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Scan 140
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
6 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 126. See the scan on archive.org.
1the secret of which has long been lost to us. But they have left us their models, and it is only by properly trained study of these that we can hope to approach their excellence. For about a hundred and fifty years isolated efforts, aided, in one or two cases, by scientific research, have resulted chiefly in failures, though they have not all been failures, but there never has been, in any country, anything in the nature of a school in which the discoveries made from time to time have been patiently followed up and tabulated.* The art of violin making has been, in a measure, lost, probably through negligent teaching or careless learning, but it is pre-eminently worthy of resuscitation; it is an art, moreover, whose professors too frequently act as if they considered it to be a sort of personal quality which ought to be buried with them in their graves, as with Dodd and Vuillaume in the matter of their varnishes; but that is surely a very narrow view to take, and it appears to me that no time could be more fitting to bring this reticent method of acting to an end than the present, when all sorts of technical schools are being established, and the musical genius of this country is spreading her wings for a more sustained, and, perhaps, a loftier flight.
3Earlier in this chapter I mentioned some German makers who chiefly occupied themselves with imitations
5* These lines were first published in The Bazaar just thirteen months ago, and now, while the present pages are passing through the press, comes the news that the makers of Markneukirchen have (March, 1883) held a trade meeting, at which it was determined to apply for a State grant for the purpose of establishing a workshop where the art of violin making may be taught. The German makers seem clearly alive to the necessity of some such institution.
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