Part 1 (1/2)

Great Violinists And Pianists

by George T Ferris

NOTE

The title of this little bookto some of its readers, in its failure to include sketches of many eminent artists orthy to be classed under such a head There has been no attempt to cover the immense field of executive music, but only to call attention to the lives of those nized as occupying the most exalted places in the arts of violin and pianoforte playing; who stand forth as landmarks in the history of music To do more than this, except in a merely encyclopedic fashi+on, within the allotted space, would have been impossible The same necessity of limits has also compelled the writer to exclude consideration of the careers of noted living perforht best that discrireat artists whose careers have been completely rounded and finished

An exception to the above will be noted in the case of Franz Liszt; but, aside froh living, has practically retired from the held of art, to omit him from such a volume as this would be an unpardonable omission In connection with the personal lives of the artists sketched in this voluh necessarily iradual develops to the splendid virtuosoism of the present time

The sources from which facts have been drawn are various, and, it is believed, trustworthy, including French, Gerlish authorities, in some cases the personal reminiscences of the artists themselves

THE GREAT VIOLINISTS AND PIANISTS

THE VIOLIN AND EARLY VIOLINISTS

The Ancestry of the Violin--The Origin of the Cre--The Amatis and Stradiuarii--Extraordinary Art Activity of Italy at this Period--Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius--So about the Lives of the Two Greatest Violin-Makers of the World--Corelli, the First Great Violinist--His Contemporaries and associates--Anecdotes of his Career--Corelli's Pupil, Geminiani--Philidor, the Composer, Violinist, and Chess-Player--Giuseppe Tartini--Becomes an Outcast from his Family on Account of his Love of Music--Anecdote of the Violinist Veracini--Tartini's Scientific Discoveries in Music--His Account of the Origin of the ”Devil's Trill”--Tartini's Pupils

I

The ancestry of the violin, considering this as the type of stringed instruoes back to the earliest antiquity; and innuht be quoted fro the important part taken by the forefathers of the ious cerehts of battle, and the more dulcet enjoyments of peace But it was not till the fifteenth century, in Italy, that the art of an to reach toward that high perfection which it speedily attained The long list of honored names connected with the development of art in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries is a reat violin- with Gaspard de Salo, of Brescia, who first raised a rude craft to an art, are worthy of being included From Brescia came the masters who established the Cremona school, a name not only inificance; for it was not till the violin was perfected, and a distinct school of violin-playing founded, that the creation of the syhest form of music, became possible

The violin-inning with the Ah it does not lie within the province of this work to discuss in any special or technical sense the history of violin-reatest of the Cre and valuable as prelireat players which make up the substance of the volu art at Cremona, successively i a march on his predecessor, until the peerless masters of the art, Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius del Jesu, advanced far beyond the rivalry of their contemporaries and successors The pupils of the Amatis, Stradiuarius, and Guarnerius settled in Milan, Florence, and other cities, which also beca, but never to an extent which lessened the preenificant peculiarity of all the leading artists of this violin- epoch: each one as a pupil never contented hi copies of hisin his hich should be an outcoation It was essentially a creative age

Let us glance briefly at the artistic activity of the ti craft leaped so swiftly and surely to perfection If we turn to the days of Gaspard di Salo, Morelli, Magini, and the A forth their fiddles, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, titian, and Tintoretto were busily painting their great canvases While Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius were occupied with the noble instruments which have i his Venetian squares and canals, Giorgio was superintending the manufacture of his inilass of marvelous beauty and forues and sarabandes, Ge his first instruction book for the violin, and Tartini dreanini (a pupil of Antonius Stradiuarius), with the stars of lesser inator of the school ofto write his concertos, and Boccherini laying the foundation of cha state of Italian art during the great Cremona period, which opened up a enerations It is a curious fact that not only the violin but violin music was the creature of the e of the creative ireat violin- music destined to be better understood and appreciated when the violins then made should have reached their maturity

There can be no doubt that the conditions were all highly favorable to the reat instruenius and numerous orchestras scattered over Italy, Germany, and France, and there h order In the sixteenth century, Palestrina and Zarlino riting grand church music, in which violins bore an important part In the seventeenth, lived Stradella, Lotti, Buononcini, Lulli, and Corelli In the eighteenth, when violin- the Italians as Scarlatti, Geminiani, Vivaldi, Locatelli, Boccherini, Tartini, Piccini, Viotti, and Nardini; while in France it was the epoch of Lecler and Gravinies, cohest class Under the stieneral art culture the e, and the hly remunerative prices for their labors, and, correlative to this practical success, a powerful stin and workmanshi+p of their instruments These plain artisans lived quiet and simple lives, but they bent their whole souls to the work, and belonged to the class of minds of which Carlyle speaks: ”In a word, they willed one thing to which all other things were made subordinate and subservient, and therefore they accoe e is bruised in pieces and will rend nothing”

II

So eneral conditions under which the craft of violin- reached such splendid excellence, the attention of the reader is invited to the greatest masters of the Cremona school

”The instrument on which he played Was in Crereat master of the past, Ere yet was lost the art divine; Fashi+oned of maple and of pine, That in Tyrolean forests vast Had rooked and wrestled with the blast

”Exquisite was it in design, A marvel of the lutist's art, Perfect in each minutest part; And in its hollow chamber thus The maker from whose hand it came Had written his unrivaled nareat artist whose work is thus fellow's verse was born at Cremona in 1644 His renown is beyond that of all others, and his praise has been sounded by poet, artist, and e of two centuries, and his name is as little likely to be dethroned frohhis life, all attempt has failed to obtain any connected record of the principal events of his career Perhaps there is no need, for there is ample reason to believe that Antonius Stradiuarius lived a quiet, uncheckered,violins, and caring for nothing in the outside world which did not touch his all-beloved art Without haste and without rest, he labored for the perfection of the violin To him the world was a mere workshop The fierce Italian sun beat down and ood to dry the wood for violins On the slopes of the hills grew grand forests offor forest or hillside except as they grew good wood for violins The vineyards yielded rich wine, but, after all, the rape was that it furnished the spirit ith to coood for food, but still more important because frolue which held the pieces together It was through this single-eyed devotion to his life-work that one great ather up all the perfections of his predecessors, and stand out for all time as the flower of the Cree Eliot, in her poem, ”The Stradivari,” probably pictures his life accurately:

”That plain white-aproned man, who stood at work, Patient and accurate full fourscore years, Cherished his sight and touch by temperance; And since keen sense is love of perfectness, Made perfect violins, the needed paths For inspiration and high reatest of violin-makers, summarizes his life very briefly He tells us the life of Antonius Stradiuarius was as tranquil as his calling was peaceful The year 1702 alonethe war the city of Cremona was taken by Marshal Villeroy, on the Iene, and finally taken a third time by the French That must have been a parlous time for the master of that wonderful workshop whence proceeded the world's h we may almost fancy the absorbed master, like Archimedes when the Romans took Syracuse, so intent on his labor that he hardly heard the din and roar of battle, till some rude soldier disturbed the serene ats and streith the tools of a peaceful craft

Polledro, not o first violin at the Chapel Royal of Turin, who died at a very advanced age, declared that hisabout hied with silvery hair, covered with a cap of white wool in the winter and of cotton in the summer He wore over his clothes an apron of white leather when he worked, and, as he was alorking, his costuarded as wealth in those days, for the people of Cremona were accustomed to say ”As rich as Stradiuarius” The house he occupied is still standing in the Piazza Roma, and is probably the principal place of interest in the old city to the tourists who drift thitherward

The simple-minded Cremonese have scarcely a conception to-day of the veneration hich their ancient townsarded by the reatest difficulty that they were persuaded a few years ago, by the efforts of Italian and French musicians, to name one street Stradiuarius, and another Areatest maker of his fa the early period of the latter artist the instruuished from those of Ainal line of his own, andthe exquisite sweetness of the Amati instruments, possessed far , indeed, a coh above all others It may be remarked of all the Cremona violins of the best period, whether Amati, Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, or Steiner, that they are marked no less by their perfect beauty and delicacy of workmanshi+p than by their charm of tone These zealous artisans were not content to imprison the soul of Ariel in other forrace, exquisitely old This external beauty is uniforh shape varies in soree with each maker

Of the Stradiuarius violins itthe consideration of this maker, that they have fetched in latter years frorandsons of Antonius were also violin-h inferior to the chief of the family