Scan 358
The violin, its famous makers and their imitators, 1887
8 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Jean Marie Leclair, the pupil of Somis, is the first Violinist deserving of mention. He was born at Lyons in 1697. In 1729 he visited Paris, where he was engaged at the opera. He wrote several sonatas for Violin and Bass, and 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 Lulli and those of Leclair.
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 re-issued in the improved garb of a modern edition. His best-known works are the twenty-four Studies, Concertos, and Sonatas.
5Although there were several Violinists in France of average ability 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 his pupil Rode. He was born at Bordeaux in 1774. Fetis remarks, "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 twenty-four 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. Baillot and Kreutzer were associated with Rode at the Paris Conservatoire, and likewise in the compilation of the well-known Instruction Book written expressly for the use of the pupils at the Conservatoire. Baillot was famed for his admirable bowing
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.