Scan 102
Joseph Guarnerius, his work and his master [Andreas Gisalberti], 1906
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 60. See the scan on archive.org.
1concerned in the proper emission of the quality and inherent with the tree from which the wood was obtained, the difficulties would long ago have been surmounted, being a mere mechanical arrangement; Stradivaris, Amatis, Guarneris, and other articles of rarity and price, would have been equalled or even excelled by the aid of the modern tools and appliances at hand.
3The masters of tone production have, however, declared as emphatically as they could through their works, that their secret—if it was such in the ordinary sense of the term—was not to be unravelled by the mechanician.
5To resume our comparisons between master and pupil. There is in the measurement of their violins a general agreement, somewhat distinct and peculiar. It is a fact generally known that an ordinary full-sized specimen of Stradivari's work will measure very closely, if not exactly, fourteen English inches in length from end to end, leaving out the button. This appears to have been his regular full size. Less numerous patterns are met with an eighth of an inch shorter, while others are over the fourteen and up to a quarter of an inch longer; these latter are very exceptional.
7With Joseph Guarnerius and his teacher this is reversed—their general length appears, up to the beginning of his late period, to be an eight or sixteenth under fourteen inches. That this was in conformity with some set rule or requirement from a business point of view, and from which it was undesirable to depart, seems certain; no theory of artistic proportion, or of size in connection with voluminousness or tonal properties of the materials used, seems to account for it. The requirements of a particular class of patrons were probably among the most solid reasons, although we are here again met with the absence of full information concerning many social peculiarities of the period, and which might bear upon the subject.
9Comparing the two makers—master and pupil—with respect to style generally, and in detail, we may again touch upon the Stradivari teaching theory.
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