For Every Music Lover / A Series of Practical Essays on Music

Violinists-F

ayers on the videl, or fiddle, abounded in the days of chivalry, but Volker, glorified by genius, rises superior to his fellow minstrels. The inspiring f

ght hand could deal a deft blow on either side. Ever ready for action was he, and his friendship for Hagen of Tronje furnished the mai

inist testifies no more fully to the mission of the musician than the creation of the Nibelungen bard. In August Wilhelmj, once hailed by Henrietta Sontag as the coming Paganini, Richard Wagner saw "V

an and beast, and the lad of Norse folk-lore who won a fiddle that could make people dance to any tune he chose. In Norway the traditional violin teacher is the cascade-haunting musical genius Fossegrim, who, when suitably propitiated, s

bowl, because when he called for them he called for his fiddlers three and their very fine fiddles. According to Robert of Gloucester, the real King Cole, a popular monarch of Brit

e material. It is to be hoped Mrs. John enjoyed music more than gay attire. Certainly the dame who was for

nged to the cat whose fiddling made the cow jump over the moon, the little dog laugh and the dish run away with the spoon. Rarely accomplished too w

d down the projecting veins of their wing-covers they produce the sounds that characterize them. Was it in imitation of these small winged creatures that ma

ng Ravana, who reigned in Ceylon some 5,000 years ago. It is formed of a small cylindrical sounding-body, with a stick running through it for a neck, a bridge, and a single string of silk, or at most two strings. Its

from those instruments. Numerous obstacles stand in the way of defining its story, but it is known that from the ninth century to the thirteenth bow instruments gained in importance. They divided into two classes-the viol prope

ds had long before this used a bow instrument-the chrotta or crwth, derived from the lyre, which was introduced by the Romans i

ians praise the

ritish cr

ington Museum, corresponding well to the following description by a Welsh poet of the fifteenth century: "A fair coffer with a bow, a girdle, a finger-board and a bridge; its value is a pound; it has a frontlet formed like a wheel with the short-nosed bow across. In its centre are the circled s

. Besides her other accomplishments, the Virgin Queen, we are told, was a violinist. During her reign we find the violin mentioned among instruments accompanying the drama and various festivities, and viols of diverse kinds were freely used. Shakespeare, in Twelfth Night, has Sir Toby enumerate among Sir Andrew Aguecheek's attractio

r him while he was dining according to the custom he had known at the French court during his exile. Place was grudgingly yielded to the violin by friends of the less insistent viol. Butler, in Hudibras, styled it "a squeaking en

these are played. A remarkably well preserved specimen of this instrument, made by Eberle of Prague, in 1733, and superbly carved on pegbox and scroll, is in the fine private violin collection of Mr. D. H. Carr, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It is one of the few genuine viola d'amores extant. The owner says of it: "The tone is simply wonderful, mellow, pure and strong, and of that exquisite harmony that comes from the throne of Nature. I know of no other genuine viola d'amore, and it compares with the modern copies I have seen as a Raphael or a Rubens with some cheap li

to-day. It was made effective in accompanying the madrigal, that delightful flower of the Elizabethan age. Singers not always being available for all of the difficult voice parts viols of the same compass suppli

own in the Tyrol, in Bologna, Paris and Lyons. The belief that he originated the violin rests chiefly on the elaborately ornamented forgeries bearing his name, the work of French imitators from 1800 to 1840. There is an

or at whose hands it gained its present form is unknown. The same doubt encircles its first master player. Perhaps the earliest worthy of mention is one Baltzarini,

rary stoutly averred, "played sweeter, was a well-bred gentleman, and was not given to excessive drinking as Baltzar was." His marvelous feat of "running his fingers to the end of the finger-board and back again with all alacrity" cause

wrote music for Shakespeare's Tempest, and was the first to attempt, in London, concerts at which the audience paid for seats. Announcements of the initial performance, September 30, 1672, read: "These are to give notice that at Mr. Banister's house (now

etty legend tells how this skilful viol-maker imprisoned in his first violin the golden tones of the soprano voice of Marietta, the maiden he loved and from whom death parted him. Her likeness, so the story runs, is preserved in the angel face, by Benevenuto Cellini, adorning the head. The instrument thus famed wa

ggini violin. De Beriot used one in his concerts, and its plaintive tone was thought well suited to his style. He refused to part with it for 20,000 francs when Wieniawski, in 1859, wished to buy

rles IX. of France, in 1566, commissioned him to construct twenty-four violins, twelve large and twelve small pattern. They were kept in the Chapel Royal, Versailles, until 1790, when they were seized by the mob in the French Revolution, and but one of them is kn

atis," and attained a purer, more resonant tone than his predecessors, although not always adapted to modern concert use. One of his violins was the favorite instrument of the French virtuoso Delphine Jean Alard (1815-1888), long violin

ce. His first attempts were mere copies, but after he was equipped with his master's splendid legacy of tools and wood, his originality asserted itself. His "Golden" period was from 1700 to 1725,

y increased the family property until "as rich as Stradivarius" became a common saying in Cremona. Because of his achievements and his personal worth, he was held in high esteem. Members of royal families, prelates of the church, men of wealth and culture throughout Europe, were his personal friends as well as hi

ins a soul that speaks and a heart that beats." The Tuscan Strad, one of a set ordered by Marquis Ariberti for the Prince of Tuscany, in 1690, was sold two hundred years later to Mr. Brandt by a London firm for ￡2,000. Lady Hallé, court violinist to Queen Alexandra, owns the conce

tsteps. The family name reached its highest distinction in his nephew, Giuseppe (Joseph) Guarnerius (1683-1745), called del Gesu, because o

qualling that of Master Stradivarius. Tradition has it that he was once imprisoned for some bit of lawlessness, and was saved from despair by the jailor's daughter who

splendid carrying powers. Similar qualities are attributed to the Paganini Guarnerius del Gesu, 1743, known as the "Canon" and kept under glass at the Genoa Museum. Mr. Hart, a violin authority, places highest in thi

sixteen "Elector Steiners," one sent to each of the Electors and four to the Emperor. During his life the average price of his violins was six florins. A century after his death the Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe's grandfather, paid 3,500 florins f

Brescian and Cremona days. Why should this be the case? The same well-defined principles, based on acoustics and other modern sciences, that have led to the steady improveme

h his painstaking efforts such perfection was reached that Tartini, who was born the same year as he, 1692, could play his most difficult compositions two hundred times on the Angelucci strings, whereas he was continually interrupte

sition proving unfitted to cope with the jealousy of Lully, chief violinist in France, and with sundry annoyances in other lands, he returned to Italy and entered the service of Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome. In the private apartments of the prelate there gathered a choice company of music lovers every Monday a

e is music. On one occasion when his patron was addressing some remarks to another person, he laid down his violin, and on being asked the reason said "he feared the music was disturbing the conversation." This did not prevent him from being held in

at master of this, a composer of works still regarded as classics, and a scientific writer on musical physics. His letter to his pupil, Signora Maddelena Lombardini, contains invaluable advice on violin prac

ning he produced his famous "Devil's Sonata," with its double shakes and sinister laugh, a favorite of the violinist, but to the composer ever inferior to the music of his dreams. It is rather curious that anything of a diabolic nature should be associated

unfitted him for public life. Wherever he appeared he outshone all other performers, yet there was constantly something occurring to wound him. At the Court of Versailles he left the platform i

e enterprise, in London, his transactions being regulated by the strictest integrity, but, as was inevitable, he soon returned to Paris and his art. After he had abandoned the concert room one of his greatest pleasures was in improvising violin parts to the piano performances of his friend, Madame Mon

he belief that he had sold himself body and soul to the devil who stood ever at his elbow when he played. When, after a taxing concert season, the weary violinist retired to a Swiss monastery for rest and practice amid peaceful surroundings

ages, octaves and tenths, double and triple harmonics and succession of harmonics in thirds and in sixths. His long fingers were of invaluable service to him in unusual stretches, and his fondness for pizzicato passages may be traced to his familiarity with the twang of his father's mandolin. He shone chiefly

, Camillo Ernesto Sivori (1815-1894), who was in his day a great celebrity in European musical centres, and who was familiar to concert-goers in this country, especially in Boston, during the late forties and early fifties. He was thought to produce

having less scintillant genius than the weird Italian, is believed to have had a more beneficent influence over violin playing in his treatment of the instr

te, Dancla and Sauret. Charles August de Beriot (1802-1870) was the actual founder of the Belgian school whose famous members include the names of Vieuxtemps, Leonard, Wieniawski, Thomson and Ysaye. Ferdinand David (1810-1873), first head of the violin department at the Leipsic Conservatory, gave impulse to the German school. Among his famous pupils are Dr. Joseph Joachim, known as one of the

tributes have been paid not so much to the violinist who swayed the emotions of an audience and who could sing a melody on his instrument into the hearts of his hearers, as to the patriot, the man who turned the eyes of the world to his sturdy little fatherland, and who gave the

ats. It has perhaps reached its climax in the young Bohemian Jan Kubelik, whose playing has been pronounced technically

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