276.—FUGUES AND CHESS.
Many are the musical prodigies who come before the public, though but few of them reach the great heights of musicianship of which they, in their youth, give promise. Händel, Mozart, and Liszt fulfilled the expectations aroused by their youthful feats.
Among those whose fame was not so great was Walter Parratt, who was knighted by Queen Victoria. He played the organ in a Yorkshire church when only seven years old. At ten he performed all of Bach's forty-eight preludes and fugues without the music before him, and in later life he accomplished the extraordinary feat of playing, blindfolded, three games of chess and one of Bach's fugues at the same time, manipulating the keys of the organ and calling out his moves on the chess-board simultaneously.
277.—FORTUNES IN FIDDLES.
The prices set on their instruments by the makers of them, the appreciation in value, and the immense sums now demanded for the works of the old masters, forms a most interesting topic, to which, however, we can give but short space.
Stradivarius received for each violin four Louis d'or, and these same instruments would to-day mount into hundreds of pounds in value. His violoncellos he sold for a larger sum. Stradivarius' instruments were not appreciated in their earlier days in England, for it is related that a merchant named Cervetto took some "Strad" 'cellos to England and put them on sale, but not being able to get five pounds apiece for them he sent them back to Italy as a bad investment. They would now bring several hundreds of pounds each. While his 'cellos were thus lightly valued in England in those days, we find a Cremona violin selling in 1662 for £20.
