“Who is it?” inquired the marquis.

“I don’t know,” answered the wife of Rossini.

“You are joking, then?”

“Not at all, but I am sure there is a genius in town, and he lodges close by here,” pointing to Ole Bull’s apartment.  “Take your net,” she added, “and catch your bird before he has flown away.”  The marquis knocked at Ole Bull’s door, and the delighted young artist soon concluded an engagement which insured him an appearance under the best auspices, for Mme. Malibran would sing at the same concert.

In a few hours Ole Bull was performing before a distinguished audience in the concert-hall of the Philharmonic Society.  Among the pieces he played, all of his own composition, was his “Quartet for One Violin,” in which his great skill in double and triple harmonics was admirably shown.  Enthusiastic applause greeted the young virtuoso, and he was escorted home by a torchlight procession of eager and noisy admirers.  This was Ole Bull’s first really great success, though he had played in France and Germany.  The Italians, with their quick, generous appreciation, and their demonstrative manner of showing admiration, had given him a reception of such unreserved approval as warmed his artistic ambition to the very core.  Mme. Malibran, though annoyed at the mischance which glorified another at the expense of De Beriot, was too just and amiable not to express her hearty congratulations to the young artist, and De Beriot himself, when he was shortly afterward introduced to Ole Bull, treated him with most brotherly kindness and cordiality.  Prince and Princess Poniatowsky also sent their cards to the now successful artist, and gave him letters of introduction to distinguished people which wore of great use in his concert tour.  His career had now become assured, and the world received him with open arms.

The following year, 1835, contributed a catalogue of similar successes in various cities of Italy and France, culminating in a grand concert at Paris in the Opera-house, where the most distinguished musicians of the city gave their warmest applause in recognition of the growing fame and skill of Ole Bull, for he had already begun to illustrate a new field in music by setting the quaint poetic legends and folk-songs of his native land.  His specialty as a composer was in the domain of descriptive music, his genius was for the picturesque.  His vivid imagination, full of poetic phantasy, and saturated with the heroic traditions and fairy-lore of a race singularly rich in this inheritance from an earlier age, instinctively flowered into art-forms designed to embody this legendary wealth.  Ole Bull’s violin compositions, though dry and rigorous musicians object to them as lacking in depth of science, as shallow and sensational, are distinctly tone-pictures full of suggestiveness for the imagination.  It was this peculiarity which early began to impress his audiences, and gave Ole Bull a separate place by himself in an age of eminent players.