Word: arpacitera
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Prior to now the finest tone-division ever achieved was on the arpacitera, a zither-like instrument with a one-octave range which produced sixteenth tones. It was played with the Philadelphia Orchestra three years ago by Beatrice Weller. Specially constructed French horns have also achieved sixteenth tones...
...which Mr. Carillo claimed he crowded 96 tones into a single octave. At Conductor Stokowski's command, specially trained musicians first produced on the familiar violin, cello and horn, intervals smaller than the semitone. Then new and strange gifts to Orpheus from Mr. Carillo were played: the arpacitera, a mastodonic zither, tuned in 16ths; the octavina, a towering double-bass guitar, capable of eighths; a guitarre adapted to produce quarter-tones...
From Mexico to Manhattan not long ago came Julian Carrillo, composer, onetime director of Mexico's national conservatory. Composer Carrillo has a system all his own. He has substituted numbers for notes, written music in quarter, eighth and 16th tones, and perfected instruments to play them-an "arpacitera" or harp zither, having 97 tones within the octave in subdivisions of 16ths; a French horn, made in Manhattan, that plays 16ths; an "octavina" that plays eighths; a guitar that plays quarters; and an ordinary cello and violin on which were played quarters and eighths. Last week the League of Composers...
| 1 |