Soyez assez bon pour faire mes plus affectueux compliments à M.
Heinefetter et priez–le de ne pas annoncer mon concert pour lundi
ainsi que nous en étions convenus. Lors de mon passage à Mannheim
(mercredi soir) j’aurai soin de l’informer du jour que nous
puissons choisir. Si par le plus grand des hazards on pouvait
m’annoncer un concert mercredi, je crois que je pourrai être à
temps à Mannheim—mais il vaut mieux, je crois, ne pas forcer ainsi
la chose. En tout cas n’oubliez pas de prevenir Heinefetter que
lundi il me sera impossible de tenir ma promesse.
Ole Bull now went over to Brussels, where he had a warm friend in
Monsieur Fétis; thence to Antwerp, the Rhine towns, and Heidelberg,
joining company with Liszt. He then returned to Paris, but was soon
called to Berlin, where he had been specially invited to participate in
the festivities of the coronation of King William (the present Emperor
of Germany). He gave six concerts to the royal family and their
visitors. In Leipsic he also gave six concerts, where the musical
society, “Der Tunnel,” presented him with a silver vase, surmounted by a
figure of Apollo with the lyre.
It was in Leipsic that the Cellini Caspar da Salo violin came to him.
Mendelssohn and Liszt were dining with Ole Bull, when a servant placed
by his master’s plate an envelope bearing a great seal. “Open your
letter, Ole Bull! it may be important,” said Liszt. It was from the son
of Rhaczek, the owner of the violin, and imparted the news of his
father’s death, adding that a clause of his will directed that the
instrument should be offered to Ole Bull. Delighted, he told the news to
his friends, who, when they learned the value set upon the violin,
advised him to be cautious as to its purchase. “If it is really worth
the price you mean to pay for it,” said Mendelssohn, “we must dedicate
it together by playing the ‘Kreutzer.’” When it came, and had been put
in order, Mendelssohn’s suggestion was carried out. He and Ole Bull
played Beethoven’s “Sonata,” which was the first work performed on that
wonderful instrument. The following description of the violin, by Mrs.
Childs, is entirely faithful and correct:—
The violin, now in possession of Ole Bull, was made to the order
of Cardinal Aldobrandini, one of a noble family at Rome memorable
for their patronage of the fine arts. He gave for it 3,000
Neapolitan ducats, and presented it to the treasury of Innsprück,
where it became a celebrated curiosity, under the name of “The
Treasury–Chamber Violin.” When that city was taken by the French,
in 1809, it was carried to Vienna, and sold to Rhaczek, a wealthy
Bohemian, whose splendid collection of rare and ancient stringed
instruments had attracted universal attention in the musical
world. The gem of his museum was the violin manufactured by Da
Salo, and sculptured by Cellini. He was offered immense sums for
it by English, Russian, and Polish noblemen, but to all such
offers he answered, “Not for the price of half Vienna.”
A few years ago Ole Bull gave some fifteen concerts in Vienna,
with the brilliant success which usually attends him. The
Bohemian, who went with the crowd to hear him, was an enthusiastic
admirer of his genius, and soon became personally acquainted with
him. Until then he had considered himself the most learned man in
Europe in the history of violins, the peculiar merits of all the
most approved manufacturers, and the best methods of repairing
deficiencies, or improving the tones. But with Ole Bull, love of
the violin had been an absorbing passion from his earliest
childhood. He never saw one of a novel shape, or heard one with a
new tone, without studying into the causes of the tone, and the
effects produced by the shape. Through every nook and corner of
Italy he sought for new varieties of his favorite instrument, as
eagerly as an Oriental merchant seeks for rare pearls. He had
tried all manner of experiments; he knew at sight the tuneful
qualities of every species of wood, and precisely how the
slightest angle or curve in the fashion of an instrument would
affect the sound. He imparted to the Bohemian amateur much
information that was new and valuable; and this sympathy of tastes
and pursuits produced a warm friendship between them. Of course,
Ole looked with a longing eye on the oldest and best of his
violins; but the musical antiquarian loved it like an only child.
He could not bring himself to sell it at that time, but he
promised that, if he ever did part with it, the minstrel of Norway
should have the preference over every other man in the world. He
died two years afterward, and a letter from his son informed Ole
Bull that his dying father remembered the promise he had given. He
purchased it forthwith, and it was sent to him at Leipsic.
On the head of this curious violin is carved and colored an
angel’s face, surrounded by flowing curls of hair. Behind this
figure, leaning against the shoulders, is a very beautiful little
mermaid, the human form of which terminates in scales of green and
gold. The neck of the instrument is ornamented with arabesques in
blue, red, and gold. Below the bridge is a mermaid in bronze.
Thorwaldsen took great delight in examining these figures, and
bestowed enthusiastic praise on the gracefulness of the design,
and the excellence of the workmanship. Ole Bull was born in
February, and, by an odd coincidence, the bridge of his darling
violin is delicately carved with two intertwining fishes, like the
zodiacal sign of February. Two little Tritons, cut in ivory, are
in one corner of the bow. Altogether, it is a very original and
singularly beautiful instrument. It has the rich look of the
Middle Ages, and would have been a right royal gift for some
princely troubadour.... The wood is extremely soft, and very
thick. The upper covering is of an exceedingly rare species of
Swiss pine, celebrated in the manufacture of violins. It grows on
the Italian side of the Alps; for sunshine and song seem
inseparably connected, and the balmy atmosphere which makes Italy
so rich in music, and imparts to her language such liquid melody,
seems breathed into her trees. Those acquainted with music are
well aware that the value of an instrument is prodigiously
increased by the age of the wood, and that the purity of its tone
depends very much on the skillfulness of the hand which has played
upon it.
As the best and brightest human soul can never free itself
entirely from the influence of base and vulgar associations in
youth, so a violin never quite recovers from the effect of
discordant vibrations. So perceptible is this to a delicate ear,
that when Ole Bull first performed in Philadelphia, he at once
perceived that the double bass–viol in the orchestra was a very
old instrument, and had been well played on. Some time after, the
horse and rider that represented General Putnam’s leap down the
precipice, plunged into the orchestra of the theatre and crushed
the old bass–viol. As soon as Ole Bull became aware of the
accident he hastened to buy the fragments. The wood of his violin
was so old, and so thoroughly vibrated, that he had never been
able to obtain a sounding–post adapted to it.
This post is an extremely small piece of wood in the interior of
the instrument, but the inharmonious vibration between the old and
the new disturbed his sensitive ear, until he was enabled to
remedy the slight defect by a fragment of the double–bass.
One of the most curious facts in connection with this memorable
violin is, that it was probably never played upon by any other
hand than Ole Bull’s, though it is three hundred years old. It
had always been preserved as a curiosity, and when it came into
his possession it had no bar inside, nor any indication that such
a necessary appendage had ever been put into it. The inward
spiritual carving has been entirely done by this “Amphion of the
North,” as he is styled by Andersen, the celebrated Danish
novelist. The interior is completely covered with indentations in
ovals and circles produced by the vibration of his magic tones.
Doubtless the angels could sing from them fragmentary melodies of
the universe; but to us they reveal no more than wave–marks on the
shores of the ever–rolling sea.
Some of the concerts on the Rhine had not been well announced and
prepared, and the artist found himself just too early or late for royal
visitors; but the feeling of disappointment expressed in his letters was
only transient. In Dresden his wife and child joined him. He gave two
concerts there, and then went to Prague.