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Scan 52
British Violin Makers, 1920
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 32. See the scan on archive.org.
1proof of the contention that varnish has nothing to do with tone is beside the mark, for such violins have been robbed of only their surface varnish. All the instruments of the masters may be said to be embalmed bodies, the varnish having permeated their whole fabric, so that now they are really neither wood nor varnish, but a sort of compound of both. Every fraction of a drop of the varnish which these instruments have absorbed has entered into indissoluble relationship with the molecules of the wood. The Rev. H. R. Haweis very pithily observes: "Time, that sometimes robs it [the violin] of a little varnish, has no power over its anointed fabric. The hard durable substance steeped in silicate-like varnish has well-nigh turned to stone, but without sacrificing a single quality of sweetness or resonance." (Old Violins, p. 13.)
3Little can be said about the tone of modern instruments. Its qualities, unlike those of outline, model, and workmanship, can be fully known only in the future, when time and legitimate use have wrought their beneficial effect. It may be said, however, that it fully justifies the belief that violinists of the future will have cause to remember gratefully the names of the old artists who carved, and varnished, and took thought for the morrow.
5Note. An important contribution to the literature of the violin appeared some few years back, entitled: "The Varnishes of the Italian Violin Makers of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries, and their Influence on Tone," by George Fry, F.L.S., F.C.S. London: Stevens & Sons, Limited. The author has a wide knowledge of the chemistry of varnishes and of vegetable life.
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