Un Italien à Paris

Description

Spring 1733: the violinist Giovanni Battista Somis undertook a long journey from Turin, his native city, to Paris, where he performed with the famous Concert spirituel at the Palais des Tuileries, achieving great success. The Mercure de France reported on this event in glowing terms: "The Sieur Sommis, famous violinist of the King of Sardinia, performed various sonatas and concertos with the utmost perfection, and was greatly applauded by the numerous assemblies attracted by the precision and brilliant execution of this great master." Who could have made up these enthusiastic "numerous assemblies"? The Mercure does not mention it. But this historical gap at least allows us to presume the presence of some of his former students, now established in Paris... Indeed, the Italian master had trained the majority of the "sparkling pleiad" — to borrow La Laurencie's expression — of violinists of the time: Guignon, Guillemain and, of course, Leclair the Elder. Could we therefore consider the Piedmontese artist as the father of the French school of virtuoso violin? In any case, he passed on to his French students a brilliant instrumental technique, directly imported from Rome, where Somis himself had inherited it from Corelli: double stops, flamboyant ornaments, staccato and other bariolages would henceforth adorn the works of French violinists, thereby responding to the ideal of the "goûts-réunis" that was emerging at the beginning of this century, characterized by a desire to synthesize French and Italian tastes.