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Scan 691
Dictionary of music and musicians, 1908
8 lines. Read by computer on 6 September 2026. Printed page 627. See the scan on archive.org.
1of the Renaissance. The C-shaped (Fig. 2) sound-holes, it was observed, lacked grace, so makers began to twist them about until they assumed the greater elegance of form. An example of this progression is shown in Fig. 5, which is taken from a tenor viol on one of the carved screens of Cremona Cathedral, dating from the first part of the 16th century. This was a distinct step in the right direction; but neither Gasparo da Salò nor Andreas Amati could quite throw aside the C-shape, and the first employed that form for some of his grand tenors. Gasparo da Salò's ff holes are very long and pointed, stiff in appearance and parallel in position, while Andreas Amati's lack symmetry by reason of their being cut too wide. Gasparo's pupil Paolo Maggini (Brescia, 1590-1640), according to Savart's experiments, committed the same error, the muffled tone of his instruments being due to this cause, the contained volume of air within the body of his violins answering to the vibrations of middle D. The brothers Amati and Jerome's son Nicolas—who added a touch of boldness to his father's ff—put grace of design into their sound-holes, but robbed their violins of power by placing them too far apart on the belly. The fallacies inherent to these first attempts were discovered and rectified by Antonius Stradivarius (Cremona, 1644-1737), whose graceful, converging ff holes are acknowledged to be perfect in form, position, proportion, and intent. Although Stradivari had an ingenious method for ascertaining the correct place for his ff holes on the belly of the violin, and fixed upon the main features of these, yet on no two of his instruments can the ff holes be called identical. The spontaneous feeling and charm which characterised the work of his predecessors, who knew neither template nor pattern, or at least did not employ them, were by him preserved with an added touch of necessary exactitude. He realised the efficacy of flatter surfaces and the influence exercised by the contained mass of air, and made his ff holes to suit these ruling factors with a resulting balance of parts impossible to surpass. Deviations from the form or position established by Stradivari have never proved satisfactory.
3What Joseph Guarnerius gained in power by his more heroic form of sound-hole—magnificent as it is in many cases—was at the sacrifice of the tone of the G string. The E A D of his violins are sonorous and brilliant, but the fourth string suffers from combined effects due to the excessive thickness of the plates, and the size of the sound-holes. In these days the form and position of the sound-holes have reached a point of almost mechanical perfection. With the exception of the attempted innovations made by Savart and Chanot, the present f shape has retained its position unchallenged for quite 300 years. Most makers now content themselves with copying the pattern of some one of the great masters, and at the large violin manufactories at MITTENWALD in Saxony and MIRECOURT the imitation is mechanical in the extreme. See the article VIOLIN-MAKING.
5Savart, Mémoire sur la Construction des Instruments à Cordes et à Archet; Gallay, Les Luthiers Italiens; Vidal, Les Instruments à Archet; Yussopoff, Luthomonographie; Mordret, Luthérie Artistique; Maugin et Maigne, Nouveau Manuel complet du Luthier; P. Davidson, The Violin; Hart, The Violin; Hill, Antonio Stradivari; Heron-Allen, Violin-making; Violin Monthly Magazine, No. 5 (edited by J. M. Fleming); Gallay, Les Ancêtres du Violon; Gerber, Musical Lexikon; von Lutgendorff, Die Geigen und Lautenmacher; Bachmann, Le Violon.
7SOUND-POST (Fr. âme; Ital. anima; Ger. Stimmstock). A small pillar of pine wood which stands vertically within the body of the violin and the other instruments of that family. Originally it was a mere structural precaution, brought about by the introduction of the higher pitch, and consequent greater pressure upon the belly of the instrument; but it is in reality the centre round which the vibrations of the body of the instrument focus, and from which they proceed. This important tone-producing factor is made either of fine-grained Swiss pine or spruce wood, and it is placed so that the fibres of its wood run at right angles to those of the belly. Closely fitting against the arching of the back and belly of the instrument, it retains its position under, and slightly behind, the right foot of the bridge, and is kept in position solely by the pressure of the strings upon the belly. Its length depends upon the depth between the back and belly of the instrument for which it is intended, and its diameter is subject to slight alteration, according to the modelling. If the sound-post is too slight, the tone of the instrument in which it is placed will be relatively thin, and the opposite effect is produced where it is too thick. The correct position to be assigned to the sound-post is an important matter, as the smallest variation of position materially alters the tone. The extreme range over which it may be moved is comprised within an area
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