Scan 398
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1875
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 270. See the scan on archive.org.
1where he was engaged at the opera. Lecler was the originator of the school of French Violin playing. He wrote several sonatas for two Violins and Bass, besides other compositions. The difficulties occurring in many of these writings are of no ordinary character, and if they were rendered with anything approaching to exactness the progress made on the Violin must have been very rapid between the days of Lully and Lecler.
3Pierre Gaviniès claims attention both as an executant and composer. There is a freshness about his compositions which has caused many of them to be recently roused from their long sleep, and reissued in the improved garb of a modern edition. His best known works are the 24 Studies, Concertos, and Sonatas.
5Although there were several Violinists in France of average abilities between the time of Gaviniès and that of Rode, they scarcely claim attention in this somewhat hasty sketch; and I will therefore pass to the players linked with Viotti. To commence with Rode, the pupil of Viotti. He was born at Bordeaux in 1774. Fétis remarks that "from Corelli to Rode there is no hiatus in the school, for Corelli was the master of Somis, Somis of Pugnani, Pugnani of Viotti, and Viotti of Rode."
7His well-known 24 caprices, and his concertos and airs, are much admired by all Violinists for their elegance and effectiveness. Paganini played the concertos of Rode publicly upon several occasions.
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