Among the Great Masters of Music | Page 8

said to Lulli, "The king is waiting," and was answered with the words, "The king is master here, and nobody has the right to prevent him waiting as long as he likes!"
Hippolyte de la Charlerie, who painted Lulli as a boy in the kitchen of "La Grande Mademoiselle," was a Belgian artist, who died young, in 1869, the same year that he sent this picture to the Paris Salon.

STRADIVARIUS.
Crowest, the English writer on musical subjects, says: "Two hundred years ago, the finest violins that the world will probably ever have were being turned out from the Italian workshops; while at about the same time, and subsequently, there was issuing from the homes of music in Germany, the music for these superb instruments,--music not for any one age, 'but for all time.'"
"In the chain of this creative skill, however, a link was wanting. Nobody rose up who could marry the music to the instrument. For years and years the violin, and the music for it, marched steadily on, side by side, but not united. Bach was writing far in advance of his time, while Stradivarius and the Amatis were 'rounding' and 'varnishing' for a people yet to come. It was not till the beginning of the present century that executive skill, tone, and culture stepped in, and were brought to bear upon an instrument that is, perhaps, more than any other, amenable to such influences. Consequently, to us has fallen the happy fate to witness the very zenith of violin-playing. A future generation may equal, but can scarcely hope to surpass a Joachim, a Wilhelmj, or a Strauss,--players who combine the skill of Paganini with a purity of taste to which he was a stranger, and, moreover, with a freedom from those startling eccentricities which, more than anything else, have made the reputation of that strange performer."
The greatest violin-maker that ever lived, Antonio Stradivari, or Stradivarius, was born in Cremona, probably in 1644. No entry of his birth has been found in any church register at Cremona, but among the violins which once belonged to a certain Count Cozio di Salabue was one bearing a ticket in the handwriting of Stradivarius, in which his name, his age, and the date of the violin were given. He was then ninety-two years old, and the date of the violin was 1736. He was the pupil of another famous Cremonese violin-maker, Niccolo Amati, and his first works are said to bear the name of his master, but in 1670 he began to sign instruments with his own name. His early history is quite unknown, but a record exists showing that in 1667, when twenty-three years old, he married Francesca Ferraboschi. For about twenty years after his marriage, Stradivarius appears to have produced but few instruments, and it is supposed that during this time he employed himself chiefly in making those scientific experiments and researches which he carried into practice in his famous works. It was about the year 1700, when he was fifty-six years old, that Stradivarius attained that perfection which distinguishes his finest instruments. The first quarter of the eighteenth century witnessed the production of his best violins,--the quality of those made after 1725 is less satisfactory.
During his long life (he died in 1737), the great violin-maker worked industriously, and produced a large number of instruments, but a far greater number are attributed to him than he could possibly have made. His usual price for a violin was about twenty dollars, (Haweis says fifty dollars), but a fine specimen from his hand now sells in the auction room for hundreds of dollars. In 1888, a Stradivarius violin brought the large sum of five thousand dollars, and double this sum was paid a few years since for the celebrated "Messie" violin, made by Stradivarius in 1716, and still in perfect condition. Count Cozio di Salabue had bought it in 1760, but never allowed it to be played upon, and when he died (about 1824) it was purchased by that remarkable "violin hunter," Luigi Tarisio. Thirty years later, he, too, passed over to the majority, and his friend, the Parisian violin-maker Vuillaume, bought the "Messie" from Tarisio's heirs, along with about two hundred and fifty other fiddles, many of which were of the greatest rarity and value. Vuillaume kept the "Messie" in a glass case and never allowed any one to touch it, and many anxious days he passed during the Commune, fearing for his musical treasures. However, they luckily escaped the dangers of the time, and when, in 1875, Vuillaume died, the "Messie" became the property of his daughter, who was the wife of M. Alard, the celebrated teacher of the violin. From his executors it was bought in 1890 for 2,000 pounds, for the English gentleman who now possesses this most famous of