Still, though the secrets of his mechanism are now clear as day, and within the control of many even mediocre players, his music, wherewith he literally set half Europe crazy, has fully responded to no fingers but his own. This may be because his tricks have become known and familiar; but more likely his success drew from more than these tricks, and the secret of it was in his astounding appearance and uncanny personal magnetism. Tall, lank, gaunt, dark, with blazing eyes and fingers like a skeleton, he may well have brought with him a sulphurous halo when he glided like a spectre upon the stage. He was indeed more a magician than a musician, a sorcerer too inspired to be called a charlatan.
Still, though the secrets of his mechanism are now clear as day, and within the control of many even mediocre players, his music, wherewith he literally set half Europe crazy, has fully responded to no fingers but his own. This may be because his tricks have become known and familiar; but more likely his success drew from more than these tricks, and the secret of it was in his astounding appearance and uncanny personal magnetism. Tall, lank, gaunt, dark, with blazing eyes and fingers like a skeleton, he may well have brought with him a sulphurous halo when he glided like a spectre upon the stage. He was indeed more a magician than a musician, a sorcerer too inspired to be called a charlatan.
The effect of his playing upon all branches of music was instantaneous. His name became the synonym for the highest perfection in playing and singing of all kinds. In the opinion of Chopin, Mlle. Sontag is as perfect as Paganini; and in that of Mendelssohn Chopin upon the piano rivals Paganini upon the violin. Schumann sets about transcribing the caprices of Paganini for the piano. Liszt makes of himself a second wonder of the world by imitating Paganini; and not only that, but expands the technique of his own instrument to unheard of dimensions.
Paganini’s compositions are for the most part without conspicuous value, except for the purely technicalextravagances which they display. Relatively few were published during his lifetime. These include the universally famous twenty-four caprices for solo violin, opus 1, two sets of sonatas for violin and guitar, and three quartets for violin, viola, guitar and 'cello. After his death a host of spurious works appeared; but Fétis gives as genuine two concertos, one in E-flat, one in B minor, the latter of which contains theRondo à la clochette, which was one of his most successful pieces; two sets of variations, one on an air by S. Mayer, known asLe Stregghe(‘Witch’s Dance’), one on the immortal airLe carnaval de Venise, both of which were almost invariably on his programs; and theAllegro de concertoin perpetual motion.
Paganini’s success was hardly less brilliant in Germany than it was elsewhere in Europe. At least Schumann and Mendelssohn submitted to the fascination of his incomparable skill. Yet on the whole violin playing in Germany remained less influenced by Paganini than it proved to be in France, Belgium and England. This was not only because of the influence of the great German classics, nor because the tendency of the German violinists was rather away from solo virtuosity and toward orchestral and quartet playing; but largely also because of the firm leadership of Ludwig Spohr, practically the one man about whom a definite German school of violin playing of international importance centres.
Spohr was born in the same year as Paganini (1784). His training on the violin was received from Franz Eck, a descendant of the famous Mannheim school. But according to his own account, the example of Rode, whom he heard in 1803, was of great importance infinally determining his style of playing. His numerous activities took him considerably beyond the field of playing and composing for the violin. He was famous as a conductor in Vienna, in Dresden and Berlin, and in London, whither he was frequently called to undertake the conducting of his own works. As a composer he was famous for his symphonies, his oratorios, and his operas. Yet he was not, in a sense, a great musician; and the only part of his great number of works which now seems at all likely to endure much longer in anything but name is made up of the compositions, chiefly the concertos, for violin.
Of these concertos there are seventeen in all. Among them the seventh, eighth, and ninth are often singled out as the best; and indeed these may be said to be the best of all his works. The eighth was written on the way to a concert tour in Italy, and was intended especially to please the Italians, and written in a confessedly dramatic style,in modo d’una scena cantante. None of the concertos is, strictly speaking, virtuoso music. Naturally all reveal an intimate knowledge of the peculiarities of the violin; but these hardly over-rule the claim of the music itself. He calls for a sort of solid playing, for a particularly broad, deep tone in thecantilenapassages, for a heavy, rather than a light and piquant, bow. He was a big man in stature, and his hands were powerful and broad. Evidently he was more than usually confined within the limits of his own individuality; and his treatment of the violin in the concertos is peculiar to him in its demand for strength and for unusually wide stretches. Even the passage work, which, it must be said, is far more original than that with which even Rode and Viotti were willing to be content, hardly ever exhibits the quality of grace. He is at times sweet and pure, but he is almost never bewitching.
A great many will say of him that he deliberatelyavoids brilliant display, and they will say it with contentment and pride. But it may be asked if the avoidance of brilliancy for its own sake is a virtue in a great musician. This sort of musical chastity becomes perilously like a convenient apology in the hands of the prejudiced admirer. In the case of Brahms, for example, it daily becomes more so. And now we read of Spohr’s unlimited skill as a player and of the dignified restraint manifested in his compositions for the violin. But by all tokens the concertos are being reluctantly left behind.
Among his other works for violin the duets have enjoyed a wide popularity, greater probably than that once enjoyed by Viotti’s. HisViolinschule, published in 1831, has remained one of the standard books on violin playing. Its remarks and historical comments are, however, now of greater significance than the exercises and examples for practice. These, indeed, are like everything Spohr touched, only a reflection of his own personality; so much so that the entire series hardly serves as more than a preparation for playing Spohr’s own works.
Spohr was typically German in his fondness for conducting, and for the string quartet. As quite a young man he was the very first to bring out Beethoven’s quartets opus 18, in Leipzig and Berlin. Paganini is said to have made a favorite of Beethoven’s quartet in F, the first of opus 59; but Spohr was positively dissatisfied with Beethoven’s work of this period. Yet Paganini was in no way a great quartet player, and Spohr was. We cannot but wonder which of these two great fiddlers will in fifty years be judged the more significant in the history of the art.
Certainly Spohr was hard and fast conservative, in spite of the fact that he recognized the greatness of Wagner, and brought out the ‘Flying Dutchman’ andTannhäuserat the court of Cassel. And what can wepoint to now that has sprung from him? On the other hand, Paganini was a wizard in his day, half-charlatan, perhaps, but never found out. With the exception of Corelli and Vivaldi he is the only violinist who, specialist as he was, exerted a powerful influence upon the whole course of music. For he was like a charge of dynamite set off under an art that was in need of expanding, and his influence ran like a flame across the prairie, kindling on every hand. Look at Schumann and Liszt, at Chopin and even at Brahms. Stop for a moment to think of what Berlioz demanded of the orchestra, and then of what Liszt and Wagner demanded. All of music became virtuoso music, in a sense. It all sprang into life with a new glory of color. And who but Paganini let loose the foxes to run in the corn of the Philistines?
Among Spohr’s pupils Ferdinand David (1810-1873) was undoubtedly the greatest. He was an excellent performer, uniting with the solidity of Spohr’s style something of the more occasional fervor of the modern school, following the example of Paganini. His friendship with Mendelssohn has been perpetuated in music by the latter’s concerto for the violin, in E minor, which David not only performed for the first time in March, 1845, but every measure of which was submitted to his inspection and correction while the work was in process of being composed.
David has also won a place for himself in the esteem and gratitude of future generations by his painstaking editing of the works of the old Italian masters. Few of the great works for the violin but have passed through his discriminating touch for the benefit of the student and the public. And as a teacher his fame will live long in that of his two most famous pupils: Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) and August Wilhelmj (1845-1908).
How great an influence the group of French violinists exercised upon violin music and playing in the first quarter of the nineteenth century is revealed in the training and the characteristics of the famous Viennese players of the time. Vienna had always proved fertile ground for the growth of Italian ideas, and the French style recommended itself to the Viennese not only by the prevalence of French ideas in the city, owing to political conditions, but also because this style was in no small measure a continuance of the Italian style of Viotti.
Among the Viennese violinists may be mentioned Franz Clement (1780-1842), who, even as a boy of eleven, was making successful concert tours over Europe. In the years 1791 and 1792 he played in London in concerts directed by Haydn and Salomon. Here as elsewhere his playing was admired for its delicacy as well as for its sureness and clarity, qualities which ever recalled to the public of that day the playing of Viotti and Rode. He was not above the tricks of the virtuoso; yet there can be no better proof that he knew how to use his great technique with the worthiest aim than that Beethoven dedicated to him his concerto for violin. He was a thorough musician. They told a story in Vienna, according to Spohr, of how, after hearing Haydn’s ‘Creation’ only a few times, he was able, using only the text-book alone, to arrange all the music for the pianoforte so completely and so accurately that when he showed his copy to old Haydn the master thought his score must have been stolen and copied. Another proof of his musicianship is that he was appointed the first konzertmeister at the Theater an der Wien.
Schuppanzigh’s pupil, Joseph Mayseder (1789-1864),was among the brilliant and pleasing players of the time. In spite of the fact that he was at one time a member of his master’s famous quartet, his tastes seem to have run to a light and more or less frivolous style of music. The tendency showed itself not only in his playing, but in his compositions. These included concertos and brilliant salon pieces; and also string quartets and quintets and other pieces of chamber music, all now quite out of date.
Perhaps the two most influential of the Viennese violinists were Joseph Boehm and Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst. Boehm (1798-1867) was a pupil of Rode, whose acquaintance he made in Poland. Later he visited Italy, and afterwards was appointed a teacher of the violin in the Conservatory at Vienna. Though he was famous in his day as a player who possessed the necessary skill in fingering and bowing, he was above all a teacher. The list of his pupils includes Ernst, G. Hellmesberger (b. 1800), Joachim, Ludwig Strauss (b. 1835), Rappoldi (b. 1831) and Grün. Also Reményi, at one time an associate with Brahms on concert tours, belongs among them.
Ernst was less a teacher than a virtuoso, whose skill was so extraordinary as to pique Paganini. It is even said that he used to follow the astounding Italian on his concert tours that he might discover some of the secrets of his playing. His own variations on the ‘Carnival of Venice’ are a brilliant imitation of the style of Paganini. He spent most of his life in concert tours; and, though he was known to be a fine, if not a deep, musician, the virtuoso shows in most of his compositions, which are of little more than secondary merit. He died on October 8, 1865, having enjoyed a fame as a player second only to that of Paganini and de Bériot.
The Bohemians Johann Wenzelaus Kalliwoda (1801-1866) and Joseph Slawjk (1806-1833), both achieved considerable fame. Chopin spoke of Slawjk with greatestadmiration, wrote that with the exception of Paganini he had never heard a violinist like him. The two became friends and conceived the project of writing together a work for piano and violin. If Slawjk had lived longer he might well have rivalled Paganini, whose playing he, like Ernst, strove to match.
The star of Paganini exercised over every nation of musicians its irresistible attraction. Besides famous players of Austria and Bohemia mention must be made of C. J. Lipinski, the Pole. Lipinski remained in Poland up to the time (1817) when rumors came out of Italy of the astonishing performances of the Genoese. Then he went to Italy determined to hear the wonder himself. In Piacenza he heard him, and later became his friend and associate. It is even said that Paganini proposed to him a joint concert trip through the large Italian cities; but Lipinski had been too long away from his native land and felt unable to remain away longer. His playing was characterized by an especially strong stroke of the bow, an art he possibly acquired from a year’s hard work on the 'cello. His compositions, few of which are generally heard today, are said by Wasielewski to show fine musicianship and considerable subjective warmth. The best of them is the so-called ‘Military’ concerto in D major. His ability as an editor is proved by his work with Klengel on an edition of Bach’s sonatas for violin and harpsichord, published by Peters. Lipinski died at Urlow, near Lemberg, in December, 1861.
The most brilliant offshoots of the French school, to the formation of whose style the influence of Paganini contributed, were the Belgians de Bériot and Henri Vieuxtemps, who stand together as representative of aBelgian school of violin playing. But before considering them a few names in the long and distinguished list of the pupils of Kreutzer, Rode, and Baillot may be touched upon. Among those of Kreutzer Joseph Massart was perhaps the most influential. He was born in Belgium in 1811, but went early in life to Paris to complete with Kreutzer the work begun with his countryman Lambert. Here he remained, and from 1843 was a professor of the violin at the Conservatoire. At least one of his pupils, Henri Wieniawski, won a world-wide fame as a virtuoso.
Among Rode’s pupils Charles Philippi Lafont (1781-1839) stands out prominently. Lafont had also been a pupil of Kreutzer’s. His playing was, according to Spohr, full of energy and grace, perfect in intonation, and fine of tone, but rather mannered. His compositions, including duos written with Kalkbrenner, Henri Herz and other virtuoso pianists, and more than two hundred Romances, are of no genuine value. The seven concertos are quite forgotten.
F. H. Habeneck (1781-1841), one of the most influential of French musicians, was a pupil of Baillot. He and his two brothers, Joseph and Corentin, were excellent violinists. But though he held a place of honor among virtuosi of that day, and though he wrote a number of works for the violin, he is remembered today chiefly as the founder of theSociété des concerts du Conservatoire. These were instituted by his energy in 1828, and for twenty years he remained conductor of them. By him the symphonies of Beethoven were introduced into France. He was for many years teacher of the violin at the Conservatoire. Alard (b. 1815), the teacher of Sarasate, was his most famous pupil.
Massart, Alard, and Léonard (b. 1819), another pupil of Habeneck, were all Belgians; but all remained in Paris as teachers in the Conservatoire. Hence they are considered as representative of a Franco-Belgian schoolof violin playing. Charles Auguste de Bériot (1802-1870), though studying for many years in Paris under the advice at least of Viotti and Baillot, and though familiar to all Europe as one of the most brilliant of the world’s virtuosos, was for nine years (1843-52) professor of violin playing at the Brussels Conservatory, and may therefore be considered to have brought to Brussels that fame as a centre of brilliant violinists which she has enjoyed without interruption down to the present day.
In de Bériot’s playing as well as in his numerous compositions the influence of Paganini rises clearly into sight above that of the older classical traditions of which Paris was the guardian during the first quarter of the century. He was a master of the Paganini effects, of the mysterious harmonics, the dazzling runs and arpeggios, the sparkling pizzicatos; and they are thickly sown over his music. Yet there was in both his playing and his compositions a genuine musical charm. Especially in melodiousness. His wife was Maria Malibran, and through her inimitable singing he heard at their best the graceful melodies of the Italians Bellini and Donizetti, and of the Frenchman Auber, which undoubtedly greatly affected his own compositions. These, once widely popular, included seven concertos, severalairs variés, and duos for piano and violin, written in conjunction with such virtuosos as Thalberg.
Among his pupils the most famous was Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881), one of the few great virtuosos of the violin whose fame as a player has not outlasted in memory his compositions. Vieuxtemps’ five concertos, hisBallade et Polonaise, and even hisFantaisie-Capriceare still in the repertory of most violinists and have not yet lost their favor with the public.
His life is a series of long and enormously successful tours, which took him not only over most of Europe, even Russia, but thrice to the United States.