Books › The violin and its music, 1885 › scan 247
Scan 247
The violin and its music, 1885
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 222. See the scan on archive.org.
1"Enraged Musician," but the idea has no foundation in fact, since the portrait is traced to Michael Festing, the immortal friend of British indigent musicians. The "Daily Post" of February the 22nd, 1732, contains a curious announcement with regard to Castrucci, namely that he would play a solo, "in which he engages himself to execute twenty-four notes in one bow." This piece of charlatanism, so misplaced in a truly able musician, was excellently capped on the following day by a fameless Fiddler advertising his intention to play twenty-five notes in one bow.
3The sonatas of Castrucci, Ops. 1 and 2, published by Walsh, are rich in pathos and originality. Sonatas 5 and 8, Op. 2, are written in imitation of the sounds of a Viol d'Amour, and are particularly interesting and effective. It was Castrucci who played publicly on an instrument which he named the Viola Marina. The sonatas referred to point to an admiration for the sounds of the Viol d'Amour, and in all probability the Viola Marina was but another name for the same instrument. Dr. Busby,* speaking in praise of these sonatas, remarks "from their stamina Handel and Corelli deigned to cull many a blossom," but fails to inform us how they accomplished the botanical musical feat of culling the blossom before it was in bloom, for Corelli's compositions were published long before Castrucci's.
5* Busby's "History of Music," Vol. 2, p. 508.
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