Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 125
Scan 125
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
12 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OLD VIOLINS
3mistresses, like the Duchess of Cleveland (Barbara Palmer), the Duchess of St. Albans (Nell Gwynn, the actress), the mother of the Duke of Monmouth (Lucy Walters), the Duchess of Portsmouth (Louise de Querouaille, a French girl), greatly favoured all the more frivolous diversions with which secular music, and especially the new-fangled violin, were associated.
5These ladies were bound to be musical, as music undoubtedly delighted the "merrie monarch," and flattered his jaded tastes by its frequent novelty and emotional excitations.
7The revellers at Whitehall soon attracted to the capital the greatest violin players from foreign parts. The supremacy of the new violin pattern was achieved, and the rage of virtuosity began.
9Even John Evelyn succumbed to the witchery of Thomas Balzar, a Swede, who arrived in 1656. He seems to have been the Paganini of the period, and electrified the Court. Evelyn calls him "incomparable;" he played off at sight the most amazing difficulties with ravishing sweetness and "improvements;" he played a full concert on his single instrument, so that the rest flung down their violins, acknowledging the victory. As to worthy Mr. Paul Wheeler and Mr. Mell, who were the Spohrs and De Beriots of their day, they had to hide their diminished heads.
11We are not surprised to hear after this that his Majesty installed the great Balzar as director of his twenty-four violins, retained his services at court, and buried him in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.
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