Books › Old violins, 1910 › scan 41
Scan 41
Old violins, 1910
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 35. See the scan on archive.org.
1If you consider Maggini's period (1560-1632) you will see how exactly the direction of his genius was conditioned by the demands of his age.
3The singing-schools of Naples had resulted in a call for stringed instruments in increased numbers, but the old viols were seen to correspond ill to the altered times, and the need for an instrument which would render leading melodies effectively was felt just in proportion as such melodies became multiplied with the rise of vocal music, sacred and profane.
5Most writers on the violin seem to have a passion for cutting up a maker's life into periods, as though a man could rise one morning and say, "Go to now, let us enter upon period number three, in which the back shall be sloped so, and the belly brought down thus, and the curve of the bouts tilted, contracted, or elongated thus." All that can be safely said is, after such and such a time Maggini or Amati dropped or adopted this or that feature as a rule, and we may infer that a maker came under such and such influences, and so forth.
7Now I come to speak of Maggini, I will trace roughly but clearly what may be called his continuous development, rather than any so-called three periods.
9Naturally at first the pupil made like his master Gasparo. His violins suggested big viols on a small scale. They had a heavy look; they were of large size, which makes the sides seem lower than they are, for in reality the ribs are not higher than those of the Amati.
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