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 41
Scan 41
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
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1research before the world in some out-of-the-way corner of the country. Lucubrations of this kind are valueless, because they are generally compiled by those who only in a very superficial manner understand what they are writing about, and who indeed do not always appear to comprehend the precise meaning of the terms they cull from the works upon which their efforts are based. Many felicitous instances of this kind of misplaced confidence in what are frequently considered quite legitimate authorities might be quoted, but this is hardly the place for them. Now, whatever may be the cause or causes—few or innumerable—of this improvement through age and use in a violin's tone, the general reader may rest assured that any instrument possessing it in a marked degree in combination with those excellences which now characterise the better classes of modern work, will be well looked after. There is always, of course, the chance of a fine old violin of the second, third, or fourth rank coming within reach at a moderate price, but a "moderate price" is not now determined by the figures employed, but by the quality of the instrument to be sold. Forty pounds may be a moderate price for one violin, and two thousand pounds may be a moderate price for another. But it is now one of the rarest things to find an instrument of good quality and finish, having that round maturity of tone so much desired, at anything like forty pounds. And under that and down to five pounds, if a buyer only knows how to choose, modern instruments will put old ones entirely out of court. I say this unhesitatingly, and with regard to almost every point in which one violin can excel another. The difficulty is in
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