GIOVANNI BOTTESINI

The death of Giovanni Bottesini, unrivalled as a double-bass virtuoso, and well-known also as a composer and conductor, has put an end to an artistic career which is full of interest and redounds to the credit and glory to the country that gave him birth. Bottesini died at Parma, on the 7th ult., at the age of sixty-six, after a somewhat protracted illness. The Municipality paid him his last honours by officially solemnizing his funeral at the public expense, and the ceremony was rendered still more impressive by the presence of the Prefect of the Province of Parma, of the members of Parliment of the district, and of the municipal representatives of Parma and other cities, who acted as pall-bearers; while the procession was preceded and followed by the various artistic institutes and associations, with their bands and banners.

Giovanni Bottesini was born at Crema, in Lombardy, on the 24th of December 1823, and received his first musical training in harmony and on the violin in his native town, after which, as a boy of thirteen, he entered the Conservatoire of Milan, where he studied the double-bass under Rossi, and harmony and counterpoint under Basili, his musical education being afterwards finished by Vaccaj, Basili's successor at the Conservatiore. About 1840 the young artist of seventeen left the Conservatiore and undertook a highly successful concert tour throughout Italy, which occupied nearly four years. At the age of twenty-three he was offered and accepted an engagement as conductor at the Opera House of Havana, where he wrote a comic opera in Spanish, entitled "Christopher Colombus," which achieved considerable success. Upon leaving Havana, Bottesini undertook an extensive concert tour-- subsequently several times repeated--in the United States, in North America, and in Mexico, where he was in 1854, at the time when Henrietta Sontag (Countess Rossi) died in the capital of that country.

After his first prolonged stay and various tours in England, he was for several seasons (1855-1857) Conductor at the Italian Opera in Paris; indeed, it was here that he first established his reputation, not only as operatic and orchestral conductor, but also as composer, in which latter capacity he brought out his "Assedio di Firenze," an opera which, if not enthusiastically, was very cordially received. Having been comparatively stationary for two years, Bottesini set out, in 1857, for another concert tour in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, and England. In the year 1859 he returned to Italy, and produced his comic opera "Il Diavolo della Notte," in Milan, where it had a successful run. Subsequently he filled the post of operatic Conductor in various of the leading theatres both in Europe and America--never, however, omitting an opportunity of showing himself in the concert-room as soloist in his favourite capacity of double-bass virtuoso. In 1863 his opera "Marion Delome," since then also set to music by Ponchielli, was brought out at the Liceo of Barcelona, under his direction. Later on he produced his opera "Ali Baba," in London, and shortly afterwards wrote his "Ode," of "Cantata," in honour of Cavour, which gained the first prize, and on that occasion excited extraordinary enthusiasm in Florence.

Bottesini accepted the conductorship of the Opera at Cairo, which post he ably filled till 1877, producing an extensive repertoire of leading modern operatic works of the Italian and French school. It is also worthy of notice that Bottesini was the first Conductor to whom Verdi entrusted the direction of "Aida."

Bottesini's best operatic work is undoubtedly his "Ero e Leandro," which was produced first in Turin at the Teatro Regio in 1879; in Rome with Stagno, the celebrated tenor, as Hero, and also in Milan, on which occasion the composer himself played his favourite instrument as a humble member of the orchestra. It was his last appearance in Milan. This opera, "Hero e Leander," derives special interest from the fact that the libretto is by Boito, who originally intended to set it to music himself, but made it over to Bottesini. In the field of sacred music, Bottesini's most noteworthy work is probably the Oratorio "The Mount of Olivet." Besides these works, Bottesini wrote a model and complete "Method for Double Bass," a "Requiem," and a "Quartet for stringed instruments." Indeed there is hardly any class of composition which he has not touched with more or less success. It appears, moreover, that he has left the score of a new opera, which his friends in Parma have already taken steps to produce.

As a composer, Bottesini could not, and, in his modesty, never pretended to, rise to the lofty level of his friends and countrymen, Verdi, Boito, and Ponchielli; but, on his favourite instrument, the double bass, he was absolutely phenomenal. The beauty of the tone and sound he elicited from that unwieldy instrument, his marvellous facility, not to say agility, in executing the most difficult passages--the grace, elegance, and delicacy of his touch and method, gave proof of the most consummate art and unrivalled talent. He often competed victoriously even with celebrated violinists--as, for instance, in a duet for violin and double-bass, of his own composition, which he frequently played with Sivori, and in which his part of the performance invariably electrified the audience. Nothing could be more extraordinary, from a musical point of view, than this match between two instruments so entirely different in tone, size, and character. In precision, dash, accuracy, and withal in the softness of touch and phrasing, Bottesini had no equal on the "contra-basso."

Being, besides a great artist, also a man of the world, and, moreover, kind-hearted and fond of humour, he had an inexhaustible store of anecdotes, the reminiscences of his travels, his triumphs, and his intercourse with royal and other personages with whom, in the course of his artistic peregrinations, he had come in contract. Suffice it to mention only one or two of these stories, which illustrate, more or less, all the rest.

On one occasion, after a concert he had given at the "Kursaal" of Wiesbaden, an English lady, plainly dressed, approached him and said: "Oh, Signor Bottesini, I am charmed with your playing, and should be so glad if you would come some day soon and play at my house." Bottesini, thinking that the lady before him was one of the innumerable "Aglaises" to whose eccentric and extra-vagant displays of hero-worship he was accustomed, simply smiled and bowed in silence. "Besides," continued the lady, "I have heard you play before in London." The artist smiled and bowed again. "Yes," persisted the lady, "I heard you play at my mother's." "And who," Bottesini now rejoined, "is your mother, madam, if I may ask?" "The Queen of England," was the quiet and placid reply; whereupon it at last dawned on Bottesini that the lady before him was no other than the Crown Princess of Germany, then staying at Wiesbaden.

Bottesini might have accumulated a large fortune; but he spent his easily acquired gains freely, gave generously, and died comparatively poor. He was not married; and weary at last of his peregrinations and triumphs, he accepted only last year, and upon Verdi's recommendation, the post of Director of the Parma Conservatoire, to the welfare of which he devoted himself with untiring zeal, while he also acted as conductor at the Parma Opera House, and in that capacity did much to revive the old reputation of that beautiful theatre for operatic performances of a high order.

Bottesini was, in his very latest hours, fondly attached to his instrument. On the last occasion, a few months ago, when he played at Parma for the benefit of an artistic society, he had a strange presentiment of his approaching end. The resin broke to pieces in his hands as he was rubbing the bow, whereupon he remarked with a sad smile, "There goes the resin; who knows?--soon I may have to go too." His own performance on that evening, though it carried away the audience as usual, did not satisfy him, and he complained to those near him that there was something wrong with his old friend: "It would not act." His presentiment was but too true; for on the very next day he was struck down by fever, from which he never recovered.

C.P.S.