It is rather curious that anything of a diabolic nature should
be associated with this man of amiable and gentle disposition, whose
care of his scholars, according to Dr. Burney, was constantly paternal.
Nardini, his favorite and most famous pupil, came from Leghorn to Padua
to attend him, with filial devotion, in his last illness.
The talents of Corelli and Tartini seem to have been combined in the
Piedmontese, Giovanni Battiste Viotti (1753-1824), a man of poetic,
philanthropic mind, whose sensitive, retiring disposition unfitted him
for public life. Wherever he appeared he outshone all other performers,
yet there was constantly something occurring to wound him. At the Court
of Versailles he left the platform in disgust because the noisy entrance
of a distinguished guest interrupted his concerto. In London, after his
means had been crippled by the French Revolution, he was accused of
political intrigue.
While living in seclusion near Hamburg he composed some of his finest
works, among them six violin duets, which he prefaced with the words:
"This work is the fruit of leisure afforded me by misfortune.
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