While the melodious tones of Grisi and Mario have touched with sympathetic feelings the hearts and imaginations of spell bound listeners, how have the magic tones of Paganini and Ernst wrapped the souls of wondering thousands in an elysium of delight and admiration! What effect cannot be produced by the Violin, (except that of speech,) which the voice can accomplish?
The Violin in the hands of genius can draw tears or create laughter. Whoever has heard the great masters of this extraordinary instrument, has heard all the sweetness of tone, the intensity of feeling, the power of expression that the most gifted sons and daughters of song could possibly produce without the additional aid of speech. The Violin, in fact, in its power of expression far excels those singers, of whom there are too many, who while singing the notes, fail to make their hearers understand the sense of their songs. If a merry dance is produced by the agile bow, its sympathetic tones at once excite a corresponding feeling. If a plaintive air streams in delicious and heart-touching cadences from the strings, what soul is there so dead to feeling as not to respond?
The perfection of the Violin is that its master, if alive to the subtle and mysterious influences of the imagination, can elicit from it the most perfect and touching "songs without words."
It is besides the only instrument, except the voice, which is perfect. Every shade of expression, every nicety of tone can be produced on it. All other instruments sink into insignificance in comparison with the Violin, because they cannot do this. They are all more or less imperfect; and therefore fail in those subtleties of expression of which the Violin and the voice are such able exponents.
What gratitude do we owe therefore to those great masters of Cremona, more especially the Amati and Stradiuarius, who have succeeded in bringing the Violin to its present state of perfection.
Music has in all ages been a source of the purest delight. The greatest poet and dramatist the world ever knew says that whoever "has not music in his soul is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." In the present age the cultivation of Music forms one of the most general and the most refined sources of amusement and pleasure. All ranks of people are now privileged to join in its delightful enjoyments.
Even the cottage of the artisan is now often elevated by the elegant practice of music, through the increased facilities for producing instruments at a cheap rate. The consequence is that in the present age there is a more general study and a finer perception of what is good and beautiful, and their elevating tendencies are doing much for the mental cultivation and refinement of all classes.
A very extraordinary feature of the musical world of the present day is the enormous orchestras which can be produced on special occasions. A chorus of several thousand voices supported by hundreds of instruments may now be heard, rendering the immortal compositions of the greatest masters of the divine Art, in the Peoples' Palace at Sydenham and elsewhere. These Orchestras are chiefly selected from the ranks of the people, of whom the artisan is the chief contributor.
The reduction of the cost of instruments and the adoption of what may be called the joint stock principle are tending still further to enlarge the boundaries of the practical musical world. At any time and for any special purpose it is now easy to secure a band and chorus sufficient in numbers and executive power to render in an efficient and powerful manner, the glorious productions of Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, and other great masters.
In all these transitions, the Violin bears a most important part. It is the leading instrument in these great performances, as it is also, after the voice, the most powerful medium of expression in solo. It is also the peoples' instrument.