Viotti, though in many respects proud, resolute, and haughty in
temperament, was simple-hearted and enthusiastic, and a passionate lover
of nature. M. Eymar, one of his intimate friends, said of him, "Never
did a man attach so much value to the simplest gifts of nature, and
never did a child enjoy them more passionately." A modest flower growing
in the grass of the meadow, a charming bit of landscape, a rustic
_fête_, in short, all the sights and sounds of the country, filled him
with delight. All nature spoke to his heart, and his finest compositions
were suggested and inspired by this sympathy. He has left the world a
charming musical picture of the feelings experienced in the mountains
of Switzerland. It was there he heard, under peculiar circumstances,
and probably for the first time, the plaintive sound of a mountain-horn,
breathing forth the few notes of a kind of "Ranz des Vaches."
"The 'Ranz des Vaches' which I send you," he says in one of his letters,
"is neither that with which our friend Jean Jacques has presented us,
nor that of which M. De la Bord speaks in his work on music. I can
not say whether it is known or not; all I know is, that I heard it
in Switzerland, and, once heard, I have never forgotten it. I was
sauntering along, toward the decline of day, in one of those sequestered
spots.... Flowers, verdure, streamlets, all united to form a picture
of perfect harmony. There, without being fatigued, I seated myself
mechanically on a fragment of rock, and fell into so profound a reverie
that I seemed to forget that I was upon earth. While sitting thus,
sounds broke on my ear which were sometimes of a hurried, sometimes of
a prolonged and sustained character, and were repeated in softened tones
by the echoes around. I found they proceeded from a mountain-horn; and
their effect was heightened by a plaintive female voice. Struck as if
by enchantment, I started from my dreams, listened with breathless
attention, and learned, or rather engraved upon my memory, the 'Ranz des
Vaches' which I send you. In order to understand all its beauties, you
ought to be transplanted to the scene in which I heard it, and to
feel all the enthusiasm that such a moment inspired." It was a similar
delightful experience which, according to Rossini's statement, first
suggested to that great composer his immortal opera, "Guillaume Tell."
Among many interesting anecdotes current of Viotti, and one which
admirably shows his goodness of heart and quickness of resource, is one
narrated by Ferdinand Langlé to Adolph Adam, the French composer. The
father of the former, Marie Langlé, a professor of harmony in the French
Conservatoire, was an intimate friend of Viotti, and one charming summer
evening the twain were strolling on the Champs Élysées. They sat down on
a retired bench to enjoy the calmness of the night, and became buried
in reverie. But they were brought back to prosaic matters harshly by a
babel of discordant noises that grated on the sensitive ears of the two
musicians. They started from their seats, and Viotti said:
"It can't be a violin, and yet there is some resemblance to one."
"Nor a clarionet," suggested Langlé, "though it is something like it."
The easiest manner of solving the problem was to go and see what it was.
They approached the spot whence the extraordinary tones issued, and saw
a poor blind man standing near a miserable-looking candle and playing
upon a violin--but the latter was an instrument made of tin-plate.
"Fancy!" exclaimed Viotti, "it is a violin, but a violin of tin-plate!
Did you ever dream of such a curiosity?" and, after listening a while,
he added, "I say, Langlé, I must possess that instrument. Go and ask the
old blind man what he will sell it for."
Langlé approached and asked the question, but the old man was
disinclined to part with it.
"But we will give you enough for it to enable you to purchase a better,"
he added; "and why is not your violin like others?"
The aged fiddler explained that, when he got old and found himself
poor, not being able to work, but still able to scrape a few airs upon a
violin, he had endeavored to procure one, but in vain. At last his good,
kind nephew Eustache, who was apprenticed to a tinker, had made him one
out of a tin-plate. "And an excellent one, too," he added; "and my poor
boy Eustache brings me here in the morning when he goes to work, and
fetches me away in the evening when he returns, and the receipts are
not so bad sometimes--as, when he was out of work, it was I who kept the
house going."
"Well," said Viotti, "I will give you twenty francs for your violin. You
can buy a much better one for that price; but let me try it a little."
He took the violin in his hands, and produced some extraordinary
effects from it. A considerable crowd gathered around, and listened
with curiosity and astonishment to the performance. Langlé seized on
the opportunity, and passed around the hat, gathering a goodly amount of
chink from the bystanders, which, with the twenty francs, was handed to
the astonished old beggar.
"Stay a moment," said the blind man, recovering a little from his
surprise; "just now I said I would sell the violin for twenty francs,
but I did not know it was so good. I ought to have at least double for
it."
Viotti had never received a more genuine compliment, and he did not
hesitate to give the old man two pieces of gold instead of one, and then
immediately retired from the spot, passing through the crowd with the
tin-plate instrument under his arm. He had scarcely gone forty yards
when he felt some one pulling at his sleeve; it was a workman, who
politely took off his cap, and said:
"Sir, you have paid too dear for that violin; and if you are an amateur,
as it was I who made it, I can supply you with as many as you like at
six francs each."
This was Eustache; he had just come in time to hear the conclusion of
the bargain, and, little dreaming that he was so clever a violin-maker,
wished to continue a trade that had begun so successfully. However,
Viotti was quite satisfied with the one sample he had bought. He never
parted with that instrument; and, when the effects of Viotti were sold
in London after his death, though the tin fiddle only brought a few
shillings, an amateur of curiosities sought out the purchaser, and
offered him a large sum if he could explain how the strange instrument
came into the possession of the great violinist.
After resigning his position as director of the Grand Opéra, Viotti
returned to London, which had become a second home to him, and spent his
remaining days there. He died on the 24th of March, 1824.