The first performance of the _opera seria_ at Rome, in 1606, consisted
of scenes in recitative and airs, exhibited in a _cart_ during the
carnival.
* * * * *
THE GAMUT.
Guido D'Arezzo, a monk of the 13th century, in the solitude of his
convent, made the grand discovery of counterpoint, or the science of
harmony, as distinguished from melody; he also invented the present
system of notation, and gave those names to the sounds of the diatonic
scale still in use:--_ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si_; these being the
first syllables of the first six lines of a hymn to St. John the
Baptist, written in monkish Latin; and they seem to have been adopted
without any special reason, from the caprice of the musician.--_Foreign
Rev._
* * * * *
It is said that the first church was erected at Glastonbury; and this
tradition may seem to deserve credit, because it was not contradicted in
those ages when other churches would have found it profitable to advance
a similar pretension. The building is described as a rude structure of
wicker-work, like the dwellings of the people in those days, and
differing from them only in its dimensions, which were threescore feet
in length, and twenty-six in breadth.
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