A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Vieuxtemps, Henri

by Paul David

VIEUXTEMPS, Henri, a celebrated violin-player of our own day, born at Verviers, Belgium, Feb. 17 [App. p.812 "The date of birth is probably to be corrected to Feb. 20, on the authority of Paloschi and Riemann."], 1820.^[1] His father was connected with music, and thus the child grew up in a favourable atmosphere. Through the kindness of a Herr Genin he had instruction from Lecloux, a competent local musician, and by the time he was six played Rode's 5th Concerto in public in the orchestra. In the winter of 1827 he and his father made a tour with Lecloux, in the course of which the boy was heard by De Beriot, who at once adopted him as his pupil, devoted himself to his thorough musical education, and in 1828 took him to Paris and produced him in public. On De Beriot's departure to Italy in 1831, the boy returned to Brussels, where he remained for some time, studying and practising hard, but without any guidance but his own. In 1833 his father took him on a lengthened tour through Germany—the first of an enormous series—in the course of which he met Guhr, Spohr, Molique, and other musicians, and heard much music, amongst the rest 'Fidelio.' The journey extended as far as Munich and Vienna, where he excited surprise, not only for his fulness of tone, purity of intonation, and elegance of style, but also for the ready way in which he played off a MS. piece of Mayseder's at sight (A. M. Z. 1834, p. 160). He remained in Vienna during the winter, and while there took lessons in counterpoint from Sechter. There too he made the acquaintance of Mayseder, Czerny, and others. He also played Beethoven's Violin Concerto (at that time a novelty) at one of the Concerts Spirituels. The party then returned northwards by Prague, Dresden, Leipsig (where Schumann welcomed him in a genial article in his 'Neue Zeitschrift'), Berlin, and Hamburg. In the spring of 1834 he was in London at the same time with De Beriot, and played for the first time at the Philharmonic on June 2.^[2] Here too he met Paganini. The winter of 1835 was spent in Paris, where he made a long stay, studying composition under Reicha. After this he began to write. In 1837 he and his father made a second visit to Vienna, and in 1838 they took a journey to Russia, by Warsaw, travelling for part of the way with Henselt. The success was so great as to induce another visit in the following year, when he made the journey by Riga, this time with Servais. On the road he made the acquaintance of Richard Wagner. But a little later, at Narva, he was taken with a serious illness which delayed his arrival for some months, and lost him the winter season of 1838. The summer was spent in the country, mostly in composition—Concerto in E, Fantaisie Caprice, etc.—both which he produced in the following winter amid the most prodigious enthusiasm; which was repeated in his native country when he returned, especially at the Rubens Fêtes in Antwerp (Aug. 1840), where he was decorated with the Order of Leopold, and in Paris, where he played the Concerto at the concert of the Conservatoire, Jan. 12, 1841. He then made a second visit to London, and performed at the Philharmonic Concert of April 19, and at two others of the same series—a rare proof of the strong impression he made. The next few years were taken up in another enormous Continental tour, and in a voyage to America in 1844. A large number of compositions (ops. 6 to 19) were published after regaining Brussels; but the strain of the incessant occupation of the tour necessitated a long Kur at Stuttgart. During this he composed his A major Concerto (op. 25), and played it at Brussels in Jan. 1845. In the following autumn he married Miss Josephine Eder, an eminent pianist of Vienna. Shortly after this he accepted an invitation to settle in St. Petersburg as Solo Violin to the Emperor, and Professor in the Conservatorium, and in Sept. 1846 quitted Western Europe for Russia. In 1852, however, he threw up this strange contract and returned to his old arena and his incessant wanderings. 1853 saw the composition of his Concerto in D minor (op. 31). 1855 was spent in Belgium, and at a property which he had acquired near Frankfort. In 1857 he again visited the United States in company with Thalberg, and in the winter of 1858 was once more in Paris occupied in finishing his 5th Concerto in A minor (op. 37). The next ten years were occupied in constant touring all over Central Europe, and, somewhat later, Italy. Serious affliction now overtook his hitherto prosperous course. First his father, and then June 29, 1868 his beloved wife, were taken from him by death. To divert his mind from the shock of these losses he engaged in another enormous tour over Europe, and that again was followed, in August 1870, by a third expedition to the United States, from which he returned in the spring of 1871 to find Paris in ruins. This was the last of his huge tours. From 1871 to 1873, on the invitation of M. Gevaerts, who had succeeded Fétis at the Brussels Conservatoire, he acted as teacher to the violin class there, and as director of the Popular Concerts; but this sphere of activity was suddenly ended by a paralytic attack which disabled the whole of his left side, and by consequence made playing impossible. True, he was able in time to resume the direction of his pupils, but his career as a player was at an end. His passion for travelling, however, remained to the last, and it was at Mustapha-lez Alger, in Algiers, that he died June 6, 1881, leaving a 6th Concerto, in G, dedicated to Mme. Normann-Neruda, by whom it was first played. In 1872 Vieuxtemps was elected member of the Académie Royale of Belgium, on which occasion he read a memoir of Étienne Jean Soubre.

Vieuxtemps was one of the greatest violinists of modern times, and with De Bériot heads the modern French school. He had all the great qualities of technique so characteristic of that school. His intonation was perfect, his command of the bow unsurpassed. An astonishing staccato—in up and down bow—was a speciality of his; and in addition he had a tone of such breadth and power as is not generally found with French violinists. His style of playing (Vortrag) was characteristically French. He was fond of strong dramatic accents and contrasts, and, generally speaking, his style was better adapted to his own compositions and those of other French composers than to the works of the great classical masters. At the same time it should be said that he gained some of his greatest successes in the Concertos of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, and was by no means unsuccessful as a quartet-player, even in Germany.

As a composer for the violin he has had a wider success than almost any one since Spohr; and the fact that not a few of his works, though written more than forty years ago, are still stock-pieces of the répertoires of all French and not a few German violinists, shows such vitality as to lift him out of the rank of composers of merely ephemeral productions of the virtuoso genre. It must be granted that their value is very unequal. While some of his Concertos contain really fine ideas worked out with great skill, he has also published many show-pieces which are not free from vulgarity.

While De Bériot, with his somewhat flimsy workmanship but undeniable charm of sentimental melody, has often been compared to Bellini and Donizetti, Vieuxtemps might not improperly be called the Meyerbeer among composers for the violin. He appears to share the good and the bad qualities of that great opera-writer. On the one hand, no lack of invention, beauty of melody, extremely clever calculation of effect; and on the other, a somewhat bombastic and theatrical pathos, and occasional lapses into triviality. Vieuxtemps shares also with Meyerbeer the fate of being generally underrated in Germany and overrated in France, where Meyerbeer is not unfrequently placed on the same level with Beethoven, and where Vieuxtemps, after playing his E major Concerto in Paris for the first time is said to have been invited to write a Grand Opera—an offer which he wisely declined.

The best-known of his works are the Concertos, no. 1, in E (op. 10); no. 2, in F♯ minor (op. 19); no. 3, in A (op. 25); no. 4, in D minor (op. 31); no. 5, in A minor (op. 37); no. 6, in G (op. 47); the Fantaisie Caprice, and Ballade et Polonaise. He also published a Sonata for piano and violin, 3 Cadenzas for Beethoven's Violin Concerto, and a large number of concert-pieces, many of which are long since obsolete.

[ P. D. ]

1. The materials for this sketch are supplied by Vieuxtemps' autobiography published in the Guide Musical, and translated in the Musical World, June 25. 1881. and following nos., by Philharmonic Programmes, the Allg. Musikalische Zeitung, and other sources.
2. Moscheles' 'Life.' i. 304; and Philh. Programmes.