The Violin: Its Famous Makers and Their ImitatorsHart, George
History
The Violin: Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators
Hart, George
Violin -- History; Violin makers -- Biography
"I wish I were a poet; you should have a description of all this in
verse, and welcome. But if I were a musician! Let us see what we
should do as musicians. First, you should hear the distant sound of a
bugle, which sound should float away; that is one of the heralds of
the morning, flying southward. Then another should issue from the
eastern gates; and now the grand _reveille_ should grow, sweep past
your ears (like the wind aforesaid), go on, dying as it goes. When, as
it dies, my stringed instruments come in. These to the left of the
orchestra break into a soft slow movement, the music swaying drowsily
from side to side, as it were, with a noise like the rustling of
boughs. It must not be much of a noise, however, for my stringed
instruments to the right have begun the very song of the morning. The
bows tremble upon the strings, like the limbs of a dancer, who,
a-tiptoe, prepares to bound into her ecstasy of motion. Away! The song
soars into the air as if it had the wings of a kite. Here swooping,
there swooping, wheeling upward, falling suddenly, checked, poised for
a moment on quivering wings, and again away. It is waltz-time, and you
hear the Hours dancing to it. Then the horns. Their melody overflows
into the air richly, like honey of Hybla; it wafts down in lazy gusts,
like the scent of the thyme from that hill. So my stringed instruments
to the left cease rustling; listen a little while; catch the music of
those others, and follow it. Now for the rising of the lark!
Henceforward it is a chorus, and he is the leader thereof. Heaven and
earth agree to follow him. I have a part for the brooks--their notes
drop, drop, drop, like his: for the woods--they sob like him. At
length, nothing remains but to blow the Hautboys; and just as the
chorus arrives at its fulness, they come maundering in. They have a
sweet old blundering 'cow song' to themselves--a silly thing, made of
the echoes of all pastoral sounds. There's a warbling waggoner in it,
and his team jingling their bells. There's a shepherd driving his
flock from the fold, bleating; and the lowing of cattle. Down falls
the lark like a stone; it is time he looked for grubs. Then the
Hautboys go out, gradually; for the waggoner is far on his road to
market; sheep cease to bleat and cattle to low, one by one; they are
on their grazing ground, and the business of the day is begun. Last of
all, the heavenly music sweeps away to waken more westering lands,
over the Atlantic and its whitening sails."--"_An Essay without End_."
ADDISON ON THE PERSONIFICATION OF THE LEADING INSTRUMENT.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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