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 54
Scan 54
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
12 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 38. See the scan on archive.org.
1depends. I have myself remedied many glaring defects of an instrument by means of a correct sound-post. In good instruments, the proper place for the sound-post is half an inch behind the right foot of the bridge; but, in faulty ones, it may be placed rather nearer, in order to give greater fulness, and to improve the tone.*
3The holes for the pegs should not be made too conical. The pegs themselves, the best of which are made of box-wood or ebony, must be fitted to the holes with a file. When they have worn smooth and will not hold, they should by no means be rubbed with rosin, chalk being much better for tightening them.†
5The foregoing rules are also mostly applicable to tenors
7* This statement of the author is supported by a remark of Welcker von Gontershausen, who, in his work published in 1855, p. 216, says that, in undamaged violins, the position of the sound-post is from 46 to 50 hundredth parts of an inch behind the right foot of the bridge. For some important remarks on the bridge and sound-post, the reader is recommended to consult Spohr's Violin School, Part I., Sec. 2.
9A few years ago, hollow glass sound-posts were tried, and the results announced by M. Petizeau to the Academy of Sciences in Paris. "By this device," it is said, "very ordinary violins may acquire properties of sound only to be met with in instruments of the first order." In the Leipzig Allgem. Mus. Zeitung for 1811, p. 75, a German instrument maker and musician, John Anthony Hänsel, declares that numerous experiments and close comparisons have convinced him that "a broad, thin, and splinter-like sound-post is far preferable to the ordinary round form," although extremely difficult to set up, and requiring the greatest accuracy to ensure success.—Tr.
11† Several mechanical pegs have been invented for the purpose of more perfectly resisting the tension of the strings, but they have not met with much favour from violinists; perhaps on account of their expense (or, in some cases, their complexity), as a new set of wooden pegs can be soon fitted, when really necessary, at a very trifling cost. The simplest mechanical contrivance of the above nature, known to the editor, consists of a round-headed screw, which, being passed
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