Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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10 QUINT^US
occurs in the ' Gypaies' Glee, ' byW. Reeve (1 796).
This may fairly be considered an example of
genuine quintuple rhythm, for instead of the
usual division of the bar into two parts, such
as might be expressed by alternate bars of 3-4
and 2-4, or 2-4 and 3-4, there are five distinct
beats in every bar, each consisting of an accent
and a non- accent. This freedom from the
ordinary alternation of two and three is well
expressed by the grouping of the accompaniment.
[The same true quintuple time, as distinguished
from a combination of triple and duple time,
distinguishes the best-known example of all, the
second movement of Tchaikovsky's Pathetic
'
symphony. The passage in the third act of
Tristan und Isolde,' occurring at a most exciting
'
moment in the drama, is apt to escape
the attention of many hearers who are only
conscious of the impatient effect it produces.'
See Rhythm.] s. t.
QUINTUS (the Fifth). The Fifth Part in
a composition for five voices ; called also Pars
quinta and Quincuplum. In music of the 15th
and 16th centuries, the Fifth Part always corresponded
exactly in compass with one of the
other four ; it would, therefore, have been impossible
to describe it as First or Second Cantus,
Altus, Tenor, or Bassus. w. s. R.
QUIRE. Another way of spelling Choik.
6.
QUODLIBET (Lat. ' What you please '), also
called QuoTLiBET ( ' As many as you please '),
and in Italian Messanza or Mistichanza
( ' A mixture '). . This was a kind of musical
joke in the 16th and early part of the 17th
centuries, the fun of which consisted in the
extempore juxtaposition of different melodies,
whether sacred or secular, which were incongruous
either in their musical character, or in
QUODLIBET
-one with the Bachs, at whose annual family
gatherings the singing of quodlibets was a great
feature (see Spitta, J. S. Sack (Engl, transl.)
i. 154, iii. 172-6). Sebastian Bach himself has
left us one delightful example of a written-down
quodlibet, at the end of the 30 variations ' '
in
G major, for a detailed analysis of which see
Spitta. The two tunes used in it are ' Ich bin
so lang bei dir nicht gewest,' and 'Kraut und
Riiben, Haben mich vertrieben.' One of the
best modern examples, although only two
themes are used, is in Reinecke's variations for
two pianos on a gavotte of Gluck's, where, in the
last variation, he brings in simultaneously with
the gavotte the well-known musette of Bach
'
which occurs in the third English ' suite. A
good instance, and one in which the extempore
character is retained, is the singing of the
three tunes 'Polly Hopkins,' 'Buy a Broom,'
and 'The Merry Swiss Boy' together, which
was formerly sometimes done for a joke. A
very interesting specimen of a 16th-century
quodlibet by Johann Gbldel, consisting of five
chorale-tunes— viz. (1) 'Erhalt uns, Herr bei
deinem Wort,' (2) 'Ach Gott, von Himmel,'
(3) 'Vater unser im Himmelreich, ' (4) 'Wir
glauben all,' (5) ' Durch Adam's Fall '— is given
as an appendix to Hilgenfeldt's Life of Bach.
We quote a few bars as an example of the
ingenuity with which the five melodies are
brought together :
iipi^=^^^i^=p
the words with which they were associated ;
sometimes, however, the words were the same
in all parts, but were sung in snatches and
scraps, as in the quodlibets of Melchior Franck.
(See Praetorius, Syntagma Musicwm, tom. iii.
cap. V.) There were two ways of performing
this : one was to string the melodies together
simply and without any attempt at connecting
them by passages such as those found in modern
' fantasias ' ; the other, the more elaborate
method, consisted in singing or playing the
melodies simultaneously, the only modifications
allowed being those of time. The effect of this,
unless only very skilful musicians engaged in
it, must have been very like what we now call
a ' Dutch chorus. ' This pastime was a favourite
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