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 of these instruments, 1892 › scan 180
Scan 180
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 of these instruments, 1892
4 lines. Read by computer on 29 August 2026. Printed page 166. See the scan on archive.org.
1before—and had been found an idle one so far as concerned any improvement in either shape or tone. Nevertheless, just as in the case of previous experiments—and as will likely be the case in many future ones—there was a committee of professors and connoisseurs to pronounce a laudatory judgment on the result of Galbusera's efforts, and the instrument was exhibited in the town hall of Brera. The Milan Academy of Science awarded him a silver medal for the invention, and the Leipsic Musical Gazette published the usual gushing article filled with amazement that it had taken centuries to give this perfect form to the violin. In due time the amazement and the violin subsided, and Galbusera proceeded to construct others of a different model and heavier make, and he appears to have succeeded in improving the quality of tone of his own fiddle—which was, without doubt, a highly meritorious act, as they gave him another medal. I fancy I should have myself condoned an award like that. But Stradivari was still untouched, and perhaps Galbusera's conscience told him so, for in spite of his medals—he had in all three—he began experiments with chemicals for the purpose of extracting the gummy substance from the wood. Facilis est descensus Averni, and from this point we hear no more of him. He made violas and 'cellos—a few—on the same system, and, if he made them himself, he was no doubt, a handy man, but perhaps he merely "invented" them—as his fellow professionals sometimes invent "flying machines"—and got other people to make them for him. He died in 1846.
3GALERZENO, Piedmont, 1790.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.