A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Lolli, Antonio
LOLLI, Antonio, a celebrated violinist, born at Bergamo about 1730. If it cannot be doubted that he was a most extraordinary performer, he appears certainly also to have been the type of an unmusical, empty-headed virtuoso, and in addition a complete fool.
Hardly anything is known of the earlier part of his life and career. It is however generally assumed that he was almost entirely self-taught. We know for certain that he was at Stuttgart in 1762 with Nardini. There he remained, attached to the court of the Duke of Würtemberg, till 1773, when he went to St. Petersburg, where he is said to have enjoyed the special favour of the Empress Katherine II. He remained in her service till 1778. In 1779 he came to Paris and played with great success at the Concert spirituel. After this he went to Spain, and in 1785 we find him in London, where however, according to Burney, he appeared but seldom in public. He continued to travel, and we read of his appearance now at Palermo, now at Copenhagen; then again at Vienna or Naples. He died in Sicily in 1802.
According to all contemporaneous testimony Lolli was an extraordinary performer, but an indifferent musician. Schubart, the well-known German poet and musician, who had many opportunities of hearing both him and Nardini, speaks with unmeasured praise of Lolli's feats of execution, the wonderful ease and absolute certainty with which he played the most difficult double stops, octaves, tenths, double-shakes in thirds and sixths, harmonics, etc. As to his having been a bad musician, or rather no musician at all, the testimonies are equally unanimous. The Abbé Bertini plainly states that Lolli could not keep time, could not read even easy music, and was unable to play an Adagio properly. On one occasion, when asked to play an Adagio, he said: 'I am a native of Bergamo; we are all born fools at [1]Bergamo,—how should I play a serious piece?' When in England, he almost broke down in a Quartet of Haydn which the Prince of Wales had asked him to play. If, with all these drawbacks as a musician, he nevertheless created wherever he played an immense sensation, we are all the more compelled to believe that his powers of execution were of the most exceptional kind.
He is described as a handsome man, but a great dandy and charlatan, very extravagant, and a gambler. The Emperor Joseph II, himself a very fair musician, habitually called him 'muddle-headed Lolli' (der Faselhans). Burney (Hist. iv. 680) writes that 'owing to the eccentricity of his style of composition and execution, he was regarded as a madman by most of the audience. In his freaks nothing can be imagined so wild, difficult, grotesque, and even ridiculous as his compositions and performance.' True, Burney adds, 'I am convinced that in his lucid intervals he was in a serious style a very great, expressive, and admirable performer,' but it appears doubtful whether Burney ever heard him in a 'lucid interval,' and therefore his 'conviction' is gratuitous.
His compositions (Concertos and Sonatas for the violin), poor and insipid as they are, yet are said to have been his own productions in a limited sense only. We are assured that he wrote a violin part only, and that this was corrected, furnished with accompaniments, and brought into shape, by another hand.- ↑ In Signor Alfredo Piatti, Bergamo has produced a signal contradiction to this statement.