Scan 470
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884
4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 376. See the scan on archive.org.
1Boccherini probably did more towards furthering the cultivation of stringed instrument music than any composer of his day, with the exception of Haydn. There are in his compositions movements of varied styles, well written for their respective instruments. His quintetts are among his chief productions, and their elegance and brilliancy is remarkable. The part allotted to his own instrument, the Violoncello, often bristles with difficulties, and hence it is that these compositions are so seldom heard. Boccherini was the first composer who wrote quintetts with two Violoncello parts.
3We now reach a stage in the history of the progress of the Violin the importance of which cannot be over-estimated; I refer to the influence which the compositions of Giovanni Battista Viotti exerted upon the cultivation of our instrument. With the famous Viotti sprang up a school of Violin-playing as marked in style as that introduced by Corelli. Viotti was a pupil of Pugnani, and owed his success to the rare teaching of that master. The sensation that Viotti created in Paris was great. His varied style, his rich tone and elegance in playing, were far beyond anything that the Parisian public had previously experienced. With Viotti was ushered in a new era in solo playing. His concertos exhibit the capabilities of the instrument in elegantly constructed passages, such as none but a master of the Violin could pen. He wrote upwards of twenty concertos, those in A minor, in G, in D, and in E minor being
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