Scan 33
Celebrated violinists, past and present; ("The Strad" library), 1897
10 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. Printed page 21. See the scan on archive.org.
1training was merely listening to his father, and in this way his ear became accustomed to the tone of the violin. But when barely five years old he was placed under the charge of Anton Stamitz, with whom he made rapid progress. At twelve he made his first public appearance, and a year later he played a composition of his own—a concerto—at a Concert Spirituel with great success, both his playing and his composition receiving encomiums from the press, although he had taught himself all the little theory he knew.
3Until he was twenty-four he devoted himself entirely to the study of the violin and to composition. In 1784 he published six duets for violin and violoncello. At length he received an appointment in the orchestra of the Italian Theatre, now the Opéra Comique. After spending a number of years in writing operas (with which we have no concern, but the titles and descriptions of which may be found in any good dictionary), he began to travel, and made concert tours in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, all of which were triumphant.
5After his return he was appointed to a post in the Conservatoire at Paris; in 1801 he became first violinist at the Grand Opera and a member of the private band of the First Consul, Napoleon, in which position he remained after the latter became Emperor. When Louis XVIII. ascended the throne, he inherited this private band amongst other legacies, and in 1815 Kreutzer became its director. In the next year he was promoted to the post of second leader of the above-mentioned theatre, and 1817 to that of conductor. In 1824 he was appointed to look after the whole of the musical arrangements of the Grand Opera, but two years later he was compelled by ill-health to resign this post, when he received a pension.
7After his retirement he had several strokes of paralysis, and was sent to try a cure at Geneva, but without avail, for he died on the 6th January, 1831, at the Swiss town.
9In addition to his forty studies, which are one of the
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