Books › Famous violinists and fine violins : historical notes, anecdotes, and reminiscences, 1896 › scan 182
Scan 182
Famous violinists and fine violins : historical notes, anecdotes, and reminiscences, 1896
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 162. See the scan on archive.org.
1are thus quite spoilt early in life. Elizabeth Schmöhling was heard at court, and in a number of concerts. Every drawing-room of any importance was graced by her presence. At the little theatre in the Haymarket she led a quartett with excellent effect. What a contrast to the life at Cassel, a few years previously! Every fop in London was raving about this wonderful German girl who played upon the violin. The attention she received from the nobility, and the universal admiration in which she was held, both for her musical talent and her graceful manners, aroused a feeling akin to jealousy in certain quarters, and it was openly asserted in many places that the violin was an improper instrument for a woman.
3The exact significance of this condemnation I could never quite understand. All I know is, that from that time, 1760, for more than a hundred years, women who played the violin have always been very rare, until the appearance of my "Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Violinists" in 1877, when three curious events occurred. The book was brought out by the Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen. Shortly after its publication, Her Majesty sent to the Manchester Exhibition her picture "The Violin Player," and graciously permitted her son, the Duke of Edinburgh, to appear in public concerts as a violinist. Also, from the date of the publication of that book
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