Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 80
Scan 80
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
3level and lavish. It seemed to have left the workshop only the day before; the anointed glitter of the fresh varnish was upon it, it looked hardly dry. It is of the grand pattern, but not heavy and massive like some of the great Del Gesu's, but beautiful as a Pheidian carving, full of a certain special grace and elegance. One "f" is a shade lower than the other—a practice so common with Strad, especially in his later period, that it must have been intentional, his artistic eye not tolerating even the suggestion of mechanical uniformity. The Greeks worked similarly, no two sides of their Corinthian capitals ever quite matching.
5The "Messiah" back is in two pieces, the corners are absolutely unrubbed, and completely covered with varnish—of no other specimen can this be said. The head is light and graceful, "the scroll," as I have elsewhere observed, thrown off like a ribbon lightly curled about the finger, and drawn in, one side of the scroll cut a little lower than the other; the lines of the scroll are picked out with thick black paint; only faint traces of this remain in other violin heads. The black outline was artistically conceived, as it called full attention to the scroll curve, always so characteristic a part of violin physiognomy.
7As the Messiah recently bought by Mr. Crawford of Edinburgh for £2000 has now been played upon, it seems a pity that the world should not sometimes be allowed to hear its voice; and I venture to say that a well-advertised concert, in which two of our finest violinists should be invited to play on the Messiah
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