THE V I O LIN AND ITS MUSIC, GEORGE HART, "HE VIOLIN: ITS ...

editllt '193E3BE.-CQrhe 'tlialilt tn ermltlt12.
CHAPTER V.
T HE annals of Violin music down to this period
make us familiar with many great and neverto-be-forgotten
names connected with instrumental
music ; but the greatest of all has yet to be noticed
-Ludwig van Beethoven-whose mighty genius
attracted to itself the quintessence of the masterminds
gone before, and enriched the whole with
the wealth of its own originality. That the highest
degree of excellence in instrumental composition
was attained by Beethoven, is now all but universally
admitted. The time has been, however, when
practical musicians regarded him as a madman, with
occasional lucid intervals, so great was the stride by
which he out-distanced his predecessors and contemporaries,
leaving between a field of unexplored
ground in instrumental art, the meaning of which
was then incomprehensible to the average musician.
Beethoven was born at Bonn in 1770. He,
commenced the study of music in his fourth year,
and the Violin in his tenth. At the age of fifteen
he received lessons on the leading instrument from