“His Majesty, who was a brisk and airy prince, coming to the crown in the flower and vigor of his age was soon, if I may so say,” says Burney, “tired with the grave and solemn way which had been established by Tallis, Byrd and others, ordered the composers of his Chapel to add symphonies with instruments to their anthems; and thereupon established a select number of his private music to play the symphony and ritournelles which he had appointed.
“The old way of consorts was laid aside by the prince immediately after his restoration when he established his band of Twenty-Four Violins after the French model; and the style of Musick has changed accordingly. So that French Musick became in general use at Court and in the theatres. Indeed, performers on the violin had a lift into credit before this period when Baltzar, a Swede, came over and did wonders upon it by swiftness and double stops. But his hand was accounted hard and rough, though he made amends for that by often tuning in the lyre way and playing lessons conformable to it, which were very harmonious.
“During the first years of King Charles’s reign all the Musick in favor with the beau-monde was in the French style, which at that time was rendered famous throughout Europe by the works of Baptiste Lully, a Frenchified Italian and master of the Court Musick at Paris, who enriched the French Musick by Italian harmony which greatly improved their melody. His style was theatrical; and the pieces called branles, or ouvertures, consisting of an entrée and a courante will ever be admired as the most stately and complete mouvements in Musick. All the composers in London strove hard to imitate Lully’s vein. However, the whole tendency of the air affected the foot more than the ear; and no one could listen to an entrée with its starts and leaps without expecting a dance to follow.
“The French instrumental music, however, did not make its way so fast as to bring about a revolution all at once; for during a great part of this King’s reign the old Musick was still used in the country and in many private meetings in London; but the treble viol was discarded and the violin took its place.
“It may be ascribed to the peculiar pleasure which King Charles II received from the gay and sprightly sound of the violin that this instrument was introduced at Court and the houses of the nobility and gentry for other purposes than country-dances and festive mirth. Hitherto there seems to have been no public concerts and in the Musick of the chamber, in the performance of Fancies on instruments which had taken the place of vocal madrigals and motets the violin had no admission, the whole business having been done by viols.
“The use of the violin and its kindred instruments, the tenor and violoncello, in Court was doubtless brought from Italy to France and from France to England; for Charles II, who, during the Usurpation had spent a considerable time on the Continent, where he heard nothing but French Musick, upon his return to England, in imitation of Louis XIV, established a band of violins, tenors and basses, instead of the viols, lutes and cornets of which the Court band used to consist.”
Anthony Wood, that quaint old English writer, also throws a light on the question of violin-playing in England at that time.
“The gentlemen in private meetings,” he writes, “which A. W. frequented, played three, four and five parts with viols as treble viol, tenor, counter-tenor and bass, with an organ, virginal or harpsicon, joined with them; and they esteemed a violin to be an instrument only belonging to a common fiddler and could not endure that it should come among them for fear of making their meetings to be vaine and fiddling. But after the Restoration of Charles I, viols began to be out of fashion and only violins used, as treble violin, tenor and bass violin; and the King, according to the French mode, would have Twenty-Four Violins playing before him while he was at meals, as being more airy and brisk than viols.”
Then he goes on to tell us something about the chief violinist.
“Tho. Baltzar, a Lübecker born, and the most famous artist for the violin that the world had yet produced, was now in Oxford; and this day, July 24, A. W. was with him and Mr. Ed. Low, lately organist of Christ Church, at the house of Will Ellis, A. W. did then and there to his very great astonishment hear him play on the violin. He then saw him run up his fingers to the end of the fingerboard of the violin and run them back insensibly and all with alacrity and in very good time, which he, nor any in England, saw the like before. A. W. entertained him and Mr. Low with what the house could then afford and afterwards he invited them to the tavern; but they being engaged to go to other company, he could no more hear him play, or see him play at that time. Afterwards he came to one of the weekly meetings at Mr. Ellis’s house and he played to the wonder of all the auditory; and exercising his finger and instrument several ways to the utmost of his force. Wilson, thereupon, the public professor, the greatest judge of music that ever was, did, after his humorsome way, stoop down to Baltzar’s feet to see whether he had a hoof on, that is to say to see whether he was a devil or not, because he acted beyond the parts of man.”