Books › INTRUMENTSO F THE MODERN ORCHESTRA & EARLY RECORD OF THE PRECURSORS OF THE VIOLIN FAMILY, 1910 › scan 249
Scan 249
INTRUMENTSO F THE MODERN ORCHESTRA & EARLY RECORD OF THE PRECURSORS OF THE VIOLIN FAMILY, 1910
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 195. See the scan on archive.org.
1The celebrated old Italian instruments, the Strads, Amatis, and Guarneri, are growing old; the wood has attained its highest point of perfection, and as it is unfortunately perishable, the chefs-d'œuvre of the old Cremona and Brescia masters must one day decline and perish; there is therefore, every need to have good violins ready to replace them.
3The general outline and proportions of the Italian violin have been empirically determined, and no rules or laws of acoustics have yet been discovered that account for their beauty of tone, nor that would enable any maker to obtain the same results from those models. Dr. Stelzner asserts that the old Italian violins excell all others in beauty of tone, in spite of a construction which runs counter to the laws of acoustics, because age and use have mellowed the wood, and because their form is the nearest to perfection yet attained. By serious study and experiments in the domain of sound, and more especially in connection with its production in the sound chests of stringed instruments, Dr. Stelzner has discovered that the quality of tone produced depends upon the energy of the soundwaves generated within the body of the instrument by the molecular vibrations of the air; also that quality is influenced by the coincidence of the foci of these waves.
5The present semi-circular outline of the shoulder and tail-end of the violin are therefore distinctly unfavourable to an increase in the quantity or the quality of tone.
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