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 | | Pierre Baillot, Pierre Rode, Rodolphe Kreutzer. System for the Violin. | | Elibron Classics, 2001, 90 pages |
Sample Pages We recommend to print out sample pages to evaluate the quality of a reprint. | | Pierre Baillot (1771 - 1842), list of works | | | An old-school violinist who was offended and pained by flashy Paganini-like stunts, Pierre Baillot divided his early life between musical studies and military training. After abandoning the latter, he received a professorship at the Paris Conservatoire; around the same time, he joined Napoleon's private orchestra. Later in life, Baillot toured Western Europe and Russia to great acclaim, receiving particular praise from Mendelssohn and Spohr for his sensitive performances of chamber music. |
| Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766 - 1831), list of works | | | A student of Stamitz, Rodolphe Kreutzer was growing out of his "child prodigy" phase and had entered a career as a composer and soloist when his parents abruptly died within three months of each other. Taking pity on the young man, the Count of Artois introduced him to Marie Antoinette - who was so taken with Kreutzer that she brought him into court life at Versailles. The precise role played by Marie Antoinette in Kreutzer's rise to fame is open to question, but his early operas did receive their first performances during her reign. The Queen, of course, was guillotined in 1793; around that time, Kreutzer was offered a professorship at the music school (later known as the Paris Conservatoire) where he would later write his famous 42 études ou caprices. Though Kreutzer played solo concerts until a carriage accident ended his career, he thought of himself mainly as an opera composer; in that light, it seems cruel that his operas are rarely performed today. |
| Pierre Rode (1774 - 1830), list of works | | | Pierre Rode began performing concertos in local recitals when he was twelve; six years later, the great master Viotti - who no longer played in public - asked the boy to premiere two of his pieces. A professorship at the Conservatoire was not far behind, and before long Rode was the toast of virtually every European court. He performed his own works with elegance, and brought to the works of others a verve all his own. But it was not destined to last. Rode's skills as a performer began to deteriorate around his thirty-fifth birthday; at fifty, he gave up the instrument entirely - perhaps already suffering from the paralysis that would kill him a few years later. |
See items in: Instrumental Solo: Violin Music Instruction |
