Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 42
Scan 42
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
12 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 20. See the scan on archive.org.
1part of the instrument is the bridge: we cannot judge of its form from the drawing which accompanies the remarks of Daines Barrington, because the designer has not shown it in perspective; but the drawing given by Jones is satisfactory in this respect. According to the first of these authors, the bridge of the crouth is perfectly flat*; W. Bingley says the same†. Edward Jones is not so definite, for he merely says that the bridge of the crouth is less convex at the top than that of the violin‡; however, in the figure which he gives, the top of the bridge presents a right line. The result of this, and also of the body of the instrument not having any curves in the sides for the passage of the bow, is, that the bow must touch several strings at once, and consequently produce whatever harmony is fingered. I have previously made this remark, in 1835, in my Philosophical Summary of the History of Music.§ Since then, M. Coussemaker has reproduced it.|| There is another peculiarity in the bridge of the crouth, which imparts to it considerable interest for an intelligent observer: this consists in the inequality in the length of its feet, and in its position. Placed obliquely, in inclining towards the
3* "The bridge of the crwth also is perfectly flat."—(Loc. cit. p. 32.)
5† "These (strings) are all supported by a bridge flat at the top, and not, as in the violin, convex."—(Loc. cit.)
7‡ "The bridge of this instrument differs from that of a violin, in being less convex at the top."—A Dissertation on the Musical Instruments of the Welsh, p. 115.
9§ Résumé philosophique de l'histoire de la musique, prefixed to the first edition of my Biographie universelle des Musiciens, vol. i, p. cxxxvii.
11|| Essai sur les instruments de musique du moyen âge, in the Annales archéologiques of Didron, vol. iii, p. 152.
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