Nicola Matteis

Nicola Matteis
(b Naples; d Colkirk, Norfolk, after 1713). Italian violinist, guitarist and composer.

He was resident in England; it seems that he arrived there in about 1670. According to Roger North (on whom we are dependent for details of Matteis’s life) ‘his circumstances were low, and it was say’d that he travelled thro’ Germany on foot with his violin under a full coat at his back’. He must have been living virtually unnoticed in London for some years by the time John Evelyn first heard him play at a private music meeting in November 1674. Evelyn’s reaction was one of amazement:

I heard that stupendious Violin Signor Nicholao (with other rare Musitians) whom certainly never mortal man Exceeded on that instrument: he had a stroak so sweete, & made it speake like the Voice of a man; & when he pleased, like a Consort of severall Instruments: he did wonders upon a Note: was an excellent composer also … nothing approch’d the Violin in Nicholas hand: he seem’d to be spirtato’d & plaied such ravishing things on a ground as astonish’d us all.