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Updated: May 20, 2025
In reply to some questions anent his own study years, he said: "Strange to say, my father was my very first teacher it is not often the case. I studied with him until I went to the Liège Conservatory in 1867, where I won a second prize, sharing it with Ovide Musin, for playing Viotti's 22d Concerto. Then I had lessons from Wieniawski in Brussels and studied two years with Vieuxtemps in Paris.
I recollect a visit from Henri Vieuxtemps at this time, who came to Zurich with Belloni to give an evening concert, and he again delighted me and my friends with his violin playing. With the approach of spring I was agreeably surprised by a visit from Hermann Franck, with whom I had an interesting conversation about the general course of events since I had lost sight of him.
In Paganini's and Locatelli's works the effect, comparatively speaking, lies in the mechanics; but Vieuxtemps is the great artist who made the instrument take the road of romanticism which Hugo, Balzac and Gauthier trod in literature. And before all the violin was made to charm, to move, and Vieuxtemps knew it.
Fanny Ellsler had bewitched the town a few years before; and some graybeards and baldheads, now tottering in the sun upon Broadway, but then the golden youth of Manhattan, took the horses from the Bayadere's carriage and drew her in triumph to her hotel. Ole Bull, also, had come conquering out of the North like a young Viking, charming and subduing, and Vieuxtemps came also, disputing the palm.
Alard, Dancla, and Maurin were exponents of the French school, while in that of Belgium we have De Bériot, Massart, Vieuxtemps, Léonard, Wieniawski.
"But seriously, Thalberg and Vieuxtemps have never done us any harm that we know of, and we don't suppose they intend to. We wouldn't much mind hearing their music, for no doubt it is nearly, if not quite, as good as that of the average common run of Dutchmen, which, as the latter will tell you, is saying a good deal." And yet musical culture was said to be in its infancy in America at that time!
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