Page:Rolland - A musical tour through the land of the past.djvu/199

Rh concertos at a very dear rate… He is un vecchio, who composes with the most prodigious fury. I have heard him undertake to compose a concerto with all its parts more rapidly than a copyist could copy it." Already he was no longer greatly esteemed in his own country, "where fashion was everything; where his works had been heard too long, and where the music of the previous year no longer paid." But one compensation was left him; that of being a model for Johann Sebastian Bach.

The other violinists of the same period—Nardini, Tartini's best pupil; Veracini, whose compositions were noted for their profundity, and in whom some have seen a precursor of Beethoven; Nazzari and Pugnani—had the same sober and expressive qualities, avoiding rather than striving for effect. Burney writes of Nardini "that he should please rather than surprise;" and President de Brosses says of Veracini that "his playing was accurate, noble, scholarly and precise, but somewhat lacking in grace."

The art of the harpsichord had already had its masters, such as Domenico Zipoli, a contemporary and rival of Händel, and Domenico Scarlatti, a precursor of genius, who opened up new paths on which Philipp Emmanuel Bach was to follow him. A master who won even greater fame for the art was Galuppi. But even in Burney's time its decadence was perceptible. "To tell the truth," he says, "I have not met with a great harpsichord-player, nor with an original composer for this instrument, in all Italy. The reason of this is that here the instrument is used only to accompany the voice; and at present it is so greatly neglected, as much by the