Books › Old violins and violin lore. Famous makers of Cremona and Brescia, and of England, France, and Germany (with biographical dictionary); famous players; and chapters on varnish, strings and bows, 1893 › scan 45
Scan 45
Old violins and violin lore. Famous makers of Cremona and Brescia, and of England, France, and Germany (with biographical dictionary); famous players; and chapters on varnish, strings and bows, 1893
8 lines. Read by computer on 14 September 2026. Printed page 37. See the scan on archive.org.
1wood as in the Amatis; the art of wood selection for sonority and sensitiveness seems already to have reached the 1650 Cremona level. The sound-holes are more delicate, but still a little quaint; they are invariably bevelled inwards, a practice entirely discarded by the Cremona masters.
3Sir Joseph Chitty's, and Mr Sternberg's, and the Dumas' tenors are good specimens of Maggini's first independent work illustrating the above characteristics. The Dumas family were friends of Beethoven, and enthusiastic admirers of Maggini's work. They possessed at least one valuable "chest" of his instruments. A chest is described by an old writer as "a large hutch with several compartments and partitions in it, each lined with green baize" (we have since gone heavily into velvet and plush).
5There are only about eight violas or tenors of Maggini's known; they do not vary in their proportions.
7The model of the Dumas viola is of the master's most arched type—a feature much exaggerated by Stainer and his followers. It is, like almost all this master's specimens, adorned with double purfling, set close to the edge, with the usual Maggini bevel at the corner joints. These corners give it a special physiognomy; they are short, and make no appeal to the eye like the later Cremonas. The tenor's \( \parallel \) holes are upright, short, and broad; they are higher than in the same maker's violins, the top curves as usual larger than the bottom ones, the back and belly both in two pieces; the bass bar and blocks inside have been strengthened;
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