t the effects
and graces of the players themselves instead of the instrument. Paganini
carried this tendency to its most remarkable and fascinating extreme,
but Spohr founded a new style of violin playing, on which the greatest
modern performers who have grown up since his prime have assiduously
modeled themselves. Mozart had written solid and simple concertos in
which the performer was expected to embroider and finish the composer's
sketch. This required genius and skill under instant command, instead
of merely phenomenal execution. Again, Beethoven's concertos were so
written as to make the solo player merely one of the orchestra, chaining
him in bonds only to set him free to deliver the cadenza. This species
of self-effacement does not consort with the purpose of solo playing,
which is display, though under that display there should be power,
mastery, and resource of thought, and not the trickery of the
accomplished juggler. Spohr in his violin music most felicitously
accomplished this, and he is simply incomparable in his compromise
between what is severe and classical, and what is suave and delightful,
or passionately exciting. In these works the musician finds nerve,
sparkle, _elan_, and brightness combined with technical charm and
richness of thought. Spohr's unconscious and spontaneous force in this
direction was the direct outcome of his remarkable power as a solo
player, or, more properly, gathered its life-like play and strength from
the latter fact. It may be said of Spohr that, as Mozart raised opera to
a higher standard, as Beethoven uplifted the ideal of the orchestra, as
Clementi laid a solid foundation for piano-playing, so Spohr's creative
force as a violinist and writer for the violin has established
the grandest school for this instrument, to which all the foremost
contemporary artists acknowledge their obligations.

Dr. Spohr's style as a player, while remarkable for its display of
technique and command of resource, always subordinated mere display to
the purpose of the music. The Italians called him "the first singer on
the violin," and his profound musical knowledge enabled him to produce
effects in a perfectly legitimate manner, where other players had
recourse to meretricious and dazzling exhibition of skill. His title to
recollection in the history of music will not be so much that of a great
general composer, but that of the greatest of composers for the violin,
and the one who taught violinis