League, found shelter among his "bons Dieppois," as he called them, who had been the first to acknowledge his right to the throne before the battle of Arques. While here he received from Queen Elizabeth a reinforcement of 1000 Scotch and 4500 English soldiers. Tuba mirum spargens sonum ("Day of wrath, that fearful day, when our generation shall be reduced to ashes, according to the testimony of David and the Sibyl. "What fear will seize upon us when the Judge cometh to judge all things strictly! "The trumpet, scattering abroad its wonderful clangour through the tombs of all regions, shall drive all men before the throne.") In the imposing requiem masses of Mozart, of Cherubini, and of Berlioz, the Dies Ira, and perhaps especially the Tuba mirum" stanza, with its natural development of trumpet music, lends itself to splendid and solemn musical rendering. DI ESIS, an ancient Greek musical interval, or rather a discrepancy between two tones nearly of the same pitch. If three pure major thirds are taken from any note, the resulting interval will be greater than the octave from the origin by the small interval of a diesis. Thus (4:5)3 multiplied by 2 (for the octave) gives 125: 128. This is considerably less than a sharp (128: 135), and less still than a semitone (15: 16); in fact the diesis is usually reckoned an impure unison rather than an impure semitone. If t be agreed to mean a "comma" (80:81), then a diesis may be thus shown :— Apparently with little other idea than to say they had traversed France from the Rhine to the Channel, the Germans paid two visits to Dieppe during the Franco-German War on the 9th and 14th December, 1870. As no defence, however, was attempted, no exactions were made. Fearing the port would be used as a base of supplies for the Germans, it was soon after blockaded by the French. DIE-SINKING. In the preparation of coined money and of medals the most important feature is the engraving" of the "die" which is to form the stamp. The piece of steel is prepared with the utmost care and is brought to a soft state when about to be submitted to the hands of the engraver. By the aid of small, fine, hardened steel tools, the engraver cuts away the steel until he has produced, in cavity or "intaglio," an exact reverse of the design for the medal or coin. The steel, in a soft state while being engraved, requires hardening before being applied to use. When further prepared, so as to be rendered more durable, it obtains the name of the matrix, and might be used in that state to stamp coins or medals; but as such a matrix is very costly and might be spoiled by fracture, arrangements are made for producing multiplied copies of it. A small block of soft steel is, by immense pressure, made to receive an impress in relief from this matrix; and from this second piece, which obtains the name of the puncheon, after being hardened and retouched by the graver, dies or duplications of the original matrix are produced. In the use of dies by means of the stamping-press the number of blows required to transfer the device to a blank piece of metal depends upon the depth of the intaglio. Dies for stamping note-paper, &c., and for fine kinds of metal ornaments, are prepared by the die-sinker. For inferior stamped metal ornaments the dies are chiefly cast and afterwards touched up with a graver. DIES IRÆ is the title of a well-known hymn, used as a portion of the service of the mass for the dead (Requiem) in the Roman Catholic Church. Its subject is the last judgment, and it was most likely composed about the middle of the thirteenth century. On account of the grandeur of its subject, the solemn emotions it is calculated to excite, and the awe-inspiring accessories which usually accompany its performance, it is generally given with most telling effect. It has been several times translated into English-among others by Lord Macaulay. The first stanzas of this celebrated "sequence," which follows the usual rhyming triplet of eight syllables, as does also the equally well-known STABAT MATER, run follows: "Dies iræ, dies illa, as C+3 major thirds (4: 5) = † Dbb. That is to say, three successive major thirds from C will reach a note a comma sharper than the D double-flat above it. D double-flat is sharper than C by a small interval, for a flat is less than a semitone, and a fortiori two flats are less than a tone; but as the formula above shows, the diesis is a comma larger than even this interval of difference between C and Dɔb. There is also another diesis (called the small diesis), obtained by taking five major thirds (4:5) up from C, and a fifth (2:3) down from the note thus obtained, which when contrasted against the octave (1:2) gives the ratio 3072: 3125. It may be represented by the difference between C and a note slightly above it, which is only two commas less than B double-sharp; or (taking as meaning "a comma less") we may write the formula thus: C+5 major thirds - a fifth B The small diesis is considerably smaller than the ordinary diesis. It seems regrettable, this being the meaning of diesis, that the Italians and the French should have adopted diesis and dièse respectively as signifying sharp, for a diesis is but little removed from a unison (especially the small diesis), while a sharp closely approximates to a semitone. Indeed the pianoforte and organ, and many other instruments, make the one do duty for the other, though the human voice, the violin, and the trumpet, in all their varieties, carefully distinguish (or at least they ought to do so) between the sharp and the semitone. END OF VOL. IV. PRINTED BY WILLIAM MACKENZIE, 43 & 45 HOWARD STREET, GLASGOW. |