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Scan 417
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1928
10 lines. Read by computer on 12 September 2026. Printed page 367. See the scan on archive.org.
1violin, so Tourte finally settled the model and fittings of the bow. But he had more to do for the bow than Stradivari for the fiddle. The Cremona makers before Stradivari had nearly perfected the model of the violin: it only remained for him to give it certain finishing touches. But Tourte, properly speaking, had no predecessors. He found bow-making in a state of chaos, and he reduced it to a science; and he may be said to have invented the modern bow. Perhaps the best idea of the bows which were in use in Tourte's youth may be gained from the illustrations given under Bow. Before his time all the modern forms of staccato must have been impossible, and the nuances of piano and forte extremely limited; a rawness, especially on the treble strings, and a monotony which to our ears would be intolerable, must have deformed the performances of the best of violinists. The violin, under Tourte's bow, became a different instrument: and subsequent bow-makers have exclusively copied him, the value of their productions depending on the success with which they have applied his principles.
3An examination of Tourte's 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. Tourte's first experiments are said to have been made on the staves of old sugar hogsheads from Brazil: 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 connexion 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, Fétis in his chapter on bows at the end of his Antonio Stradivari (English translation by John Bishop, 1864) says that Tourte'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 1775–80—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. 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 point¹ 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.
5Tourte'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.
7Tourte never stamped his bows. Genuine ones are sometimes found stamped with the name, but this is the work of some other hand. His original nuts are usually of tortoise shell,
9¹ 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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