Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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QUINTET QUINTUPLE TIME 9
was formerly the clef of the Haute Contre
'
or alto viol. (See Tenor Viol.)— Agricola
(Martinus), Musica Instrumentalis ; Praetorius,
Orgcmographia ; Rousseau (J. J.), Dictiormaire
de Musigue ; La Borde, Ussai sur la Musiqiie ;
Grillet (Laurent), AncUres du Violon ; Hart,
The Violin. E. h-a.
QUINTET (Fr. Quintuor; Ital. Quintetto). A
composition for five instruments or voices with
or without accompaniment.
I. Quintets for strings have been far less
often written than quartets, owing to the
greater complexity demanded in the polyphony.
Boccherini, however, published 125, of which
twelve only were written for two violins, two
violas, and one violoncello, the others having
two violoncellos and one viola. The former is
the more usual choice of instruments, probably
because the lower parts are apt to be too heavy
sounding with two violoncellos, owing to the
greater body of tone in this instrument. Schubert's
noble Quintet in C (op. 163) is for two
violoncellos, but the first is used constantly
in its upper octave, soaring above the viola.
Onslow's— thirty-four in number— are for a
double bass and violoncello.
Beethoven's two Quintets, in El> and C, belong
to his earlier periods, and have therefore
none of the extraordinary features of the
later quartets. Mendelssohn's Quintet in B|>
(op. 87) is so orchestral as to seem almost a
symphony in disguise, but that in A (op. 18) is
an exquisite specimen of what a string quintet
should be.
Many other combinations' of five instruments
have found favour with musicians, mostly including
a pianoforte. Thus there is Mozart's
Quintet in El> for oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon,
and piano—which the composer esteemed the
best thing he ever wrote,—the beautiful one for
clarinet and strings, and another for the piquant
combination of flute, oboe, viola, violoncello,
and harmonica. Perhaps the most effective
association is that of piano, violin, viola, violoncello,
and double bass, as in Schubert's wellknown
'Trout' Quintet (op. 114). [The splendid
quintets of Schumann and Brahms for piano and
strings are for the ordinary combination above
referred to, as are also those of Dvoijdk, DohnAnyi,
and others. The quintet by Brahms for clarinet
and strings is one of his most beautiful works.]
Beethoven's quintet for piano and wind instruments
(op. 16), in Eb is a noble representative
of a very small class. Hummel has also written
a well-known one.
II. In vocal music none who have ever heard
it can forget the admirable quintet (for two
soprani, contralto, tenor, and bass) which forms
the finale to Act 1 of Spohr's ' Azor and Zemira.'
In modem opera the most striking specimen
occurs in Wagner's ' Meistersinger.' Five-part
harmony has a peculiarlyrich effect, and deserves
to be more practised than it is, especially in
oratorio chorus. It is, however, by no means
easy to write naturally. r. c.
QUINTON [See Viol, treble].
QUINTOYEE (Old Eng. Quinible). To sing
in Fifths—a French verb, in frequent use among
extempore Organisers during the Middle Ages.
[See Organum, Part-Weiting.] w. s. e,
The rhythm of five
QUINTUPLE TIME.
beats in a bar. As a rule quintuple time has
two accents, one on the first beat of the bar, and
the other on either the third or fourth, the bar
being thus divided into two unequal parts. On
this account it can scarcely be considered a distinct
species of rhythm, but rather a compound
of two ordinary kinds, duple and triple, employed
alternately. Although of little practical value,
quintuple time produces an efiect sufficiently
characteristic and interesting to have induced
various composers to make experiments therein,
the earliest attempt of any importance being a
symphony in the second act ofHandel's 'Orlando'
(1732), in which the hero's perturbation is represented
by this peculiar time (see Bumey,
ffistory, iv. 364). The same rhythm occurs in
an air to the words Se ' la sorte mi condanna
in the opera of Ariadne ' ' by Adolfati, written
in 1750, and it is also met in some of the national
airs of Spain, Greece, Germany, etc. Thus Eeioha,
in a note to No. 20 of his set of 36 fugues (each
of which embodies some curious experiment in
either tonality or rhythm), states that in a
certain district of the Lower Rhine, named
Eochersberg, the airs of most of the dances have
a, well-marked rhythm of five beats, and he
gives as an example the following waltz :
In the above example the second accent falls
on the third beat, the rhythm being that of 2-8
followed by 3-8, and the same order is observed
in a charming movement by HiUer,
from the Trio, op. 64.
In Reicha's fugue above referred to, the
reverse is the case, the fourth beat receiving
the accent, as is shown by the composer's own
time - signature, ,
well as by his explicit
directions as to performance. The following is
the subject :
AUegretto.
Other instances of quintuple rhythm are to
be found in a Trio for strings by K. J. Bischoff,
for which a prize was awarded by the Deutsche
Tonhalle in 1 8 5 3 in Chopin's Sonata in C minor,
;
op. 4 ; in Hiller's 'Rhythmische Studien,' op.
52 ;
in ' Viens, gentille Dame ; '
in Boieldieu's
'
La Dame blanche ' ; Lowe's Ballad ' Prinz
Eugen ; '
a number in Rubinstein's Tower ' of
Babel,' etc. Another characteristic example