Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday

by Henry Charles Lahee

He left Dresden and went to Prague, where he entered the service of Count Kinsky. In 1736 he again visited London, but met with little success, owing to the fact that Geminiani had ingratiated himself with the public. In 1847 Veracini returned to Pisa.

Veracini has been sometimes ranked with Tartini as a performer. He was also a composer of ability. In making a comparison of him with Geminiani it has been said that Geminiani was the spirit of Corelli much diluted, while Veracini was the essence of the great master fortified with l'eau de vie.

Veracini was conceited and vainglorious, and these traits of his character have given rise to a number of rather inconsequential stories. He was a most excellent conductor of orchestra, and Doctor Burney mentions having heard him lead a band in such a bold and masterly manner as he had never before witnessed. Soon after leaving London Veracini was shipwrecked, and lost his two Stainer violins, which he stated were the best in the world. These instruments he named St. Peter and St. Paul.

The name of Giuseppe Tartini will ever live as that of one of the greatest performers on, and composers for, the violin. Born at Pirano, in 1692, his career may be said to have commenced with the eighteenth century. He was not only one of the greatest violinists of all time, and an eminent composer, but he was a scientific writer on musical physics, and was the first to discover the fact that, in playing double stops, their accuracy can be determined by the production of a third sound. He also wrote a little work on the execution and employment of the various kinds of shakes, mordents, cadenzas, etc., according to the usage of the classical Italian school.

Tartini's father, who was an elected Nobile of Parenzo, being a pious Church benefactor, intended his son for the Church,

The news of this marriage caused Tartini's parents to withdraw their support from him, and it so enraged the archbishop that the bridegroom was obliged to fly from Padua. After some wanderings he was received into a monastery at Assisi, of which a relative was an inmate. Here he resumed his mu sical studies, but though he learned composition of Padre Boemo, the organist of the monastery, he was his own teacher on the violin. The influence of the quiet monastic life caused a complete change in his character, and he acquired the modesty of manner and serenity of mind for which he was noted later in life.

One day, during the service, a gust of wind blew aside the curtain behind which Tartini was playing, and a Paduan, who remembered the archbishop's wrath and recognised the object of it, carried the news of his discovery to the worthy prelate. Time had, however, mollified him, and instead of still further persecuting the refugee, he gave his consent to the union of the young couple, and Tartini and his wife went to Venice, where he intended to follow the profession of a violinist.

Here he met and heard Francesco Maria Veracini, who was some seven years his senior, and whose style of playing made such a deep impression on him that he at once withdrew to Ancona, to correct the errors of his own technique, which, as he was self-taught, were not a few.

After some years of study and retirement, he reappeared at Padua, where he was appointed solo violinist in the chapel of San Antonio, the choir and orchestra of which already enjoyed a high reputation. It is said that the performance of Veracini had an effect upon Tartini beyond that of causing him to quit Venice. It made him dream, and the dream as told by Tartini himself to M. de Lalande is as follows:

"He dreamed one night (in 1713) that he had made a compact with the devil, who promised to be at his service on all occasions; and, during this vision, everything succeeded according to his mind; his wishes were anticipated, and his desires always surpassed, by the assistance of his new servant. In short, he imagined that he presented the devil with his violin, in order to discover what kind of a musician he was, when, to his great astonishment, he heard him play a solo so singularly beautiful, which he executed with such superior taste and precision, that it surpassed all the music he had ever heard or conceived in his life. So great was his surprise, and so exquisite his delight upon this occasion, that it deprived him of the power of breathing. He awoke with the violence of his sensations, and instantly seized his fiddle in hopes of expressing what he had just heard; but in vain. He, however, directly composed a piece, which is perhaps the best of all his works, and called it the 'Devil's Sonata;' he knew it, however, to be so inferior to what his sleep had produced, that he stated he would have broken his instrument, and abandoned music for ever, if he could have subsisted by other means."