Scan 35
Georg Gemünder's Progress In Violin Making 1881, 1881
8 lines. Read by computer on 19 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1of age, and in no respect detrimental to the tone; but amateurs, desirous of making improvements where none at all are required, have had their violins taken to pieces on account of the above-mentioned circumstance, and by the insertion of long and heavy bass-bars checked the accurately calculated vibration.* Yet, even in this case, if no wood has been scraped away, this injury may be rectified by a maker possessed of the requisite knowledge; but if any of the wood has been taken out, the evil cannot then be corrected without impairing the tone.
3It has already been remarked that the model of the Straduarius violins is very flat: indeed, I have hitherto met with
5* It is certain that the bass-bars were as accurately proportioned, by the great makers Straduarius and Guarnerius, as all the other parts of their instruments; but the excessive rise in the musical pitch which has taken place since the commencement of the eighteenth century, and especially since Otto first published his book, appears to leave us only the alternative either of suffering the ultimate destruction of valuable violins, or of giving them somewhat stronger bass-bars, so as to resist, in an efficient manner, the greatly increased tension of the strings.
7The celebrated Tartini found by experiment, in 1734, that the strain of the four strings over the belly of a violin was equal to a weight of 63 pounds, and the strings were then thinner and the bridge less elevated than at present; so that the angle formed by the strings was considerably less than it is now. Five-and-twenty years ago, the first string required a weight equal to 22 pounds, in order to bring it up to pitch; the second string required rather more than 20 pounds, and the other two a little less. The total strain was then about 80 pounds; the pitch having risen a semitone since 1734, the strings being also thicker, and the angle formed by them upon the bridge being more acute. The pitch having again risen nearly a semitone since 1830, it would now doubtless be found by experiment that the strain of the four strings on a violin is equal to 90 pounds or upwards. Hence the necessity of preserving the masterpieces of the great violin makers from a strain which they were never constructed to bear; and hence, also, another argument in favour of a reduction of the musical pitch. See M. Fétis's Rapport.
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