Books › The violin : some account of that leading instrument and its most eminent professors, from its earliest date to the present time : with hints to amateurs, anecdotes, etc., 1852 › scan 287
Scan 287
The violin : some account of that leading instrument and its most eminent professors, from its earliest date to the present time : with hints to amateurs, anecdotes, etc., 1852
4 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 271. See the scan on archive.org.
1Theatre, was born in England, of Italian parents. His early genius for the Violin was so well directed as to render his playing, as a boy, a theme of astonishment; and, long before he was of age, he was employed as the leader of large bands at Concerts. At this time, however, he fell into a train of idle habits, and began to affect the fine gentleman rather than the musical student—keeping a horse, and sporting a special pair of boots, as his custom of a morning, while a switch in his hand displaced the forgotten fiddle-stick. From this devious course he was reclaimed by the accident of the arrival of Giardini, whose superiority to all the performers he had ever heard, inclined him to think it necessary that he should himself recur to practice; and this he did, for some time, with great diligence. A very powerful hand, and a wonderfully quick eye, were the masterly possessions of Pinto, and enabled him to perform the most difficult music at sight. He played thus, indeed, with more advantage than after studying his subject; for then, in his carelessness, he would trust to his memory, and frequently commit mistakes—missing the expression of passages, which, if he had thought them worth looking at, he would have executed with certainty. After leading at the Italian Opera whenever Giardini's more extensive avocations caused him to lay down the truncheon, Pinto was engaged as First Violin at Drury-Lane Theatre, where he led for many years. On the death of his first wife, Sybilla, a German singer, he married another singer, Miss Brent (the celebrated pupil of Dr. Arne), and settled in Ireland, where he died in the year 1773.
3Matthew Dubourg, recorded to have been one of the most eminent of the race of English Violinists, was born in the year 1703, and gave very early evidence of
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