Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) [Illustration: Paganini] BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF NICOLO PAGANINI, WITH AN Analysis of his Compositions, AND A SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE VIOLIN. BY F. J. FÉTIS. _SECOND EDITION._ WITH PORTRAIT AND WOOD ENGRAVINGS. LONDON: SCHOTT & CO., 159, Regent Street, W. Paris: MAISON SCHOTT. Bruxelles: SCHOTT FRÈRES. Mayence: B. SCHOTT’S SÖHNE Frankfort-o-M.: SCHOTT & CO. Index. PAGE SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE VIOLIN 1 ART AND ARTISTS 15 NICOLO PAGANINI 26 PAGANINI APPRECIATED AS A COMPOSER. ANALYSIS OF HIS WORKS 79 Illustrations. PORTRAIT OF PAGANINI, AFTER POMMAYRAC, 1838. ENGRAVINGS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS OF PAGANINI’S VIOLIN IN THE MUNICIPAL PALACE AT GENOA. (_From_ “THE VIOLIN: ITS FAMOUS MAKERS AND THEIR IMITATORS,” _by kind permission of_ MR. G. HART.) [Illustration] SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF THE VIOLIN. The Instrument. Despite all contrary assertions, based upon pretended monuments, Oriental, Greek, and Roman antiquity was unacquainted with instruments played with a bow. Neither India nor Egypt furnish the least traces of them; nor do Greece and Italy; nor, in fact, does the whole of the old civilized world. As I stated in the “Résumé Philosophique de l’Histoire de la Musique,” the bow comes from the West; it was introduced into the whole of Europe by the western nations. Though Viols are found among the modern Arabs in Persia and Turkey, they were taken there by Europeans in the time of the Crusades. The Goudock of the Russian peasant, and the Crwth of the ancient Irish, appear to proceed from the highest antiquity, and to have been the type of instruments of this nature. The Irish chroniclers speak of musicians who, in the sixth century, were celebrated for their talent on the Crwth, a species of Viol with six strings; and Venance Fortunat, a Latin poet who wrote in 609, states distinctly that this instrument belonged to Great Britain.