Scan 460
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1raise the standard of musical taste in France. To him also belongs the credit of having founded the French national opera.
3We will now endeavour to trace the progress of the Violin in England. It is gratifying to learn that, even in the primitive age of Violin-playing, we were not without our national composers for the instrument. Dr. Benjamin Rogers wrote airs in four parts for Violins so early as 1653 (the year Corelli was born). John Jenkins wrote twelve sonatas for two Violins and a Bass, printed in London in 1660, which were the first sonatas written by an Englishman. About this date Charles II. established his band of twenty-four Violins. During his residence on the Continent, he had frequent opportunities of hearing the leading instrument, and seems to have been so much impressed with its beauties that he set up for himself a similar band to that belonging to the French Court. The leader was Thomas Baltzar, who was regarded as the best player of his time. Anthony Wood met Baltzar at Oxford, and says he "saw him run up his fingers to the end of the finger-board of the Violin, and run them back insensibly, and all in alacrity and in very good time, which he nor anyone in England saw the like before." Wood tells us that Baltzar "was buried in the cloister skill in playing on the guitar. The lady, however, not liking his appearance, sent him into her kitchen, where he was made an under scullion, and amused himself by arranging the stew-pans in tones and semitones, upon which he would play various airs, to the utter dismay of the cook.
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