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Updated: June 10, 2025
But recently our 'virtuosi' have been oppressed with a notion that, to succeed in this country, they must invade and carry by storm the 'classics' of the art, instead of adhering exclusively as of old to their own fantasies and jeux de marteaux. One composition after another by the great masters is seized upon and worried.
He often amused himself by reproducing the musical formulas and peculiar tricks of certain virtuosi, in the most burlesque and comic improvisations, in imitating their gestures, their movements, in counterfeiting their faces with a talent which instantaneously depicted their whole personality.
In the admiration which followed, Beethoven rose, came upon the platform, clasped the boy in his arms and kissed him repeatedly, to the frantic cheers of the audience. The boy Franz Liszt had now demonstrated that already at eleven years old, he was one of the leading virtuosi of the time; indeed his great reputation as a pianist dates from this third Vienna concert.
When, many years afterward, Haydn was crossing the Straits of Dover to England, amid his sufferings he could not help laughing at the ludicrous recollections of this early experience of his. To his prompting it is that we owe the lovely series of quartettes which Haydn wrote still as fresh and full of serene beauty as when first tried over by the virtuosi of Weinzirl.
MAGIC AND MIRACLES. Inventive ingenuity did not restrict itself to the production of useful contrivances, it added amusing ones. Soon after the introduction of science into Italy, the houses of the virtuosi began to abound in all kinds of curious mechanical surprises, and, as they were termed, magical effects. In the latter the invention of the magic-lantern greatly assisted.
But it is a marvellous place for the numerous concerts given by virtuosi, both singers and instrumentalists, accompanied by an orchestra, and for chamber music. Finally, the hall where France was introduced to the masterpieces of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, whose influence has been so profound, is a historic place.
He holds anything but an elevated opinion of the piece, classing it with a composition of the Charles Mayer order. This is unjust; the study if not deep is graceful and certainly very effective. It has lately become the stamping ground for the display of piano athletics. Nearly all modern virtuosi pull to pieces the wings of this gay little butterfly.
He at this time freely frequented the salons of the Viennese nobility, many of whom were accomplished virtuosi themselves, and were able to appreciate the great genius of the new-comer, rough and bearish as oftentimes he must have appeared to them a great contrast to the courtly Haydn and Salieri, who might be seen sitting side by side on the sofa in some grandee's music-room, with their swords, wigs, ruffles, silk stockings, and snuff-boxes, while the insignificant-looking and meanly dressed Beethoven used to stand unnoticed in a corner.
An academy, called "Dei Virtuosi," was also sustained at the public expense, and by it public festivals were organised, with the accompaniment of decorations and music, &c.
For instance, the art of Nicolas Poussin, Claude, El Greco, Chardin, Ingres, and Renoir, to name a few, moves us as that of Giotto and Cézanne moves. The bulk, however, of those who flourished between the high Renaissance and the contemporary movement may be divided into two classes, virtuosi and dunces.
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