Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 81
Scan 81
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
10 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OLD VIOLINS
3and the Pucelle—i.e., each player upon each instrument once, thus giving four solos, so that the audience might hear the same violins under different fingers—would be an epoch in the musical world. The announcement would doubtless pack St. James's or any other London hall.
5The Pucelle or Virgin is the last Stradivari violin I have space to notice. The "Virgin" is so called because its interior organism had, up to the time when it came into M. Vuillaume's hands, not been interfered with—i.e., the inside bass bar had never been touched. All the old violins have had these bars strengthened, and their necks lengthened, to meet the strain of the modern high-pitch tension of the strings on the belly, and the lengthened finger-board which the development of advanced virtuosity demands.
7These readjustments the Pucelle owes to Vuillaume. She is in fine preservation otherwise, although her varnish is a good deal rubbed in places. Her contour, so fanciful are even good judges, is by some considered more graceful than that of the Messiah, but less graceful by others. To me there seems to be little to choose between them; each is a distinct conception.
9The Virgin's varnish is of a rich soft brown and yellow tone, rather contrasting with the Messiah's bright red. The head is stronger and less graceful than that of some Strads (the Dolphin's, for instance); the Virgin's back is in two parts, the belly is a little higher than that of the Messiah. The only vestige of repair about her is where the chin has rubbed into the
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