACH)
Bach's in Leipzig from 1745. On Bach's recom- son of the painter Andreas Achenbach, born
mendation, he was appointed organist at May 3, 1858, at Diisseldorf, was a pupil of
Niederwiesa near Greifenberg in 1747, and of Stockhausen, and made his ddbut as a dramatic
S. Wenceslaus, Naumburg, in 1748. He married tenor at Weimar. He won great success in
Bach's daughter, Elisabeth Juliane Friderike, New York, especially as a Wagner-singer, in the
on Jan. 20, 1749, and died in July 1759. years 1884-89. He sang the part of Tristan
The royal library at Berlin contains two clavier at Bayreuth in 1891, and appeared at Covent
sonatas in autograph, and a church cantata ; Garden, June 8, 1892, as Siegfried, his best
the Singakademie at the same place possesses part. His voice was of fine quality, though a
a five - part motet, and in the Fitzwilliam little apt to go out of tune ; he had a, very
Museum at Cambridge is a four-part Eioercare. handsome stage -presence. He died at his
None of his works were printed. M. country-seat near Gross"- Tabarz in Thuringia,
ALTO (from the Latin altus, high, far re- Nov. 7, 1898. M.
moved). The male voice of the highest pitch, ALVSLEBEN. See Otto-Alvsleben.
called also counter-tenor, i.e. contra, or against ALWOOD, Richard, priest and composer,
the tenor. In the 16th and early part of the lived about the middle of the 16th century.
17 th centm-ies the compass of the alto voice A six-part mass by him entitled ' Praise Him
was limited to the notes admissible on the praiseworthy' is in the Forrest-Heyther part
stave which has the C clef on its third line i books at Oxford, and there are seven pieces of
i.e. to the notes a sixth above and a sixth his for the organ in Add. MSS. 30,485 and
below 'middle C Later, however this com- 30,513. One of these, a ' Yoluntarye,' is
pass was extended by bringing into use the printed in the Appendix to Hawkins's Sistory
third register of the voice, or 'falsetto,' a of Music. J. F. R. s.
register often strongest with those whose voices AMATI, a family of celebrated Italian violin-
are naturally bass. The falsetto counter-tenor, makers, who lived and worked at Cremona, and
or more properly counter-afto, still to be found are generally regarded as the founders of the
in cathedral choirs, dates —
if musical history is Cremona school. The family ranked as a
to be read in music —
from the restoration of patrician one.
Charles II., who doubtless desired to reproduce 1. Andrea, the eldest, appears to have been
at home, approximately at least, a class of voice born in 1520 and to have died after April 1611.
he had become accustomed to in continental Possibly he was a pupil of one of the great
chapels royal and ducal. The so-called counter- Brescia makers, Gaspar da Salo or Maggini.
tenor parts of Pelham Humphreys, his contem- In spite of some similarity his violins certainly
poraries and successors, habitually transcend differ materially in shape and workmanship
those of their predecessors, from Tallis to Gib- from the works of these older masters. Very
bons, by at least a third [but in this connection few authentic instruments of his make are
it must be remembered that in the interval be- extant, and those are not in good preservation.
tween them the pitch had changed. See Zeit- They retain the stiff upright Brescian soundhole,
schrift of the Int. Mus. Ges. ii. 331.] The con- but in almost every other respect mark a great
tralto part is properly written on the stave which advance upon the productions of the older school.
has C on its second line ; it consequently extends Andrea worked mostly after a small pattern ;

from the eighth above middle to the fourth the belly and back very high the varnish of
;

below. This stave is now obsolete, and the part amber colour the wood, especially that of the
;

for which it is fitted is, in England, written either belly, most carefuUy chosen ; the scroll beauti-
on the alto stave, for which it is too high, or on fully chiselled the general outline extremely
;

the treble stave for which it is too low. On the graceful. A few violoncellos and tenors of this
continent the stave which has the C clef on the master are also known. The tone of his instru-
first line is sometimes used for it. For the female ments is clear and silvery, but, probably owing
alto voice see Contralto. J. H. to their small size and high elevation, not very
ALTO is also the Italian term for the Tbxoe powerful. The fourth string is particularly
violin, called alto, or alto di viola, as dis- weak.
tinguished from basso di viola, because, before 2. NiooLO, younger brother of Andrea (not
the invention, or at least before the general to be confounded with Nicolo son of Geronimo)
adoption of the violin, it used to take the appears to have made basses in preference to