In 1836, M. Molique made a journey to Paris, and executed one of his concertos for the violin, at the Concerts of the Conservatoire. The journals which spoke of the effect of this composition, did justice to its beauty: but, according to their account, the execution does not appear to have produced upon the audience such an effect as ought to have resulted from the talent of the artist. It has been a subject of remark, that something of the same sort has happened in the case of most of the violinists of the German School who have performed before audiences at Paris; and that Spohr and Lipinski, who have had a great reputation elsewhere, produced but little sensation in that city. Must not the cause of this be sought in the diversity of national taste?—The published works of M. Molique have for many years contributed to the extension of his renown.
Vainly, oh, Pen! expectant here thou turn’st To trace the doings of Teutonic Ernst— To shew what praise he won, what hearts he moved, What realms he traversed, and what trials proved. Wanting the records that should speak his fame, Prose fails—and Verse, alas! but gives his name. So, in life’s common round, when just aware That one whom we have longed to know, is near— To see him, hear him, chat with him, prepared, We find he’s gone, and has but left his card!
Under the German branch of our subject, as more analogous to that than to any one of the others, may perhaps be most fitly presented some particulars concerning the remarkable Norwegian artist, Ole (or Olaus) Bull, who, in 1836, came hither to dazzle and animate us, like a coruscation from those “northern lights” that are often so conspicuous in his own land. His advent to our shores was immediately preceded by a visit to our lively neighbours on the southern side of the Channel. The following sketch—of which the earlier and more picturesque portion is chiefly derived from a French account, written by a medical professor and musical amateur at Lyons—will furnish some idea of the powers and peculiarities of this individual.
It chanced, on a certain day, during the time when the cholera was ravaging the French capital, that one of the numerous diligences which were then wont to make their return-journey in an almost empty state, deposited, in the yard of a coach-office, a young northern traveller, who came, after the example of so many others, to seek his fortune at Paris. Scarcely arrived at his twentieth year, he had quitted his family, his studies, and Norway, the land of his home, to give himself wholly up to a passion which had held sway within him from his infancy. The object of this pervading passion was music, and the violin. Deeply seated, active, and irresistible, the bias had seized him when he quitted his cradle, and had never ceased from its hold upon him. At six years old, he would repeat, on a little common fiddle bought at a fair, all the airs which he had heard sung around him, or played in the streets: and, two years afterwards, he had astonished a society of professional men, by playing at sight the first violin-part in a quartett of Pleyel’s—though he had never taken a lesson in music, but had found out his way entirely alone! Destined afterwards by his family to the ecclesiastic life, and constrained to the studies which it imposes, he had still kept his thoughts fixed on his beloved violin, which was his friend, his companion, the central object of his attachment. At the instance of his father, the study of the law became subsequently his unwilling pursuit: and, at length, these struggles ended in his yielding to the impulse of his love for the violin; and banishing himself from Norway, in order to devote all his days to the cultivation of music.
In the midst of a mourning city—a mere atom in the region of a world—what is to become of the young artist? His imagination is rich, but his purse is meagre: his whole resource lies in his violin—and yet he has faith in it, even to the extent of looking for fortune and renown through its means. Friendless and patronless, he comes forward to be heard. At any other moment, his talent must have forced public attention in his behalf; but, in those days of desolation, when death was threatening every soul around, who could lend his ears to the charmer? The young artist is left alone in his misery—yet not quite alone, for his cherished violin remains like a friend to console him. The cup of bitterness was soon, however, to be completely filled. One day, in returning to his miserable apartment in an obscure lodging-house, he found that the trunk, in which his last slender means were contained, had disappeared. He turned his eyes to the spot where he had placed his violin ... it was gone! This climax of disaster was too much for the poor enthusiast, who wandered about for three days in the streets of Paris, a prey to want and despair, and then—threw himself into the Seine!
But the art which the young Norwegian was called to extend and to embellish, was not fated to sustain so deplorable a loss. The hand of some humane person rescued him from this situation. His next encounter seemed like another special interposition of Providence; for he became the object of benevolent attention to a mother who had just lost her son through the cholera, and who found in the young stranger so remarkable a resemblance to him, that she received him into her house, and, though possessed but of moderate means herself, furnished relief to his necessities. The cholera, in the mean time, ceased its ravages, and Paris resumed its habitual aspect. Supplied with bread and an asylum, and soon afterwards with the loan of a violin, Ole Bull was again enabled to gratify his devotion for music. By degrees his name began to be heard, and he arrived at some small reputation. Thus encouraged, he ventured the experiment of a Concert; and fortune smiled on him for the first time, for he gained 1200 francs—a large sum, considering the position in which he then was.
Possessed of this unexpected, and almost unhoped-for, little fortune, he set out for Switzerland, and went thence into Italy.
At Bologna, where his first great manifestation appears to have been made, he had tried vainly to obtain an introduction to the public, until accident accomplished what he had begun to despair of. Full of painful emotion at the chilling repression which his simple, inartificial, unfriended endeavours had been fated to meet with, he one day sat down with the resolution to compose something; and it was partly amidst a flow of obtrusive tears that his purpose was fulfilled. Taking up his instrument, he proceeded to try the effect of the ideas he had just called into life. At that moment, it chanced that Madame Rossini was passing by the house in which his humble apartment was situated. The impression made on her was such, that she spoke in emphatic terms upon it to the director of a Philharmonic Society, who was in a critical predicament, owing to some failure in a promise which had been made him by De Beriot, and the syren, Malibran. Madame Rossini’s piece of intelligence was a burst of light for the “Manager in distress:” he had found his man. The artist was induced to play before the dilettanti of Bologna, and his success was complete.
At Lucca, Florence, Milan, Rome, and Venice, the impression he made was yet greater and more decisive. On each occasion, he was recalled several times before the audience, and always hailed with the utmost enthusiasm. At the Neapolitan theatre of San Carlo, he was summoned back by the public no less than nine times—thrice after the performance of his first piece, and six times at the end of the second. It was a perfect furore.