Books › The violin and its music, 1881 › scan 311
Scan 311
The violin and its music, 1881
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 281. See the scan on archive.org.
1The sonata ended, Louis sent for a Violinist of his own band, and desired him to play an air from Lulli's opera of "Cadmus et Hermione," which was complied with, from memory: "Que voulez-vous, messieurs," said the King, "voilà mon goût, à moi, voilà mon gout."
3It will therefore be seen that Lulli cannot be looked upon as having contributed much to the progress of the Violin. The celebrity acquired by his band in connection with light French music, and its popularity with Louis XIV., surrounded the then vulgar instrument out of Italy with an amount of interest and attention far exceeding that which arose from the knowledge Lulli brought to bear upon it.
5Mersennus' description of the band of twenty-four Violins is interesting: he says, "Whoever hears the twenty-four Fidicinists of the King, with six Barbitons to each part, namely, the Bass, Tenor, Contra-Tenor, and Treble, perform all kinds of cantilenas and tunes for dancing, must readily confess that there can be nothing sweeter and pleasanter. If you have a mind to hear the upper part only, what can be more elegant than the playing of Constantius? what more vehement than the enthusiasm of Bocanus*? what more subtle and delicate than the little percusseans or touches of Laxarinus and Foucardus? If the Bass of Legerus be joined to the acute sounds of
7* Noticed previously as Cordier or Bocan.
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