Books › Ole Bull: a memoir; with Ole Bull's 'Violin notes' and A. B. Crosby's 'Anatomy of the violinist', 1897 › scan 85
Scan 85
Ole Bull: a memoir; with Ole Bull's 'Violin notes' and A. B. Crosby's 'Anatomy of the violinist', 1897
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1bacco from one side of his mouth to the other when he was excited and pleased. It was now flying from cheek to cheek almost as rapidly as the violin bow through the continuous shake of fifteen bars.
3The moment he left the stage his friends rushed into his arms, exclaiming, "When on earth did you do it? Only tell us that. Oh, it was too beautiful!" "Don't be so gay, my dear friends," replied he, with mock gravity; "you know the public of Rome won't bear such trifling. Why did you come to witness my disgrace?"
5The next day all Rome was ringing with praises of the Norwegian violinist. They knew not which to applaud most, his genius or his superhuman strength in performing the four distinct parts on the violin at once, and keeping up the motion of his bow with such lightning swiftness, for so long a time. No person who has not tried it can conceive of the extreme difficulty of playing at once distinct parts on each of the strings. It requires muscles strong as iron, and elastic as india-rubber. Paganini had sufficient elasticity, but not sufficient strength. Ole Bull is the only man in the world that ever did it. When the Parisians first heard him produce this wonderful effect of four violins, it seemed so incredible, that a story was circulated that it was all a deception; that some other musician was playing two of the parts behind the scenes. Thus originated the charge of "charlatanry," so often and so unjustly repeated.
7The Polacca brought its composer a brilliant reputation at once; and musical critics were obliged to con-
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