Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Natural

(Fr. bécarre; Ger. Auflösungszeichen, Quadrat; It. bequadro; Sp. becuadro).

In Western notation the sign , normally placed to the left of a note and thereby cancelling a flat or sharp that would otherwise affect that note (either as an accidental earlier in the same bar or as part of the prevailing key signature). The adjective ‘natural’ indicates a note that is neither sharpened nor flattened.

See also Accidental and Notation, §III, 3–4.

RICHARD RASTALL

Natural horn.

Term applied to the many different types of valveless horn. See Horn, §2.

Natural notes.

The notes of the harmonic series of a brass instrument, particularly of a ‘natural’ instrument, i.e. one not provided with valves, slide or keys in order to change the tube length while playing, and therefore confined to one series of harmonics or to such other series that are made available by changes of crook. The French expression ‘sons naturels’ is also used in music for horn to countermand ‘sons bouchés’ (‘stopped notes’) and in music for violin, harp etc., to countermand playing in harmonics.

Naturhorn

(Ger.).

Hand Horn.

Nātyaśāstra.

Sanskrit treatise on Indian dance, dramaturgy and music. See India, Subcontinent of, §II, 2(ii)(a); Mode, §V, 2(ii).

Natzka, Oscar

(b Matapara, 15 June 1912; d New York, 5 Nov 1951). New Zealand bass. He was at first a blacksmith, but in 1935 won a scholarship to study at Trinity College of Music in London with Albert Garcia. In 1938 he was engaged to sing at Covent Garden, where he made his début as Wagner in Faust and later created the leading role of De Fulke in George Lloyd’s The Serf. He also sang in Rigoletto and Die Meistersinger. After war service with the Royal Canadian Navy, he returned to sing leading bass roles at Covent Garden in 1947, notably Sarastro; the next year he made his début at the New York City Opera as Sparafucile in Rigoletto. Thereafter he sang widely in North America in opera and concerts, but in 1951 he was taken ill during a performance of Die Meistersinger in New York, and 13 days later he died. Possessor of an outstandingly powerful and resonant bass voice, he made a number of recordings of ballads and operatic arias in the late 1930s and the 1940s.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Simpson and P. Downes: ‘Oscar Natzka’, Southern Voices: International Opera Singers of New Zealand (Auckland, 1992), 52–63

PETER DOWNES

Nau, Simon

(fl 1638–42). English violinist, probably brother of Stephen Nau.

Nau [Naw, Noe, Nor], Stephen [Etienne]

(b Orléans, c1600; d London, 13 March 1647). French composer, violinist and dancing-master. Little is known of him before he was given a post in the English court violin band by a patent dated 4 March 1627, back-dated to Michaelmas 1626. However, a virtuoso manuscript fantasia for solo violin (formerly in PL-WRu, now in D-Ba) is ascribed to ‘Stephan Nau … der Princessin zu Heydelberg Dantzmeister’, and he is recorded as ‘Gallus Aureliensis’ (a Frenchman from Orléans) at Leiden University on 11 June 1627. He was evidently back in England by Christmas, for, by a warrant dated 22 November 1628 back-dated to then, he inherited the post of composer to the violin band previously held by Thomas Lupo.

He was evidently highly valued at the English court, for he received the enormous salary of £200 a year (the same as the Master of the Music) on his arrival, and was made the effective leader of the violin band within the year. In the course of his duties he collaborated with Sebastian La Pierre in the production of dances for James Shirley's masque The Triumph of Peace (February 1634) and the Hampton Court production of William Cartwright's Royal Slave (January 1637). He served at court until the beginning of the Civil War in 1642, but he did not subsequently leave England as did most of the other French musicians. He was ill in 1644 (Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne's case notes are in GB-Lbl) and died on 13 March 1647 in the London parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields. He was survived by his wife Cornelia and eight children. The Simon Nau who served in the violin band from 1638 to 1642 was probably his brother.

Nau's music deserves to be better known. Only eight pieces survive in English sources (GB-Ob,US-NH; see DoddI), all in fragmentary form, but 14 complete four- and five-part dances apparently by him (S-Uu, ed. in MMS, viii, 1976) and a six-movement ‘ballet’ for five instruments (D-Kl, ed. J. Ecorcheville: Vingt suites d'orchestre du XVIIe siècle français Paris, 1906/R) also survive. In 1636 a book containing music by Nau was in the collection of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. Although he restricted himself to the fashionable dance forms of the day, Nau was a composer of skill and imagination, with a feeling for string sonority and a fondness for quirky cross-rhythms and unpredictable harmonies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AshbeeR i, iii, v, viii

BDECM

DoddI

E. Bohn: Die musikalischen Handschriften des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts in der Stadtbibliothek zu Breslau (Breslau, 1890/R)

L. Hulse: ‘Apollo's Whirligig: William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle and his Music Collection’, The Seventeenth Century, ix (1994), 213–46

P. Holman: Four and Twenty Fiddlers: the Violin at the English Court 1540–1690 (Oxford, 1993, 2/1995)

P. Walls: Music in the English Courtly Masque 1604–1640 (Oxford, 1996)

PETER HOLMAN