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Updated: June 10, 2025
Now, not far from my house, in a scanty clump of holly oaks which would barely give the woodcutter the wherewithal for a dozen faggots, I used, all through the spring, to hear such full-throated warbling of nightingales that the songs of those virtuosi, all giving voice at once and with no attempt at order, degenerated into a deafening hubbub.
For each came some time after the other, partly that the pleasure of the public might thus be prolonged, and partly because they were always the same antiquated /virtuosi/ whom Nuremburg, for itself and its co-cities, had undertaken to maintain, and produce annually at the appointed place.
Scarcely a critic has been able to express what it is about his music that he likes or dislikes. They have either ridiculed him or written cordially about him without saying anything. There is nothing more demoralizing for the artist. At present they are even classing him with Prokofief. The virtuosi have shown a like timidity. Scarcely a one has dared perform his music.
Perfect eclecticism had been exercised in the making up of the programme. One found mixed together the names of Mozart, Wagner, and Brahms; César Franck and Gustave Charpentier; Richard Strauss and Mahler. There were French singers like Cazeneuve and Daraux, and French and Italian virtuosi like Henri Marteau and Ferruccio Busoni, together with German, Austrian, and Scandinavian artists.
There are, in every city of Europe and in many cities of America, violinists who equal or even excel many of those who are exploited as virtuosi. The great violinists are not to be found every day. In the past twenty years, perhaps, not more than two can be recalled who have visited the United States as mature, great artists, Wilhelmj and Ysaye.
A season seldom passes without witnessing the début of some half-dozen aspirants for public approbation, but the great majority of them settle down into some special field of labour, and do not acquire world-wide fame as virtuosi. Virtuosity to-day depends very largely on the art of advertising.
Thus only gladiators of tried capacity and iron nerve, superior to religious and moral scruples, dead to national affection, perfected in perfidy, scientific in the use of cruelty and terror, employing first-rate faculties of brain and will and bodily powers in the service of transcendent egotism, only the virtuosi of political craft as theorized by Machiavelli, could survive and hold their own upon this perilous arena.
The incidents attending his voyage to Italy, and his introduction to the artists, virtuosi, and travellers at Rome, were still more auspicious. Taken in connection with his previous history, they form one of the most remarkable illustrations of the doctrine of fortune, or destiny, that is to be found in authentic biography.
He studied natural objects for patterns, and with such success that the great Buffon spoke of him as "so great a naturalist as Nature only can produce." His ornamental pieces are now regarded as rare gems in the cabinets of virtuosi, and sell at almost fabulous prices.
Fuseli shook him heartily by the hand, and cried, "Blastation! you shall have the tickets with all my heart; I have had the opinion of the virtuosi, the dilettanti, the cognoscenti, and the nobles and gentry on my pictures, and I want now the opinion of the blackguards. I shall send you and your friends a score of tickets, and thank you too for taking them."
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