A trait creditable to his character, on a graver score, presents itself in the following transaction. The place of Master and Composer of the state-music in Ireland became vacant in the year 1727, and the Earl of Essex obtained from Sir Robert Walpole, the minister, a promise of it. He then told Geminiani that his difficulties were at an end, as he had provided for him a place suited to his profession, which would afford him an ample provision for life. On enquiry into the conditions of the office, Geminiani found that it was not tenable by a member of the Romish communion. He therefore declined accepting, assigning this as a reason, and at the same time observing that, although he had never made any great pretensions to religion, yet to renounce that faith in which he had been first baptized, for the sake of temporal advantages, was what he could in no way answer for to his conscience. The post was given to Matthew Dubourg, who had formerly been the pupil of Geminiani, and whose merits were not excluded by similar grounds for rejection.
Lorenzo Somis, chapel-master to the King of Sardinia, was recorded in Italy as an imitator of Corelli, but in a style somewhat modernized, after the model of Vivaldi.
He printed, at Rome, in 1722, his “Opera Prima di Sonate à Violino e Violoncello, o Cembalo,” the pieces contained in which are much in Corelli’s manner; some of them with double-stopped fugues, like those of his model, and some without. Somis was one of the greatest masters of the violin of his time; but his chief professional honour, – “the pith and marrow of his attribute,” – is the having formed, among his scholars, such a performer as Giardini.
Stefano Carbonelli, who had studied the violin under Corelli, was one of the Italian Artists who contributed to diffuse the celebrity of the instrument in this country. About the year 1720, he was induced by the Duke of Rutland to come to England, and was received into the house of that nobleman. During his residence there, he published Twelve Solos for a Violin and Bass, which he frequently played in public with great applause. In each of the first six of these, there is a double-stopped fugue; and the rest, it has been observed, have pleasing melodies, with correct and judicious counterpoint. In the progress of his success in England, Carbonelli was placed at the head of the opera band, and soon became celebrated for his excellent performance.
About the year 1725, he quitted the opera orchestra for an employment in Drury Lane Theatre, where he also led, and frequently played select concert pieces between the acts. After continuing there some time, he engaged himself with Handel, as a performer in his oratorios. For several years, he played at the rehearsal and performance at St. Paul’s, for the benefit of the Sons of the Clergy.
In the latter part of his life, he in a great measure neglected the profession of music, having become a merchant, and an importer of wine from France and Germany. He obtained the place of one of the purveyors of wine to the King; and died in that employment in the year 1772.
At the time of Carbonelli’s relaxing in his homage to Apollo, for the sake of becoming a minister of Bacchus, the following lines (which have been admirably set, for two voices, by Dr. Cooke) were made up for the occasion: —
Let Rubinelli charm the ear,
And sing, as erst, with voice divine, —
To Carbonelli I adhere;
Instead of music, give me wine!
But yet, perhaps, with wine combin’d,
Soft music may our joys improve;
Let both together, then, be join’d,
And feast we like the gods above!23
Pietro Locatelli, another of Corelli’s pupils, but one who made the boldest innovations upon the manner of that great master, and deviated, exploringly, into remarkable paths of his own, was born at Bergamo, about 1693. Being still a youth, at the time of Corelli’s decease, and full of ardent impulses in relation to the art he had embraced, Locatelli gave way to these, and soon became conspicuous for a boldness and originality which, even in our own days, would not pass unacknowledged. He developed new combinations, and made free use of arpeggios and harmonic sounds. The compositions of this master, as well as those of Mestrino, who flourished somewhat later, and was the more graceful of the two in his style of playing, are supposed to have furnished hints of no small profit to the penetrating genius of Paganini.
Locatelli died in Holland, in 1764. The crabbed passages in which he delighted to display his force, are to be found in his work entitled “Arte di nuova Modulazione,” or, as it is termed in the French editions, “Caprices Énigmatiques.”
We now approach one of those names on which the biographer may fairly delight to dwell, for its association not only with the great and beautiful in art, but with the interesting in personal character, and the romantic in incident.
Giuseppe Tartini, of Padua, the last great improver (save Viotti) of the practice of the violin, was born in April, 1692, at Pirano, a sea-port town in Istria. His father had been ennobled, in recompense of certain substantial benefactions, exercised towards the Cathedral Church at Parenza. Giuseppe was originally intended for the law; but, mixing the more seductive study of music with the other objects of his education, it soon gained the ascendant over the whole circle of the sister sciences. This is not so surprising as another strong propensity, which, during his youth, much fascinated him. This was the love of fencing – an art not likely to become necessary to the safety or honor of one possessed of the pious and pacific disposition that belonged to him, and one engaged, too, in a civil employment: yet he is said, even in this art, to have equalled the master from whom he received instructions. In 1710, he was sent to the University of Padua, to pursue his studies as a civilian; but, before he was twenty, having committed the sin of sacrificing prudence to love, in a match which he entered into without the parental fiat, he was forsaken, in return, and reduced to wander about in search of an asylum. This, after many hardships, he found in a convent at Assisi, where he was received by a monk, his relative, who, commiserating his misfortunes, let him remain there till something better might be done for him. While thus secluded and sorrowful, he took up the violin, to “manage it against despairing thoughts” – an expedient which the devotion of his soul to music must have lent some efficacy to. Not only his solace, but, by a singular turn of fortune, his rescue also, was connected with his violin. On a certain great festival, when he was in the orchestra of the convent, he was discovered, through the accident of a remarkably high wind, which, forcing open the doors of the church, blew aside the orchestral curtain, and exposed all the performers to the sight of the congregation. His recognition, under these circumstances, by a Paduan acquaintance, led to the accommodation of differences; and he then settled with his wife, for some time, at Venice24. This lady proved to be of that particular race which has never been wholly extinct since the time of Xantippe; but as, fortunately, poor Tartini was more than commonly Socratic in wisdom, virtue and patience, her reign was unmolested by any domestic war, or useless opposition to her supremacy.
His residence at Venice was rendered memorable to him, by the arrival of the celebrated Veracini (the younger) in that city. The performance of this “homme marquant” awakened a vivid emulation in Tartini, who, though he was acknowledged to have a powerful hand, had never heard a great player before, nor conceived it possible for the bow to possess such varied capabilities for energy and expression. Under this feeling, he quitted Venice with prompt decision, and proceeded to Ancona, in order to study the use of the bow in greater tranquillity and with more convenience than at Venice, as he had a place assigned him in the operatic orchestra, of that city. In the same year (1714), his studious application enabled him to make a discovery – that of the phenomenon of the third sound– which created a great sensation in the musical world, both in his own time and long afterwards, though it has led to no important practical results. This phenomenon of the third sound is the sympathetic resonance of a third note, when the two upper notes of a chord