Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 102
Scan 102
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1VIOLINS IN GERMANY
3this would not be far to seek. It is quite notorious, though to us amazing, that the differences between the Amati, the Strad, the Guarnerius, and the Bergonzi or Ruggerius, should not have been more clearly apprehended. When, for instance, a man—an orchestral leader, too—had bought a Ruggerius and paid for a Joseph, we do not find that he was dissatisfied with it until he discovered that the label was false. The superb qualities of the great Joseph have been appreciated only since the Strad craze; but the world-wide cult of Strad dates from Tarisio, who began his work of violin exploration and discovery in 1827, dying only in 1854. But any tyro would be arrested by the clear, sharp, biting tone of Stainer. A violinist in the orchestra could make his Stainer cut through all the first fiddles, and once the taste for that sort of tone was excited, it would be to the ear what curry, or vinegar, or quinine bitter, or absinthe is to the palate. The Stainer tone is a sort of drastic, stinging stimulant to the ear, almost an intoxication; and the ear that has been once caught by it craves for it, and misses it even in the loud richness of Joseph, the exquisite velvety timbre of Amati, or the superb ringing brightness of the great Antonio.
5Thus, in his own original way, Stainer met the crying want of his age for loud and piercing tone. He was the very antipodes of the tubby, muffled sound of the old viols. With a bound he reached the opposite pole. The coarse ears of the multitude were at once tickled and "grisé," as the French say, by his wiry
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