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 89
Scan 89
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
26 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 73. See the scan on archive.org.
1And, at the mystic notes, successive sped,
2Pleas'd, winketh he those eyes of flickering red,
3And shakes the grizzly horrors of that head!
4 List! what a change! Soft wailings fill the air:
5Plaintive and touching grows the demon-play'r.
6Doth Satan mourn, with meltings all too late,
7The sin and sorrow of his own sad state?
9* * * * *
10Night flies—the dream is past—and, pale and wan,
11Starts from his spell-freed couch the anxious man.
12Is it a marvel greater than his might,
13Those winged sounds to summon back from flight?
14To clutch them whole, in vain fond Hope inclin'd,
15For Memory, overburthen'd, lagged behind.
16Partly the strain fell 'neath Oblivion's pall,
17But it had partly "an un-dying fall;"
18And, in that state defective, to the light
19Brought forth—it lives—a relic of that night!
21The next name for notice, in connexion with the Italian School of the instrument, is that of
23FRANCESCO MARIA VERACINI (the younger), a great, but somewhat eccentric performer, who was born at Florence, at the close of the 17th century. Unlike his contemporary, Tartini, whose sensitive and modest disposition led him to court obscurity, Veracini was vain, ostentatious, and haughty. Various stories have been current in Italy about his arrogance and fantastic tricks, which obtained for him the designation of Capo pazzo. The following anecdote is sufficiently characteristic of him.
25Being at Lucca at the time of the annual "Festa della Croce," on which occasion it was customary for the principal professors of Italy, vocal and instrumental, to meet, Veracini put down his name for a Solo Concerto. When he entered the choir, to take possession of the principal place, he found it already occupied by the
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