Breve

BREVE (Fr. Carrée; Ital. Breve). A note of the value of two semibreves, rarely met with in modern music, in which there is no place for it, as the longest bar commonly used (viz. a bar of 12–8 time) has but the value of a semibreve and a half. Although now nearly obsolete from its great length, the breve was originally (as indicated by its name, derived from brevis, short) the shorter of the two notes of which the earliest...