Books › The violin and its music, 1885 › scan 304
Scan 304
The violin and its music, 1885
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 286. See the scan on archive.org.
1drawn from the instrument must have been so much less. It is, of course, no more possible to convert a modern Violin player into one of Gaviniès' age, in order to play his music, than it is to convert a grand Pianoforte into a Clavecin, that we may play the sonatas of Bach and the suites of Handel; but, notwithstanding delicacy of touch on both, the Violin and Pianforte will take us back a considerable distance.
3The naming of Gaviniès, the French Tartini, by Viotti, admirably conveys an idea of much that he accomplished in the field of French Violin playing, and the comparison was equally well chosen as it unintentionally happened with regard to his well-informed mind, for, like Tartini, Gaviniès was literary as well as musical, and enjoyed the friendship of Jean Jacques Rousseau. The chief work of Gaviniès is undoubtedly the Twenty-four Studies in all the keys, a plan which Rode followed in his Twenty-four Caprices. The studies of Gaviniès are full of ingeniously-constructed passages, needing considerable executive skill to render them; many forms of passages are given which are never likely to be required, yet the study attending the unravelling of them is highly beneficial to the student.
5The direction of the Concert Spirituel was shared in 1773 by Gaviniès and Gossec, and in 1795, upon the formation of the Conservatoire de Musique by the French Government, Gaviniès was appointed Violin professor to the institution, a position he held
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