We know of some of their names. There was Constantin; there was Lazarin; there was Bocan;[41] there was Foucard; and there was Léger.
“What could be more elegant than Constantin’s playing?” cries Mersenne. “What could be warmer and more fiery than Bocan’s style? What could be more ingenious and delicate than the diminutions of Lazarin and Foucard? And if you add Léger’s bass above Constantin’s part, you will hear the most perfect harmony.”
CHAMBER MUSIC IN 1635
By Abraham Bosse
Perhaps, if we could hear the gentlemen represented on page [160] draw his bow, we should think his tone very thin and we might not be at all enthusiastic over the style of his playing; but we must remember our ears hear very differently from those that listened to Bocan and Constantin and have been educated along other lines. But certainly the contemporaries of the “Twenty-Four Violins” considered that they were supreme artists. And literature is full of allusions to them.
We also know that Guillaume Dumanoir was first a member and than conductor of the “Twenty-Four Violins.”
Sometimes the King sent his “Twenty-Four Violins” to play for his great princes and favorite courtiers. We learn from a contemporary poem that at a superb dinner given by Cardinal Mazarin in 1660, “the feast was fine, joy universal and the ‘Twenty-Four Violins’ played while we ate melons, pâtés, tarts, biscuit and dishes of delicious fruit piled up like obelisks. We enjoyed ourselves immensely while they played a thousand beautiful airs.”
There was hardly a great gentleman who did not have his little band of violins, or his string-quartet, to entertain his friends and to amuse himself. Those who could not afford to support an Orchestra, or a quartet, would hire one on occasions.
There were many associations of musicians in the big cities like Paris and London (survivals of the old minstrel guilds) and in small towns throughout Europe where there were violinists, clavecinists, organists, flute-players and a few players of old instruments—like the lute—so fast becoming obsolete—ready to accept engagements. Such men carried the growing taste for instrumental music, and the latest compositions as well, to remote towns and country-houses. They were really preparing the ground for us to-day, though they did not know it.