Books › The violin and its music, 1885 › scan 265
Scan 265
The violin and its music, 1885
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 247. See the scan on archive.org.
1it is the offence of contemptuousness with which the artist is associated: "Commanded to play a concerto at the Court of Louis XVI. at Versailles, the virtuoso appeared there in obedience to the summons, and had proceeded about half-way through the composition, when the attention of his distinguished audience was suddenly taken from the performer and the concerto, to an illustrious fresh arrival. Noise and confusion ruled where silence and attention before reigned. Viotti, indignant, removed the music from the desk and departed, leaving the concert and their Majesties to the reproaches of the audience." That some slight interruption may have caused Viotti to cease playing during its continuance is both probable and reasonable, but that the admitted possessor of a highly cultivated and refined mind should behave as above related, is, to say the least, unlikely; and more so, when the same biographer tells us that in his intercourse with those high in social position, he never forgot the dignity of his own character, or of their rank. After spending a short time in Italy, Viotti returned to Paris in 1784, when he became one of the distinguished members of the chief musical circle of the French capital.
3Viotti seems chiefly to have passed his time in Paris as Tartini did at Padua, ignoring public performances, and benefiting the art of music by conveying to others musical knowledge of inestimable worth. In 1788 Viotti was induced to accept
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