VII
Looking back over the eighteenth century one cannot but be impressed by the independent growth of violin music. The Italians contributed far more than all the other nationalities to this steady growth, partly because of their native love for melody and for sheer, simple beauty of sound. The intellectual broadening of forms, the intensifying of emotional expressiveness by means of rich and poignant harmonies, concerned them far less than the perfecting of a suave and wholly beautiful style which might give to the most singing of all instruments a chance to reveal its precious and almost unique qualities. This accounts for the calm, classic beauty of their music, which especially in the case of Corelli and Tartini does not suffer by changes that have since come in style and the technique of structure.
The success of the Italian violinists in every court of Europe, both as performers and as composers, was second only to the success of the great singers and the popular opera composers of the day. Their progress in their art was so steadfast and secure that other nations could hardly do more than follow their example. Hence in France and Germany one finds with few exceptions an imitation of Italian styles and forms, with a slight admixture of national characteristics, as in the piquancy of Cartier’s, the warm sentiment of Benda’s music. What one might call the pure art of violin playing and violin music, abstract in a large measure from all other branches of music, was developed to perfection by the Italian violinist-composers of the eighteenth century. Its noble traditions were brought over into more modern forms by Viotti, henceforth to blend and undergo change in a more general course of development.
Perhaps only in the case of Chopin can one point to such a pure and in a sense isolated ideal in the development of music for a single instrument, unless the organ works of Bach offer another exception. And already in the course of the eighteenth century one finds here and there violin music that has more than a special significance. The sonatas for unaccompanied violin by Bach must be regarded first as music, then as music for the violin. The style in which they were written is not a style which has grown out of the nature of the instrument. They have not served and perhaps cannot serve as a model for perfect adaptation of means to an end. Bach himself was willing to regard the ideas in them as fit for expression through other instruments. But the works of Corelli, Tartini, Nardini and Viotti are works which no other instrument than that for which they were written may pretend to present. And so beautiful is the line of melody in them, so warm the tones which they call upon, that there is scarcely need of even the harmonies of the figured bass to make them complete.
In turning to the nineteenth century we shall find little or no more of this sort of pure music. Apart from a few brilliant concert or salon pieces which have little beyond brilliance or charm to recommend them, the considerable literature for the violin consists of sonatas and concertos in which the accompaniment is like the traditional half, almost greater than the whole. In other words we have no longer to do with music for which the violin is the supreme justification, but with music which represents a combination of the violin with other instruments. Glorious and unmatched as is its contribution in this combination, it remains incomplete of itself.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] See A. Schering: Geschichte des Instrumentalkonzerts.
[49] Die Violine und ihre Meister.
[50] See ‘W. A. Mozart,’ by T. de Wyzewa and G. de St. Foix, Paris, 1912. Appendix II, Vol. II, p. 428.
CHAPTER XIII
VIOLIN MUSIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
The perfection of the bow and of the classical technique—The French school: Kreutzer, Rode, and Baillot—Paganini: his predecessors, his life and fame, his playing, and his compositions—Ludwig Spohr: his style and his compositions; his pupils—Viennese violinists: Franz Clement, Mayseder, Boehm, Ernst and others—The Belgian school: De Bériot and Vieuxtemps—Other violinist composers: Wieniawski, Molique, Joachim, Sarasate, Ole Bull; music of the violinist-composers in general—Violin music of the great masters.
The art of violin music in the nineteenth century had its head in Paris. Few violinists with the exception of Paganini developed their powers without the model set them by the great French violinists at the beginning of the century. Most of them owed more than can be determined to the influence of Viotti. Even Spohr, who with more or less controversial spirit, wrote of the French violinists as old-fashioned, modelled himself pretty closely upon Rode; and therefore even Spohr is but a descendant of the old classical Italian school.
The technique of playing the violin was thoroughly understood by the end of the eighteenth century. Viotti himself was a brilliant virtuoso; but, trained in the classic style, he laid less emphasis upon external brilliance than upon expressiveness. The matters of double stops, trills, runs, skips and other such effects of dexterity were largely dependent upon the fingers of the left hand; and this part of technique, though somewhat hampered by holding the violin with the chin upon the right side of the tailpiece, was clearly mastered within reasonable limits by the violinists of the middle of the century, Tartini, Veracini, Nardini, Geminiani, and others. Indeed Geminiani in his instruction book recommended that the violin be held on the left side; and in range of fingering gave directions for playing as high as in the seventh position. Leopold Mozart, however, naturally conservative, held to the old-fashioned holding of the instrument.
The technique of bowing, upon which depends the art of expression in violin playing, awaited the perfection of a satisfactory bow. Tartini’s playing, it will be remembered, was especially admired for its expressiveness; and this, together with certain of his remarks on bowing which have been preserved in letters, leads one to think that he may have had a bow far better than those in the hands of most of his contemporaries. Whether or not he made it himself, and indeed just what it may have been, are not known. Certainly it must have been better than the bows with which Leopold Mozart was familiar. The clumsy nature of these may be judged by the illustrations in his instruction book.
The final perfection of the bow awaited the skill of a Frenchman, François Tourte (1747-1835), who has properly been called the Stradivari of the bow. It was wholly owing to his improvements that many modern effects in staccato, as well as in fine shading, particularly in the upper notes, became possible. He is supposed not to have hit upon these epoch-making innovations until after 1775; and there is much likelihood that he was stimulated by the presence of Viotti in Paris after 1782. No better testimony to the service he rendered to the art of violin playing can be found than the new broadening of violin technique and style accomplished by men like Viotti, Kreutzer, Baillot, Rode, and Lafont, who availed themselves immediately of the results of his skill.