Felipe Libon-Caprice ‘La Caccia’

From 30 Caprices dedicated to his teacher, Viotti.  WORKSHOP RECORDING

Felipe Libon-Viotti's pupil and 'musicien de chambre' to the Empress Marie Louise

Philippe (Felipe) Libon’s (1775-1838) parents sent their child  to London from Cadiz to study with Viotti some time between Viotti’s arrival and his first exile from London in 1799. Libon, born in 1775, was in his teens, when he studied with the père créateur.

However wary Viotti was of making a school, it grew around him, whether he liked it or not, rendering it difficult to decide where the limits should be set of his disciples.  Obviously, Libon, Rode, Pixis, Mori and Robbrechts count; these were young boys that he actually taught at various times.  The remaining members of the Paris Conservatoire Troika, Pierre Baillot and Rodolphe Kreutzer, became known as his disciples, although they did not actually study with him, in the modern sense of the word. It is then difficult to exclude his two most influential foreign disciples, Ludwig Spohr, and Charles de Bériot.  These two virtuosi  were individually responsible for founding the first international schools rooted in Viotti’s work, despite their frustration at both having failed to persuade him to teach them.