Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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502 SOLMISATION SOLO ORGAN
method as being in general use, in 1636; ' and
Playford calls attention to the same fact in 1655.^
In France the original syllables, with the
added Si, took firmer root than ever in Italy ;
for it had long been the custom, in the Neapolitan
schools, to use the series beginning with
Do for those keys only in which the third is
Major. For Minor keys, the Neapolitans begin
with Be ; using Fa for an accidental flat, and
Mi for a sharp. Durante, however, when his
pupils were puzzled with a difficult Mutation,
used to cry out, ' Only sing the syllables in tune,
and you may name them after devils, if you like.
The truth ia, that, as long as the syllables
are open, their selection is a matter of very
slight importance. They were never intended
to be used for the formation of the voice, which
may be much better trained upon the sound
of the vowel. A, as pronounced in Italian, than
upon any other syllable whatever. Their use is,
to familiarise the student with the powers and
special peculiarities of the sounds which form
the scale ; and here it is that the arguments
of those who insist upon the use of a ' fixed,'
or a 'movable Do,' demand our most careful
consideration. The fact that in Italy and France
the syllables Ut (Do), He, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si,
are always applied to the same series of notes,
C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and used as we ourselves
use the letters, exercises no effect whatever upon
the question at issue. It is quite possible for
an Italian, or a Frenchman, to apply the fixed
'
Do system' to his method of nomenclature,
and to use the 'movable Do' for purposes of
Sohuisation. The writer himself, when a child,
was taught both systems simultaneously, by his
first instructor, John Pnrkis, who maintained,
with perfect truth, that each had its own merits,
and each its own faults. In matters relating
to absolute pitch, the fixed Do is all that can
be desired. The 'movable Do' ignores the
question of pitch entirely ; but it calls the
student's attention to the peculiar functions
attached to the several Degrees of the Scale so
clearly, that, in a very short time, he learns to
distinguish the Dominant, the Sub-Mediant, the
Leading-Note, or any other interval of any given
key, without the possibility of mistake, and
that, by simply sol-faing the passage in the
usual manner. It is this quality which is the
strongest point in the Tonic Sol-fa system.
One of the strongest objections to the system
of the fixed Do is that it makes no provision for
the indication of flats or sharps. In a tract
published at Venice in 1746^ an anonymous
member of the Roman Academy called 'Arcadia,'
proposed to remove the difficulty, by adding to
the seven recognised syllables five others,
designed to represent the sharps and flats most
frequently used ; viz. Pa (Gj, Db), £o(Dfl, El>),
1 Prtnciple8 ofMugitik, by C. Bntler (London, 1636).
3 IntroctwAifm to the SkiU of Mu*i£k (London, 16S5J.
3 Bifieaeioni sopfa atla maggl/trfacUtttt Che trovaH net apprentlere
it canto, etc. etc, (Venezia, 1746.)
Tu (Fif, Gb), De (Gfl, Ab), N^o (AJ, Bb). This
method was adopted by Hasse, and highly
approved by Giambattista Mancini^ but in
1768 a certain Signer Serra endeavoured to
supersede it by a still more numerous collection
of syllables ; using Ca, Da, Ae, Fa, 6a, A, Ba, to
represent the seven natural notes. A, B, C, D,
E, F, G ; C«, De, E, Fe, Ge, Ao, Be, to represent
the same notes, raised by a series of sharps ;
and Ci, Di, Oe, Fi, Gfi, Au, Bi, to represent
them, when lowered by flats.
[See the SanwmeWa/nde of the Int. Mus. Ges.
i. 535.] w. s. K,
SOLO (Jtal.
or passage
executed by one voice or performer. Airs are
solos ; a pianoforte piece for two hands is a
pianoforte solo. A violin solo, strictly speaking,
is a piece for the violin alone, like Bach's unaccompanied
sonatas ; but the term is often used
loosely for a concerto or other piece in which the
solo instrument is accompanied by the band,
the pianoforte, etc.
In an orchestral piece where one instrument
has a passage which is intended to sound out
prominently, it is marked ' Solo,' as in the
second subject of the Adagio in Beethoven's
Symphony No. 4, which is for the 1 st clarinet,
and marked Solo ; in the flute solo near the
end of the working-out in the Leonora Overture
(where, however, the bassoon, equally solo, is
merely marked 1 ' ; and in a thousand other
')
instances. In arrangements of pianoforte concertos
for two hands, the entry of the solo
instrument is marked Solo, to distinguish it
from the compressed accompaniment. G.
SOLO 0E6AN, a manual or clavier of an
organ having stops associated with it which for
the most part are intended for use solo, that is,
in single notes as opposed to chords. The solo
organ is generally a fourth manual placed above
that of the swell ; but it occasionally supersedes
the choir organ, and is then placed below the
' Great ' manual. The stops in a solo organ are
most frequently (1) Flutes of 8 ft. and 4 ft. ;
(2) A stop of clariiiet-tone ; (3) a stop of oboetone
(orchestral oboe) ; (4) Reeds of 8 ft. and
4 ft. of trumpet-tone (tromba, tuba, ete. ). Larger
solo organs contain also stops imitative of the
violin, horn, piccolo, and other instraments ;
perhaps
also an open diapason, and, in a few cases,
a, carillon or glockenspiel. The solo tnimpetstops
are most frequently on a heavy pressure of
wind, and in order to obtain special brilliance
are sometimes ' harmonic,' as are also the flutes ;
that is, they have tubes of twice the ordinary
length, pierced with a small hole at their half
length. Some of the stops of a solo organ are
often used in chords, such for instance as flutes
and reeds. This is most commonly done by
means of a coupler Solo to Great,' by which
'
the diapason or flute tones of the solo organ can
be used as a valuable reinforcement of the foundation
stops of the Great manual ; and the tone