Note.—As Dr. Crosby’s paper is unfinished, we append to it a letter from the celebrated Tartini, which was translated and published by Dr. Burney in 1779, as “an important lesson to performers on the violin.”
When Ole Bull was once speaking of his experiences in Italy, in 1834, he said: “I tried, if possible, to hear some player of the old Italian school. I happened to come in contact with an old man of ninety years, a pupil—amateur pupil, I will add—of Tartini. I paid him my respects, and asked to see his violin and hear him play, as it was my intention to study the Italian method. With infinite grace he took up an old Amati violin, the sight of which made my eyes water, and putting the bow on the strings, he produced tones which were an exact reproduction of the Tartini method as published by that great master in a letter which was shown me. Ah! so different from the modern school! Why, the violinist of to–day serves his instrument as though it were a slave, and must be driven to duty with the lash. The player should treat his violin as a tender child—fondle and caress it, not beat it. The beauty of a performance lies in exacting from the instrument tones corresponding with the deep love a true artist feels for his art.”
The letter referred to by Ole Bull was the one translated by Dr. Burney, which reads as follows:—
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 things, the most difficult and the most essential to playing well 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 practice 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—
etc.