OLE BULL
A MEMOIR
BY
SARA C. BULL
WITH OLE BULL’S “VIOLIN NOTES,” AND DR. A. BCROSBY’S “ANATOMY OF THE VIOLINIST”
BOSTON
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1883
NOTE.
In preparing this memoir my aim has been to useincidents, criticisms, and tributes which brought outcharacteristic traits, as recognized by others as well asmyself, and to supply only what was needed to makethe sequence clear. Many poems and tributes, andmuch musical criticism, have been necessarily omittedfor want of space. So far as possible, writers have beencredited when quoted, but I desire to make still furtheracknowledgment to Wergeland, Winter Hjelm, Goldschmidt,Mr. Henry Norman, and Professor R. B. Anderson,who prepared a sketch of Norwegian history,which has been given in a more condensed form.
Ole Bull was in Sweden years ago when the “unionmark” was adopted, for use in the Norwegian andSwedish flags. He would himself never float any butthe pure Norwegian colors, and, from the first, wasmost earnest and pronounced in his opinion that nonebut the naval and customs flags should have the unionmark, as the two countries were politically united onlyin their relations to foreign powers. For years he wasalmost alone in this feeling, but the subject has recentlygiven rise to much debate, and even heated controversy.I speak of this here, because a paragraph relatingto the matter was omitted by mistake from thebody of the book.
I cannot too warmly express my thanks for the helpand encouragement given by friends. It is in especialrecognition of the careful interest he has shown that Imention my obligation to Mr. Walter E. Colton. Theadmiration for his work and original research, united toa great personal regard and affection felt for him by myhusband, made me desire to place in his hands the“Violin Notes,” and it should be added that Mr. Coltonhas filled out the Note on the varnish, as he alone couldhave done. In Dr. Crosby’s unfinished paper the bowarm and hand were not treated, and the Tartini letter isadded because Ole Bull considered it the best instructionever offered for the use of the bow. Mr. Fields’stribute was sent from his sick–room, so constant andunfailing was he ever in his thought of others. Membersof my husband’s family have given me anecdotesand helped to verify many incidents, and Mr. AlexanderBull kindly placed at my disposal the correspondence ofhis parents. To Mrs. Botta I owe the beautiful drawingmade for her by Mr. Darley, at the time of OleBull’s first visit to the United States. The engravedportrait is by Mr. J. A. J. Wilcox, from a photographby Mora, taken in 1878. The illustrations for the “ViolinNotes,” from photographs by Mora, have necessarilylost in the reproduction something of their originalbeauty of outline and form, but they serve wel