A great violinist and violin maker.

Of course, he achieved immortality not so much with his virtuoso violin playing as with the invention of the “Multiple Violin”, the “Multi-violin”.

In the beginning it was just a Duoviole.

Having become a professional violinist, Metastasio also gave master classes to the most talented young violinists, whom he selected as students after a very rigorous exam.

And once a boy with a picolo violin, that is, a small violin, and a young girl with an adult violin came to him for an exam. He asked them to play a duet of some sonatina by capriccio Paganini. They started playing, but the duet didn’t work out. Extremely annoyed by this obviously “mismatched” playing, Matestasio snatched Picolo’s violin from the boy’s hands and began playing the girl’s violin with IT! By doing this, he actually wanted to show them the absurdity and low level of their mastery of the violin, but he suddenly froze in amazement. Picolo’s violin, which he used as a bow, also produced beautiful sounds AT the SAME time as the sound of the “big” violin.

Then he realized that he had accidentally made a discovery in the method of violin making. Usually a bow can make two strings sound, but not three or four or five! And Metastasio, at the very first contact, made four strings sounded synchronously (two on one and two on the other violin). So, he realized, if an ordinary bow, which also “sounds” when playing, but inaudibly, is replaced with a light small violin, this will enormously expand the sound range of violin playing, since BOTH violins have resonators and both can sound synchronously when interacting, albeit in different ways!!! Of course, we had to change the material of the strings on the bowed violin, which, however, did not worsen its sound at all.

By lightly pressing the bowed violin against the big one, he made six strings sound at the same time! A kind of long-lasting sounding chord, which no stringed instrument can do. A piano can create a chord from a multitude of sounds, but it is only a brief and fading chord, not a long-lasting polyphony.

The double violin has become a string organ!

His talented students made the bowed violin double-sided and thus further expanded the sound range of the chord sound. A little later, they added “two-sidedness” to the main violin. One violin can play a tremolo, the other – without! If you simultaneously pluck one string with one finger of the hand controlling the sound of the bowed violin, then plucked sounds are also introduced into the chords and polyphony!!!

Thus, Metastasio actually invented a stringed (rather than a wind) organ, allowing one virtuoso violinist to imitate a whole group of violinists very synchronously!!! Two, three, four such virtuosos will make up a real violin ensemble!

Of course, this requires a higher technique of instrument mastery, which both Metastasio and his students mastered flawlessly.

Cellists and double bassists also began to think about “adopting the idea” for their instruments.

Even flutists, cornetists, trombonists, clarinetists, oboists, bassoonists, saxophonists, trumpeters and other masters of wind music are thinking about doubling, at least, their instruments …

The great initiative of Metastasio Schiavone was not in vain!

On his grave in Genoa, in its famous cemetery, there is a monument to the great violinist and violin maker: Two crossed violins made of white Carrara marble, touching the strings to each other.

And on the slab of the monument are carved the words of Julian Tuvim, which the great maestro was very fond of repeating:

“If a person doesn’t have a sense of humor, they SHOULD at least have the feeling that they don’t have a sense of humor!”

His grateful fans and followers say that when a gust of wind touches these strings, they hear the wonderful sounds of the great master himself!

Truly, the “music of the starry spheres”!

This is musical immortality!

We will also honor his blessed memory…

4 I 2021