While the men of Cremona were still fashioning their models the want of
good strings was felt. This was met by Angelo Angelucci, known as the
string-maker of Naples, a man who loved music and passed much time with
violinists. Through his painstaking efforts such perfection was reached
that Tartini, who was born the same year as he, 1692, could play his
most difficult compositions two hundred times on the Angelucci strings,
whereas he was continually interrupted by the snapping of others.
Improvements in the bow, often called the tongue of the violin, are due
to the house of Tourte, in Paris, in the eighteenth century, lightness,
elasticity and spring coming to it from Francis Tourte, Jr.
Three eminent virtuosi, Corelli, Tartini and Viotti, whose united
careers spanned a period of 150 years, prepared the way for modern
methods of violin-playing. Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) left his home
in Fusignano, near Bologna, a young violinist, for an extended concert
tour. His gentle, sensitive disposition proving unfitted to cope with
the jealousy of Lully, chief violinist in France, and with sundry
annoyances in other lands, he returned to Italy and entered the service
of Cardinal Ottoboni in Rome.
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