Part 1
# Chats on Violoncellos ### By Racster, Olga
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The =Music Lover’s Library=
CHATS ON VIOLONCELLOS
* * * * * *
The Music Lover’s Library
CHATS ON VIOLINS OLGA RACSTER
STORIES FROM THE OPERAS FIRST SERIES GLADYS DAVIDSON
STORIES FROM THE OPERAS SECOND SERIES GLADYS DAVIDSON
CHATS ON VIOLONCELLOS OLGA RACSTER
CHATS WITH MUSIC LOVERS ANNIE W. PATTERSON, Mus.Doc., B.A.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: THE ARTIST’S WIFE. A. VAN DYCK.]
CHATS ON VIOLONCELLOS
by
OLGA RACSTER
Author of “Chats on Violins”
With 18 Illustrations
[Illustration]
London T. Werner Laurie Clifford’S Inn
TO MY FRIEND MRS BLACKETT OF ARBIGLAND THIS VOLUME IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHORESS
LONDON, 1907
PREFACE
No prefatory remarks are necessary to introduce the reader to the following pages. They emanated, in the first place, from a desire for personal instruction, and what the French term _le soulagement du coeur_, a combination--according to Vauvenargues--calculated to prove useful to one’s fellows, _car personne est seul de son espéce_. Those who live on my plane of thought will welcome this volume, and those who do not, will easily find a way out of the difficulty presented to them by their attempted perusal of its pages: most modern houses are now provided with wastepaper baskets of ample proportions!
My true reason for allowing myself to wander into the paths of a preamble, springs from a desire to thank my friends and colleagues for their assistance in supplying me with many interesting facts.
In particular I am indebted to Sir George Donaldson for permission to reproduce his Duiffoproucart Viol; to Dr William H. Cummings for the use of his interesting old engraving of Benjamin Hallet; to Mr W. E. Whitehouse for notes concerning Signor Piatti; to Mr Edward Heron Allen for courteous admittance to his valuable library, and for permission to reproduce the handsome carved violoncello by Galli; to Mr John Bridges for his photographs of “The King” Amati, and for supplying me with many points relating to its history; and to Miss Gertrude Roberts for helpful research at the British Museum.
Also I waft hearty acknowledgments to that great host of musical historians--my predecessors--to whose various records from century to century we owe our present knowledge.
OLGA RACSTER.
CONTENTS
CHAT THE FIRST
PAGE
Fog--The South Kensington Museum--The Ravanastron--Arabia--The Kemangeh à Gouze--Egypt and the Rabab 1
CHAT THE SECOND
Lunch, and the Emperor Albinus--The Crwth--The immature Bow Instruments which preceded the Fifteenth-century Viol--M. Coutagne and Gaspard Duiffoproucart 43
CHAT THE THIRD
The Renaissance--The Influence of the Netherlands School--A brief Outline of the growing Use of the Viol in Germany, Italy, England, France 81
CHAT THE FOURTH
Andrea Amati--“The King” and its History--Gasparo da Salo--Woods employed by Ancient _Luthiers_--Paolo Maggini and the “Dumas” Bass--Monsieur Savart’s Experiments--Freaks--Stradivarius Violoncellos--Signor Piatti’s Violoncellos--The Bass of Spain--Davidoff’s Violoncello--Herr Klengel’s Amati--A neat Swindle--Stradivarius’ Contemporaries--Owners of Rugger Violoncellos--George IV.’s pseudo Stradivarius--The earliest Treatise on the Violoncello as a Solo Instrument--Mr Andrew Forster’s Gamba--The Prince Consort’s “Ancient Instruments” Concert--Development of the Technique of Violoncello Playing 109
CHAT THE FIFTH
Two Eighteenth-century Women Players of the Viola da Gamba 185
CHAT THE SIXTH
An Eighteenth-century Violoncello Prodigy 211
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Artist’s Wife. A Van Dyck _Frontispiece_
Sir George Donaldson’s Duiffoproucart Viola da Gamba, sketched by D. Freeborn Roberts _To face page_ 74
“The King” Violoncello by Andreas Amati ” 110
“The King,” Side View ” 114
Back of the “Vaslin” Violoncello ” 124
Back of Carved Violoncello by Galli ” 174
Viola di Bordone from the South Kensington Museum, from a Painting by D. Freeborn Roberts ” 184
Benjamin Hallet ” 210
Ravanastron 21
Ancient Egyptian Guitars 22
Rabab 29
Kemangeh à Gouze 32
The Rebec 44
Spanish Minstrel 46
Figure from St Georges de Boscerville 49
Bas-relief, Cologne Cathedral 50
Nun playing Marine Trumpet. Sketch by Author 59
Example from Simpson’s “Division-Viol” 80
[Illustration: The Opening bars of the Chant of Ab’oo Zeyd]
Chats on Violoncellos
CHAT THE FIRST
INTRODUCTION
Fog--The South Kensington Museum--The Ravanastron--Arabia--The Kemangeh à Gouze--Egypt, and the Rabab
Is there any city in the world that can--metaphorically speaking--hold up its head beside this place of mystery--London in a fog? Paris, Berlin, Vienna, St Petersburg, New York--what can they do in the production of a bilious-green, murky-yellow species of hyperphysical abomination? Nothing! Yet we English are not in the least proud of our prerogative. Perhaps elation is impossible among such depressing surroundings, or, perhaps the true British spirit of being satisfied with everything that _is_ British, because it _is_ British, predominates too utterly to admit of any other emotion.
From whatever cause our inertia springs, the clue is too deeply locked away in every Cockney’s heart to be revealed. The effect, however, is plainly seen in the total lack of epic poetry, or chromatic musical depiction of the thing. Our literature does not teem with such lines as:
“The ’cellist stood in the empty hall, Whence all but himself had fled, ‘’Tis the fog,’ he sighed, ‘that has tired them all And sent them so early to bed!’”
No! genius ignores the subject, and fills in the weary hours of darkness with sighs, and gasps, and chokes, like ordinary mortals.
What an outlook greets us this dull November day! Misty bricks and mortar emerge and disappear like swiftly buried cities. Hazy, indefinite, dubious figures loom upon us out of the darkness, like ancestral ghosts; dull thuds, faint cries, strange stampings and gratings are transmitted to our ears with telephonic minuteness; and all the while our throats are aching, our eyes are streaming, our noses are smarting, the motor bus is useless, and--we don’t know where we are.
Perhaps in all the gamut of human sensibility there can be no more creepy sensation than that of being lost in familiar surroundings. The ruler of Hades himself, or Jupiter with his thunderbolts, could not invent a more refined torture than that consummated in the paradox: “Here I am!--Where am I?” Yet, how ordinary has this impression become to the dweller in London.
“Here, boy! can you tell me where I am? I thought I was near the South Kensington Station, but--I begin to be horribly puzzled. That great thing opposite looks just like the Parthenon!”
“Parth yer on!” exclaims a little urchin, apparently emerging from nowhere, and brandishing a torch as big as himself--“Parth, did yer say? Yer on the parth roight enough! Want a loight, loidy?” he adds, reserving further information until he is sure of a customer.
“Yes, yes, to be sure! Don’t leave me whatever you do! Where am I?” distractedly. “What is that place opposite? I saw it a moment ago, but--it’s gone again!” A pause--similar to that which precedes each new slide at a magic-lantern show--follows this speech, then out of the darkness comes the excited exclamation: “There! there it is! Now, what is it?”
“That there?” hoarsely mutters our impish guide with a grin. “Why, that there’s the Kensin’ton Mooseum.”
“The Kensington Museum! Surely it can’t be! Why, it is the very place I have been looking for for hours past. Do you think you can get me across?”
“Git yer across!” with an accent of scorn, “o’ corse I can git yer across. You just keep close alonga me, loidy, and we’ll git over in two ticks.”
With torch held aloft and a hopeful heart he makes a start and--returns to the comparative safety of the pavement. Then he makes a second hoppy trial--with the same result. We begin to feel nervous, and search in our memory for some battle-cry or epic poem with which to fortify our courage, and drop upon Montrose’s lines:
“He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch To gain or lose it all.”
“Now then, ’ere you are, look sharp!” shouts our familiar urchin, utterly ignoring our poetic mutterings. Straight away he plunges into the chaos like an arrow shot from a bow. We follow blindly, breathlessly, with the grace of a polar bear after a gadfly, and in an incredibly short space of time reach the safety of the Museum doorway.
What a transformation scene greets our eyes when we enter! Here is a little Paradise indeed: food, warmth, light, and all the treasures of the Universe besides. Without--we know--are horrors worse than Bluebeard’s dungeons or the Underground Railway at Gower Street. But what matter to us now if the sky rains salt herrings and the streets be full of roaring bulls, for we are safe from the great Babel, although we can see its stir if we will.
Come! sober scholar, gay _flaneur_, or ignoramus (it is all the same), rest, and drink in the fascinations of these armies of priceless china, silver, glass, pictures, and furniture which shine, and glint, and sparkle, and peep, in tantalising invitation! Here are rare editions: historic relics: miniatures, lace, statuary--in short, a banquet to suit all tastes; and here, more particularly, in the least prominent position, is a unique collection of musical instruments, hiding their heads in remoteness. It is regrettable that many of these interesting relics of the past are placed in such dark corners that a good deal of nose-flattening and eye-straining is necessary to see them at all. Still, one is well rewarded for any slight personal inconvenience sustained in viewing them, for, apart from their special interest, do they not stand before us as the mute historians of the past?
Look at this old virginal, encased in what was once rich red velvet, but now faded and worn with the touch of many a vanished hand! Behold those keys, brown with age! Yet these were once white and responsive to the taper fingers of that most consummate diplomatist, Queen Bess. Surely it was just here, on this side, that my Lord of Leicester stood bending his proud head to eagerly plead an answer to his oft-repeated suit! Or perhaps it was impulsive Essex plucked and twitched the thing, while he sued for the pardon of an elderly, capricious coquette!
A little to the left of the historic virginal is the harp of the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, brave owner of that empty title, _Reine de France_. What has been the history of the graceful thing since that short space of calm when its tones resounded in the Queen’s _Salon_ at the Tuileries? Was it also dragged after the poor lady by a cruel infuriated mob, like the harp of her friend, Mademoiselle de Lamballe? Who knows! The tumbrels seem to rumble by us as we gaze, and the sickening refrain:
“Madame Veto avait promis De faire égorger tout Paris; Mais son coup a manqué Grâce à nos canonniers. Dansans la Carmagnole Vive le son, Vive le son, Dansans la Carmagnole Vive le son du canon”
rings in our ears.
Close beside this melancholy relic is the cheering cast of Brian Borroimbe’s harp, which was played on by that versatile King of Ireland during the eleventh century. A little farther--in an obscure corner--is the fiddle said to have belonged to James I. of England, and almost beneath it is a cast of the beautifully carved violin which is generally supposed to have been given to the Earl of Leicester by Queen Elizabeth. Facing this is Handel’s harpsichord, a plain, workmanlike little instrument of neutral tint, and, and--can it be? or--is it only the shadow of that pillar there that deceives us into imagining that we see a misty outlined figure near the keyboard?
At first it appears to take the form of a little child, stretching his small fingers with loving patience from note to note, while now and again he glances timorously round, as though fearful of detection.
Surely now it is Mr Handel himself: this man before us, in full bob-wig and handsome habiliments, can be no other than the successful favourite of the highest in the land. There he sits, with an expression of “Vat de tevil do I care!” on his face, hammering out “The Harmonious Blacksmith.” Not the man to trouble himself about women, or succumb to the tender passion, yet women were ever helpful and friendly to him. As he plays, a strange medley of figures gather round him: there is handsome Sir Robert l’Estrange, smarting under the indignity of being called “Cromwell’s fiddler”: Cuzzoni--at a distance--for she has not forgotten Handel’s threat to throw her out of the window at the last rehearsal. Also there is the poet Gay, and Lord Burlington: Her Grace of Chandos, with her shadow, Mr Pope: Hogarth, Smollett, and that rogue, Colley Cibber, bursting with some merry squib, which must be bottled up until the end of Mr Handel’s piece, for fear of rousing that gentleman’s fiery temper.
Then quite suddenly the crowd fades away, leaving the lonely figure at the harpsichord. The outline has grown very faint, yet one can discern that it is the master still; older, gentler, feebler, with eyes that gaze, but cannot see. Genius is still the dominating power, neither age nor infirmity can destroy it. The groping fingers continue to pour forth that exquisite flow of music, which is with us now and will remain always, for his name is
One of the few immortal names That were not born to die.
Turning away from the many interesting memories revived by the old harpsichord, we discover that we have turned our backs on a case of Asiatic instruments clustering round a double-bass of such ample proportions that it is impossible to ignore it.
“The Giant”--as the monster is aptly called--is massive in every way. It is tall--nearly ten feet--it is broad, stout, and, in addition to its bulky proportions, exercises a strange magnetic influence over the gazer. So forcible is its power, that one is compelled to stay and meditate beneath its shadow as though it were still part of the parent tree from which it was ruthlessly torn some hundred years ago. As we settle down to view this mighty example of the perfected form of the violin, stray facts concerning this instrument and others of its kind come to us in a hap-hazard fashion. Our memory is whipped into various whimsical recollections of big things and fat people. Irresistibly a reminiscence of the great Lablache is wafted to us. This gigantic singer was a humble double-bass in the orchestra of a theatre, in a small Italian town, before his glorious voice brought him renown. One evening, as he was preparing to finger his part in the orchestra, he heard that the principal bass singer was too indisposed to sing. Here was the chance of Lablache’s life, and--he took it. He filled the vacant bass singer’s part himself and gained such an instantaneous success that he forsook the double-bass for ever. Yet, although he discarded it, he could not quite get rid of its memory, for his very voice was reminiscent of its tones. No one noticed this resemblance more than Weber, who, hearing him a few months after his début, exclaimed involuntarily: “By heavens! he is a double-bass still!”
As for the biography of the big bass before us, it is short but honourable. Made in Italy--that happy land of _lutherie_--it was once the property of Domenico Dragonetti, who came to England in 1794 and gathered victorious laurels in this country until the day of his death. Amusing anecdotes are said to have flowed incessantly from the lips of this whimsical artist, yet nothing he said surpassed his ridiculous habit of making up a “no-language” out of several tongues. Although Dragonetti resided in London for upwards of forty years, yet until his dying day he could not converse for ten minutes without running into several different languages, and when he exchanged opinions with his bosom friend, Lindley, who stuttered frantically, the effect defied both description and imitation. There is a story on record that Dragonetti and Lindley were one day lounging down Wardour Street, which was then--as it is now--the haunt of the connoisseur, when they came upon a shop where, among other attractions, a parrot was put out for sale. The friends contemplated the bird for some time without speaking, until they attracted the attention of the shopman, who at once came out to them. Lindley began stumbling out endless questions to him, for the bird had taken his fancy, and Dragonetti poked in a query now and again in his own curious jargon. How old was the bird? What did it like to eat? Where did it come from? Was it a clever bird? Was it tame? and so on, ending, with a tremendous effort on Lindley’s part: “Ca-ca-can-can he-he-e et-t-t-talk?” The salesman, impatient of having been kept so long to no purpose, felt he would lose nothing by a little outburst of temper, so he turned upon his heel with the sarcastic reply: “Talk! I should think so, and a jolly sight better than either of you, or I’d wring his blooming neck.”
Dragonetti had no rival in his day, though Bottesini, about half-a-century later, could accomplish all that Dragonetti did. Indeed he did more, for he proved what wonderful effects could be produced by utilising the double-bass as a solo instrument, whereas Dragonetti was more particularly an orchestral genius. It is said that in private, however, he frequently amused his friends with wonderful flights on one string, or jocularly played a second violin part in a Quartet on his bulky instrument. Like Paganini his disproportionately long knobby fingers gave him a wonderful command and grip of the fingerboard, and he produced a tone like the great rolling pedal notes of an organ. So vast and penetrating was its quality, and so spirited his leadership of the double-basses, that his absence invariably called forth a comment from the audience on the weakness of the bass at such-and-such a concert.
Like Paganini, and many other famous artists, Dragonetti also possessed a cherished instrument, from which death alone parted him. The tone of this beautiful Gasparo da Salo is recorded to have been immense, and many were the occasions when its sonorous voice was the means of providing Dragonetti with the material for perpetrating one of his practical jokes. On the very day that the good monks of the monastery of St Pietro, near Venice, presented him with the double-bass, his high spirits led him into all kinds of pranks. Mad with delight at the possession of such a treasure, he carried it home and seated himself in the hall, with the bass planted before him. In response to a few strokes of his bow the bulky instrument emitted such thunderous rolling sounds that all the china and glass, even the pots and pans, began to rattle. Up from the kitchen department came the frightened inmates, hardly knowing what to expect, and they found nothing but--a slim lad, playing a big fiddle.
Returning to the double-bass before us, we must admit that the numerous large basses made in Italy and England, as well as during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, was surprising. The conventional mind of the English can rarely create anything for itself in art, but must for ever imitate. Thus when they discovered that the Italian players who came to England used much larger double-basses than they were accustomed to, the order went forth at once: “Make ours large too!” The arrival of Gariboldie in London, in the reign of King George III., was the signal for much agitation amongst the King’s musicians, for it was understood that he was accompanied by an unusually large double-bass. Mr Nilbone, the principal bass, was in particular most anxious, and wrote the following letter to the eminent maker, William Forster, upon the matter[1]:--
_Windsor, July 4th, 87 [1787]._
SIR,--By his _Majesty’s_ order you are to form a plan for a new double-bass; it is to be at least four inches wider, if not more, than that which you made and the depth according. You are to make it as well as possible--so as not to let any exceed it in England--as Gariboldie has sent to Italy for an uncommon large one both in goodness and size by the performance at the Abbey next year....[2]
For what exact purpose these monster instruments were used it is difficult to surmise, unless for the amusement of some “Giants of mighty bone and bold enterprise.” Perhaps some descendant of Anak, Og, or Goliath was the first owner of this monster; some colossal _virtuoso_ who made his fellow-artists tremble--like jelly in a bowl--when he arbitrarily forbade them to take their encores. Certainly the advertisement columns of _The Daily Advertiser_ some two hundred years ago contain so many announcements of giants, that one might easily be led to suppose that they were a drug in the market at that time.
An account of a bass which must have been quite as massive--possibly larger--as the one before us is given in his “Memoirs” by the Baron de Pollnitz, an Austrian nobleman, who visited many courts during the latter part of the eighteenth century. He received a particularly gratifying reception at the court of Duke Maurice of Saxony, whom he discovered to be an enthusiastic collector of musical instruments, and more especially of bass-viols. In the following passage the Baron describes his visit to the Museum where they were stored:--“The Prince conducted me into a hall which was hung with bass-viols from the bottom to the top, in the same manner as an arsenal is with helmets and breastplates. In the middle of the hall was a viol which was distinguished from all the rest. It reached up to the very ceiling, and there was a ladder set, which such as had the curiosity to take
## particular view were obliged to ascend, for surely it was the most
stately instrument of the kind that was ever made. The Duke made me take particular notice of it, and was pleased with the admiration I expressed of it.”
In an interview with one of the Duke’s gentlemen-in-waiting which followed the reception at the palace, the Machiavelian-like use to which this double-bass had been put is revealed with startling clearness: “As for my august master,” remarks the garrulous courtier, “his fancy runs only on bass-viols, and whoever solicits him for employment or any other favour cannot do better than accommodate his arsenal with one of these instruments. That large one which you saw in the room where all the viols are kept was presented to him by one who wished to be a Privy Councillor. His petition was granted, and had he asked for anything else he might have had it.”
Another huge double-bass is described by Mr William Gardiner, of Leicester, in his delightfully chatty book, “Music and Friends.” He recounts coming across the monster in his native town in 1786, and says: “It was of such a height that Mr Martin [the maker] was obliged to cut a hole in the ceiling to let the head through; so that it was tuned by going into the room above.”