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Scan 202
Old violins, 1905
8 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1When we remember that a couple only of these gems would realise now more than the sum Vuillaume paid for the lot, we may well remember the proverb, "He laughs best who laughs last."
3A VIGNETTE OF PAGANINI.
5I have advisedly steered clear in this collector's volume of violin-players and violin-music, excepting in so far as they acted or reacted in any way upon the violin and its progress towards perfection. From this point of view, the growth of music appears to be responsible for the definition and survival (as the fittest) of the violin, violoncello, and double bass; and virtuosity is certainly responsible for the lengthening of the violin-neck and finger-board, the strengthening of the sound-bar to resist an increased string-tension, and the lengthening of the bow. But virtuosity can claim nothing more than these trifling details. The Strad pattern of 1684 to 1700 has remained completely unaffected by the feats, vagaries, or demands of soloists.
7In this the grand pattern violin stands out in sharp and singular contrast to the old grand pianoforte. The imperious demands of Liszt and Thalberg, Rubinstein and his followers, have compelled a series of improvements in strength, sonority, delicate mechanism, and sensibility, undreamed of by the old firms, and only perfected by the later Erards, Broadwoods, Collards, and Steinways. But not a single substantial improve-
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