Restricted as is its range of dynamics, the violin has had for its votaries men of such widely differing temperaments as Paganini and Spohr, Wilhelmj and Sarasate, Joachim and Ysaye. Its literature does not compare with that of the piano, for which Bach, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, and Brahms have written their choicest music, yet the intimate nature of the violin, its capacity for passionate emotion, crowns it--and not the organ, with its mechanical tonal effects--as the king of instruments. Nor does the voice make the peculiar appeal of the violin. Its lowest note is the G below the treble clef, and its top note a mere squeak; but it seems in a few octaves to have imprisoned within its wooden walls a miniature world of feeling; even in the hands of a clumsy amateur it has the formidable power of giving pain; while in the grasp of a master it is capable of arousing the soul.
No other instrument has the ecstatic quality; neither the shallow-toned pianoforte, nor the more mellow and sonorous violoncello. The angelic, demoniacal, lovely, intense tones of the violin are without parallel in music or nature. It is as if this box with four strings across its varnished belly had a rarer nervous system than all other instruments. It is a cry, a shriek, a hymn to heaven, a call to arms, an exquisite evocation, a brilliant series of multi-coloured visions, a broad song of passion, or mocking laughter--what cannot the violin express if the soul that guides it be that of an artist? Otherwise, it is only a fiddle. It is the hero, the heroine, the vanguard of every composition. As a solo instrument in a concerto, its still small voice is heard above the din and thunder of the accompaniment. In a word, this tiny music-box is the ruler among instruments.
Times have changed since 1658 in England, when the following delightful ordinance was made for the benefit of musical genius, or otherwise:
"And be it enacted that if any person or persons, commonly called Fiddlers, or minstrels, shall at any time after the said first of July be taken playing, fiddling, or making music in any inn, alehouse or tavern, or shall be proffering themselves, or desiring, or entreating any person or persons to hear them play ... shall be adjudged rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars."