THE VIOLIN: SOME ACCOUNT OF THAT LEADING INSTRUMENT, AND ITS MOST EMINENT PROFESSORS, FROM ITS EARLIEST DATE TO THE PRESENT TIME; WITH HINTS TO AMATEURS, ANECDOTES, ETC. BY GEORGE DUBOURG. FOURTH EDITION, REVISED AND CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED. LONDON: ROBERT COCKS AND CO. PUBLISHERS TO THE QUEEN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET; SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND CO. STATIONERS'-HALL COURT. MDCCCLII. 174. f. 9. PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. AFTER a lapse of nearly sixteen years since this little work first appeared in print, I have been called upon to prepare it anew for the press, incorporating with it the additional matter necessary for the extension of the subject to the present time. My new readers may like to know, at the outset, what is the intended scope of the following pages. This is soon explained. My object has been to present to the cultivators of the Violin, whether students or proficients, such a sketch (however slight) of the rise and progress of that instrument, accompanied with particulars concerning its more prominent professors, and with incidental anecdotes, as might help to enliven their interest in it, and a little to enlarge what may be called their circumstantial acquaintance with it. This humble object has not been altogether, I trust, without its accomplishment; and here, while commending my renovated manual to the indulgent notice of the now happily increasing community of violin votaries, I would not forget to acknowledge, gratefully, the liberal and generous appreciation with which, when it first ventured forth, it was met by the public press, and introduced into musical society. Brighton, August, 1852. G. D. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE VIOLIN. The Fiddle Family- the Epigonion-the Semicon- the Plec- |