company, and can speak the language of tender passion more feelingly than any of its fellows.  The ravishing effect of a multiplication of its voice is tellingly exemplified in the opening of the overture to “William Tell,” which is written for five solo ’celli, though it is oftenest heard in an arrangement which gives two of the middle parts to violas.  When Beethoven wished to produce the emotional impression of a peacefully rippling brook in his “Pastoral” symphony, he gave a murmuring figure to the divided violoncellos, and Wagner uses the passionate accents of four of these instruments playing in harmony to support Siegmund when he is pouring out the ecstasy of his love in the first act of “Die Walkuere.”  In the love scene of Berlioz’s “Romeo and Juliet” symphony it is the violoncello which personifies the lover, and holds converse with the modest oboe.

[Sidenote:  The double-bass.]

The patriarchal double-bass is known to all, and also its mission of providing the foundation for the harmonic structure of orchestral music.  It sounds an octave lower than the music written for it, being what is called a transposing instrument of sixteen-foot tone.  Solos are seldom written for this instrument in orchestral music, though Beethoven, with his daring recitatives in the Ninth Symphony, makes it a mediator between the instrumental and vocal forces.  Dragonetti and Bottesini, two Italians, the latter of whom is still alive, won great fame as solo players on the unwieldy instrument.  The latter uses a small bass viol, and strings it with harp strings; but Dragonetti played a full double-bass, on which he could execute the most difficult passages written for the violoncello.

[Sidenote:  The wood-winds.]

Since the instruments of the wood-wind choir are frequently used in solos, their acquaintance can easily be made by an observing amateur.  To this division of the orchestra belong the gentle accents in the instrumental language.  Violent expression is not its province, and generally when the band is discoursing in heroic style or giving voice to brave or angry emotion the wood-winds are either silent or are used to give weight to the body of tone rather than color.  Each of the instruments has a strongly characteristic voice, which adapts itself best to a certain style of music; but by use of different registers and by combinations among them, or with the instruments of the other choirs, a wide range of expression within the limits suggested has been won for the wood-winds.

[Sidenote:  The flute.]

[Sidenote:  The piccolo flute.]

[Sidenote:  Janizary music.]

[Sidenote:  The story of the flute.]