Scan 80
Antonio Stradivari, his life and work (1644-1737), 1909
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1during 1709 and the following years, but appears to have utilised this form and its proportions from time to time during the remainder of his life, the years 1711, 1712, and 1713 being those in which we more frequently meet with such specimens.
3About 1709 good fortune evidently smiled upon Stradivari, and favoured him with a log of maple, from which he obtained some of the most handsome backs it is possible to see—of one piece and marked by a broad, strong curl of the most striking appearance; they cannot be surpassed either in beauty or in acoustical properties. We meet with these backs up to the years 1715–16, but it is very rare that we find the wood of the sides and head to match. Stradivari probably considered that this was unnecessary, and, looking practically at the matter, he was well aware of the increased difficulties of bending the sides when made from extremely handsome wood. For the heads he no doubt used up all sorts of odd pieces—in the majority of cases selecting wood with but little figure, and thus economising and cutting his handsome wood to the best advantage. In 1710 Stradivari had attained his sixty-sixth year, and, notwithstanding advancing age, we still see him completing instruments of that concise, neat type of form and work which we have tried to portray; but as we proceed we perceive that the whole character of the work assumes a broader and more substantial appearance.
5That Stradivari may have sought to impart a still more substantial appearance to his works than hitherto is to some extent possible; at the same time we cannot ignore the fact that advancing years may have contributed, though insensibly, to this result. Rarely indeed do eye and hand at seventy still retain the cunning of earlier years; and Stradivari, though marvellously endowed with Nature's gifts—as we shall see later on—had to bow to the
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.