Giovanni Battista Viotti.
Violin playing in France was largely influenced by Italian players. Lully, the opera composer, was a violinist, but the Italian school had not developed when, as a lad, he left his native country. The Corelli principles were carried to France by Leclair (1687-1764), who received his training from Somis, a pupil of Corelli. His treatment of the bow showed the lightness and agility that later became distinctive of the French school. Pierre Gaviniés (1726-1800) lent strength to the establishment of an independent French school of playing. He is best known today by a set of difficult studies. Giovanni Battista Viotti (1753-1824), an Italian by birth, greatly influenced violin playing in his day. As a lad of seventeen he traveled through Europe with Pugnani, his teacher, winning great success. Later he located in Paris, teaching and composing, giving regularly private performances at which he brought out his concertos. His themes have a marked singing character, and all his writing is eminently suited to the instrument. In his concertos he used the elaborated sonata-form as developed by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and in his accompaniments draws fully on the resources of the orchestra. His works include a fine set of duets for two violins. His most eminent pupils were Pierre Rode (1774-1830) and Pierre Marie François de Sales Baillot (1771-1842) who with Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766-1831) were teachers in the Paris Conservatoire, for which they prepared the famous “Méthode de Violin.” Rode and Kreutzer are famous in violin literature for their studies for advanced players. Beethoven dedicated his great sonata for piano and violin, Op. 47, to Kreutzer, for which reason it is known by the latter’s name. In connection with the educational writers just mentioned, Federigo Fiorillo, born 1753, in Germany, of Italian parents, is to be noted. His thirty-six etudes or caprices rank with the works of Rode and Kreutzer. Antonio Lolli (1730-1802) was a virtuoso and nothing else. His execution was marvelous, and he was, in many respects, a forerunner of Paganini.
Violin playing in Germany had its source and inspiration in the concert tours made in that country by the great Italian virtuosi, a number of whom lived for periods of some length at the courts of Berlin, Dresden, Mannheim and other capitals, where they trained pupils for the various ducal orchestras. The orchestra at Mannheim was the most famous for its work and sent out a number of fine players and musicians. Space does not permit the mention of these men. The first great name in the violin world of Germany is Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859), who was also one of the great composers of his time, his activity leading him into the domain of the oratorio and opera as well as orchestra and instrumental music. (His principal teacher was Franz Eck (1774-1804), who belonged to the Mannheim school.) Later he had opportunity to hear Rode, by whose playing he was much impressed. He spent some years in concertizing, and in 1822 located at Cassel as the director of the orchestra there. Here he taught many noted pupils, the best known being Ferdinand David. While Spohr was a great player and a great teacher, he influenced modern violin playing more by his compositions. Some of his concertos still figure in the violinist’s repertoire and his duos and concertantes for two violins and for violin and viola are unsurpassed by any compositions in that style. In 1831, he published his “Violin School,” which was a standard work for many years. The direct successor of Spohr was Ferdinand David (1810-1873), a great player and a great teacher who was associated with Mendelssohn in the founding of the famous Leipzig Conservatorium. From this institution David’s pupils went over all Europe into positions of responsibility and reputation. His greatest pupil was August Wilhelmj (b. 1845). After David’s death supremacy in the field of violin playing gradually fell away from Leipzig and centred in Berlin around Joseph Joachim, the Nestor of the present-day[14] violin world.
Ludwig Spohr.
The Vienna School.—The southern Germans had certain characteristics wherein they differed from their northern kin; they were in closer touch with Italy and were also influenced by their Hungarian neighbors. In Beethoven’s time considerable attention was given by Viennese violinists to chamber-music. Four names are prominent: Karl Dittersdorf (1739-1799), Anton Wranitzky (1756-1808), Joseph Mayseder (1789-1863) and Joseph Bœhm (1795-1876), the latter being the teacher of a number of famous violinists, Hellmesberger, Dont, Remenyi, Ernst and Joseph Joachim (b. 1831), the latter, representing the solid, classical style of his teacher, joined to a mastery of the technic of his instrument that enabled him to win and maintain the highest rank as virtuoso, quartet player and composer for his instrument. Up to the time of his death, August 15, 1907, he was director of the Royal High School of Music in Berlin. He was the teacher of hundreds of players, including many celebrated artists of the present day.
Joseph Joachim.