This was evidently the vibrato, which is produced by oscillating the finger rapidly upon a note without allowing it to leave the string; and it does produce “a kind of trembling sound.” The old writer described it exactly.
Bocan played on that memorable evening when the Cardinal de Richelieu danced a Sarabande for the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria. At this moment the great Prime Minister of France was taking part in all the momentous affairs of Europe; and we get a glimpse of him in a play hour that few of his contemporaries had. The Comte de Brienne wrote of it in his Memoirs:
“Richelieu,” he says, “was dressed in trousers of green velvet. On his garters were silver bells and he had castanets in his hands. He danced a Sarabande, which Bocan played. The violinist and a few spectators were hidden behind a screen where we could see the antics of the dancer. We nearly split our sides laughing; and I declare that now, even after fifty years, I nearly die laughing when I think of it.”
When Louis XIV ascended the throne the “Twenty-Four Violins” became the finest and most celebrated Orchestra in Europe. Though founded, as we have said, in the former reign, the “Twenty-Four Violins” is particularly the Orchestra of Louis XIV, the magnificent “Sun-King.” In the superb palaces of Versailles and Marly Louis XIV blazed with all the glory that is possible to mortals. Magnificent furniture, magnificent paintings, magnificent gardens, magnificent fountains, magnificent costumes, magnificent ladies, magnificent gentlemen, magnificent feasts and magnificent operas, plays and concerts!
Everything “the Grand Monarch” had was the very best that could be found; for in his reign France was the leading Power in Europe. So, of course, he had the finest Orchestra.
The “Twenty-Four Violins” surpassed everything of the kind that had been known up to that time. They represented the greatest heights to which brilliancy and sonority could attain.
The “Twenty-Four Violins” played in the Court entertainments; they played in the churches; they played in the gardens; they played on the lawns; and they played for the King and his Court to dance. They also frequently took part in the Court Ballets, when they were dressed in peculiar costumes with masques worn hind part before, so that they gave the ludicrous appearance of playing behind their backs. They played in the gilded and tapestry-hung galleries and Salons of Versailles and Marly and at the banquets of the King. And whenever they appeared they excited the greatest admiration.
Although they were called the Twenty-Four Violins, the whole violin family was represented. There were violins, altos, tenors, basses and double-bass viols; and they played in four-part, or five-part harmony.
“All these parts sounding together,” wrote Mersenne, “make a symphony so precise and agreeable that whoever hears the ‘Twenty-Four Violins’ of the King play all kinds of airs and dances, confesses willingly that he never heard such suave and delicious harmonies before.”
Mersenne also remarked that the deeper instruments, particularly the basses, were much more sonorous and stronger in tone than the violins.