Ole Bull's first visit to America was in 1843, and the impression
produced by his playing was, for manifest causes, even greater than that
created in Europe. He was the first really great violinist who had ever
come to this country for concert purposes, and there was none other
to measure him by. There were no great traditions of players who had
preceded him; there were no rivals like Spohr, Paganini, and De Bériot
to provoke comparisons. In later years artists discovered that this
country was a veritable El Dorado, and regarded an American tour as
indispensable to the fulfillment of a well-rounded career. But, when Ole
Bull began to play in America, his performances were revelations, to the
masses of those that heard him, of the possibilities of the violin. The
greatest enthusiasm was manifested everywhere, and, during the three
years of this early visit, he gave repeated performances in every city
of any note in America. The writer of this little work met Ole Bull a
few years ago in Chicago, and heard the artist laughingly say that,
when he first entered what was destined to be such a great city, it was
little more than a vast mudhole, a good-sized village scattered over
a wide space of ground, and with no building of pretension except Fort
Dearborn, a stockade fortification.
Our artist returned to Europe in 1846, and for five years led a
wandering life of concert-giving in England, France, Holland, Germany,
Italy, and Spain, adding to his laurels by the recognition everywhere
conceded of the increased soundness and musicianly excellence of his
playing. It was indeed at this period that Ole Bull attained his best as
a virtuoso. He had been previously seduced by the example of Paganini,
and in the attempt to master the more strange and remote difficulties of
the instrument had often laid himself open to serious criticism. But Ole
Bull gradually formed a style of his own which was the outcome of his
passion for descriptive and poetic playing, and the correlative of the
mode of composition which he adopted. In still later years Ole Bull
seems to have returned again to what might be termed claptrap and
trickery in his art, and to have desired rather to excite wonder and
curiosity than to charm the sensibilities or to satisfy the requirements
of sound musical taste.
In 1851 Ole Bull returned home with the patriotic purpose of
establishing a strictly national theatre. This had been for a long time
one of the many dreams which his active imagination had conjured up as
a part of his mission. He was one of the earliest of that school of
reformers, of whom we have heard so much of late years, that urge the
readoption of the old Norse language--or, what is nearest to it now,
the Icelandic--as the vehicle of art and literature. In the attempt to
dethrone Dansk from its preeminence as the language of the drama, Ole
Bull signally failed, and his Norwegian theatre, established at Bergen,
proved only an insatiable tax on money-resources earned in other
directions.
The year succeeding this, Ole Bull again visited the United States,
and spent five years here. The return to America did not altogether
contemplate the pursuit of music, for there had been for a good while
boiling in his brain, among other schemes, the project of a great
Scandinavian colony, to be established in Pennsylvania under his
auspices. He purchased one hundred and twenty-five thousand acres of
land on the Susquehanna, and hundreds of sturdy Norwegians flocked over
to the land of milk and honey thus auspiciously opened to them. Timber
was felled, ground cleared, churches, cottages, school-houses built,
and everything was progressing desirably, when the ambitious colonizer
discovered that the parties who sold him the land were swindlers without
any rightful claim to it. With the unbusiness-like carelessness of the
man of genius, our artist had not investigated the claims of others
on the property, and he thus became involved in a most perplexing and
expensive suit at law. He attempted to punish the rascals who so nearly
ruined him, but they were shielded behind the quips and quirks of the
law, and got away scot free. Ole Bull's previously ample means were so
heavily drained by this misfortune that he was compelled to take up
his violin again and resume concert-giving, for he had incurred heavy
pecuniary obligations that must be met. Driven by the most feverish
anxiety, he passed from town to town, playing almost every night, till
he was stricken down by yellow fever in New Orleans. His powerful frame
and sound constitution, fortified by the abstemious habits which had
marked his whole life of queer vicissitudes, carried him through this
danger safely, and he finally succeeded in honorably fulfilling the
responsibility which he had assumed toward his countrymen.
For many recent years Ole Bull, when not engaged in concert-giving in
Europe or America, has resided at a charming country estate on one
of the little islands off the coast of Norway. His numerous farewell
concert tours are very well known to the public, and would have won
him ridicule, had not the genial presence and brilliant talents of the
Norwegian artist been always good for a renewed and no less cordial
welcome. He frequently referred to the United States in latter years as
the beloved land of his adoption. One striking proof of his preference
was, at all events, displayed in his marriage to an American lady, Miss
Thorpe, of Wisconsin, in 1870. One son was the fruit of this second
marriage, and Mr. and Mrs. Ole Bull divided their time between Norway
and the United States.
The magnificent presence of Ole Bull, as if of some grand old viking
stepped out of his armor and dressed in modern garb, made a most
picturesque personality. Those who have seen him can never forget him.
The great stature, the massive, stalwart form, as upright as a pine, the
white floating locks framing the ruddy face, full of strength and genial
humor, lit up by keen blue eyes--all these things made Ole Bull the most
striking man in _personnel_ among all the artists who have been familiar
to our public.
While Ole Bull will not be known in the history of art as a great
scientific musician, there can be no doubt that his place as a brilliant
and gifted solo player will stand among the very foremost. As a composer
he will probably be forgotten, for his compositions, which made up the
most of his concert programmes, were so radically interwoven with his
executive art as a virtuoso that the two can not be dissevered. No one,
unless he should be inspired by the same feelings which animated the
breast of Ole Bull, could ever evolve from his musical tone-pictures
of Scandinavian myth and folk-lore the weird fascination which his
bow struck from the strings. Ole Bull, like Paganini, laid no claim to
greatness in interpreting the violin classics. His peculiar title to
fame is that of being, aside from brilliancy as a violin virtuoso, the
musical exponent of his people and their traditions. He died at Bergen,
Norway, on August 18, 1880, in the seventy-first year of his age,
and his funeral services made one of the most august and imposing
ceremonials held for many a long year in Norway.