Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Books › An Encyclopedia of the Violin, 1925 › scan 144

Scan 144

An Encyclopedia of the Violin, 1925

42 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 118. See the scan on archive.org.

1AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE VIOLIN
3AMERICAN BOW MAKERS
5A number of bow makers, some of foreign birth and several American born, reside in the United States, and produce bows of real excellence. The following list will prove of interest:
7ALDRED, JOHN, Buffalo, N. Y.
8BENDER, E. W., Newman, Ill.
9COPLAND, J. N., Chicago, Ill.
10CUSHMAN, JOHN, Collins, O.
11GUETTER, JULIUS, Philadelphia, Pa.
12KARR, ALBERT H., Kansas City, Mo.
13KNOPF, HENRY R., New York City.
14LYEKI, LOUIS, St. Louis, Mo.
16MANY, JOHN A., Washington, D. C.
17MATHEWSON, C. H., Providence, R. I.
18REINDAHL, KNUTE, Madison, Wisc.
19ROBINSON, ROBERT, Portland, Ore.
20ROY, BEN J., Seattle, Wash.
21TUBBS, EDWARD, New York City.
22VALIANCE, FRED G., Detroit, Mich.
23ZIMMERMAN, JAMES S., Asheville, N. C.
25CONSTRUCTION OF THE BOW
27It is absolutely essential that the violinist have some knowledge of the construction of this mysterious wand which, externally of incomparable lightness and elegance in appearance, is nevertheless subjected to the hardest usage. The building of the violin bow has attained its present day perfection largely owing to the genius of the French craftsmen of the Tourte family, the greatest of whom was François Tourte, who died in Paris in 1835.
29Vuillaume has the following to say anent the Tourte bow:
31"Tourte established the length of the violin bow, from one end to the other, as being between 29.13 inches and 29.52 inches.
33"The bow is composed of a cylindrical or prismoid portion whose dimensions are fixed, and whose length is 110 millimeters (4 3/10"). When this portion of the bow is cylindrical it is about one-third of an inch in diameter.
35"From this cylindrical or prismoid portion on, the diameter of the bow decreases until its head has been reached, where it is deduced that the stick has ten points where its diameter is necessarily reduced 3/10 mm. (2/27"), beginning at the cylindrical portion.
37"I discovered, by examining a large number of Tourte bows, that these ten points are always found at lessening distances from each other; and this not alone in the case of one and the same stick, but that on various other bows which I have compared as well, the distances between the points were practically the same."
39Vuillaume carried on investigations for the purpose of discovering whether it would not be possible to verify the positions of these ten points graphically, so that they could be exactly determined in every case. If this could be done, it would be possible to construct bows whose excellence would always be fixed in advance. Vuillaume achieved his purpose in the following manner:
41"At the end of the straight line AB (Plate 37), having a length of 0 m, 700 (27 5/10"), that is to say, the length of the bow, a perpendicular

Makers on this page

The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.