Little by little the French had developed the art of playing the violin and composing for it. The time was ripe in the last quarter of the eighteenth century for the founding of that great school of French art which was to exert a powerful and lasting influence upon the growth of violin music. And now the influence of Viotti comes into play.
Viotti was by all tokens one of the greatest of the world’s violinists. He was born May 23, 1753, at Fontanetto, in Piedmont, and when hardly more than a boy, came under the care of Pugnani. In 1780 he started out with his master on an extended concert tour, which took him through Germany, Poland, Russia and England. Everywhere he met with brilliant success. Finally he came to Paris and made his first appearance at the Concerts Spirituels in 1782. His success was enormous, not only as a player but as a composer. Unhappily subsequent appearances were not so successful, and Viotti determined to withdraw from the concert stage. Except for a short visit to his home in 1783, he remained in Paris until the outbreak of the Revolution, variously occupied in teaching, composing, leading private orchestras, and managing in part the Italian opera. The Revolution ruined his fortunes and he went to London. Here he renewed his public playing, appearing at the famous Salomon concerts, in connection with which he saw something of Haydn. But, suspected of political intrigues, he was sent away from London. He lived a year or two in retirement in Hamburg and then returned to London. He was conductor in some of the Haydn benefit concerts in 1794 and 1795, and he was a director in other series of concerts until his success once more waned. Then like Clementi he entered into commerce. The remainder of his life was spent between London and Paris, and he died in London on March 10, 1824.
The most famous of his compositions are the twenty-nine concertos previously referred to; and of these the twenty-second, in A minor, is commonly acceded to be the best. The treatment of the violin is free and brilliant, and some of his themes are happily conceived. Yet on the whole his music now sounds old-fashioned, probably because we have come to associate a more positive and a richer sort of music with the broad symphonic forms which he was among the first to employ in the violin concertos. It was rumored at one time and another that the orchestral parts of these concertos were arranged by Cherubini, with whom Viotti was associated during his first years at the Italian opera in Paris; but the only foundation for such a report seems to be that it was not uncommon for violinist composers of that period to enlist the aid of their friends in writing for the orchestra. Viotti was a broadly educated musician, whose experience with orchestras was wide.
Second in importance to the concertos are the duets for two violins written during his stay in Hamburg. These are considered second in musical charm only to Spohr’s pieces in the same manner. That Viotti was somewhat low in spirit when he was at work on them, exiled as he was from London and Paris, is shown by the few words prefixed to one of the sets, ‘This work is fruit of the leisure which misfortune has brought me. Some pieces came to me in grief, others in hope.’
Viotti had a brilliant and unrestricted technique. He was among the greatest of virtuosi. But little of this appears in his music. That is distinguished by a dignity and a relative simplicity, well in keeping with the noble traditions inherited from a country great in more ways than one in the musical history of the eighteenth century. But as far as form and style go he is modern. He undoubtedly owes something to Haydn. Moreover, Wasielewski makes the point that there is no trace in his music of the somewhat churchly dignity one feels in the sonatas of Corelli and Tartini. Viotti’s is a thoroughly worldly style, in melody and in the fiery but always musical passage work. He is at once the last of the classic Italians and the first of the moderns, standing between Corelli and Tartini on the one hand and Spohr, David, and Vieuxtemps on the other.
The list of the men who came to him for instruction while he was in Paris contains names that even today have an imposing ring. Most prominent among them are Rode, Cartier, and Durand. And among those who were not actually his pupils but who accepted him as their ideal and modelled themselves after him were Rodolphe Kreutzer and Pierre Baillot. These men are the very fountain head of most violin music and playing of the nineteenth century. They set the standard of excellence in style and technique by which Spohr and later Vieuxtemps ruled themselves.
IV
Before considering their work, the development of violin music in Germany during the eighteenth century must be noticed. The influence of the Italians was not less strong here than in France. Both Biber and Strungk had come under it in the late seventeenth century, Strungk being, as we know, personally acquainted with Corelli and at one time associating closely with him in Rome. The German violinists of the eighteenth century either went to Italy to study, or came under the influence of various Italians who passed through the chief German cities on concert tours.
The most conspicuous of them are associated with courts or cities here and there. For instance, early in the century there is Telemann in Hamburg; a little later Pisendel in Dresden; J. G. Graun in Berlin; Leopold Mozart in Salzburg; the gifted Stamitz and his associates Richter, Cannabich and Fränzl in Mannheim; and the most amiable if not the most gifted of all, Franz Benda, here and there in Bohemia, Austria and Saxony. Though these and many more were widely famous in their day as players, and Mozart was influential as a teacher, little of their music has survived the centuries that have passed since they wrote it. The eighteenth century was in violin music and likewise in opera, the era of Italian supremacy; and in violin music we meet with little except copies outside of Italy.
Georg Philipp Telemann, it is true, wrote that he followed the French model in his music; but as Wasielewski says, this applies evidently only to his vocal works and overtures, for his violin compositions are very clearly imitations of Corelli’s. All his music, and he wrote enormous quantities in various branches, is essentially commonplace. Between 1708 and 1721 Telemann occupied a position at the court of Eisenach. It was chiefly during these years that he gave himself to the violin and violin music. Afterwards he went to Hamburg and there worked until his death in 1767.