Books › The violin: its famous makers and their imitators. : With several wood engravings from photographs of the works of Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, Amati, and others, 1880 › scan 269
Scan 269
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators. : With several wood engravings from photographs of the works of Stradiuarius, Guarnerius, Amati, and others, 1880
4 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 251. See the scan on archive.org.
1in a gentleman. The Violin would seem to have been regarded by his lordship with a supreme amount of displeasure. His opinion of Violinists savoured greatly of that held by the framers of the statute passed in the reign of Elizabeth touching minstrels, who were to be included among "rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars" when wandering abroad. Lord Chesterfield says, "Music is usually reckoned one of the liberal arts, and not unjustly, but a man of fashion who is seen piping or fiddling at a concert degrades his own dignity. If you love music, hear it; pay Fiddlers to play for you, but never Fiddle yourself." Such was Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son. It is quite evident that he had no notion of the exquisite enjoyment derivable from being an executant in a quartett, the conversational powers of which have been so frequently noticed. That Lord Chesterfield's strictures discouraged the practice of the Violin in the higher circles of society is very probable, appearing as they do in a work which was held in the light of a text-book upon the conduct of a gentleman for some considerable time. Happily, the hollowness of much of his advice came to be recognised, and he who deemed cards and dice a necessary step towards fashionable perfection, and ordained that Fiddlers were to be paid to play for you as substitutes for your own personal degradation, came to be remembered, possibly, more on account of the laxity of his precepts than for any other reason.
3In the days of Lord Chesterfield lived Michael Christian Festing, who was particularly zealous in the cause of music. He was a pupil of Geminiani, and wrote several solos. Festing still further carried out
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