[49] “Equisse de l’Histoire du Violon.”
[50] The universal diffusion of musical tendencies among the Germans has been often made the subject of remark. A late traveller, visiting the Theatre at Cassel, says that the orchestra there was half filled with officers, who fiddled in their regimental uniform, without considering the practice as at all derogatory from their dignity.
[51] Dr. Burney remarks that Geminiani used to claim the invention of the half-shift on the violin, and that he probably first brought it to England; but that the Italians ascribed it to Vivaldi, and others to the elder Matteis, who came hither in King William’s time.
[52] Of Tassenberg, a fine player, who came over to England with William Cramer, little can be said. As he fell speedily into obscurity, I place him here below in a note. With capacity for achieving a position, but with no prudence for its retention, he endured much misery through his own reckless follies. To some one who was once enquiring where he lived, the reply was, “In and about the brick-kilns at Tothill-Fields.”
[53] Apropos of the violoncello—let us here bestow a passing glance on the name of Merk, distinguished more recently than that of Bernard Romberg, in connection with the larger instrument. Merk seems to have made a closer approach to our eminent Robert Lindley, in quality of taste, than in firmness of hand, or brilliancy of tone. Mr. Novello, who has rated him higher than any of our players, except Lindley, adds a remark with reference to the double basses used in Germany—that they have frequently, instead of three strings, a complement of four, thinner than those in use with us, and descending to E below the usual scale—and that, when mixed with other instruments of the same class, the depth and richness they produce are very fine.
[54] Life of Anthony à Wood, Oxford, 1772, p. 88, &c.
[55] In process of time, these compositions likewise were supplanted by Martini’s Concertos and Sonatas, which, in their turn, were abandoned for the Symphonies of Van Malder, and the sonatas of the elder Stamitz. Afterwards, the trios of Campioni, Zanetti, and Abel came into play, and then the symphonies of Stamitz, Canabich, Holtzbauer, and other Germans, with those of Abel, Bach, and Giardini; which, having done their duty, “slept with their fathers,” and gave way to those of Vanhall, Pleyel, and Boccherini; and all have now gradually sunk into insignificance, eclipsed by the superior brightness and grandeur of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Cherubini, and some others, whose symphonies are the delight and wonder of the existing generation. So runs the changeful course of musical success!
[56] As a grandson of the individual here recorded, the writer of these pages may perhaps find licence to mention that there is extant in his family a fine portrait of Dubourg, by the Dutch painter Vander Smissen, interesting for the qualities of intelligence and good-humour that are blended in its expression.
[57] Vide “Records of a Stage Veteran,” in the New Monthly Magazine.
[58] As to this asserted advantage of resorting to chemical agency, the joke is somewhat of the oldest—so we may as well turn its coat, and it will then wear the aspect of the following