The Violin

Michael Kelly makes reference to this distinguished artist, in speaking of a private concert at Florence. “There,” observes he, “I had the gratification of hearing a sonata on the violin played by the great Nardini. Though very far advanced in years, he played divinely. He spoke with great affection of his favourite scholar, Thomas Linley, who, he said, possessed powerful abilities.” – Kelly adds, that Nardini, when appealed to on that occasion, as to the truth of the anecdote about Tartini and the Devil’s Sonata, gave distinct confirmation of it, as a thing he had frequently heard the relation of from Tartini himself.

Like some other masters of the old school, Nardini exhibited his powers to most advantage in the performance of adagios; and a high tribute to his capacity for expression is conveyed in what has been recorded of the magic of his bow – that it elicited sounds, which, when the performer was concealed from view, appeared rather those of the human voice than of a violin. Of his Sonatas, now almost consigned to oblivion, the style is ably sustained, the ideas are clear, the motive well treated, and the expression natural, though of a serious cast, as was the character of the composer.

Nardini died at Florence, in 1796, or, according to others, in 1793. Among the compositions of this pupil of Tartini, are to be reckoned six concertos for the violin; six solos for the same instrument (opera seconda); six trios for the flute; six other solos for the violin; six quartetts, six duetts; and, in manuscript, many concertos for the same instrument.

Luigi Boccherini, a composer of distinguished talents, to whom, and to Corelli, stands assigned the honour of being considered the fathers of chamber-music for stringed instruments, was a native of Lucca, and born in the year 1740. His first lessons in music and on the violoncello were imparted by the Abbate Vanucci. His disposition for music was early and strong; and his father, himself an ingenious musician, after attending with care to the cultivation of his son’s talent, sent him to Rome, where he soon acquired a high reputation for the originality and variety of his productions. Returning, a few years afterwards, to Lucca, he gave there the first public performance of his Sonatas. It chanced that another Lucchese, Manfredi, a pupil of Nardini’s, was also present at the time of Boccherini’s return from Rome; and they executed together, with great public success, the Sonatas of the latter for violin and violoncello – his seventh work. The two professors, becoming further associated in friendship, as well as in the musical art, quitted Italy together for Spain, where they met with such encouragement as determined Boccherini to establish himself in that country. Basking in the sunshine of royal favour, the only condition required of Boccherini for the continuance of its rays, was that he should work enough to produce, annually, nine pieces of his composition, for the use of the Royal Academy at Madrid; and he adhered faithfully to the engagement. He appears to have passed through life smoothly, as well as with honour. His death occurred at Madrid, in 1806, at the age of 66.

The compositions of this master, which have been of marked importance in connection with the progress of stringed instruments, are characterized by a noble sweetness, a genuine pathos, deep science and great nicety of art. It belongs to him, as a distinction, to have first fixed (about 1768) the character of three several classes of instrumental composition – the trio, the quartett, and the quintett. In the trio, he was followed by Fiorillo, Cramer, Giardini, Pugnani, and Viotti; and in the quartett, by Giardini, Cambini, Pugnani, and, in another style, by Pleyel, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven; while, in his quintetts for two violoncellos, he may be said to have no successor but Onslow. His productions of this last species, of which he has left no fewer than ninety-three – for he was little inferior to Haydn in fecundity of genius – are particularly deserving of study; and it was the remark of Dr. Burney, that he had supplied the performers on bowed instruments, and the lovers of music in general, with more excellent compositions than any other master belonging to that time, except Haydn. His manner, as the same writer adds, “is at once bold, masterly and elegant; and there are movements in his works of every style, and in the true genius of the instruments for which he wrote, that place him high in rank among the greatest masters who have ever written for the violin or violoncello.”

“As in the symphonies of Haydn,” says a writer in the Harmonicon, “so in the quintetts of Boccherini, we observe the genuine stamp of genius, differing in the manner, but alike in the essence. Boccherini had studied, profoundly and thoroughly, the nature and capabilities of the violoncello. He composed nearly the whole of his music for this instrument, and was the first who wrote quintetts for two violoncellos. Striving to impart to these productions the sweet, pathetic, and, if the expression may be allowed, the religious character which distinguished most of his works, he conceived the idea of giving the leading part to the violoncello, and of throwing the harmony into the violin, alto and bass; the second violoncello, in the mean time, sometimes accompanying the first, and occasionally playing the air in concert with it.”

The beautiful style of his quintetts, and the exquisite manner in which, in some of them, he has thus combined the two violoncellos, constrained an impassioned amateur to compare them to the music of the angels. Boccherini’s first work was published at Paris, where it excited the highest admiration: his Stabat Mater is worthy of being placed by the side of that of Pergolesi, of Durante, or of Haydn; and to his genius for composition he added so much executive skill on the violin, violoncello and pianoforte, that a musical enthusiast said (with a rapture probably too honest to be regarded as altogether profane), “If God chose to speak to man, he would employ the music of Haydn; but, if he desired to hear an earthly musician, he would select Boccherini:” – and Puppo, the celebrated violinist, has described him thus: – “The tender Boccherini is the softer second self of Haydn.” It is said, indeed, that Boccherini kept up a regular correspondence with Haydn, – these two great musicians endeavouring to enlighten each other respecting their compositions.

Felici Giardini, by the novel powers and grace of his execution, appears to have made, in England, almost as great a sensation as that created, eighty years later, by Paganini, with whom, also, he may be placed in competition, on the score of a capricious and difficult temper. He was born at Turin, in 1716; his musical education was received, at Milan, under Paladini, and subsequently, for the violin in particular, at Turin, under Somis, one of the best scholars of Corelli. At the age of 17, animated by the hope of fame, he went to Rome, and afterwards to Naples. At the latter city, he obtained, by the recommendation of Jomelli, a post far too humble for his large ambition – that of one of the ripieni, or make-weights, in the opera orchestra. Here his talents, nevertheless, began to appear, and he was accustomed to flourish and change passages, much more frequently than he ought to have done. “However,” said he himself, in relating the circumstance to Dr. Burney, “I acquired great reputation among the ignorant for my impertinence; till, one night, during the opera, Jomelli, who had composed it, came into the orchestra, and seated himself close by me, when I determined to give the Maestro di Capella a touch of my taste and execution. In the symphony of the next song, which was in a pathetic style, I gave loose to my fingers and fancy; for which I was rewarded by the composer with – a violent slap in the face; which (added Giardini) was the best lesson I ever received from a great master in my life.” Jomelli, after this, was very kind, in a different and less indirect way, to this young and wonderful musician.

After a short continuance at Naples, followed by visits professional to the principal theatres in Italy, and by an enthusiastic reception at Berlin, Giardini came to England, and arrived in London in the year 1750. Here his performance on the violin, in which, at that time, he was considered to excel every other master in Europe, was heard, both in public and in private, with the most rapturous applause. His first public performance in London afforded a scene memorable among the triumphs of art. It was at a benefit Concert for old Cuzzoni, who sang in it with a thin, cracked voice, which almost frightened out of the little Theatre in the Haymarket the sons of those who had, perhaps, heard her, at the Great Theatre of the same street, with ecstacy supreme. But when Giardini came forward, and made a display of his powers in a solo and concerto, the applause was so long, loud and furious, as nothing but that bestowed on Garrick had probably ever equalled. His tone, bowing, execution, and graceful carriage of himself and his instrument, formed a combination that filled with astonishment the English public, unaccustomed to hear better performers than Festing, Brown and Collett.

Such was the estimation accruing to Giardini from his talents, that, in 1754, he was placed at the head of the opera orchestra. Two years afterwards, he joined the female singer Mingotti in attempting that labyrinth of disaster, the management of the Italian Opera; but, although they acquired much fame, their management was not attended with success. During this time, Giardini composed several of the dramas that were performed. In leading the Opera band, he had the merit of introducing improved discipline, and a new style of playing, much finer in itself, and more congenial with the poetry and music of Italy, than the level and languid manner of his predecessor, Festing, who had succeeded Castrucci (Hogarth’s “Enraged Musician”), and had since, with inadequate powers, continued to maintain the post, with the exception of one or two seasons, during which Veracini had been in the ascendant.

Fashion, in the folly of its excess, has not often been seen to cut so extravagant a figure as on the occasion of the associated performances in private by Giardini and Mingotti, during the “high and palmy state” of their credit. The absolutism of Mrs. Fox Lane (afterwards Lady Bingley) over the fashionable world, as the enthusiastic patroness of these two artists, is a thing that satire might feast on. Rank, wealth, manhood, and beauty, prostrate before the domination of this “pollens matrona,” were content (lest, forsooth! they should have “argued themselves unknown”) to pay tax and tribute to her two favourites, and take a passport to the notice of “the town,” in the shape of a benefit-ticket. At such scenes, it is not using too strong a figure to say that Folly must have clapped her hands, displayed her broadest grin, and given an extra jingle to the bells on her cap. To all who reflect, it scarcely needs to be observed that the false raptures and artificial stimulus, belonging to a system like this, are nearly as injurious as they are absurd; that to pamper thus the artist, is not only to spoil him, but to injure the interests of the art, by making it the object of popular ridicule or disgust.

The contrast afforded by the close of Giardini’s career with the brilliancy of its middle course, makes one think of Johnson’s bitter association of “the patron and the jail.” Those were, truly, the days when patronage was a thing of rank luxuriance, that sometimes overgrew and choked the flowers of genius to which it fastened itself. The case is now, happily, become somewhat different – the free and fostering breath of general opinion being the air in which talent has learned to seek and attain its full growth; and a more limited resort being had to the forcing influence of the aristocratic temperature.30

The losses that Giardini had sustained on that ready road to ruin, the Italian Opera, drove him back to the resources of his own particular talent; and he entered upon the occupation of teaching in families of rank and fashion, at the same time continuing unrivalled as a leader, a solo-player, and a composer for his favourite instrument.

Mr. Gardiner, of Leicester, has made the following record concerning him, in his “Music and Friends,” on the occasion of a concert at the above town, in 1774: – “There I heard the full and prolonged tones of Giardini’s violin. He played a concerto, in which he introduced the then popular air “Come, haste to the wedding,” which moved the audience to a state of ecstacy, but now would disgust every one by its vulgarity. He was a fine-figured man, superbly dressed in green and gold; the breadth of the lace upon his coat, with the three large gold buttons on the sleeve, made a rich appearance, which still glitters on my imagination.”

Giardini resided in England until the year 1784, when he went to Naples, under the protection and patronage of Sir William Hamilton. There he continued five years, and then returned to this country; but his reception was not what it had formerly been. Fashion is a goddess of so gay a turn as cannot assort with infirmity; and an old favourite is but too likely to find that favour easily gets a divorce from age. The health of the Italian was greatly impaired, and sinking fast under a confirmed dropsy. With a dimmer eye, a feebler hand, and doubtless an aching heart, he found himself still doomed to the prosecution of his calling, when all his former excellence was lost. Instead of leading in all the most difficult parts, he now played in public only the tenor in quartetts that he had recently composed. After attempting, unsuccessfully, a burletta opera at the little Theatre in the Haymarket, he was at length (in 1793) induced to go to St. Petersburgh, and afterwards to Moscow, with his burletta performers. The most cruel disappointment, however, attended him in each of these cities; in the latter of which, he died, at the age of 80, in a state (as far as it could be discovered) of poverty and wretchedness.

It is certain that the wayward and splenetic character evinced by this brilliant artist, was his bane through the greater part of his life. To enquire how much of that character was indigenous to the man, and how much the evil fruit of the private-patronage system, were, perhaps, to consider too curiously. That he was careless of his own interest, and that he quarrelled with some of his most valuable friends, can excite little surprise, when we note the furor of favoritism, the perversity of petting, that were thrust upon him. We must not expect, in the morale of the musician that “sterner stuff,” which we look for in the philosopher.

“Made drunk with honor, and debauch’d with praise,”

As a composer for the instrument on which he shone, Giardini is not entitled to rank very high. His Solos and Concertos, numerous, pleasing and of neat effect, were not of so marked a character as to ensure any great duration to their popularity; nor did they admit of any severe analysis as to science in their structure. It is from his playing that his high reputation is derived; and he confirmed into triumph, by more than thirty years of brilliant performance, the previously growing favour of the instrument in England, where indeed he may be said to have completely reformed the Violin system. A living testimony to the excellence of his playing, with a few words as to its manner, has been given, not long since, by Parke, the oboist, who heard him in 1776, and states that he displayed a fund of grace and expression – that his tone united sweetness with power – and (an odd addendum) that he made use of strings so large as to give rise to the idea that his fingers must have been blistered by the necessary pressure he gave them.

Antonio Lolli, born at Bergamo, in 1728, attained eminence in his own country, and afterwards (from 1762 to 1773) became Concert-Master to the Duke of Wurtemburg. Subsequently he went to Russia, where he obtained, from the Empress, Catherine II, a signal token of her admiration, in the shape of a violin-bow, made for him by her order, and bearing on it an inscription in her own potential autograph: – “Archet fait par ordre de Catherine II, pour l’incomparable Lolli.” In 1785, he visited England, whence he proceeded to Spain, and thence to Paris, where he performed at the Spirituel and other Concerts. In 1788, he returned to Italy, where he glorified his own name with the title of Concert-Master to the Empress of Russia; and in 1794, he was at Vienna, ascribing himself under the same character to the King of Naples. He died, after a lingering illness, at Naples, in 1802. His excellence in practice was chiefly evinced in quick movements: he was rarely inclined to exhibit in an adagio.31 An anecdote in proof of his professional assiduity is recorded by Gerber. When he entered on his engagement at Stuttgard, in 1762, he found a superior there, in the person of Nardini. This circumstance roused all his energies, which speedily took a settled purpose. He requested the Duke to allow him a year’s leave of absence, to travel; instead of which, he retired, diligent, but disingenuous, to a secluded village, and applied himself indefatigably to his instrument. At the end of the accorded absence, he returned from his pretended journey, “clarior è tenebris,” and shone forth with such effect, that Nardini gave up the contest, and returned to Italy.

With regard to the compositions of Lolli, it is known that he never wrote more than the theme, and obtained from other hands the bass, or the parts for the several instruments: yet it is curious to note that he gives difficult passages, of considerable compass, to be executed on the fourth string only. There are extant various sets of his Solos, a Preceptive Treatise on the Violin, &c.

Gaetano Pugnani, first violinist to the King of Sardinia, was born at Turin, in the year 1728. At a very early age, he began to practise the instrument on which he was destined to excel. His first tutor was Somis, his countryman, already named as one of the most distinguished scholars of Corelli. After displaying his extraordinary abilities at the Sardinian Court, Pugnani went to Paris, and received the highest applause at the Concert Spirituel, as an admitted rival of J. Stamitz, Gavinies, and Pagin.

Pugnani afterwards visited many parts of Europe, and remained a considerable time in England. It was here that he composed a great portion of his violin music. In 1770, he returned to Italy; and, at Turin, founded a school for violinists, as Corelli had at Rome, and Tartini at Padua. From this practical academy issued the first performers of the latter part of the eighteenth century; among whom were Viotti, Bruni and Oliveri. Pugnani’s style of execution is recorded to have been broad and noble, and characterized by that commanding sweep of the bow which afterwards formed so grand a feature in the performance of Viotti; the germs of whose high qualities are clearly traceable to his master. It has been remarked, that all the pupils of Pugnani proved excellent leaders. To lead well, was his most distinguishing excellence; and he possessed the art of transmitting it to others. In the orchestra, says Rangoni, he commanded like a general in the midst of his soldiers. His bow was the baton of authority, which every performer obeyed with the most scrupulous exactitude. With a single stroke of this bow, he could correct the erroneous, or animate the lethargic. He even indicated to the actors the tone and sentiment in which they ought to deliver, their respective melodies, and brought every thing to that harmony of expression, without which the operatic scene fails of its most powerful charm. His strong and acute mind possessed with the great object to which every leader ought to attend, he promptly and powerfully seized all the grand points, the character, the style and taste of the composition, and impressed it upon the feelings of the performers, both vocal and instrumental.

Pugnani, in addition to the display of brilliant and powerful abilities as a performer, gave, in his compositions, evidence of a free and elegant imagination. His several instrumental pieces, which consist of solos, trios, quartetts, quintetts and overtures, were published variously, in London, Amsterdam and Paris. On the Continent, they are still in some request, but are become very scarce. They display an eloquence of melody, and an animated and nervous manner. The ideas are natural, both in themselves and in their succession; and, however pointed and striking, never desert the style of the motivo. The operas of this distinguished master, seven or eight in number, were all highly successful; and there is scarcely a theatre in Italy, at which some of them have not been performed.

Amongst the anecdotes that have been related of Pugnani, are the following. In his early youth, but when already much advanced on the violin, feeling far from satisfied with the degree of excellence he had attained, he resolved to quit Paris for Padua, in order to see Tartini, to consult him on his playing, and to improve himself under his instruction. Desired by that great master to give him a specimen of his performance, he requested of him, beforehand, to express frankly his opinion of his style and manner. Before he had played many bars, Tartini suddenly seized his arm, saying, “Too loud, my good friend; too loud!” Pugnani began afresh; when, arriving at the same passage, his auditor again stopped him short, exclaiming, “Too soft, my good friend; too soft!” He immediately laid down his instrument, and solicited Tartini to admit him among his scholars. His request was granted; and, excellent violinist as he really already was, he began his practice de novo, and, under the guidance of his new instructor, soon became one of the first performers of his time. Not long after this, at the house of Madame Denis, Pugnani heard Voltaire recite a poetical composition, in a style that enchanted him; and he, in his turn, at the lady’s request, began to perform on his violin; when, vexed at the interruption and ill-breeding of Voltaire’s loud conversation,32 he suddenly stopped, and put his violin into the case, saying, “M. Voltaire fait très-bien les vers, mais, quant à la musique, il n’y entend pas le diable.” Once, in performing a concerto before a numerous company, he became so excited, on arriving at an ad libitum passage, and so lost in attention to his playing, that, thinking himself alone, he walked about the room, “turbine raptus ingenii,” till he had finished his very beautiful cadence.

Pugnani died at the city of his birth, in 1798. The violinist, Cartier, has written his eulogium in few words, but of strong import: – “He was the master of Viotti.”

Giovanni Mane Giornovichi (or Giarnovick, or Jarnowick, as he has been variously called) was born at Palermo, in 1745, and had Antonio Lolli for his preceptor. Resorting to Paris for his first public display, he appeared at the Concert Spirituel, with indifferent success, but, by perseverance, soon turned the scale of opinion in his favour so effectually, that, during a space of ten years, the style of Giornovichi was in fashion in the French capital. His sway there was terminated by the superior power of Viotti, and he quitted France about the year 1780, proceeding to Prussia, where, in 1782, he was engaged as first violin in the Royal Chapel of Potsdam. He was, subsequently, for some time in Russia.33 Between the years 1792 and 1796, he was in high vogue in various parts of England, but lost his popularity through a dispute with an eminent professor, in which the sense of the public went against him. A residence of some years in Hamburgh, a shorter stay at Berlin, and then a change to St. Petersburgh, brought him to the end of his career. He died of apoplexy, in 1804.

The eccentricity which marked the character of this artist, is shown in various anecdotes that have been current respecting him. On one occasion, at Lyons, he announced a concert, at six francs a ticket, but failed to collect an audience. Finding the Lyonnese so retentive of their money, he postponed his performance to the following evening, with the temptation of tickets at half the price. A crowded company was the result; but their expectations were suddenly let down by the discovery that “the advertiser” had quitted the town sans cérémonie. At another time, being in the music-shop of Bailleux, he accidentally broke a pane of glass.