When musicians make demands musical instrument makers are ever ready to
meet them, and the viol steadily improved. One who contributed to its
progress was Gasper Duiffoprugcar (1514-1572) a luthier and mosaic
inlayer, known in the Tyrol, in Bologna, Paris and Lyons. The belief
that he originated the violin rests chiefly on the elaborately
ornamented forgeries bearing his name, the work of French imitators from
1800 to 1840. There is an etching, supposed to be a copy of a portrait
of himself carved on one of his viols with this motto: "I lived in the
wood until I was slain by the relentless axe. In life I was silent, but
in death my melody is exquisite."
The words might apply to the perfected violin, whose evolution was going
on all through that period of literary and artistic activity known as
the Renaissance. When or at whose hands it gained its present form is
unknown. The same doubt encircles its first master player. Perhaps the
earliest worthy of mention is one Baltzarini, a Piedmontese, appointed
by Catherine de Medici, in 1577, to lead the music at the French court,
and said to have started the heroic and historical ballet in France.
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