The earliest player on the Violin of whom we have any account worthy of attention was Baltazarini, a native of Piedmont. He removed to France in the year 1577, whither he was sent by Marshal de Brissac to superintend the music of Catherine de Medici. He was probably the introducer of Italian dances into Paris, and he delighted the Court as much by his skill on the Violin as by his writing of ballet music. During the last half of the sixteenth century a new species of music made way in Italy which exercised a marked effect on the progress of the Violin, namely, that of the concert orchestra. It was chiefly cultivated at Venice and Ferrara. At the latter place the Duke of Ferrara maintained a great number of musicians in his service. At this period there were no concerts of a public character; they were given in the palaces of the wealthy, and the performers were chiefly those belonging to their private bands. The opera, in which instruments were used to accompany the voice, began to be put upon the stage of the public theatres in Italy about the year 1600. The opera "Orfeo," by Claudio Monteverde, a Cremonese, famous both as a composer and Violist, was represented in 1608. The opera in those times differed essentially from that of modern days. Particular instruments were selected to accompany each character; for instance, ten Treble Viols to accompany Eurydice, two Bass Viols to Orpheus, and so on. No mention is made of Violins further than that two small Violins (duoi Violini piccoli alla Francese) are to accompany the character of Hope, from which it is inferred that a band of Violins was in use not much later. It is to the introduction of the Sonata that the rapid progress in the cultivation of Violin-playing is due. Dr. Burney tells us the earliest Sonatas or Trios for two Violins and a Bass he discovered were published by Francesco Turini, organist of the Duomo, at Brescia, under the following title: "Madrigali a una, due, e tre voci, con alcune Sonate a due e a tre, Venezia, 1624." He says: "I was instigated by this early date to score one of these Sonatas, which consisted of only a single movement in figure and imitation throughout, in which so little use was made of the power of the bow in varying the expression of the same notes, that each part might have been as well played on one instrument as another."