896. He was compared with Ysaye, a
player of an entirely different stamp, and he suffered in popular
estimation by the comparison.

To this period also belong a number of excellent violinists whose names
are seldom heard in America. Edmund Singer, a Hungarian, born in 1831,
by dint of hard work and talent reached a high position. He became
celebrated as a teacher, and was for years professor of violin at the
conservatory in Stuttgart. He was also largely instrumental in the
establishment of the Musical Artists' Society of that place.

Ferdinand Laub was a virtuoso of high rank who was born in Prague in
1832. He succeeded Joachim at Weimar, but two years later became violin
teacher at the Stern-Marx conservatory in Berlin, also concert-master of
the royal orchestra and chamber virtuoso.

Heinrich Karl de Ahna was an excellent artist, and was for some years
second violin in the famous Joachim quartet. At the age of fourteen he
had already made a successful concert tour, and become chamber virtuoso
to the Duke of Coburg-Gotha. He then abandoned the musical profession
and entered the army, fighting in the Italian campaign as lieutenant.
After the war he returned to his profession, and became leader of the
royal band in Berlin and professor at the Hochschule. He died in 1892.

Russia also produced an excellent violinist, Wasil Wasilewic
Besekirskij, who was born at Moscow, and after a career as virtuoso in
the west of Europe returned to his native city. He is the composer of
some good violin music and has formed some excellent pupils, of whom
Gregorowitsch is perhaps best known.

In England, John Tiplady Carrodus and the Holmes brothers attained high
rank. Carrodus was a native of Keighley, Yorkshire. His father was a
barber, and it was only by the most constant self-denial and incessant
hard work that the boy succeeded in securing his education. He walked
with his father twelve miles in order to hear Vieuxtemps play, and to
take his lessons he walked each week ten miles to Bradford, usually
getting a ride back in the carrier's cart. He became a pupil of Molique,
and eventually one of the best known violinists of England, where his
character as a man was always highly respected.

Alfred Holmes was born in 1837 and his brother Henry in 1839. They
appeared together at the Haymarket Theatre in 1847, but immediately
withdrew from public life and continued their studies for six more
years. In 1853 they again appeared in Lon