Page 87 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2017. Glasbene migracije: stičišče evropske glasbene raznolikosti - Musical Migrations: Crossroads of European Musical Diversity. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 1
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Music Mobility
in the 17th and 18th Centuries:
Croatian Lands between Central Europe
and the Mediterranean
Vjera Katalinić
Hrvaška akademija znanosti in umetnosti, Zagreb
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb
Instead of an introduction: a case
Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739–1799) wrote in his memoires that in spring
1786, seven foreign violinists came to Vienna. He mentioned only those that
he judged being the best among them: that were Jarnovich, also known as
Giovanni Giornovichi (1747–1804), Ignaz Fränzl (1736–1811) and a certain S.
[that was Jakob Scheller, 1759–1803], who was “a special mixture of a genius
and a charlatan among than active violin virtuosi”.1 They arrived to Vien-
na simultaneously by chance, each of them from a different direction: Frän-
zl from Mannheim, Scheller from the court of Württemberg2 and Giorno-
vichi on his way from St Petersburg to Paris. Leopold Mozart, in his letter
to his daughter Maria Anna on 1 April 1786 also mentioned the violinist Jo-
1 Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Lebensbeschreibung seinem Sohne in die Feder diktiert,
Neue vollständige Ausgabe herausgegeben von Eugen Schmitz (Regensburg: Gustav
Bosse Verlag, 1940), 207ff.
2 Paul Metzner, Crescendo of the Virtuoso: Spectacle, Skill, and Self-promotion in Paris
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 121–122. Little is known about this
eccentric person, therefore it should be stated that: „Born in Bohemia, Scheller
studied music in Vienna and Munich, joined the illustrious Mannheim orchestra for
two years, toured Switzerland, Italy and France, honed his skills in Paris for three
years, and finally settled down as concertmaster at the court of Württemberg, where
he remained happily for seven years until the French Revolutionary Wars forced
the duke out of his duchy and Scheller out on tour again.“ He is often regarded,
especially according to Louis Spohr, as one of the virtuosi who pathed the way to
Paganini in the sense of eccentricity (cf. also Mai Kawabata, Paganini: The ‘demonic’
Virtuoso (Woolbridge: Boydell Press, 2013), 5–6).
85
in the 17th and 18th Centuries:
Croatian Lands between Central Europe
and the Mediterranean
Vjera Katalinić
Hrvaška akademija znanosti in umetnosti, Zagreb
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb
Instead of an introduction: a case
Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739–1799) wrote in his memoires that in spring
1786, seven foreign violinists came to Vienna. He mentioned only those that
he judged being the best among them: that were Jarnovich, also known as
Giovanni Giornovichi (1747–1804), Ignaz Fränzl (1736–1811) and a certain S.
[that was Jakob Scheller, 1759–1803], who was “a special mixture of a genius
and a charlatan among than active violin virtuosi”.1 They arrived to Vien-
na simultaneously by chance, each of them from a different direction: Frän-
zl from Mannheim, Scheller from the court of Württemberg2 and Giorno-
vichi on his way from St Petersburg to Paris. Leopold Mozart, in his letter
to his daughter Maria Anna on 1 April 1786 also mentioned the violinist Jo-
1 Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Lebensbeschreibung seinem Sohne in die Feder diktiert,
Neue vollständige Ausgabe herausgegeben von Eugen Schmitz (Regensburg: Gustav
Bosse Verlag, 1940), 207ff.
2 Paul Metzner, Crescendo of the Virtuoso: Spectacle, Skill, and Self-promotion in Paris
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 121–122. Little is known about this
eccentric person, therefore it should be stated that: „Born in Bohemia, Scheller
studied music in Vienna and Munich, joined the illustrious Mannheim orchestra for
two years, toured Switzerland, Italy and France, honed his skills in Paris for three
years, and finally settled down as concertmaster at the court of Württemberg, where
he remained happily for seven years until the French Revolutionary Wars forced
the duke out of his duchy and Scheller out on tour again.“ He is often regarded,
especially according to Louis Spohr, as one of the virtuosi who pathed the way to
Paganini in the sense of eccentricity (cf. also Mai Kawabata, Paganini: The ‘demonic’
Virtuoso (Woolbridge: Boydell Press, 2013), 5–6).
85
