Dear Mr. Puppy,

Was there an April fools day in 18th century Paris?

I have never taken a liking to Pierre Nicolas Housset, he is too much of Parisian in his mannerisms for a South Italian’s sentiment. He is insufferable as a musician and believes that the time he spent with the great Tartini in Padua gave him carte blanche to be an expert on the subject of expression and harmony. Tartini predicted that he would become “The Terror of Violins”, which in these troubled times has certainly taken on a disagreeable meaning. last April, After Lent, Housset and some of the others in the orchestra cooked up something odious for me. During rehearsals for an Italian production with the director of the company. Monsieur Viotti as conductor, M. La Houssaye leader of the French band just ‘happened’ to present himself. Housset continually whined that he spent five years in Padua with Tartini at the “Scuola Delle Nazioni”. Actually, he took a few lessons from him in 1753 when he traveled in the entourage of his employer the Prince of Monaco, and repeated these a few years later. He was certainly an enthusiast of Tartini’s method of violin playing, but five years of continual study was an overstatement. Viotti, whom I now suspect was party to the whole enterprise, begged Housset, as a ‘favor’, to perform a specimen of the Master’s manner of playing for the edification of the whole group. When he had finished this charade, Viotti pronounced, in a voice loud enough to be heard by the whole orchestra. Now, Signor Puppo, now that you have listened to my friend, Monsieur La Houssaye, you will be able to form an idea as to how Tartini actually played!”I certainly regret the whole affair, which was initiated by my publisher Monsieur Porro, trying to pump up sales and inserting an advertisement into the Paris Gazette that cast me too grandly as an actual pupil of Tartini. I certainly did not need to become a Tartini acolyte to appreciate or be capable of the finesses of his style, and in any case, it is a style wholly unfit for the new compositions of an Italian Opera orchestra, that must play to the rowdy behavior of the whole house and needs collaboration and power to be effective.

*”Ask Mr. Puppy” aka Giuseppe Puppo, an 18th-century concert violinist, answers our questions about his career and times.

Dear Mr. Puppy,
I hear the 18th century was a very transitional time for bowmakers. Can you tell me what that was like? Part IV of IV:

The Tourte family you might recall invented the metal ferrell that holds the hair in a fine ribbon at the nose of the frog, this replaced the previous solution, a slip of card that was held in place by an ingenious binding of very thin gut cord held firm by a small extra little nose over the hair channel. The first experiment they made used a band of pewter, but that proved to be unreliable as it stretched in time, from thence they fixed on silver as the answer. Francois Xavier had served a part of an apprenticeship in mechanics and knew the delicate task of soldering the metal with a blow-pipe flame and charcoal. Their bows became the standard of excellence for all the best players; in the same way that the Neapolitan Angelucci brand chanterelle strings, for the violin, were the only strings that one could use to concertize. The cheap Mittenwald copies of the string would barely last through three pages of the score.

One thing that I still find extraordinary is that Old Tourte was a man without classical education and unable to read or to write to any extent, yet he was able, only by the power of intellect to perceive how to work up the forces of resistance and pliability in the bow stick by the capacity of his hand and eye, to such a fine degree that his work is superior to all other bow-makers. Why even the young citizen cellist Duport declares his Tourte bow to be equal in art and response to his Stradivari cello.

*“Ask Mr. Puppy” aka Giuseppe Puppo, an 18th-century concert violinist, answers our questions about his career and times. 

Dear Mr. Puppy,

I hear the 18th century was a very transitional time for bowmakers. Can you tell me what that was like?

Part III of IV:

To draw a good sound with thicker strings the makers made the bow heavier and longer. Sometimes up to 74cm including the button. My old standard concerto bow was 68cm with a weight of around 55 grams. The inward curve or camber of the new bows made it essential to increase the height of the head of the bow and this created many problems for the strength and balance of the bow, A thing that many bow makers in France and the German States struggled with as the new pernambuco wood, unlike snakewood was apt to fail and the heads crack in cold weather. Old Mr. Cramer required his pupils to use the so-called hatchet head bow whose strange form gave extra strength to the tip mortice for those mass barrages of sound of the music that he preferred. The Tourte family made these kinds of bows for the Court musicians, all tarted up with ivory to match the musician’s white make-up powdered wigs and silk embroidered band uniforms, The Germans and English made heavier versions for use in the Opera di Musica and large festival bands. I preferred my old plain Scottish snakewood and ivory bow that I purchased in Edinburgh, it was perfect for playing the repertoire of my friend Mr. Haydn.

*”Ask Mr. Puppy” aka Giuseppe Puppo, an 18th-century concert violinist, answers our questions about his career and times.

Dear Mr. Puppy,

I hear the 18th century was a very transitional time for bowmakers. Can you tell me what that was like?

Part II of IV:

My friend Gaviniès once told me that the bowmakers found a small source in the staves from sugar barrels. It seems that the manufacturers in Brazil and the Antilles used the wood because it was heavy and protected the refined block sugar from the fierce attacks by tropical ants in that country. These creatures would sometimes carry away a whole month’s production in a night. The shippers liked the heavier wood, as the sugar was sold by the total weight, barrel, included. Sometimes this wood was really superior for the trades and was prized by the cabinet makers for case coverings of their royal commissions. Old Citizen Tourte kept the best pieces of bow wood for himself and sold the lesser pieces to the other bow makers and became somewhat of a savvy merchant in his declining years. Tourte bows were extremely expensive and cost 12 Louis d’or if they were tortoiseshell with gold mounts, or 3 ½ Louis if they were ebony and silver. The price of ordinary bows at this time of the Revolution was around 1 ¾ Louis. The Tourte bows became somewhat of a joke amongst the musicians of Paris because the orders took such a long time to complete and they would quip to those who had invested such a large sum “I hope it is not torte, twisted, by the time it arrives.”

 

*Ask Mr. Puppy” aka Giuseppe Puppo, an 18th-century concert violinist, answers our questions about his career and times. Can you find Mr. Puppy in the painting?

Dear Mr. Puppy,

I hear the 18th century was a very transitional time for bowmakers. Can you tell me what that was like?

Part I of IV:

It seemed to me that violinists were everywhere and from every country, searching for a means to make a living in this fecundity of a city. I recall Viotti, one of the most successful violinists around. He had just arrived from a successful concert tour with his teacher Pugnani. They traveled to Switzerland, Dresden, Warsaw, and the new city of St Petersburg in Russia. Of course, these foreigners brought their instruments and bows with them to Paris. The Italians, French, and Germans had their own styles of playing; so much so, in fact, that their mannerisms and characters were parodied on the theatre stage and in performances at the cafés and fairs. The demands of the moment drove innovation. To please the public the theatres demanded larger audiences, more volume, and longer compositions. Violin strings were made thicker and higher-tension to attain greater volume and durability. The old bows did not match up to the demands of the strings and repertoire and any musician of standing needed to purchase new equipment. Old citizen Tourte and his sons and daughter made the first innovations between 1770 and 1780. Unfortunately, these were the years of the war at sea between the French and the English that created a halt in the arrival of tropical hardwoods to the capital. The new material for bows, Pernambuco wood, was already in high demand as a material from which the beautiful red dyes for flags and military uniforms for foreign states were extracted. As such, the price increased to the unbelievable cost of 1/3 of a Louis d’or, once the tax, shipping, and third parties were paid off. Most of the wood that did arrive at the docks here in Paris and at Marseilles was unfit for bow making, as it was either crooked, cracked, or stained with bilge water from the long voyage. Many pounds of this wood might only yield wood good enough for one bow.

-Mr. Puppy

*Ask Mr. Puppy aka Giuseppe Puppo, an 18th-century concert violinist, answers our questions about his career and times. Can you find Mr. Puppy in the painting?

Dear Mr. Puppy,

What musician did all the other musicians in Paris revere during your time there?

All the Paris musicians were in awe of bassoonist, Tommaso Delcambre. A native of Douai near Arras, Tommaso came to Paris in 1784 when he was only eighteen years old. At that time, French bassoonist Étienne Ozi was renowned for his musical expression and his ability to make his own reeds, a practice that would help perfect the imperfect bassoon. This was before Delusse had made improvements to the instrument that made it easier to get good intonation. After moving to Paris, Tommaso’s family arranged to have him take lessons from Maestro Ozi; it was amazing to experience his perfectly expressive tone. He made such good progress that, in 1789, he was hired for the orchestra of our Theatre de Monsieur, where he played bassoon together with Francois Devienne, the flautist. The stomping and applause in the performance of the works of Cimarosa and Paesiello are still fixed in my memory. The public especially appreciated his performances with the singers Rafanelli, Viganoni, Rovedino, Mengozzi, Mandini, Morichelli and Baletti. On some of these occasions, I recall substituting for Viotti in the orchestra of the Theatre Feydeau company. In Devienne’s symphony for the flute, oboe, and bassoon he accompanied the virtuosi, Louis-Armand Salentin, Antoine Hugot and Federico Duvernoy, all with great aplomb and elegant expression.

-Mr. Puppy

*Ask Mr. Puppy aka Giuseppe Puppo, an 18th-century concert violinist, answers our questions about his career and times.*

Dear Mr. Puppy,

What was musical life like outside the theatre Feydeau?

On the 19th of January 1795, I was at the Café de Chartres with the citizen players of the Opera William Tell when they decided to perform the song Réveil du people. This was the piece that the actor Gaveaux from the Feydeau had composed on the words by Jean-Marie Souriguière. The success of this impromptu song was so great that the Café quickly became a kind of club where people congregated to applaud the performance of patriotic hymns. Next the political activists of the Café demanded with great enthusiasm that this song be sung in all the theatres of Paris. This imbecilic idea took on a life of its own and many performances of all kinds were interrupted by incessant cat calls from the audience demanding it be sung. Once it was started the whole crowd would break into a rousing chorus, not letting the performance start again until they were satiated. One day they even forced the famous singer Garat to descend from his box to the stage to perform it. These partisan demands were matched by the Royalists amongst us who demanded for their part, the singing of the Marseillaise, while those indifferent to the political battle would take the part of the common people and cry out in opposition, “some bread! Some bread”! This mayhem continued for almost a year until a decree was passed on January 6th 1796 that prescribed the playing of patriotic hymns only before curtain-up. The musicians as a protest refused to tune their instruments until after the opening patriotic songs.

*Ask Mr. Puppy aka Giuseppe Puppo, an 18th-century concert violinist, answers our questions about his career and times.*

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Grand_Vefour

 

Dear Mr. Puppy,

How did you become leader of the Paris orchestras?

Cher amis, the story of how I became leader of the orchestra is a complicated one. For me, it was the best of all possible worlds. I was ill-received on my final visit to London when politics turned against me in that peculiarly toxic and infuriating English manner. I learned from some of the Italian musicians that M. Viotti had plans to reorganize the Italian players into a new band and I left for Paris before bankruptcy and debtors prison could catch up to me. In 1786, Leonardo, hairdresser to Queen Marie-Antoinette, obtained through her protection the privilege of a new Italian Opera. Called a mountebank and a usurper by some, this man understood the vain complexities of these courtly affairs. It was he who realized that he did not have the necessary knowledge to organize an enterprise of this kind. And so, he partnered with my compatriot J.B. Viotti who, having become the animating principal of the company, poured into it all the savings he had made in his travels and organized the most perfect orchestra of musicians and troupe of actors that was ever seen or heard in Paris, and which perhaps had ever existed before. The troupe was made up of first-rate players, singers, and actors, those such as Raffanelli, Mandini, Rovedino, Viganoni, Mengozzi, Mme. Baletti, and Miss. Morichelli. They were backed by myself the young prodigy Rode and La Houssay who always put himself above the Italians and took charge of the French musicians and the French plays. M. Houssay and I had a falling out concerning the manner of Tartini’s method of playing, but more of that later.

*Ask Mr. Puppy aka Giuseppe Puppo, an 18th-century concert violinist, answers our questions about his career and times.*

https://www.encyclopedia.com/…/la-houssaye-pierre-nicolas

Dear Mr. Puppy,

What was the worst opera that you ever conducted?

Much time has passed since those days of 1790. When I recall it to memory, I remember during that time before the revolution all those absurdities of language and the quaint expressions that went together with the Old Regime; it seems that I was audience to much more of a comedy than a tragedy. Now everyone wants to look back to those times and the theatrical shows feed this “remembrance of things past”. The two-act opera at the Feydeau “Les qui pro quo espagnols”, was amusing in this regard, but it created a kind of torpor in the audience. The dialog was far from significant. It lacked spirit and had an unpardonable platitude of style that lacked the potential to do any more than raise its weary head from off the pillow. The music though and the way that the musicians played, merited a whole different kind of appreciation. This perhaps carried the day, despite the lack-luster libretto that might just as well have concerned itself with a marmot and its wooden leg.

-Mr. Puppy

*Ask Mr. Puppy aka Giuseppe Puppo, an 18th-century concert violinist, answers our questions about his career and times.*

http://theatre1789-1815.e-monsite.com/…/les-quiproquo…

Dear Mr. Puppy,

My ride to the opera has bailed on me. How can I make it by showtime?

Mon cher ami, The Theatre de la rue Feydeau has become a rallying place of Royalist reactionaries. It has a splendor that gives us hope for a return to time past that is not lost beyond recovery; but to get there you must choose your route; all private carriages are suspect because they speak of privilege and these revolutionaries will set their foot on the necks of their enemies wherever they can uncover them. What things are done in the name of Liberty! We must avoid certain routes. It is better to take one of the common conveyances and hide your associations. The respectable citizens hide from all places of amusement in the same way that they hide from politics.

 

Dear Mr. Puppy – Where does one go for a bow rehair in 18th century Paris? How much will it cost?

Well my Dear, Bow hair has become a real issue here in Paris. You could ask those connected to the trade, such as, Citizen Boyer at L’ancien Café de Foy on the Rue de Richlieu or le dame Lemenu rue du Roule. She is the wife of citizen Charles Boyer, publisher of the Journal de Violon a pamphlet dedicated to amateur violinist. She will surely have a list of the most affordable tradespeople. The masters of the trade such as citizen Cousineau on the rue de Poulies will certainly be able to do the re-hair of the bow for you, but these people are not for the likes of us red wine drinkers. They only live on champagne and lobster, while we still line up for bread that has been half cut with plaster of Paris to make it weigh more. Citizen Tourte will surely be the best also, but he has a reputation for being very slow, especially if you are not a member of the masonic crowd. He makes bows that are like dueling pistols, polished and made for sure aim for your Coup de L’archet. He makes his daughter sort through the hair for him, only picking out the strongest and the most even French sourced hair it is washed three times in bran water and then tinted with a little bluette to make it seem whiter. I myself prefer the hair from the Carpathian horses that is strong enough to play through ten operas at the Feydeau without breaking a single hair. I think though that the widow of citizen Duchesne on the rue Saint-Jaques, whose family used to make affordable and good bows in the times of the Tyrant, would be your best resource. I have heard that she likes to help young musicians. If not her, then the maker Soquet on the Place du Louvre or the shop of my late friend Gaffino on the rue des Prouvaires. Do you remember Camille Desmoulins, and what he did at the Café de Foy to encourage the whole of Paris to take up arms?

https://www.amazon.com/Limits-Citizenship…/dp/0802068375

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_de_Foy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles-Georges_Boyer

https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k12900553.r=%22journal%20de%20violon%22?rk=21459;2#

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Desmoulins

https://ageofrevolutions.com/…/intoxication-and-the…/

“Dear Mr. Puppy,

I know you were in Paris during the French Revolution – How did you avoid being sent to the guillotine? “

Oh my dear, this is a complicated story. Well it is true that I was arrested by the Committee of Public Safety, They had overheard me talking with a suspected royalist in the Café that the Italian musicians and singers frequented. I have to admit I was terrified and after a week in prison, a very unfortunate place to find oneself in those times, they marched me through the streets to appear before the judge, that Minotaur at the center of that evil cabal. They asked me. “Your name? — Puppo. Your profession? — I play the violin. What did you do during the reign of the Tyrant Louis XVI, ?— I played the violin. What do you do currently? — I am playing the violin. What do you plan to do for The Republic if she has need of your services? I will play the violin”. Then they fetched a violin from someone on the street and made me play just to make sure that I was not telling, as the French call it, an ‘incertitude’. I played a fine Neapolitan air, well known by the people of the street who sat as judge and jury by their rabble rousing in that cavernous hall. Finally the Grand Minotaur Antoine Fouquier Tinville bellowed out. “Make sure that we do not see you here again or your neck will not sit so freely on your shoulders”.