three ventured one inch deeper than the point
their powers enabled them to fathom. In
Spohr's Autobiography he speaks grudgingly
ot De Beriot (as he does of almost every violinist
save himself), albeit De Beriot exercised a
fascination by his playing which Spohr
never commanded: more solid though Spohr's music is.
And De Beriot's airs with variations, and
Concertos (especially one with the rondo in the
Russian style), live in recollection though not
heard for many a year, as distinctly as if they
had been enjoyed but yesterday. The one man
who might have challenged him on his own
ground was Mayseder of Vienna (whose lovely
and natural and becoming compositions must not
pass without a word, when the Violin and its
sayings and doings are the theme); but
Mayseder was not a show—otherwise a travelling
player—and never, I believe, quitted the
Austrian capital, and the orchestra of the Kärnther
Thor Theatre there. A solo I heard from him
in a hackneyed ballet to accompany a dancer
on a hot autumn evening to an empty house,
was enough of itself to show his sweetness,
graciousness, and thorough knowledge of the
best uses of the violin.

I come now to speak of a violin player in
whom something of the spirits of the North and
of the South were combined—the classical
grandeur and repose of the one—the impassioned
abandonment of the other: who was, nevertheless,
in no respect an eclectic artist; neither one
on whom, as in De Beriot's case, given qualities
could be counted on with certainty—a player
who in his best hours, in the best music, had
power to move his public as none of the three
professors of his instrument mentioned before him
were able to do. This was Ernst; who appeared
after the three great players commemorated, and
who, in spite of one fatal defect, a tendency to
false intonation, no more to be controlled than
was the same fault in Pasta's singing, could
assert himself as among the best of his order,
and occasionally, as best among the best. I
have never heard a man play worse than he
did sometimes. I have never heard any man play
so well as I have heard Ernst play: and this
not in the form of showy displays, such as any
glib or indefatigable person may bring himself to
produce, but in the utterance of the intense, yet
not over-intense, expression with which he could
interpret the greatest thoughts of the greatest
poets in music. His leading of Beethoven's
three Russian quartets (the Razumouffsky set)
may be set beside Madame Viardot's resistless
presentment of Gluck's Orpheus, beside Pasta's
"Son io" in Medea, beside the " Suivez moi" of
Duprez in Guillaume Tell. In all the four
instances cited, the case was one of fervent
genius—so fervent as to make defects and
disadvantages forgotten, but mastered by, not
mastering, its possessor. Herr Ernst's tone on
the violin had nothing of Spohr's immaculate
purity, nothing of De Beriot's winning charm;
but it was a tone that spoke, and that spoke,
too, to the heart, and representing there
the nature of as genial, and affectionate, and
noble a man as ever drew breath, or drew a
bow. No matter a disadvantageous education
—no matter disadvantageous surroundings—no
matter a certain languor of physical temperament
which made him too accessible to
persuasion—there was in Ernst nothing paltry,
nothing jealous, nothing to be explained m
in any artistic transaction of his life. And this,
I hold (believing that every man's art will,
more or less, express his nature), was to be
heard and felt in Ernst's playing. There
was sometimes in it a majesty, sometimes
an intimate expression, by right of which
he deserves to stand alone in the gallery of
violinists. The same qualities are represented
in his music; "the stars" having destined Ernst
to be a great composer, had he been born, like
Spohr, with untiring "thews and sinews," or had
been as strictly trained as was Spohr. But, he
just produced in the way of composition what
sufficed for his own needs and remarkable
executive powers. One production of his,
however, the first movement of a Concerto in C
sharp minor, though overladen with technical
difficulties, is full of great thoughts carried out
by adequate science. This fragment may well
be the despair of smaller folk who attempt the
violin. When Ernst played it (on his good
days) there was no feeling of difficulty, either
in the music or for the player. It should be
recorded that Ernst's inequality, to which allusion
has been made, in some measure limited his
popularity. Those who think that the presence
of mind and feeling borne out by great executive
power, and a style thoroughly individual,
do not still atone for occasional uncertainty,
dwelt on Ernst's imperfect intonation, and
denied him merit.

No such question has been or can be raised
against the reigning King of violinists,. Herr
Joachim—whose popularity is without one
dissenting voice, and whose excellence as a player
is without alloy. Avoiding, for the most part,
what may be called trick music, and, till now,
unsuccessful in his attempts to write that which
shall satisfy a mixed audience, he has been
driven, beyond any of the artists hitherto named,
on the interpretation of other men's compositions.
In this occupation he has been equalled
by no predecessor. Whether the matter in
hand be the wondrous inventions of Sebastian
Bach—ancient but not old, and with all their
formalities of former times, more romantic and
suggestive than most of the ravings of the day,
which are set forth as profound and transcendental
poetry—whether it be Beethoven's
loftiest inspirations (such as the Adagio in his
D major trio), or Spohr's Scena Drammatica, or
Mendelssohn's lovely Concerto, this magnificent
artist leaves nothing to be desired. With a
purer taste than Paganini—with more feeling
than Spohr—with more earnestness than, and
almost as much elegance as, De Beriot—with
more certainty than Ernst, Herr Joachim
presents a combination of the highest intellectual,
poetical, and technical qualities. In the
rendering of music he is without a peer.

I must name one more artist, never to be
mentioned without respect when the Violin is