Books › A treatise on the structure and preservation of the violin and all other bow-instruments; together with an account of the most celebrated makers, and of the genuine characteristics of their instruments;, 1860 › scan 35
Scan 35
A treatise on the structure and preservation of the violin and all other bow-instruments; together with an account of the most celebrated makers, and of the genuine characteristics of their instruments;, 1860
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 13. See the scan on archive.org.
1Egitia Klotz was the most respectable of the Tyrolese makers, as he sent out all his instruments under his own name. They are made better than any of the violins of his countrymen; for, instead of employing the white larch wood used by them, he manufactured the bellies of good Swiss pine: hence his instruments, which are constructed agreeably to the rules of acoustics, posses a finer and more powerful tone than any other of the Tyrolese. His son, Joseph Klotz, also sent out instruments under his own name; which, as he followed his father's system, but was better acquainted with the quality of wood, are far preferable to those made by him. In their exterior arrangement (Aptirung), however, they all require the hand of a skilful workman; for, in the state in which he left them, they are unfit for use.
3But even if these makers had worked with the same care, and possessed the same skill as we find displayed in the construction of the genuine Cremonese and Steiner's violins, still their instruments would not be equal, for the first year or two, to a Cremonese or Steiner which had been used for upwards of a century.*
5* The use, and not the age of the instrument is the point here insisted on by Otto, as may be seen from a subsequent remark at p. 47; and in reference to the skill of the workman, Mackintosh, before-mentioned, declares that, by following out his theory, respecting the pores of the wood, "it is not only possible to manufacture a good violin with certainty," but by minutely attending to the instructions, as given by him, "a peculiar quality of tone can be effected," which, he says, he states from experience. Savart, too, is equally certain that excellent violins may be made by attending to the results of his experiments, as given in No. III of the Appendix. If all this be true, it may serve in some measure to account for the following statement, translated from the Leipzig Allgem. Mus. Zeitung, XLIV, p. 380—1842:—"The instrument-maker, Darche, of Aachen, has attracted the attention of
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