Ehrlich.—Celebrated Violinists. Hart.—The Violin and its Music. QUESTIONS. What was the form of early violin music? What difference was there in sonatas? What were Corelli’s contributions to music? What were Tartini’s contributions to music? Trace the connection between the French and Italian schools. Trace the connection between the German and the Italian schools. Trace the connection between the Vienna and the Italian schools. What composers contributed most largely to the educational side of violin music? Prepare a short sketch of Paganini. LESSON XXXVI. THE ORCHESTRA AND ABSOLUTE MUSIC. =The Orchestra as a Means of Expression=.—The most perfect means for expression in music is presented by the orchestra, which, in its complete form as shown today, is the result of a long development in many directions. To give us this magnificent mass-instrument required a sifting of the various instruments and the choice of those that offered the best possibilities, a perfecting of these instruments, a shaping of systems of playing them, of technic that should draw out all possible effects, and an understanding, on the part of composers, of the nature and demands of absolute music and how best to shape their conceptions in accordance with these demands. The orchestra and its music, therefore, represents the extreme height of man’s work in music, for even when choral forces are joined to the orchestra, the instrumental idea dominates, as, for example, in the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven, in which the chorus is simply a _vocal band_ added to the other groups. The orchestra is a great means for musical expression because it offers to the composer the maximum of resources. In modern days, when the esthetic principle of Unity in Variety receives the most elastic interpretation due to the demand for the greatest possible contrasts in tone-color, power and in nuances, all, however, intended to exhibit and illumine the themes invented by the composer in their various transformations, in these days the orchestra is truly the most complete art-means known.