Books › Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864 › scan 96
Scan 96
Notice of Anthony Stradivari, the celebrated violin-maker, known by the name of Stradivarius:, 1864
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 74. See the scan on archive.org.
1produced from a violin or a bass until after it has been long in use; for here, in this new instrument, we find all the qualities combined of power, mellowness, roundness, delicacy, free vibration, a very superior, noble and penetrating tone. In a word, this violin is a type of external beauty, and of sonorous perfection.
3In regard to the beneficial effects produced on instruments by time—by which, according to the vulgar opinion, the violins of Stradivarius and Guarnerius have attained a portion of their finest qualities—it seems to be forgotten that those of Bocquay, Pierret, Despont, Véron, Guersan, Castagnéry, Saint-Paul, and Salomon, are at least as old as those of Stradivarius, and yet at the present day a hundred francs [£4] could not be obtained even for the best of them. It is likewise forgotten that the Tyrolese makers, who lived in the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth century, have also had the benefit of time for their instruments, and that they had the opportunity of selecting equally good wood; but who would pretend to institute a comparison between their productions and those of the two great masters above-mentioned?
5Something more than time, then, is required, to impart a fine quality of tone to instruments; and even something more than a form of construction agreeable to the eye: regard must be had to the laws of acoustics, and these are what have to be discovered.
7The laws of acoustics, like all those of physical science—that is, of nature—are laws of relation. Every phenomenon, in fact, results from relations between certain elements and certain others. Had Stradivarius
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