Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 83
Scan 83
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
3Bergonzi, his best pupil; and before he goes up into that almost sacred attic, open to the air, at the top of the house, where hang the varnished fiddles and anointed strips a-drying, he mutters a rebuke or rectifies a curve.
5The old man comes to the door, and stands for a moment looking down the street. He wears his woollen nightcap and his inevitable leather apron; he salutes the neighbours as they pass, but they do not stop to speak to him, they know he has no leisure for that. Only later, at the café-cabaret, it may be, he will chat with Joseph Guarnerius, and exhort him to more refinement; or tell his sons they will never uphold the reputation of the firm if they do not work harder; and as it is known that the master detests interruptions at home, in those moments of rare leisure when he emerges with the regularity of clockwork to sip his vino or sirop or coffee, Capelmeister A. or Padre B. or Monsignor C. may surprise him for a chat, and inquire timidly when the violoncello or quartett of violins ordered are likely to be ready, and get for reply something too enigmatic or oracular to be of any service; so patrons or patrons' emissaries had to sit down at Cremona and wait on the master's convenience for the masterpieces that could be got nowhere else.
7His prices seem to have been altogether moderate, but we must remember that the value of money was far greater in those days, a sovereign going then nearly as far as five go now.
9He sold his violins for £10 (=£40); the original
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.