The violinists of this period were also given to bravura playing as were the pianists. This was a safe thing for great violinists like Paganini to do, but for the less gifted, it often developed into, not music at all, but musical calisthenics. Here is the group which appeared in the early 19th century: Rudolph Kreutzer, to whom Beethoven dedicated his famous Kreutzer Sonata; Andreas Romberg (1767–1821) who knew Haydn and Beethoven at Vienna and took Spohr’s place as concert master at Gotha. He wrote music somewhat in the style of Mozart. Then comes the “Wizard of the Bow,” Nicolo Paganini, standing alone and belonging to no school.
He was born in Genoa and began to play in public in 1795, when he was thirteen years old. A very pretty story is told of Paganini and the spider:
When Nicolo was a very poor and lonely student, he had a pet spider that used to listen to him practise. Every time Nicolo would touch the bow to the strings, out came Mr. Spider to listen attentively. Now there was a little girl, the daughter of a shop-keeper near by; she adored the great, tall, slender youth who spent most of the day and most of the night playing on his violin. She fell ill and died, and by a curious coincidence, the spider was killed. Paganini was so overcome by the loss of his admiring comrades that he left home at once and wandered from place to place, playing the guitar when he could not get work with his violin.
Later he played all over Europe and had the crowd with him for his matchless brilliancy in rapid work, his deep pathos and exceptional beauty of tone. He has probably never been surpassed in double stopping, chromatics and his pizzicati (plucking the strings). Isn’t it too bad the greatest violinist in the world lived before the gramophone was invented, so we have no records of his playing as we have of Mischa Elman, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Albert Spalding and Maud Powell!
In this period, Ludwig Spohr was of great importance. He was a friend of Mendelssohn and, curious enough, was an admirer (one of the early ones) of Wagner. He had been an intimate of Weber and played with Paganini at Rome and knew Rossini. His rank as a violinist was acknowledged. He did not stand for “fire works” but demanded fine music. He was always a classical musician, for his early love was Mozart. You will meet him again in the next chapter. He traveled all over Europe and met many great men and his autobiography is a rich store of anecdotes and interesting facts.
At this time too, there were many great violinists in France, Austria, Germany and Italy. We would like to write a whole volume on the brilliant pianists of the late 19th and 20th centuries such as Paderewski, De Pachman, Godowsky, Busoni, Rosenthal, Harold Bauer, Gabrilowitsch, Hofmann, Rachmaninov, Teresa Carreño, Myra Hess, Guiomar Novaes, Katherine Bacon, John Powell, Percy Grainger, Levitski and innumerable others!
More about Radio
1927 witnessed the broadcasting of enchanting concerts by the Boston Symphony under Serge Koussevitzky, The New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Willem Mengelberg, The New York Symphony under Walter Damrosch, Children’s Concerts under Ernest Schelling and many other organizations. The important broadcasting companies maintain superb musical organizations and there is growing up a valuable radio musical field for pleasure as well as for education. Mr. Damrosch’s musical lectures on the Ring have elicited nearly one million letters, from all parts of the world!
1929 sees the capitulation of Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra to the value of radio in a series of broadcasts.
On many programs are heard the world’s greatest artists.