Ole Bull: A Memoir

by Sara Chapman Thorp Bull

Dearest Félicie, Victoria!!! we have won! I never had a greater success, hardly so great, as that of last Saturday night. Wreaths, bouquets, and applause! Rubini, Tamburini, and Lablache sang, but Grisi did not sing as promised.[6]

In spite of all intrigues the journals have pronounced me one of the first violinists of the world. To–morrow I play for the Duke of Devonshire.... I have also agreed to play for the Philharmonic Society. Fearnley goes to Christiania Tuesday next. He came to my concert, and was almost crazy at the furore I made.

Two days later, May 26, 1836, he writes:—

Yesterday I played for the Duke of Devonshire; Rubini also sang. The duke said that I had performed the miracle of endowing the violin with a soul. Many of the first nobility of England were present, and the ladies were much moved.

The Duke of Devonshire was especially fond of Rubini, and Ole Bull used to say that he had never received a more delicate compliment than that paid him by the duke when he turned to Rubini and said, as the last tones of the violin died away: “You never sang more delightfully, Rubini!” Mr. James T. Fields once asked in what respect Rubini excelled other tenors, to which Ole Bull replied: “He began where others ended.”

One of the chief triumphs which Ole Bull won in London, in 1836, was on the occasion of a Philharmonic concert in which he appeared with Malibran and Thalberg. So great was his success that his concerts afterward were crowded, one audience at the King’s Theatre numbering three thousand people, an unprecedented success that season. He writes in August, 1836:—

I have just presented some souvenirs of regard to Rubini, Tamburini, Lablache, and Madame Assandri, who have assisted me gratuitously in my concerts here. They are the best people in the world, and immensely talented. They have told me to command them at all times, and as often as I please.

The following criticisms of his first appearance in London are taken from the Times, which said, in its issue of May 23, 1836:—

Mr. Ole B. Bull, the Norwegian violinist, made his first public essay in this country, on Saturday evening, at this theatre [King’s Theatre]. A more completely successful performance of the kind we have never attended. He played three pieces—a grand concerto in three movements, allegro, adagio, and rondo; a quartette for one violin; and a grand warlike Polish movement introduced by a recitative and adagio. His varieties of movement seem almost unlimited; and much as Paganini has done, this artist has certainly opened a new field on that instrument. His style is essentially different, and, like that of every truly great master, is of his own formation. Perhaps his most remarkable characteristic is the quiet and unpretending manner in which he produces all his great effects. There was no trick, no violent gesture, nor any approach to the ad captandum school. It seemed so easy, that to those not acquainted with the mechanical difficulties he mastered it was not easy to comprehend that anything extraordinary had been done. In long arpeggio passages and others made up of rapid and minute divisions, his bow scarcely seemed to move on the string; his hand, too, was almost motionless, yet our ear was charmed with a succession of distinct and sparkling notes, which kept the whole audience fixed in mute and almost breathless attention. His command of the instrument, from the top to the bottom of the scale—and he has a scale of his own of three complete octaves on each string—is absolutely perfect; in passing from one extreme of it to the other, however rapidly, he never missed a note. His tone on the fourth string is so beautiful, that even Nicholson’s flute, when a response occurred in the accompaniment, was thrown into the shade. His “Quartette,” in the ordinary mode of playing, would seem impossible; but he distinctly made out chords of three notes with the bow, and produced the fourth with his finger. This movement made such an impression on the audience that an encore was called for, instead of which Mr. Bull, as a mark of respect, which he probably thought appropriate, favored us with our National Anthem. With all our loyalty, we would have preferred hearing his “Quartette” once more. The applause he received was unbounded, as little forced, and as sincere, as any we have ever heard bestowed. Mr. Bull is still a young man, his age not being more than 26 or 27, and his appearance, on the whole, prepossessing. The performance of Saturday was, perhaps, as wonderful for the specimen afforded of the power of the instrument as for that of the player.... It should be mentioned that the audience included nearly all the distinguished members of the musical profession now in town, whose judgment, as they applauded most cordially, is the proper ordeal of a musical reputation....