Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 76
Scan 76
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
8 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1VIOLINS AT CREMONA
3apparently he had nothing to learn. He could at last wield his tools as a Millais or a Tadema wields his brush, a Flaxman his pencil, a Canova his chisel, or as a Mozart or Wagner handles his score. He knew what he wanted, and he could do it, and do it with a spontaneous ease and joy which seems even now to smile to us from the saucy corners of his bouts, the free daring curves of his grand pattern, and the lightly tossed and lifted scrolls.
5No one has failed to notice the masterful ease, the emancipation from all mannerism, the cool defiance of precedent and uniformity, and even symmetry, which characterises his great period from 1700 to 1730.
7The violins are not all alike. Strad knew that the secret was not merely in the pattern or shape; he could vary his curves, and yet produce masterpieces, because he knew all about the air column, the wood densities, and the proportions and quantities which should be combined for the requisite result, and he could mix them differently like a master colourist. He no more treated every violin as if it had the same constitution than does a physician treat every human body alike; it is not so much nitrogenous or carbonaceous food, and so much liquid, but it is these and other things used in proportion, according to your digestion and temperament, which will produce in that instrument, your body, the harmony of health; and how close is the analogy between the constitution of a violin and that of a human body—how varied is the texture, the tissue, quality, fibre, and density of the component
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