Books › The Strad; a monthly journal for professionals and amateurs of all stringed instruments played with the bow, 1890 › scan 15
Scan 15
The Strad; a monthly journal for professionals and amateurs of all stringed instruments played with the bow, 1890
16 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1We note that Herr Brodsky, having returned from America under circumstances already mentioned in THE STRAD, has taken up his permanent abode in Berlin, and intends in future to devote himself to the career of a virtuoso. The German musical papers are triumphant about the return of the splendid artist—as indeed they should be. Possibly we may hope to hear Herr Brodsky in London ere another year has come and gone; it is some years since he last appeared among us, and his name is by no means so well known as it should be here.
3Another important change in the departure of the clever and accomplished violinist, Herr Halir, from Weimar, where he has lived for many years. He also has gone to Berlin to undertake the laborious but grateful duties of leader of the Court Opera in the German capital, and professor of the violin under Joachim at the famous Hochschule.
5Marcello Rossi, the distinguished Viennese violinist, has recently been decorated with the "Ritterkreuz des Verdienstordens von Nassau." What enormous collections of decorative medals and "orders" some of the more famous executive musicians must accumulate in the course of a long artistic career in Germany. The present writer recollects attending a concert in a small German capital, the residence of a Royal Duke, on one occasion, when among the five or six performers was a young English lady. Each of the foreigners was presented with a decoration of some sort, but for some reason or other the English lady was overlooked. One of the performers, an impossible tenor, a species peculiar to Germany, with no voice, but an immense operatic repertoire, who albeit an old man, is still primo tenore at a respected continental opera, appeared on the platform with a string of medals (each about the size of a shilling) which reached from his right arm-pit to his left. He was a proud and happy man!
7The Boston Leader of May last published an interesting article on "violin making" from the pen of S. L. Boyce, the director of the Boyce Violin Company. It is a modest article as the following sentence testifies: "We expect soon to add the manufacture of violas, 'cellos and basses of fine quality, and if we succeed with them in the same degree [i.e., 'our instruments are as good as the best'] as I have no reason to doubt we will, we will confer a great blessing on those who are struggling with the worthless trash commonly found in use, which are of about the same quality as the cheap store fiddles." And again. "They are beautiful in form, perfect in shape and faultless in tone; and we thought it time that all lovers of the 'king of instruments' should be acquainted with the new departure." What about "log-rolling"?
9Le Monde Musical of the 30th May, publishes an article on the subject of a new invention, the Melotetraphone, "an interesting innovation for facilitating playing upon stringed instruments." This instrument, the invention of M. E. de Vlaminck, is pictorially represented thus: The player is seated in front of a small harmonium-like instrument upon which he is playing with his left hand, while his right manipulates a bow upon the strings of a violoncello fixed underneath the harmonium. The latter has keys and so far as we can judge, these keys depress the string in the same manner as do the fingers when the violoncello is played in the ordinary manner. By-the-way, the violoncello is placed horizontally under the keyed instrument. Presumably the chief object of the Melotetraphone is to obviate the possibility of playing out of tune.
11Viola.
13FAMOUS FIDDLES.
15The violin of the late maestro Sivori is a facsimile of that of Paganini, now in the Museum at Genoa. It is not a Guarnerius, however, but was made by Jean Bapst Vuillaume of Paris. Before Paganini, the violins of Amati and Stradivarius were held in high renown, but those of Guarnerius were only known and esteemed by obscure fiddlers in Italian churches. About 1820 Paganini played in a concert at Leghorn, and borrowed a violin from a local merchant for the occasion. The lender was so enchanted with the execution of Paganini that he begged him to keep the instrument, saying that, after what he had heard, he would never profane it by his own touch. It was a Guarnerius of 1743, and with it Paganini scored his triumphs, and made the name of the maker so famous that his instruments were only to be obtained by amateurs who could afford to pay fancy prices for them. Once at Paris Paganini wanted some slight repair done to his violin, and went to Vuillaume. The latter had bought the collection of the famous amateur Tarisio, of Milan, by means of which he constructed an instrument so similar to that of Paganini that when the latter called he handed it to him as his own, and the virtuoso, nothing doubting, was going off with it, when Vuillaume confessed the trick, gave him his own violin, and made him a present of the imitation. Paganini afterwards gave this to his pupil Sivori, and what use the latter made of it, and what were its qualities, the world knows. It has now found its way to Genoa, and is placed by the side of its counterpart.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.