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, 1875 › scan 39
Scan 39
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, 1875
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 23. See the scan on archive.org.
1none but what are higher. Their shape is very fine, but not so obtuse in the corners as those of Jerome Amati. The corners and edges are beautifully finished; and the purfling is still broader than in the instruments of the last-named maker, and not inlaid very near the edge. The f-holes are finely cut and lie rather near together, as is the case in all genuine Italian instruments. The back, neck, and sides are made of very beautifully-figured maple,* and the instruments are covered with a dark brown amber varnish. Some of them have a yellow-brown varnish; but dark brown is the more usual colour. There are some which in shape closely approximate to the violins of Jerome Amati, and are also constructed rather higher than those before-mentioned. These have a mahogany-coloured amber varnish.†
3sur les Instruments de Musique dans l'Exposition universelle de Paris, en 1855, p. 34. The strain or tension of the strings here commented on, while chiefly affecting the violin in a longitudinal direction, also exercises a vertical pressure on the belly of the instrument, where the bridge stands; which is more or less according to the height of the bridge and the angle formed by the strings upon it. In 1840, Savart found this pressure to be equal to about 24 pounds. The Abbé Sibire, in 1806 (see La Chélonomie), estimated the tension of the strings at 64 or 65 pounds, thus indicating at that time but a very small rise in the pitch since the date of Tartini's experiment. Zamminer, in his very interesting work, Die Musik und die musikalischen Instrumente (Giessen, 1855), puts the tension at about 54 pounds; but this may be a typographical error, unless, indeed, his investigations were made with thinner strings than those of Tartini and Sibire, which seems improbable.—Tr.
5* In some of his violoncellos, in a tenor, and in viols of various kinds, he used poplar for the back, but this was contrary to his usual habit.—Tr.
7† We are informed by Gallay, that M. Chanot, of Paris, (a brother of the naval officer mentioned at p. 74), once had under his hands a very curious specimen of Stradivari's workmanship, namely, a guitar-shaped violin, with a flat belly. (See Les Luthiers Italiennes aux 17e et 18e Siècles, Paris, 1869, p. 166).—Tr.
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