Books › The violin: some account of that leading instrument, and its most eminent professors, from its earliest date to the present time;, 1878 › scan 48
Scan 48
The violin: some account of that leading instrument, and its most eminent professors, from its earliest date to the present time;, 1878
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1men in private meetings, which A. W. frequented, played three, four, and five parts with viols*—as treble-viol, tenor, counter-tenor, and bass, with an organ, virginal, or harpsicon joined with them; and they esteemed a violin to be an instrument only belonging to a common fiddler, and could not endure that it should come among them, for feare of making their meetings to be vain and fiddling. But, before the restoration of King Charles II, and especially after, viols began to be out of fashion, and only violins used, as treble violin, tenor, and base violin; and the King, according to the French mode, would have twenty-four violins playing before him while he was at meals, as being more airie and brisk than viols."
3Under the year 1658, he tells us that "Tho. Baltzar, a Lubecker borne, and the most famous artist for the violin that the world had yet produced (!), was now in Oxon, and this day, July 24, A. W. was with him, and Mr. Ed. Lowe, at the house of Will. Ellis. A. W. did then and there, to his very great astonishment, heare him play on the violin. He then saw him run up his fingers to the end of the finger-board of the violin, and run them back insensibly; and all with alacrity and very good tune, which he nor any in England saw the like before. A. W. entertained him and Mr. Low with what the house could then afford, and afterwards he in-
5* The viol, less powerful and penetrating than its supplanter, the violin, was not without its recommendatory qualities. Hawkins speaks of "the sweet and delicate tone which distinguishes the viol species." Old Thomas Mace, who wrote when the viol was declining in fashion, was emphatic in its praise. "Your best provision," says he, "and most compleat, will be a good chest of viols; six in number, viz. 2 basses, 2 tenors, and 2 trebles; all truly and proportionally suited."
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