Books › Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1904 › scan 162
Scan 162
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1904
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1of Tourte's own bows proves that his first care was to select wood of fine but strong texture, and perfectly straight grain, and his second to give it a permanent and regular bend. This was effected by subjecting it in a state of flexion to a moderate heat for a considerable time. To apply a sufficient degree of heat to the very marrow of the stick without rendering the exterior brittle, is the most difficult part of the bow-maker's art: cheap and bad bows have never been thoroughly heated, and their curvature is therefore not permanent. Tourte's first experiments are said to have been made on the staves of old sugar hogsheads from Brazil. This is not unlikely: probably the bent slabs of Brazil wood employed for this purpose had acquired a certain additional elasticity from the combined effect of exposure to tropical heat and the absorption of the saccharine juices: and in connection with the latter it has been suggested that the dark colour of the Tourte sticks is not wholly attributable to age, but partly to some preparation applied to them in the process of heating. The writer cannot agree with this suggestion, especially as some of Tourte's finest bows are extremely pale in colour. Be this as it may, it is certain that the greater elasticity which he secured in the stick by the choice and preparation of the wood enabled him to carry out to the fullest extent the method of bending the stick of the bow the reverse way, that is, inwards, and thus to realise what had long been the desideratum of violinists, a bow which should be strong and elastic without being heavy. By thus increasing and economising the resistance of the stick he liberated the player's thumb and fingers from much useless weight. [On the subject of the wood employed by Tourte, M. Fétis in his chapter on bows at the end of his Antonio Stradivari (English translation by Mr. John Bishop, 1864) says that the great bow-maker's indefatigable investigations led him to experiment in all kinds of wood which seemed likely to bring about the realisation of his ideal. He soon discovered that Pernambuco wood alone combined the requisite lightness and stiffness. Unfortunately the maritime wars between France and England were a serious obstacle to the importation of Pernambuco wood during the period—from 1775 to 1780—during which Tourte's most important discoveries were made. The price of this wood, used mostly for dyeing purposes, rose to nearly five shillings a pound, and in addition to this pecuniary consideration, there was great difficulty in finding a straight billet, for the wood is of a knotty and crooked growth. Sometimes in eight or ten tons of Pernambuco wood scarcely one piece of wood suitable for making bow-sticks can be found. Owing to this scarcity of material during the period of Tourte's greatest creative activity he was compelled to charge high prices for his bows.] By a series, no doubt, of patient experiments, he determined the right curvature for the stick, and the rule for tapering it gradually towards the point,1 so as to have the centre of gravity in the right place, or in other words to 'balance' properly over the string in the hand of the player. He determined the true length of the stick, and the height of the point and the nut, in all which particulars the bow-makers of his time seem to have erred on the side of excess. [Previously to the year 1775, nothing had been determined regarding the length, weight, and condition of equilibrium of the bow. Tourte's penetration, aided by the actual experience of the virtuosi of his day, enabled him to decide the most perfect proportions of the bow to be between 29·134 and 29·528 inches in length including the button. He decreased the diameter up to the head, giving a difference of ·13 inches between the extremities, and also determined the distance of the hair from the stick by the heights of the head and rest.] Lastly, he invented the method of spreading the hairs and fixing them on the face of the nut by means of a movable band of metal fitting on a slide of mother-of-pearl. The bow, as we have it, is therefore the creation of the genius of Tourte.
3Tourte's improvements in the bow were effected after 1775. Tradition says that he was materially assisted in his work by the advice of Viotti, who arrived in Paris in 1782. Nothing is more likely; for only an accomplished violinist could have formulated the demands which the Tourte bow was constructed to satisfy. Viotti no doubt contributed to bring the Tourte bow into general use, and it is certain that it quickly drove the old barbarous bows completely from the field, and that in Paris there at once arose a school of bow-makers which has never been excelled.
5For the excellent bows which thus became for the first time obtainable, violinists were willing to pay considerable sums. Tourte charged 12 louis d'or for his best bows mounted in gold. As the makers increased in number the prices fell; but the extreme rarity of fine Pernambuco wood perfectly straight in grain has always contributed to keep up the price of the very best bows. Tourte's bows, of which during a long life he made an immense number, are common enough; but owing to the great number of almost equally good ones which were made by his successors, only extraordinary specimens fetch very high prices. A very fine Tourte has been recently sold for £30: common ones vary in price from £5 to £10. It is a singular fact that there is no difference of opinion among violinists as to Tourte's merits. His bows are universally preferred to all others:
71 Mathematically investigated, Tourte's bow, when unstrung, is found to form a logarithmic curve, the ordinates of which increase in arithmetical proportion, and the abscissas in geometrical proportion.
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