Scan 473
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1875
6 lines. Read by computer on 1 October 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1away my pen, so does he wear away the strings of his Fiddle. There is no medium to him; he is either in a flat or a sharp key, though both are natural to him. He deals in third minors, and major thirds; proves a turncoat, and is often in the majority and minority in the course of a few minutes. He runs over the flat as often as any Newmarket race-horse; both meet the same fate, as they usually terminate in a cadence; the difference is—one is driven by the whip-hand, the other by the bow-arm; one deals in stakado, the other in staccato. As a thoroughbred hound discovers, by instinct, his game from all other animals, so an experienced musician feels the compositions of Handel or Corelli.—Yours, Timothy Catgut, Stamford."—Monthly Mirror.
3ORIGIN OF TARTINI'S "DEVIL'S SONATA."
5"One night in the year 1713," says Tartini, "I dreamed that I had made a compact with his Satanic majesty, by which he was received into my service. Everything succeeded to the utmost of my desires, and my every wish was anticipated by this my new domestic. I thought that on taking up my Violin to practise, I jocosely asked him if he could play on that instrument. He answered, that he believed he was able to pick out a tune; and then, to my astonishment, began to play a sonata, so strange and yet so beautiful, and executed in so masterly a manner, that I had never in my life heard anything so exquisite; I could scarcely breathe for amazement.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.