That fine old bard who shaped the character of Volker the Fiddler in the
Nibelungen Lay, had a glowing vision of the power of music and of the
violin. Players on the videl, or fiddle, abounded in the days of
chivalry, but Volker, glorified by genius, rises superior to his fellow
minstrels. The inspiring force of his martial strains renewed the
courage of way-worn heroes. His gentle measures, pure and melodious as a
prayer, lulled them to sorely-needed rest.
And what a wonderful bow he wielded! It was mighty and long, fashioned
like a sword, with a keen-edged outer blade, and in his good right hand
could deal a deft blow on either side. Ever ready for action was he, and
his friendship for Hagen of Tronje furnished the main elements of that
grim warrior's power. Together they were long invincible, smiting the
foe with giant strokes, accompanied by music.
The modern German poet, Wilhelm Jordan, in his Sigfridsage, clothes
Volker with the attributes of a violin king he loved, and represents him
tenderly handling the violin. His noble portrayal of a violinist
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 "Volker the Fiddler
living anew, until death a warrior true." So he wrote in a dedicatory
verse beneath a portrait of himself, presented to "Volker-Wilhelmj as a
souvenir of the first Baireuth festival."
The idea of a magic fiddle and a wonderworking fiddler was strongly
rooted in the popular imagination of many peoples, through many ages.
Typical illustrations are the Wonderful Musician of Grimm's Fairy Tales,
whose fiddling attracted man 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, seizes the right hand
of one that seeks his aid and moves it across the strings until blood
gushes from the finger-tips. Thenceforth the pupil becomes a master, and
can make trees leap, rivers stay their course and people bow to his
will.
Those of us who were brought up on English nursery rhymes early loved
the fiddle. Old King Cole, that merry old soul, was a prime favorite,
notwithstanding his fondness for pipe and 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 Britain in the third century, was the father of St. Helena, the
zealous friend of church music. The nursery satire of doubtful
antiquity is our sole evidence of his devotion to the art.
That John who stoutly refused to sell his fiddle in order to buy his
wife a gown placed the ideal above the material. It is to be hoped Mrs.
John enjoyed music more than gay attire. Certainly the dame who was
forced to dance without her shoe until the master found his
fiddling-stick knew the worth of the fiddler's art.
It may have been from a play on the word catgut that so many of these
ditties represent pussy in relation with the fiddle. True fiddler's
magic belonged 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 was the cat that came fiddling out of the barn with a
pair of bagpipes under her arm, singing "Fiddle cum fee, the mouse has
married the humble bee."
Scientists tell us that crickets, grasshoppers, locusts and the like are
fiddlers. Their hind legs are their fiddle-bows, and by drawing these
briskly up and 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 man first experimented with the friction of
bow and strings as a means of making music? Scarcely. It was the result
of similar instinct on a larger human scale.
String instruments played with a bow may be traced to a remote period
among various Oriental peoples. An example of their simplest form exists
in the ravanastron, or banjo-fiddle, supposed to have been invented by
King 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
primitive bow was a long hairless cane rod which produced sound when
drawn across the silk. Better tone was derived from strings plucked with
fingers or plectrum, and so the rude contrivance remained long
undeveloped.
The European violin is the logical outcome of the appliance of the bow
to those progenitors of the pianoforte, the Greek monochord and lyre,
precisely as our music is the outgrowth of the diatonic scale developed
by the Greeks 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 proper, with flat back and breast and
indented sides, to which belonged the veille, videl, or as it has been
called, guitar-fiddle, and the pear-shaped type, such as the gigue and
rebec. The latter is what Chaucer calls the rubible.
Possibly an impulse was given the fiddle by the Moorish rebab, brought
into Spain in the eighth century, but ancient Celtic bards had long
before this used a bow instrument--the chrotta or crwth, derived from
the lyre, which was introduced by the Romans in their colonizing
expeditions. As early as 560 A. D., Venantius Fortunatus, Bishop of
Poitiers, wrote to the Duke of Champagne:
_"Let the barbarians praise thee with the harp,
Let the British crwth sing."_
This instrument, whose name signifies bulging box, was common in
Britain, and was used in Wales until a comparatively recent period. One
of its distinguishing features was an opening in the lower part for the
admission of the fingers while playing. A fine specimen is preserved in
the South Kensington 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 sounding-holes, and the bulging of its
back is somewhat like an old man, but on its breast harmony reigns, from
the sycamore melodious music is obtained. Six pegs, if we screw them,
will tighten all its chords; six advantageous strings are found, which,
in a skilful hand, produce a varied sound."
In this same museum is a curious wedge-shaped boxwood fiddle, decorated
with allegorical scenes, and dated 1578. Dr. Burney states that it has
no more tone than a violin with a sordine. It is said to have been
presented by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Leicester, and bears both of
their coats-of-arms in silver on the sounding-board. 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 attractions skill on the viol-de-gamboys, Sir
Toby's blunder for the viola da gamba, a fashionable bass viol held
between the knees. A part was written for this instrument in Bach's St.
Matthew Passion, and a number of celebrated performers on it are
recorded in the eighteenth century. Two of these were ladies, Mrs. Sarah
Ottey and Miss Ford.
Violers and fiddlers formed an essential part of the retinue of many
monarchs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Charles II., of
England, had twenty-four at his court, with red bonnets and flaunting
livery, who played for 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 engine." Earlier writers mention "the
scolding violin," and describing the Maypole dance tell of not hearing
the "minstrelsie for the fiddling." Thus all along its course it has had
its opponents and deriders as well as its friends.
The soft-toned viol had deeply indented sides to permit a free use of
the bow, was mostly supplied with frets like a guitar, and had usually
from five to seven strings. Its different sizes corresponded with the
soprano, contralto, tenor and bass of the human voice. An extremely
interesting treble viol much in vogue in the eighteenth century was the
viola d'amore, with fourteen strings, the seven of gut and silver being
supplemented by seven sympathetic wire strings running below the
finger-board and tuned in unison with the bowstrings, vibrating
harmoniously while 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 lithograph." These modern copies are the
result of recent efforts to revive the use of this fascinating
instrument. A barytone of a kindred nature was the viola di bordone or
drone viol, so called because there was a suggestion of the buzzing of
drone-flies, or humble bees, in the tones of its sympathetic strings,
which often numbered as many as twenty-four. These violas recall the
Hardanger peasant fiddle of Norway, of unknown origin and antiquity,
whose delicate metallic under strings quaver tremulously and
mysteriously when the bow sets in motion the main strings.
At one time every family of distinction in Britain deemed a chest of
viols, consisting for the most part of two trebles, two altos, a
barytone and a bass, as indispensable to the household as the piano is
thought 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
supplied the lack. It was but a step for masters of music to compose
pieces marked "to be sung or played," thus contributing to the forces
that were lifting instrumental music above mere accompaniment for song
or dance.
When musicians make demands musical instrument makers are ever ready to
meet them, and the viol steadily improved. One who contributed to its
progress was Gasper Duiffoprugcar (1514-1572) a luthier and mosaic
inlayer, known 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 etching, supposed to be a copy of a portrait
of himself carved on one of his viols with this motto: "I lived in the
wood until I was slain by the relentless axe. In life I was silent, but
in death my melody is exquisite."
The words might apply to the perfected violin, whose evolution was going
on all through that period of literary and artistic activity known as
the Renaissance. When 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, a Piedmontese, appointed
by Catherine de Medici, in 1577, to lead the music at the French court,
and said to have started the heroic and historical ballet in France.
He is sometimes confounded with Thomas Baltzar, a violinist of Lubec,
who, in 1656 introduced the practice of shifting in London, where he
wholly eclipsed David Mell, a much admired clockmaker fiddler, although
the latter, as a contemporary 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" caused a learned Oxford
connoisseur of music to look if he had hoofs. Notwithstanding the jovial
tastes of this German, he was appointed leader, by Charles II., of the
famous violins, and had the final honor of a burial in Westminster
Abbey.
Here reposed also in due time his successor in the royal band, John
Banister, who had been sent by the king to France for study, and who was
the first Englishman, unless the amateur Mell be counted, to distinguish
himself as a performer on the violin. He 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 called the Musick School) over against the George
Tavern in White Friars, this present Monday will be performed musick by
excellent masters, beginning precisely at four o'clock in the afternoon
and every afternoon for the future at precisely the same hour."
Credit for shaping the first violin has been given Gasparo Bertolotti
(1542-1609), called Gasparo da Salo, from his birthplace, a suburb of
Brescia, that pearl of Lombardy so long a bone of contention among
nations. Violins were doubtless made before his time, but none are known
to-day dated earlier than his. A pretty 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 was purchased for 3,000 Neapolitan ducats by Cardinal
Aldobrandini, who presented it to the treasury at Innsprück. Here it
remained as a curiosity until the French took the city in 1809, when it
was carried to Vienna and sold to a wealthy Bohemian collector, after
whose death it came into the possession of Ole Bull.
Gasparo's pupil, Giovanni Paolo Maggini (1581-1631), improved the
principles of violin-building, and gave the world the modern viola and
violoncello. A rich viola-like quality characterizes the Maggini 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 it. To-day it would command a
far higher price. It is stated on authority that not more than fifty
instruments of its make now exist, although a large number of French
imitations claim recognition.
While Gasparo was founding the so-called Brescian school, Andrea Amati
(1520-1580), a viol and rebec maker of picturesque Cremona, began to
make violins, doubtless to fill the orders of his patrons. He must have
believed the pinnacle of fame reached when King Charles 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 known to have escaped destruction.
Heron-Allen, in his work on violin making, gives a picture of it,
obtained through the courtesy of its owner, George Somers, an English
gentleman. Its tone is described as mellow and extremely beautiful, but
lacking in brilliancy.
As the Amati brothers, Antonio and Geronimo (Hieronymous) Amati
continued their father's trade, producing instruments similar to his.
The family reached its flower in Nicolo Amati (1596-1684), son of
Geronimo. He originated the "Grand Amatis," 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
professor at the Paris Conservatoire. It has been described as sounding
like the melodious voice of a child heard beside the rising tide.
Another fine specimen was exhibited by Mr. J. D. Partello, in 1893, at
the World's Fair, in Chicago.
Nicolo Amati's influence was felt in his famous pupils. Foremost among
these was Antonio Stradivarius (1644-1737), whose praises have been sung
by poets, and whose life was one of unwavering service. 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, but he accomplished good work
until death overtook him. From his bench were sent out some seven
thousand instruments, including tenors and violoncellos. Of these
perhaps two thousand were violins.
A romance encircling this master of Cremona tells that in youth he loved
his master's daughter, but that failing to win her heart and hand, he
gave himself wholly to his work. He married, finally, a wealthy widow
whose means enabled him to pursue his avocation undisturbed by monetary
anxieties. His labors steadily 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 his clients. His
handsome home, with his workshop and the roofshed where he stored his
wood, was, until recently, exhibited to visitors. To-day not a vestige
of it remains. Weary of the importunities of relic-seekers, the
Cremonese have torn it down, and have banished violins and every
reminder of them from the town.
The tone of a Stradivarius, in good condition, is round, full and
exceedingly brilliant, and displays remarkable equality as the player
passes from string to string. Dr. Joseph Joachim, owner of the famous
Buda-Pesth Strad, writes of the maker that he "seems to have given his
violins 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
concert Strad of Ernst (1814-1865), composer of the celebrated Elegie,
and values it at $10,000. A magnificent Stradivarius violin, with an
exceedingly romantic history, belongs to Carl Gaertner, the veteran
violinist and musician of Philadelphia, and could not be purchased at
any price.
Another violin-builder from Nicolo Amati's workshop was Andrea
Guarnerius (1630-1695), whose sons, Giuseppe and Pietro, followed in his
footsteps. The family name reached its highest distinction in his
nephew, Giuseppe (Joseph) Guarnerius (1683-1745), called del Gesu,
because on his labels the initials I. H. S., surmounted by a Roman
cross, were placed after his name, indicating that he belonged to a
Jesuit society.
This Joseph of Cremona figures in story as a man of fascinating,
restless personality, who for weeks would squander time and talents and
then set to work with a zeal equalling 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
brought him the tools and materials required for violin-building. What
he esteemed the masterpiece of his lonely cell he presented as a
souvenir to his gentle friend.
The violin about which this legend is woven, dated 1742, was bought by
Ole Bull from the famous Tarisio collection, and is now the property of
his son, Mr. Alexander Bull. It has an unusually rich, sonorous tone and
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 this make the "King Joseph," 1737, long in the private collections of
Mr. Hawley, Hartford, Connecticut, and of Mr. Ralph Granger, Paradise
Valley, California, and recently put on the market by Lyon & Healy, of
Chicago.
An interesting Nicolo Amati pupil was Jacob Steiner (1621-1683), a
Tyrolese, who, although bearing a glittering title, "violin maker to the
Austrian Emperor," was harassed with financial perplexities and died
insane. His most noted violins were the 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 for one of them. It is also recorded that an American gentleman
on La Fayette's staff, in the Revolutionary War, exchanged for a Steiner
1,500 acres of the tract where Pittsburg now stands. Mozart's violin, in
the Mozarteum at Salzburg, is a Steiner.
Many violin-makers did good work in the past, many are achieving success
to-day. It has been confidently asserted that the violin reached its
highest possibilities in the old 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 improvement of
other musical instruments ought surely to be of some advantage to the
violin. Indeed, who knows but the day may come when the present will be
considered its golden age.
While the men of Cremona were still fashioning their models the want of
good strings was felt. This was met by Angelo Angelucci, known as the
string-maker of Naples, a man who loved music and passed much time with
violinists. Through 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 interrupted by the snapping of others.
Improvements in the bow, often called the tongue of the violin, are due
to the house of Tourte, in Paris, in the eighteenth century, lightness,
elasticity and spring coming to it from Francis Tourte, Jr.
Three eminent virtuosi, Corelli, Tartini and Viotti, whose united
careers spanned a period of 150 years, prepared the way for modern
methods of violin-playing. Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) left his home
in Fusignano, near Bologna, a young violinist, for an extended concert
tour. His gentle, sensitive disposition 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 afternoon
to hear his latest compositions. Besides his solos these comprised
groups of idealized dance tunes with harmony of mood for their bond of
union, and played by two violins, a viola, violoncello and harpsichord.
They were the parents of modern Chamber Music, the place of assemblage
furnishing the name.
Refined taste and purity of tone, we are told, distinguished the playing
of Corelli, and to him are attributed the systematization of bowing and
the introduction of chord-playing. He heads the list of musicians who
protest against talking where there 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 the highest esteem. After his death Cardinal Ottoboni had a costly
monument erected over his grave in the Pantheon, and for many years a
solemn service, consisting of selections from his works, was performed
there on the anniversary of his funeral.
It was during a period of retirement in the monastery of Assisi that
Giuseppi Tartini (1692-1770) resolved to quit the law course in the
University of Padua and seek a career with his violin. He became a great
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 practice and
study, especially on the use of the bow, and his treatise on the
acoustic phenomenon known as "the third sound," together with his work
on musical embellishments, may at any time be read with profit.
It was after hearing the eccentric violinist Veracini that His Satanic
Majesty appeared to Tartini in a dream and played for him a violin solo
surpassing in marvelous character anything that he had ever heard or
imagined. Trying to write it down in the morning 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 with this man of amiable and gentle disposition, whose
care of his scholars, according to Dr. Burney, was constantly paternal.
Nardini, his favorite and most famous pupil, came from Leghorn to Padua
to attend him, with filial devotion, in his last illness.
The talents of Corelli and Tartini seem to have been combined in the
Piedmontese, Giovanni Battiste Viotti (1753-1824), a man of poetic,
philanthropic mind, whose sensitive, retiring disposition 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 in disgust because the noisy entrance
of a distinguished guest interrupted his concerto. In London, after his
means had been crippled by the French Revolution, he was accused of
political intrigue.
While living in seclusion near Hamburg he composed some of his finest
works, among them six violin duets, which he prefaced with the words:
"This work is the fruit of leisure afforded me by misfortune. Some of
the pieces were dictated by trouble, others by hope." At one time he
embarked in a mercantile 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 Montegerault, to the delight
of all present. He never had more than seven or eight pupils, but his
influence has been widely felt. Many anecdotes are told of his kindness
and generosity, and it is an interesting fact that among those who
sought his advice and patronage was no less a personage than Rossini.
It must be because genius is little understood that its manifestations
have so often been attributed to evil influences. The popular mind could
only explain the achievements of the Genoese wizard of the bow, Nicolo
Paganini (1784-1840) by the 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, rumor had it
that he was imprisoned for some dark deed. To crown the delusion, his
spectre was long supposed to stalk abroad, giving fantastic performances
on the violin. It is his apparition Gilbert Parker conjures up in "The
Tall Master."
Paganini is described as a man of tall, gaunt figure, melancholy
countenance and highly wrought nervous temperament. His successors have
all profited by his development of the violin's resources, the result of
combined genius and labor. He was practically a pioneer in the effective
use of chords, arpeggio passages, 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 in his own
compositions, which were written in keys best suited to the violin.
Students will find all that he knew of his instrument and everything he
did in his Le Stregghe (The Witches), the Rondo de la Clochette, and the
Carnaval de Venise, which have been handed down precisely as he left
them in manuscript.
Signora Calcagno, who at one time dazzled Italy by the boldness and
brilliancy of her violin playing, was his pupil when she was seven
years old. The only other person who could boast having direct
instructions from him was his young fellow townsman, 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 a small but electric tone, and to play invariably in
tune. To him his master willed his Stradivarius violin, besides having
given him in life the famous Vuillaume copy of his Guarnerius, a set of
manuscript violin studies and a high artistic ideal.
A scholarly teacher and composer for the violin was the German Ludwig
Spohr (1784-1859), who was born the same year as the wizard Paganini,
and who, although 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 instrument. He set an example of purity of style
and roundness of tone, and raised the violin concerto to its present
dignity. His violin school is a standard work.
From the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present time the
lists of excellent violinists have rapidly increased and heights of
technical skill have been reached by many that would have dazzled early
violin masters. The special tendencies of gifted leaders have divided
players into defined schools. Among noted exponents of the French school
may be mentioned Alard and his pupil Sarasate, 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 musical giants of the nineteenth century;
August Wilhelmj, the favorite of Wagner, and Carl Gaertner, who, with
his violin has done so much to cultivate a taste for classical music in
Philadelphia. Among the many lady violinists who have attained a high
degree of excellence are Madame Norman Neruda, now Lady Hallé, Teresina
Tua, Camilla Urso, Geraldine Morgan, Maud Powell and Leonora Jackson.
The only violinist whose memory was ever honored with public monuments
was Ole Bull (1810-1880), who has been called the Paganini of the North.
Two statues of him have been unveiled by his countrymen, one in his
native city, Bergen, Norway, and one in Minneapolis, Minnesota. These
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
strongest impulse for everything it has accomplished in the past half
century in art and in literature. Another patriot violinist was the
Hungarian Eduard Remenyi (1830-1898), who first introduced Johannes
Brahms to Liszt, and should always be remembered as the discoverer of
Brahms.
The great demand of the day in the violin field, as in that of other
musical instruments, is for dazzling pyrotechnic feats. It has perhaps
reached its climax in the young Bohemian Jan Kubelik, whose playing has
been pronounced technically stupendous. In the mad rush for advanced
technique, the soul of music it is meant to convey is, alas, too often
forgotten.
[Illustration: JENNY LIND]