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Updated: June 10, 2025
One of my medals is as great a curiosity: 'tis of Alexander Severus, with the amphitheatre in brass; this reverse is extant on medals of his, but mine is a medagliuncino, or small medallion, and the only one with this reverse known in the world: 'twas found by a peasant while I was in Rome, and sold by him for sixpence to an antiquarian, to whom I paid for it seven guineas and a half; but to virtuosi 'tis worth any sum.
But along with the good, what frightful things one hears! And no one would listen to their instrumental repertoire anywhere else! Every time anyone has tried to raise the standards and employ real singers and real virtuosi, the attendance has increased. But, very often, even at the theatres, the managers satisfy their own tastes under the pretence of satisfying that of the public.
The former did not often happen to be explained to him, the latter he did not understand however many explanations were given; the result was a painful consciousness, a continual difference or falling short both in relation to his lessons and his teachers, which had to be adjusted by the cane and detention, while the majority of his schoolmates, in this particular also, more supple, worked themselves out like true virtuosi.
"If there be a man that cares neither for Duke nor Emperor, but for God alone, then Dukes and Emperors would give more for his good word than for a whole dozen of common priests." "I suppose it is something like a rare manuscript or a singular gem: these virtuosi have no rest till they have clutched it. The thing they cannot get is always the thing they want."
My niece sings, and the curate and I 'Arcades ambo' respond successively he on the bass-viol and I on my Stradivarius. Come, my dear Cure, let us begin 'incipe, Mopse, prior." In spite of the masterly execution of the old gentleman and of the delicate science of the cure, it was Madame de Tecle who appeared to Camors the most remarkable of the three virtuosi.
The only conclusion to be drawn is that the greatest violinists were really independent of any school, and, by their own genius, broke loose from tradition and established schools of their own. Some of them, on the other hand, had but few pupils, as for instance, Paganini, who had but two, and Sarasate. Many also were teachers rather than performers. We have to deal chiefly with the virtuosi.
Then they had a chromo-lithographic ideal, based on romantic and fashionable books of verses, and poetic fashion-plates, they fell in love with actors, virtuosi, authors, dead and alive Mounet-Sully, Samain, Debussy, they would exchange glances with young men at concerts, or in a drawing-room, or in the street, and at once begin to weave fanciful and passionate love-affairs, they could not help always wanting to fall in love, to have their lives filled with a love-affair, to find some excuse for being in love.
After all, I do not set up for a judge in these matters, and very likely I may incur the ridicule of the virtuosi for the remarks I have made: but I am used to speak my mind freely on all subjects that fall under the cognizance of my senses; though I must as freely own, there is something more than common sense required to discover and distinguish the more delicate beauties of painting.
J. Finch, Extraordinary Anatomist to that Great Patron of the Virtuosi, the now Great Duke of Toscany, and enquiring of this Ingenious Person, what might be the chief Rarity he had seen in his late return out of Italy into England, he told me, it was a Man at Maestricht in the Low-Countrys, who at certain times can discern and distinguish Colours by the Touch with his Fingers.
Let loose in the Uffizi Gallery Smollett shocked his sensitive contemporaries by his freedom from those sham ecstasies which have too often dogged the footsteps of the virtuosi. Like Scott or Mark Twain at a later date Smollett was perfectly ready to admire anything he could understand; but he expressly disclaims pretensions to the nice discernment and delicate sensibility of the connoisseur.
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