Part 2 (1/2)

he added; ”and why is not your violin like others?”

The aged fiddler explained that, when he got old and found hi able to work, but still able to scrape a few airs upon a violin, he had endeavored to procure one, but in vain At last his good, kind nephew Eustache, as apprenticed to a tinker, had made him one out of a tin-plate ”And an excellent one, too,” he added; ”and oes to work, and fetcheswhen he returns, and the receipts are not so bad sometimes--as, when he was out of work, it was I who kept the house going”

”Well,” said Viotti, ”I will give you twenty francs for your violin You can buy a much better one for that price; but let me try it a little”

He took the violin in his hands, and produced soathered around, and listened with curiosity and astonishle seized on the opportunity, and passed around the hat, gathering a goodly amount of chink from the bystanders, which, with the twenty francs, was handed to the astonished old beggar

”Stay aa little from his surprise; ”just now I said I would sell the violin for twenty francs, but I did not knoas so good I ought to have at least double for it”

Viotti had never received a ive the old old instead of one, and then ih the croith the tin-plate instruone forty yards when he felt so at his sleeve; it was a workman, who politely took off his cap, and said:

”Sir, you have paid too dear for that violin; and if you are an amateur, as it was I who made it, I can supply you with as many as you like at six francs each”

This was Eustache; he had just coain, and, little drea that he was so clever a violin-un so successfully However, Viotti was quite satisfied with the one saht He never parted with that instrument; and, when the effects of Viotti were sold in London after his death, though the tin fiddle only brought a few shi+llings, an aht out the purchaser, and offered hie instrureat violinist

After resigning his position as director of the Grand Opera, Viotti returned to London, which had beco days there He died on the 24th of March, 1824

V

Viotti established and settled for ever the funda He did not attain theeffects, hich his successor, Paganini, was to amaze the world, but, from the accounts transmitted to us, his perforreat nobility, breadth, and beauty of tone, united with a fire and agility unknown before his time

Viotti was one of the first to use the Tourte bow, that indispensable adjunct to the perfect e over his predecessors cannot be too highly estimated

The bows used before the time of Francois Tourte, who lived in the latter years of the last century in Paris, were of i to be desired in all the qualities required to enable the player to follow out every conceivable htness, firmness, and elasticity Tartini had made the stick of his bow elastic, an innovation from the time of Corelli, and had thus attained a certain flexibility and brilliancy in his bowing superior to his predecessors But the full development of all the powers of the violin, or the practice ofcall virtuosoism on this instruned by Tourte, of Paris The thin, bent, elastic stick of the boith its greater length of sweep, gives the es over those of an earlier age, enabling hiradations of tone from the fullest _forte_ to the softest _piano_, to entle accents, to execute staccato, legato, saltato, and arpeggio passages with the greatest ease and certainty The French school of violin-playing did not at first avail itself of these advantages, and even Viotti and Spohr did not fully grasp the new resources of execution It was left for Paganini to open a new era in the art His daring and subtile genius perceived and seized the wonderful resources of the inable movement of the bow, and developed the h perfection which enabled hi with celerity Without the Tourte bow, Paganini and the modern school of virtuosos, which has followed so splendidly from his example, would have been impossible To many of our readers an amplification of this topic may be of interest While the left hand of the violin-player fixes the tone, and thereby does that which for the pianist is already done by the mechanism of the instrument, and while the correctness of his intonation depends on the proficiency of the left hand, it is the action of the right hand, the bowing, which, analogous to the pianist's touch, h the medius It is therefore evident that herein rests one of the most i, and that the excellence of a player, or even of a whole school of playing, depends to a great extent on itsIt would have been even better for the art of violin-playing as practiced to-day that the perfect instruments of Stradiuarius and Guarnerius should not have been, than that the Tourte bow should have been uninvented

The long, effective sweep of the boas one of the characteristics of Viotti's playing, and was alike the admiration and despair of his rivals His compositions for the violin are classics, and Spohr ont to say that there could be no better test of a fine player than his execution of one of the Viotti sonatas or concertos Spohr regretted deeply that he could not finish his violin training under this great reatest ad theifted artists Rode, Robrechts, Cartier, Mdlle Gerbini, Alday, La-barre, Pixis, Mari, Mme Paravicini, and Vacher are well-known names to all those interested in the literature of the violin The influence of Viotti on violin music was a very deep one, not only in virtue of his compositions, but in the fact that he molded the style not only of many of the best violinists of his own day, but of those that came after him

LUDWIG SPOHR

Birth and Early Life of the Violinist Spohr--He is presented with his First Violin at six--The French _Ere_ Dufour uses his Influence with Dr Spohr, Sr, to have the Boy devoted to a Musical Career--Goes to Brunswick for fuller Musical Instruction--Spohr is appointed _Kammer-musicus_ at the Ducal Court--He enters under the Tuition of and makes a Tour with the Violin Virtuoso Eck--Incidents of the Russian Journey and his Return--Concert Tour in Germany--Loses his Fine Guarnerius Violin--Is appointed Director of the Orchestra at Gotha--He marries Dorette Schiedler, the Brilliant Harpist--Spohr's Stratageiven by Napoleon in Honor of the Allied Sovereigns--Becomes Director of Opera in Vienna--Incidents of his Life and Production of Various Works--First Visit to England--He is made Director of the Cassel Court Oratorios--He is retired with a Pension--Closing Years of his Life--His Place as Coer on the violin that ever appeared!” Such was the verdict of the enthusiastic Italians when they heard one of the greatest of the world's violinists, as also a great composer The modern world thinks of Spohr rather as the composer of symphony, opera, and oratorio than as a wonderful executant on the violin; but it was in the latter capacity that he enjoyed the greatest reputation during the earlier part of his lifeti from the year 1784 to 1859 The latter half of Spohr's life was , but not until he had established hireatest of virtuosos, and founded a school of violin-playing which is, beyond all others, the reat contemporary violinists are disciples of the Spohr school of execution Great as a coreater as a player, and widely beloved as a reater esteehSpohr was born at Brunswick, April 5, 1784, of parents both of whom possessed no little musical talent His father, a physician of considerable eminence, was an excellent flutist, and his er To the family concerts which he heard at hoely due Nature had given hie of four or five he joined his s From the very first he manifested a taste for the instruuished He so teased his father that, at the age of six, he was presented with his first violin, and his joy on receiving his treasure was overpowering The violin was never out of his hand, and he continually wandered about the house trying to play his favorite raphy”: ”I still recollect that, after my first lesson, in which I had learned to play the G-sharp chord upon all four strings, in my rapture at the harmony, I hurried to my mother, as in the kitchen, and played the chord so incessantly that she was obliged to orderSpohr was placed under the tuition of Dufour, a French _eh not a professional, then living at the town of Seesen, the home of the Spohr faress It was Dufour who, by his enthusiastic representations, overca himself to a life of music, for the notion of the senior Spohr was that the name musician was synonymous with that of a tavern fiddler, who played for dancers In Gereneral conte the latter years of the eighteenth century, for the musical profession Spohr remained under the care of Dufour until he elve years old, and devoted hih he as yet knew but little of counterpoint and coan to assert itself, and he produced several duos and trios, as well as solo coh crude and faulty in the extreht have the advantage of more scientific instruction, and to this end was placed under the care of Kunisch, an excellent violin teacher, and under Hartung for harmony and counterpoint The latter was a sort of Dr Dryasdust, learned, barren, acrid, but an efficient instructor When young Spohr showed hih for that; youfirst” It may be said of Spohr, however, that his studies in theory were for the ent student of the great ifted with a keenly analyticSpohr was an effective soloist, and, as his father began to complain of the heavy expense of his musical education, the boy deterto the duke, as known as an ardent patron of ed to place hihness, while the latter alking in his garden, and boldly preferred his request for an appointment in the court orchestra The duke was pleased to favor the application, and young Spohr was permitted to display his skill at a court concert, in which he acquitted hie of the sovereign Said the duke: ”Be industrious and well behaved, and, if you reat master”

So Louis Spohr was installed as a _Kammer-musicus_, and his patron fulfilled his proe of Francis Eck, one of the finest violinists then living Under the tuition of this acco virtuoso made such rapid advance in the excellence of his technique, that he was soon regarded as worthy of accoh the principal cities of Germany and Russia

II

This concert expedition of the two violinists, as narrated in Spohr's ”Autobiography,” was full of interesting and romantic episodes Both master and pupil were of amorous and susceptible teulated by a cohtful _naivete_ the circumstances under which he fell successively in love, and the rapidity hich he recovered from these fitful spasms of the tender passion Herr Eck, in addition to his tendency to intrigues with the fairer half of creation, was also of a quarrelsoeneral result was ceaseless squabbling with authorities and musical societies in nearly every city they visited In spite of these drawbacks, however, the two violinists gained both in fame and purse, and were everywhere well received If Herr Eck carried off the palm over the boyish Spohr as a round that the latter was by far the superior in real depth of musical science, and many of his own violin concertos were received with the heartiest applause The concert tour caular way Eck fell in love with a daughter of a e did not enter into his project As the young lady soon felt the unfortunate results of her indiscretion, her parents coiven the choice ofan enforced journey to Siberia He chose the for, where he was offered the first violin of the imperial orchestra Poor Eck found he had married a shrew, and, between ht on by years of excess, he became the victim of a nervous fever, which resulted in lunacy and confinement in a mad-house

Spohr returned to his native town in July, 1803, and his firstwith his family was a curious one ”I arrived,” he says, ”at two o'clock in the ate, crossed the Ocker in a boat, and hastened to arden doors were locked As arden wall and laid arden Wearied by the long journey, I soon fell asleep, and, notwithstandingwhile had notwalk discovered rand together, the three approached nearer, and, recognizing me, I akened amid joyous expressions, embraces, and kisses At first, I did not recollect where I was, but soon recognized ain in the horaciously received by the duke, as satisfied with the proofs of industry and ae_ The celebrated Rode, Viotti's most brilliant pupil, was at that time in Brunswick, and Spohr, who conceived the most enthusiastic admiration of his style, set himself assiduously to the study and imitation of the effects peculiar to Rode On Rode's departure, Spohr appeared in a concert arranged for him, in which he played a new concerto dedicated to his ducal patron, and created an enthusiasm hardly less than that ratulated by the duke and the court, and appointed first court-violinist, with a salary more than sufficient for the musician's moderate wants Shortly after this he undertook another concert tour in conjunction with the violoncellist, Benike, through the principal German cities, which added materially to his reputation But no amount of world's talk or nificent violin, one of the _chefs-d'ouvre_ of Guarnerius del Gesu when that great ht froift A concert was announced for Gottingen, and Spohr, with his companion, was about to enter the town by coach, when he asked one of the soldiers at the guard-house if the trunk, which had been strapped to the back of the carriage, and which contained his precious instrument, was in its place ”There is no trunk there,” was the reply

”With one bound,” says Spohr, ”I was out of the carriage, and rushed out through the gate with a drawn hunting-knife Had I, with ht have heard the thieves running out through a side path But in e I had far overshot the place where I had last seen the trunk, and only discovered my overhaste when I found myself in the open field Inconsolable for my loss, I turned back While my fellow-traveler looked for the inn, I hastened to the post-office, and requested that an iarden houses outside the gate With astonishment and vexation, I was infored to Weende, and that I ue fro all further steps for the recovery ofht in a state of mind such as in my hitherto fortunate career had been unknown to me Had I not lost my splendid Guarneri violin, the exponent of all the artistic success I had so far attained, I could have lightly borne the loss of clothes and money” The police recovered an empty trunk and the violin-case despoiled of its treasure, but still containing a nificent Tourte bohich the thieves had left behind Spohr ave his concert, but he did not for years cease to larand Guarneri fiddle

In 1805 Spohr was quietly settled in his avocation at Brunswick as composer and chief _Kam-mer-musicus_ of the ducal court, when he received an offer to compete for the direction of the orchestra at Gotha, then one of the anizations in Europe, to be at the head of which would give hi to be refused, and Spohr was easily victorious His new duties were not onerous, consisting of a concert once a week, and in practicing and rehearsing the orchestra The annual salary was five hundred thalers