Around Paris gathered many pianists among whom were Ignace Leybach an organist and composer at Toulouse, Henry Charles Litolff the famous publisher, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist and the author of _The Last Hope_, and Eugene Ketterer. The following, with many others, centered around Vienna: Joseph Löw, Theodore Kullak, Louis Köhler, Gustav Lange and Louis Brassin. DASHING PLAYING A little later, due to the improvements of the piano, another school grew up called by some, the Bravura Pianists, because the pieces for these pianists were written to show off brilliant technic. Most of the people were flashy pianists, yet there were some very marvelous performers, for among them, Liszt himself figures and Thalberg, a Swiss, who was Liszt’s rival for piano honors. Another set of pianists and composers was Henry Herz, Alexander Dreyschock, Emil Prudent and Adolph Henselt, a Bavarian, who was an amazingly poetic and beautiful player. Practically all these pianists were prominent composers in their day. About this time we see women coming into great prominence as professional pianists. The first one to interest us is Marie Felicité Denise (Moke) Pleyel, who was Miss Moke, the beloved of Berlioz and the lady whom he intended to kill but changed his mind! She was an inspiring teacher, a pupil of Herz, Moscheles and Kalkbrenner and was admired by Mendelssohn and Liszt. THE GROWTH OF VIOLIN MUSIC The same things seem to have happened to violin playing and violin music at this time as happened to the piano. There was always the competition between writing fine, deep music and showy, spectacular music, which, when played, would please an audience. But the violin was the same then as it had been for years,—the only advance it had made was the perfecting of the bow by François Tourte, assisted by Giovanni Battista Viotti, Pugnani’s greatest pupil. We use his bow today. It has about one hundred white horsehairs, the tension of which is controlled by a screw at the nut in the finger grip. But the thing that did affect violinists and violin playing was the fact of the rise in the 19th century of the orchestra and chamber music. From the time that madrigals were first accompanied by instruments, we have heard about _Chamber Music_, but the string quartet in sonata form as we know it today, had as its father, Haydn, and Luigi Boccherini (1743–1805) as a godfather. The link between the Corelli School of violinists and this school was Viotti who was one of the first men to write a violin concerto in sonata form.