[Sidenote:  Pizzicato on the basses.]

[Sidenote:  Tremolo.]

These devices, though as a rule they have their maximum of effectiveness in the violins, are possible also on the violas, violoncellos, and double-basses, which, as I have already intimated, are but violins of a larger growth.  The pizzicato is, indeed, oftenest heard from the double-basses, where it has a much greater eloquence than on the violins.  In music of a sombre cast, the short, deep tones given out by the plucked strings of the contra-bass sometimes have the awfulness of gigantic heart-throbs.  The difficulty of producing the other effects grows with the increase of difficulty in handling the instruments, this being due to the growing thickness of the strings and the wideness of the points at which they must be stopped.  One effect peculiar to them all—­the most used of all effects, indeed, in dramatic music—­is the tremolo, produced by dividing a tone into many quickly reiterated short tones by a rapid motion of the bow.  This device came into use with one of the earliest pieces of dramatic music.  It is two centuries old, and was first used to help in the musical delineation of a combat.  With scarcely an exception, the varied means which I have described can be detected by those to whom they are not already familiar by watching the players while listening to the music.

[Sidenote:  The viola.]

The viola is next in size to the violin, and is tuned at the interval of a fifth lower.  Its highest string is A, which is the second string of the violin, and its lowest C. Its tone, which sometimes contains a comical suggestion of a boy’s voice in mutation, is lacking in incisiveness and brilliancy, but for this it compensates by a wonderful richness and filling quality, and a pathetic and inimitable mournfulness in melancholy music.  It blends beautifully with the violoncello, and is often made to double that instrument’s part for the sake of color effect—­as, to cite a familiar instance, in the principal subject of the Andante in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

[Sidenote:  The violoncello.]

[Sidenote:  Violoncello effects.]

The strings of the violoncello (Plate II.) are tuned like those of the viola, but an octave lower.  It is the knee-fiddle (viola da gamba) of the last century, as the viola is the arm-fiddle (viola da braccio), and got its old name from the position in which it is held by the player.  The ’cello’s voice is a bass—­it might be called the barytone of the choir—­and in the olden time of simple writing, little else was done with it than to double the bass part one octave higher.  But modern composers, appreciating its marvellous capacity for expression, which is next to that of the violin, have treated it with great freedom and independence as a solo instrument.  Its tone is full of voluptuous languor.  It is the sighing lover of the instrumental