on account of the indifference of the audience and the clatter of
the tea-cups; for it was then the custom to serve tea during the
performance, as well as during the intervals. Giornowick turned to the
orchestra and ordered them to cease playing. "These people," said he,
"know nothing about music; anything is good enough for drinkers of warm
water. I will give them something suited to their taste." Whereupon he
played a very trivial and commonplace French air, which he disguised
with all manner of meretricious flourishes, and achieved a great
success. When Viotti arrived in Paris in 1779, Giornowick started on
his travels after having heard this new rival once.

A distinguished virtuoso and composer, with whom Viotti had already been
thrown into contact, though in a friendly rather than a competitive way,
was Boccherini, who was one of the most successful early composers of
trios, quartets, and quintets for string instruments. During the latter
part of Boccherini's life he basked in the sunlight of Spanish royalty,
and composed nine works annually for the Royal Academy of Madrid, in
which town he died in 1806, aged sixty-six. A very clever saying is
attributed to him. The King of Spain, Charles IV, was fond of playing
with the great composer, and was very ambitious of shining as a great
violinist; his cousin, the Emperor of Austria, was also fond of the
violin, and played tolerably well. One day the latter asked Boccherini,
in a rather straightforward manner, what difference there was between
his playing and that of his cousin Charles IV. "Sire," replied
Boccherini, without hesitating for a moment, "Charles IV plays like a
king, and your Majesty plays like an emperor."

Giovanni Battista Viotti was born in a little Piedmontese village called
Fontaneto, in the year 1755. The accounts of his early life are
too confused and fragmentary to be trustworthy. It is pretty well