Scan 54
A Treatise On The Structure And Preservation Of The Violin, 1875
8 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Persons of the above description spoil instruments even worse than a careless repairer, and seriously injure both themselves and their musical friends. About half a year ago [1817], I received two Tyrolese violins which had been in such a musical laboratory, which convinced me that these gentlemen were emulating the alchymist, who desired to convert his lead into gold, but obtained only ashes for his pains: and so it happened with their instruments.
3Other very injurious experiments tried on violins have come under my notice, such as covering the belly with a mixture of glue and powdered glass: but this, instead of answering the object had in view, only tended to make the instrument worse. This injury, however, may be rectified. Another and irremediable damage has been done to violins by a late pianoforte-maker at Halle; who, conceiving the idea that they were too old, and that the wood had lost all its capability of producing a good tone, sought to restore it by dissolving rosin in pine-oil and soaking the instruments therein, which utterly ruined them. It is well for violins that this art died with Herr Weickert; at least, I have heard of no one following his example.
5To describe other equally ridiculous experiments with varnish, white of egg, and so on, in order to close the pores of the wood—putting cross-beams on the back and belly—placing the sound-post on a strong cross-beam, &c. would be foreign to my purpose, which is simply to caution the public against the pretended improvements of such men, who are destitute of sound knowledge in respect to what is good or bad for instruments.* It were better to endure patiently
7* Some of the more recent inventions and improvements of this stamp—or vagaries, as Otto, perhaps, would call them—are collected together in a note at the end of this treatise, pp. 50, et seq.—Tr.
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