"A man who had a patent varnish for Violins, brought his invention to Ole Bull, and begged him to try it. He said that it gave ordinary instruments the sweet quality of a Cremona Fiddle. Ole Bull tried it, and found that it improved the tone, and promised to use a Violin prepared with it at a concert he had to give at the house of the Duke of Riario. There was a great deal of fashionable company at this concert, and the heat of the room melted this famous varnish, which was really a preparation of asafoetida. The smell which it exuded was so maddening that an ordinary man would have stopped and excused himself; but Ole Bull merely closed his eyes, turned his face away, and played with an energy which became more frenzied the more intolerable the stink became. He enjoyed an overwhelming success, and the Duke rushed forward to seize his hand in congratulation. The appalling odour of asafoetida struck him in the face, and Ole Bull had to explain in what agony he had been performing."—Ole Bull's "Breve i Uddrag," by Jonas Lie, Copenhagen, 1881.
ON THE TREATMENT OF THE VIOLIN.
In a Letter from the celebrated Tartini.
The letter here presented to my readers was translated and published by Dr. Burney, in 1779, under the following title: "A Letter from the late Signor Tartini to Signora Maddalena Lombardini (afterwards Signora Sirmen). Published as an important lesson to performers on the Violin.
"PADUA, March 5, 1760.
"'MY VERY MUCH ESTEEMED SIGNORA MADDALENA,
"'Finding myself at length disengaged from the weighty business which has so long prevented me from performing my promise to you, a promise which was made with too much sincerity for my want of punctuality not to afflict me, I shall begin the instructions you wish from me by letter; and if I should not explain myself with sufficient clearness, I entreat you to tell me your doubts and difficulties, in writing, which I shall not fail to remove in a future letter.
"'Your principal practice and study should, at present be confined to the use and power of the bow, in order to make yourself entirely mistress in the execution and expression of whatever can be played or sung, within the compass and ability of your instrument. Your first study, therefore, should be the true manner of holding, balancing, and pressing the bow lightly but steadily upon the strings; in such a manner as it shall seem to breathe the first tone it gives, which must proceed from the friction of the string, and not from percussion, as by a blow given with a hammer upon it. This depends on laying the bow lightly upon the strings at the first contact, and on gently pressing it afterwards, which, if done gradually, can scarcely have too much force given to it, because, if the tone is begun with delicacy, there is little danger of rendering it afterwards either coarse or harsh.
"'Of this first contact and delicate manner of beginning a tone you should make yourself a perfect mistress in every situation and part of the bow, as well in the middle as at the extremities; and in moving it up as well as in drawing it down. To unite all these laborious particulars into one lesson, my advice is, that you first exercise yourself in a swell upon an open string—for example, upon the second string; that you begin pianissimo, and increase the tone by slow degrees to its fortissimo; and this study should be equally made with the motion of the bow up and down, in which exercise you should spend at least an hour every day, though at different times, a little in the morning and a little in the evening; having constantly in mind, that this is, of all others, the most difficult and the most essential to playing on the Violin. When you are a perfect mistress of this part of a good performer, a swell will be very easy to you; beginning with the most minute softness, increasing the tone to its loudest degree, and diminishing it to the same point of softness with which you began, and all this in the same stroke of the bow. Every degree of pressure upon the string which the expression of a note or passage shall require will by this means be easy and certain; and you will be able to execute with your bow whatever you please. After this, in order to acquire that light pulsation and play of the wrist, from whence velocity in bowing arises, it will be best for you to practise every day one of the Allegros, of which there are three in Corelli's Solos, which entirely move in semiquavers. The first is in D, in playing which you should accelerate the motion a little each time, till you arrive at the quickest degree of swiftness possible; but two precautions are necessary in this exercise—the first is, that you play the notes staccato, that is, separate and detached, with a little space between every two, for though they are written thus—
