Famous Violinists of To-day and YesterdayLahee, Henry Charles
History
Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday
Lahee, Henry Charles
Bull, Ole, 1810-1880; Joachim, Joseph, 1831-1907; Paganini, Nicolò, 1782-1840; Violinists
M. Sauret is pronounced conservative and conscientious to the last
degree in handling the classics, and, although he has great
individuality, passion, and fire, he would consider it a sacrilege to
obtrude his own personality upon the listener. He is distinguished for
elegance rather than perfection of technique. He may be considered a
representative of the extreme French school.
In temperament he is quick and somewhat impatient. He expects much of
his pupils, and is the very opposite of the painstaking, phlegmatic
Wilhelmj.
In 1896 M. Sauret again visited the United States, when it was admitted
by those who had heard him twenty years before that he had grown to a
consummate and astounding virtuoso. His tone was firm, pure, and
beautiful, though not large. Marsick and Ondricek had preceded him by a
few weeks, but Sauret did not suffer by comparison.
One of the most remarkable violinists of the present day is Cesar
Thomson, who was born at Liege in 1857. He entered the conservatory of
his native place, after receiving some instruction from his father, and
had completed the regular course by the time he was twelve years of
age, after which he became a pupil of Leonard.
At the age of eighteen he made a concert tour through Italy, and while
there became a member of the private orchestra of the Baron de Derwies.
In 1879 he became a member of the Bilse Orchestra, and in 1882, having
won distinction at the musical festival at Brussels, he was appointed
professor of the violin in the Liege conservatory.
Most of his travelling has been done since that time, and he has
acquired an immense reputation in Europe. In Leipzig, at a Gewandhaus
concert in 1891, he made a phenomenal success, and in 1898 at Brussels
he received five enthusiastic recalls from a cold and critical audience,
for his magnificent performance of the Brahms concerto.
M. Thomson's command of all the technical resources of the violin is so
great that he can play the most terrific passages without sacrificing
his tone or clearness of phrasing, and his octave playing almost equals
that of Paganini himself. Yet he is lacking in personal magnetism, and
is a player for the musically cultivated rather than for the multitude,
though his technique fills the listener with wonder. He visited the
United States in 1896, and was, like Marsick, compared with Ysaye, who
at that time swept everything before him and carried the country by
storm.
In 1897 Cesar Thomson left Liege, owing, it is said, to disagreements at
the Conservatoire, and made his home at Brussels.
The greatest of Belgian violinists of to-day is Eugene Ysaye, who
possesses that magnetism which charms alike the musician and the
amateur, because of his perfect musical expression. He possesses the
inexplicable and inexpressible something which takes cold judgment off
its feet and leads criticism captive.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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