Books › The story of the violin, 1904 › scan 289
Scan 289
The story of the violin, 1904
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 237. See the scan on archive.org.
1Violin Art in France
3their music and standard of playing for the more serious, higher one of the Italian masters. Corelli's failure in Paris shows significantly that something was wrong.
5The monopoly which Lully and his band held over Parisian musical life (which meant the musical life of France) was too sweet to be easily wrenched from them. They went on in the same old rut as long as they could—that is, as long as the King and his Court were satisfied. Thus it came to pass that, while Germany could already pride herself on a line of excellent Italian art-bred violinists by the beginning of the eighteenth century, in France the art was still in an undeveloped state of infancy. As a proof may serve the fact that, at the end of the seventeenth century vocal music was yet used for the instrument by these excellent "twenty-four," as in mediæval times; and matters stood little better during the first half of the following century.
7The first French violinists (not violists) we meet are two "Rois des Ménétriers": Constantin, a member of Louis XIII. Court-orchestra (died 1657), and his pupil, Guillaume Dumanoir, who followed in the dignity of kingship in 1659. After Lully, who was made chief of the band (though he was not Roi des Ménétriers1) in 1652, and died in 1687, we come to Rebel,
91 The dignity of "Roi des Ménétriers" was quite independent of the position in the King's band.
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