Volume II Part 6 (2/2)

A contemporary violinist and composer was Benedetto Marcello, whose melodramatic affair has been described by Crowest and may be quoted here, with full permission to believe as much of it as you please

”Marcello was the victim of a hopeless passion for a beautiful lady, Leonora Manfrotti, and on the occasion of her h rank, Marcello was unwise enough to send her a rose and a billet-doux containing words more complimentary to the lady's beauty than to her taste in the choice of a husband This epistle, co to Seranzo's notice, caused hi wife by supervision and suspicion to such an extent that she actually sank under his ill-treatment and died Her body was laid out in state in the church 'Dei Frari,' and here Marcello seeing it, learned the ill effects of his rash passion

He fell into a state of enuity of athe body of his love, he conveyed it to a ruined crypt in one of the neighbouring islands, which, bearing the reputation of being haunted, was seldom visited by any one Here, watched only by a faithful old nurse, he sat day and night watching the dead forh by the force ofere this, Venice, and indeed Italy, was full of excitement at the composition of so other admirers of thisher so closely that even friends could scarcely distinguish her Eliade had even been effected to insensibility by the strain of the unknown, and hearing one day a gondola pass, in which a voice was singing one of the songs which was an especial favourite, in such a way as she had never heard it sung before, she followed and traced the gondola to the deserted island A visit to this island resulted in a enious woe of a short absence of Marcello, and, substituting the living sister for the dead one, awaited the mad musician This time, however, his usual invocation was not in vain: as he called on Leonora to awake, a living ie arose from the coffin, and Marcello, restored to happiness by the delusion, was quite content with the exchange when he found out that, although the lady was not Leonora, she was a devoted admirer of his musical skill, and professed an 'affinity of soul' for hi

Their happiness was short-lived, for Marcello died a few years after their e”

This has a faint resemblance to the romance of ”The Quick or the Dead,”

with a certain vice-versation

LOUIS SPOHR

To come back to earth: The eminent violinist, Spohr, and his pupil, Francis Eck, ether, in which they rivalled each other almost more in their rapid series of aiti, Eck hter of one of the an a flirtation, which she took so seriously that her father gave him the alternative of matrimony or Siberia After some hesitation he chose matrireatly preferred Siberia, for his as a virago, and collaborated with his ill-health to guide him to the madhouse

Spohr may have profited by Eck's experience, when some years later he hteen years old, and played thatinstrument, the harp, as well as the piano and violin They appeared together in a court concert, and on the way to her hoinal proposition: ”Shall we thus play together for life?” She, with hardly inality, wept her consent upon his shoulder They were an a series of very successful concert-tours They seeether for twenty-six years, and they reared a large family Her death in 1832 broke down his health for severalfifty, he married the skilful pianist, Marianne Pfeiffer, over twenty years his junior They also ether

PAGANINI, THE INFERNAL

Paganini, as everybody knows, sold his soul to the devil for faaaot only a fourth-rate soul, while Paganini secured a fame that will not be surpassed while fiddlers fiddle

Gaanini's only vice In spite of the fact that he will always be alliness as for his skill, wo, and kept hina abducted him and held him prisoner in her country chateau, as once Liszt, his rival in technical fame, was kept a fewkidnapped thus? The fair Bolognese kept Paganini captive for three years in this retreat, where he fed upon scenery, love, and music For her sake he practised her favourite instruuitar, and worked anini broke the spell and resu the public, and not without reason, that he was aided by er, Antonia Bianchi, who bore hiitiradually driven to a jealousy that was alanini himself tells this story:

”Antonia was constantly tormented by the most fearful jealousy One day, she happened to be behind reat pianist, and, when she read the few amiable words I had coed, she tore it froe, she would have assassinated me”

When he died, he left his son a fortune of 400,000 Surely this sum alone proves the justice of the popular belief that he had sold hi it, none can doubt the story Liszt quotes in one of his essays concerning the G string of Paganini's violin: ”It was the intestine of his wife, whom he had killed with his own hands”

There is no record of the secret h of the superhu

DE BeRIOT, SONTAG, AND MALIBRAN

Aanini was De Beriot When he was not quite thirty, he found himself in Paris at the ti and Malibran The rivalry of the two singers was ended by the influence of ether the duet from ”Semiramide,” each was so overcome at the beauty of the other's voice and art, that they embraced and becae experience with the toht, blue-eyed and blonde as she was, and then only twenty-five But De Beriot paid his court in vain, because at this ti diplomat, Count Rossi; as it would have hurt his influence to be engaged to the child of strolling players, the engage of Prussia to grant her a patent of nobility When they were e, and travelled fro only for charity As her brother said: ”Rossi made my sister happy, in the best sense of the word To the day of their death they loved each other as on their wedding-day”

But political troubles ruined the count's fortunes, and it seeain the court wished to separate diploe

Rossi was told that he ht retain his ambassadorshi+p if he would forain leave the stage But Rossi believed that it was his turn to ned, and travelled with his wife They came to America, and in Mexico the cholera ended her beautiful life at the age of forty-nine

It was into this ideal roly in 1830 It was fortunate that he could not prevail against the noble Count Rossi, even though his failure caused him pain It almost cost him his health, and he suffered so obviously that his friends were alar to console him was Madame Malibran, whom people, who like exclusive superlatives, have been pleased to select as the greatest singer in the history of e people, and, indeed, had e of five

In 1826 she, and that wonderful assembly, the Garcia family, had found themselves in New York, where an old French merchant, supposed to be rich, married her It is certain that Malibranso conation The horrible thing is that, as it turned out, the old man had also an eye to the weather He had hoped to stave off bankruptcy byneither her money nor her heart, for she left him within a year and returned to Paris