among these were the Octet, Quintet in C, Quartets in D minor, G, and B♭, the Overture in the Italian style, those to Alfonso and Estrella, Fierrabras, Rosamunde, with Entractes in B minor and B♭, the B minor Symphony, Sonata for PF. and Arpeggione, etc., all in score. Mr. Spina's enthusiasm for Schubert was not that of a mere publisher, as the writer from personal experience of his kindness can testify. It was he who allowed the Crystal Palace Company to have copies of several of the orchestral works for playing, long before there was sufficient public demand to allow of their being published.
[ G. ]
SPINDLER, Fritz, pianoforte-player and composer for that instrument, born Nov. 24, 1817, at Wurzbach, Lobenstein, was a pupil of F. Schneider of Dessau, and has been for many years resident in Dresden. His published works are more than 330 in number, the greater part brilliant drawing-room pieces, but amongst them much teaching-music, and some works of a graver character—trios, sonatinas, two symphonies, concerto for PF. and orchestra, etc. His most favourite pieces are—Wellenspiel (op. 6); Schneeglocklein (op. 19); Silberquell (op. 74); Husarenritt; 6 dance themes; Transcriptions of Tannhauser and Lohengrin.
[ G. ]
SPINET (Fr. Épinette; Ital. Spinetta) [App. p.795 "After title add Fr. Epinette, Clavicorde; Ital. Spinetta, Clavicordo; Spanish Clavicordia. English Spinet, Virginal"]. A keyed instrument, with plectra or jacks, used in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries; according to Burney (Rees's Cycl. 1819, 'Harpsichord') 'a small harpsichord or virginal with one string to each note.' The following definitions are from Florio's 'New World of Words,' 1611:—'Spinetta, a kind of little spina … also a paire of Virginalles'; 'Spinettegiare, to play upon Virginalles'; 'Spinetto, a thicket of brambles or briars'—(see Rimbault's History of the Pianoforte, 1860). We first meet with the derivation of spinet from spina, a thorn, in Scaliger's Poetices (1484–1550; lib. i. cap. lxiii.). Referring to the plectra or jacks of keyed instruments, he says that, in his recollection, points of crowquill had been added to them, so that what was named, when he was a boy, 'clavicymbal' and 'harpichord' (sic), was now, from these little points, named 'spinet.' [See Jack.] He does not say what substance crowquill superseded, but we know that the old cithers and other wire-strung instruments were twanged with ivory, tortoiseshell, or hard wood.[1] Another origin for the name has been discovered, to which we believe that Signor Ponsicchi ('Il Pianoforte,' Florence, 1876) was the first to call attention. In a very rare book, 'Conclusioni nel suono dell' organo, di D. Adriano Banchieri, Bolognese' (Bologna, 1608), is this passage:—
Spinetta riceve tal nome dall' inventore di tal forma longa quadrata, il quale fù un maestro Giovanni Spinetti, Venetiano, ed uno di tali stromenti hò veduto io alle mani di Francesco Stivori, organista della magnifica comunità di Montagnana, dentrovi questa inscrizione: JOANNES SPINETUS VENETUS FECIT. A.D. 1503.
According to this the spinet received its name from Spinetti, a Venetian, the inventor of the oblong form, and Banchieri had himself seen one in the possession of Stivori, bearing the above inscription. M. Becker of Geneva ('Revue et Gazette musicale/ in the ' Musical World,' June 15, 1878), regards this statement as totally invalidating the passage from Scaliger; but not necessarily so, since the year 1503 is synchronous with the youth of Scaliger. The invention of the crowquill points is not claimed for Spinetti, but the form of the case—the oblong or table shape of the square piano and older clavichord, to which Spinetti adapted the plectrum instrument; it having previously been in a trapeze-shaped case, like the psaltery, from which, by the addition of a keyboard, the instrument was derived. [See Virginal; and also for the different construction and origin of the oblong clavichord.] Putting both statements together, we find the oblong form of the Italian spinet, and the crowquill plectra, in simultaneous use about the year 1500. Before that date no record has been found. The oldest German writers, Virdung and Arnold Schlick, whose essays appeared in 1511, do not mention the spinet, but Virdung describes and gives a woodcut of the Virginal, which in Italy would have been called at that time 'spinetta,' because it was an instrument with plectra in an oblong case. Spinetti's adaptation of the case had therefore travelled to Germany, and, as we shall presently see, to Flanders and Brabant, very early in the 16th century; whence M. Becker conjectures that 1503 represents a late date for Spinetti, and that we should put his invention back to the second half of the 15th century, on account of the time required for it to travel, and be accepted as a normal form in cities so remote from Venice.
[App. p.795 "Considerable light has been thrown upon the hitherto profoundly obscure invention of the keyboard instrument subsequently known as the Spinet, by that erudite search and scholar Mr. Edmond Vander Straeten, in 'La Musique aux Pays Bas,' vol. vii. (Les musiciens néerlandais en Espagne, 1re partie), Brussels, 1885. He quotes, p. 246, from a testamentary inventory of musical instruments which had belonged to Queen Isabella, at the Alcazar of Segovia, dated 1503. 'Dos Clavicinbanos viejos' that is to say, two old clavecins (spinets). One of her chamberlains, Sancho de Paredes (p. 248) owned in 1500 'Dos Clabiorganos'—two claviorgans or organized clavecins. In a previous inventory, dated 1480 (and earlier), the same chamberlain appears to have possessed a manicorde or clavichord with tangents. But Mr. Vander Straeten is enabled to give a positive date, 1387 (p. 40, et seq.), when John the First, King of Aragon, had heard and desired to possess an instrument called 'exaquir,' which was certainly a keyboard stringed-instrument. He describes it later on as resembling an organ but sounding with strings. The name 'exaquir' may be identified with 'l'eschuaqueil d'Angleterre,' which occurs in a poem entitled 'La Prise d'Alexandrie,' written by Guillaume de Machault, in the I4th century. Mr. Vander Straeten enquires if this appellation can be resolved by 'échiquier' (chequers) from the black and white arrangement of the keys? The name echiquier occurs in the romance 'Chevalier du cygne' and in the 'Chanson sur la journée de Guinegate,' a 15th century poem, in which the poet asks to be sounded
Orgius, harpes, naquaires, challemelles,
Bons echiquiers, guisternes, doucemelles.
The enquirer is referred to the continuance of Mr. Vander Straeten's notes on this interesting question, in the work above mentioned. It is here sufficient to be enabled to prove that a kind of organ sounding with strings was existing in 1387—and that clavecins were catalogued in 1503, that could be regarded as old; also that these dates synchronize with Ambros's earliest mention of the clavicymbalum, in a MS. of 1404."]
M. Vander Straeten ('La Musique aux Pays-Bas,' vol. i.) has discovered the following references to the spinet in the household accounts of Margaret of Austria:—
A ung organiste de la Ville d'Anvers, la somme da vi livres auqnel madicte dame en a fait don en faveur de ce que le xve jour d'Octobre xv.xxii [1522] il a amené deux jeunes enffans, filz et fille, qu'ils ont jouhé sur une espinette et chanté à son diner.
A l'organiste de Monsieur de Fiennes, sept livres dont Madame lui a fait don en faveur de ce que le second jour de Décembre xv.xxvi [1526] il est venu jouher d'un instrument dit espinette devant elle à son diner.
The inventory of the Château de Pont d'Ain, 1531, mentions 'una espinetta cum suo etuy,' a spinet with its case; meaning a case from which the instrument could be withdrawn, as was customary at that time. M. Becker transcribes also a contemporary reference from the Munich Library:—
Quartorze Gaillardes, neuf Pavannes, sept Bransles et deux Basses-Dances, le tout reduict de musique en la tablature du ieu (jeu) Dorgues, Espinettes, Manicordions et telz semblables instruments musicaux, imprimées à Paris par Pierre Attaignant MDXXIX.
The manichord was a clavichord. Clement Marot (Lyons, 1551) dedicated his version of the Psalms to his countrywomen:—
- ↑ With reference to the early use of leather for plectra, as mentioned in Harpsichord, we now consider the evidence of existing instruments as very doubtful, owing to their having possibly been altered during repairs. The old Italian jacks were provided with little steel springs to bring back the plectra to an upright position. The bristles were later in date. See the Pisan clavicembalo and Mr. Fairfax Murray's spinet now at Florence. [App. p.795 "and the upright spinet from the Correr collection, belonging to Mr. George Donaldson, which had also plectra of brass. It is therefore possible that the use of the quill superseded that of brass."]
