Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 188
Scan 188
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
23 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1VIOLIN TARISIO
3first time he struck a note, seemed literally to strike it, to give it a blow. The house was so crammed that, being among the squeezers in the standing-room at the side of the pit, I happened to catch the first glance of his face, through the arm akimbo of a man who was perched up before me, which made a kind of frame for it; and there, on the stage in that frame, as through a perspective glass, were the face bent and the raised hand of the wonderful musician, with the instrument at his chin, just going to commence, and looking exactly as I described him—
5—'His hand,
6Loading the air with dumb expectancy,
7Suspending ere it fell a nation's breath,
8He smote, and clinging to the serious chords,
9With godlike ravishment drew forth a breath
10So deep, so strong, so fervid thick with love,
11Blissful yet laden as with twenty prayers,
12That Juno yearned with no diviner soul
13To the first burthen of the lips of Jove.
14Th' exceeding mystery of the loveliness
15Sadden'd delight, and with his mournful look,
16Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face
17'Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seem'd
18Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes
19One that has parted with his soul for pride,
20And in the sable secret lived forlorn.'
22To show the depth and identicalness of the impression which he made upon everybody, foreign or native, an Italian, who stood near me, said to himself after a sigh, 'O Dio!' and this had not been said long when another person in the same manner exclaimed, 'O Christ!' Musicians pressed forward from behind the scenes to get as close to him as possible, and they could not sleep at night for thinking of him."
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