Viotti had a brilliant and unrestricted technique. He was among the greatest of virtuosi. But little of this appears in his music. That is distinguished by a dignity and a relative simplicity, well in keeping with the noble traditions inherited from a country great in more ways than one in the musical history of the eighteenth century. But as far as form and style go he is modern. He undoubtedly owes something to Haydn. Moreover, Wasielewski makes the point that there is no trace in his music of the somewhat churchly dignity one feels in the sonatas of Corelli and Tartini. Viotti’s is a thoroughly worldly style, in melody and in the fiery but always musical passage work. He is at once the last of the classic Italians and the first of the moderns, standing between Corelli and Tartini on the one hand and Spohr, David, and Vieuxtemps on the other. The list of the men who came to him for instruction while he was in Paris contains names that even today have an imposing ring. Most prominent among them are Rode, Cartier, and Durand. And among those who were not actually his pupils but who accepted him as their ideal and modelled themselves after him were Rodolphe Kreutzer and Pierre Baillot. These men are the very fountain head of most violin music and playing of the nineteenth century. They set the standard of excellence in style and technique by which Spohr and later Vieuxtemps ruled themselves. IV Before considering their work, the development of violin music in Germany during the eighteenth century must be noticed. The influence of the Italians was not less strong here than in France. Both Biber and Strungk had come under it in the late seventeenth century, Strungk being, as we know, personally acquainted with Corelli and at one time associating closely with him in Rome. The German violinists of the eighteenth century either went to Italy to study, or came under the influence of various Italians who passed through the chief German cities on concert tours. The most conspicuous of them are associated with courts or cities here and there. For instance, early in the century there is Telemann in Hamburg; a little later Pisendel in Dresden; J. G. Graun in Berlin; Leopold Mozart in Salzburg; the gifted Stamitz and his associates Richter, Cannabich and Fränzl in Mannheim; and the most amiable if not the most gifted of all, Franz Benda, here and there in Bohemia, Austria and Saxony. Though these and many more were widely famous in their day as players, and Mozart was influential as a teacher, little of their music has survived the centuries that have passed since they wrote it. The eighteenth century was in violin music and likewise in opera, the era of Italian supremacy; and in violin music we meet with little except copies outside of Italy.