Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday

by Henry Charles Lahee

Signora Paravicini attracted the attention of the Empress Josephine, who became her patroness and engaged her to teach her son, Eugene Beauharnais, and took her to Paris. After a time, however, the Empress neglected her, and she suffered from poverty. Driven to the last resource, and having even pawned her clothes, she applied for aid to the Italians resident in Paris, and they enabled her to return to Milan, where her ability soon gained her both competence and credit. She also played at Vienna in 1827, and at Bologna in 1832, where she was much admired.

Catarina Calcagno, who has already been mentioned as a pupil of Paganini, was a native of Genoa, born about 1797, and had a short but brilliant career. She disappeared from before the public in 1816.

Madame Krahmer and Mlles. Eleanora Neumann, and M. Schulz all delighted the public in Vienna and Prague. Miss Neumann came from Moscow, and astonished the public when she had scarcely reached her tenth year. Other names are Madame Filipowicz, Madame Pollini, Mlle. Zerchoff, Eliza Wallace, and Rosina Collins, who all played publicly and were well known.

In 1827 Teresa Milanollo was born, and in 1832 her sister Marie, and these two young ladies played so well, and were in such striking contrast to one another, that they proved very successful as concert players. They were natives of Savigliano, in Piedmont, where their father was a manufacturer of silk-spinning machinery. Teresa, the elder, was taught by Ferrero, Caldera, and Morra, but in 1836 she went to Paris and studied under Lafont, and afterwards under Habeneck, going still later to Brussels, where she took lessons of De Bériot, and received the finishing touch to her artistic education,—faultless intonation. Her career as a concert player began when she was about nine years of age. When Marie was old enough to handle a violin Teresa began to teach her, and in fact was the only teacher Marie ever had.

The two sisters, who were called, on account of their most striking characteristics, Mlle. Staccato and Mlle. Adagio, travelled together through France, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and England, and were everywhere received with the greatest interest. They played before Louis Philippe at Neuilly, and appeared with Liszt before the King of Prussia. They also created a furore at Vienna and Berlin.

Marie, the younger, who was of a happy and cheerful disposition, was not strong, and in 1848 she died in Paris. Teresa, the elder, after a long retirement, resumed her travels, and, having matured and improved, she played better and excited more interest than before. In 1857 she married a French officer, Captain Théodore Parmentier, who had seen service in the Crimean War, and she abandoned the concert stage.

From 1857 until 1878 she followed the fortunes of her husband, who became a general and a "Grand Officier de la Legion d'Honneur," and her public appearances were limited to such places as the vicissitudes of a military life took her to. Since 1878 Madame Parmentier has lived quietly in Paris, where she is still to be met by a few fortunate persons in select musical and social circles.

During the lifetime of Marie, the sisters had already put themselves into direct personal relations with the poor of Lyons, but after Teresa had roused herself from her mourning for her sister she established a system of "Concerts aux Pauvres," which she carried out in nearly all the chief cities of France, and part of the receipts of these concerts was used for the benefit of the poor. Her plan was to follow up the first concert with a second, at which the audience consisted of poor school-children and their parents, to whom she played in her most fascinating manner, and, at the conclusion of her performance, money, food, and cloth ing, purchased with the receipts of the previous concerts, were distributed.

From 1830 there has been a constantly increasing number of ladies who have appeared as concert violinists, but few have continued long before the public, or have reached such a point of excellence as to be numbered amongst the great performers.

Mlle. Emilia Arditi, Fraülein Hortensia Zirges, Miss Hildegard Werner, Miss Bertha Brousil, and Madame Rosetta Piercy-Feeny were all born during the decade 1830 to 1840, and were well known, but in 1840 and 1842 two violinists were born who were destined to hold the stage for many years and to exert a great influence in their profession. Wilma Neruda, now known as Lady Hallé and Camilla Urso are the two ladies in question, the former exerting her influence chiefly in England and on the Continent, and the latter in America.