Great Violinists And Pianists

avel, he sought Viotti, as we have related above, and by his advice entered himself in the violin class of the Conservatoire, which was directed by Baillot, an eminent player of the Viotti s

first looked on as a mere comet of extraordinary brilliancy, without much soundness or true genius, and many who afterward became his most ardent admirers began with sneering at his pretensions. De Bériot was in later years undoubte

a pupil of Gaspar de Salo. Many of the violins of this make are of an excellence hardly inferior to the Strads of the best period, and De B

from the fact that he had enough confidence in his own genius from the very first to play his own music, and it was conceded to possess great fres

most accomplished players who had ever visited England. The pecuniary results of these concerts were large, and sufficient to relieve De Bériot, who had formerly been rather straitened in his means, from the friction and embarrassment which poverty so often imposes on struggling talent. There was a peculiar charm in De Bériot's style which was permanently characteristic of him, though his technical method did not always remain the same. In addition to very facile execution and a rich, mellow tone, he possessed the most refined

rn in Belgium, though his parents were from France), bestowed on the artist a pension of two thousand florins a year, and the title of first violin solo to his majesty. But this honor was soon rudely snatched from De Bériot's grasp. The revolution of 1830, which began with the excitement inflamed in Brussels by the performance of Auber's revolutio