Books › The fiddle fancier's guide; a manual of information regarding violins, violas, basses and bows of classical and modern times, together with biographical notices and portraits of the most famous performers on these instruments, 1892 › scan 38
Scan 38
The fiddle fancier's guide; a manual of information regarding violins, violas, basses and bows of classical and modern times, together with biographical notices and portraits of the most famous performers on these instruments, 1892
6 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1CHAPTER IV.
3On Old and New Violins.
5BRESCIA and Cremona are, no doubt, the chief centres of interest for the intelligent fiddle fancier—that is, the fancier of old fiddles. If it is not so, it should be so, for, although there are many other places where fine fiddles have been produced in times past, the great majority of these places are still producing fine instruments of much the same class—if people only knew what to look for, and where to look for it—but there are no places in the world producing violins of the same high character in all respects as those which have come down to us from the great masters of the Cremonese and Brescian schools, and here it may be, I think, just as well to say a word or two about new fiddles. It is, undoubtedly, a general opinion current among professional and amateur players that new violins are usually new in the matter of tone. That means that the tone is "woody," "hard," or "metallic." These are really the only terms that may properly describe the supposed defect. Now, that opinion is, in regard to the vast bulk of ordinary trade violins, perfectly sound, and these three terms very accurately portray the kinds of tone which new violins of the trade class possess. Curiously enough, the same three terms will exactly describe the tones of ninety out of every hundred fiddles of the old type to be found in the market at the present time. I
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