Crowest, the English writer on musical subjects, says: "Two hundred
years ago, the finest violins that the world will probably ever have
were being turned out from the Italian workshops; while at about the
same time, and subsequently, there was issuing from the homes of music
in Germany, the music for these superb instruments,--music not for any
one age, 'but for all time.'"
"In the chain of this creative skill, however, a link was wanting.
Nobody rose up who could marry the music to the instrument. For years
and years the violin, and the music for it, marched steadily on, side
by side, but not united. Bach was writing far in advance of his time,
while Stradivarius and the Amatis were 'rounding' and 'varnishing' for
a people yet to come. It was not till the beginning of the present
century that executive skill, tone, and culture stepped in, and were
brought to bear upon an instrument that is, perhaps, more than any
other, amenable to such influences. Consequently, to us has fallen the
happy fate to witness the very zenith of violin-playing. A future
generation may equal, but can scarcely hope to surpass a Joachim, a
Wilhelmj, or a Strauss,--players who combine the skill of Paganini with
a purity of taste to which he was a stranger, and, moreover, with a
freedom from those startling eccentricities which, more than anything
else, have made the reputation of that strange performer."
The greatest violin-maker that ever lived, Antonio Stradivari, or
Stradivarius, was born in Cremona, probably in 1644. No entry of his
birth has been found in any church register at Cremona, but among the
violins which once belonged to a certain Count Cozio di Salabue was one
bearing a ticket in the handwriting of Stradivarius, in which his name,
his age, and the date of the violin were given. He was then ninety-two
years old, and the date of the violin was 1736. He was the pupil of
another famous Cremonese violin-maker, Niccolo Amati, and his first
works are said to bear the name of his master, but in 1670 he began to
sign instruments with his own name. His early history is quite
unknown, but a record exists showing that in 1667, when twenty-three
years old, he married Francesca Ferraboschi. For about twenty years
after his marriage, Stradivarius appears to have produced but few
instruments, and it is supposed that during this time he employed
himself chiefly in making those scientific experiments and researches
which he carried into practice in his famous works. It was about the
year 1700, when he was fifty-six years old, that Stradivarius attained
that perfection which distinguishes his finest instruments. The first
quarter of the eighteenth century witnessed the production of his best
violins,--the quality of those made after 1725 is less satisfactory.
During his long life (he died in 1737), the great violin-maker worked
industriously, and produced a large number of instruments, but a far
greater number are attributed to him than he could possibly have made.
His usual price for a violin was about twenty dollars, (Haweis says
fifty dollars), but a fine specimen from his hand now sells in the
auction room for hundreds of dollars. In 1888, a Stradivarius violin
brought the large sum of five thousand dollars, and double this sum was
paid a few years since for the celebrated "Messie" violin, made by
Stradivarius in 1716, and still in perfect condition. Count Cozio di
Salabue had bought it in 1760, but never allowed it to be played upon,
and when he died (about 1824) it was purchased by that remarkable
"violin hunter," Luigi Tarisio. Thirty years later, he, too, passed
over to the majority, and his friend, the Parisian violin-maker
Vuillaume, bought the "Messie" from Tarisio's heirs, along with about
two hundred and fifty other fiddles, many of which were of the greatest
rarity and value. Vuillaume kept the "Messie" in a glass case and
never allowed any one to touch it, and many anxious days he passed
during the Commune, fearing for his musical treasures. However, they
luckily escaped the dangers of the time, and when, in 1875, Vuillaume
died, the "Messie" became the property of his daughter, who was the
wife of M. Alard, the celebrated teacher of the violin. From his
executors it was bought in 1890 for 2,000 pounds, for the English
gentleman who now possesses this most famous of all the works of
Stradivarius. Charles Reade, the novelist, who was a lover of the
violin and an expert in such matters, in 1872 had thought this
instrument to be worth 600 pounds, so that its value had trebled in
less than twenty years. The celebrated violinist, Ole Bull, owned a
Stradivarius violin, dated 1687, and inlaid with ebony and ivory, which
is said to have been made for a king of Spain. In the "Tales of a
Wayside Inn" Longfellow speaks of it:
"The instrument on which he played
Was in Cremona's workshop made,
By a great master of the past
Ere yet was lost the art divine;
* * * *
"Exquisite was it in design,
Perfect in each minutest part,
A marvel of the lutist's art;
And in its hollow chamber, thus,
The maker from whose hands it came
Had written his unrivalled name,--
'Antonius Stradivarius.'"
Haweis, in his admirable book on "Old Violins," reproduces for us "the
atmosphere in which Antonio Stradivari worked for more than half a
century.
"I stood in the open loft at the top of his house, where still in the
old beams stuck the rusty old nails upon which he hung up his violins.
And I saw out upon the north the wide blue sky, just mellowing to rich
purple, and flecked here and there with orange streaks prophetic of
sunset. Whenever Stradivarius looked up from his work, if he looked
north, his eye fell on the old towers of S. Marcellino and S. Antonio;
if he looked west, the Cathedral, with its tall campanile, rose dark
against the sky, and what a sky! full of clear sun in the morning, full
of pure heat all day, and bathed with ineffable tints in the cool of
the evening, when the light lay low upon vinery and hanging garden, or
spangled with ruddy gold the eaves, the roofs, and frescoed walls of
the houses.
"Here, up in the high air, with the sun, his helper, the light, his
minister, the blessed soft airs, his journeymen, what time the workaday
noise of the city rose and the sound of matins and vespers was in his
ears, through the long warm days worked Antonio Stradivari."
[Illustration: Stradivarius. From painting by E. J. C. Hamman.]
Edouard Jean Conrad Hamman, who painted the picture of
Stradivarius--deep in thought amid his violins--which accompanies this,
was a Belgian. Born at Ostend in 1819, and a pupil of De Keyser, he
lived a long time in Paris, won many medals and other honours, and died
in 1888, leaving behind him numerous pictures, several of which are
reproduced in this book. His "Erasmus Reading to the Young Charles V."
is in the Luxembourg, and the Brussels museum has his "Dante at
Ravenna," and the "Entry of Albert and Isabella into Ostend." Besides
these he produced "The Mass of Adrien Willaert," "The Childhood of
Montaigne," "Shakespeare and his Family," "Vesalius," "Hamlet," and
"Murillo in his Studio." One of his paintings, entitled "The Women of
Siena, 1553," shows the women of that city working on the
fortifications intended to resist the besieging army of Charles V., and
another depicts Columbus first sighting land on October 12, 1492.