Books › The Hawley Collection of violins, 1904 › scan 22
Scan 22
The Hawley Collection of violins, 1904
24 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 18. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE HAWLEY COLLECTION OF VIOLINS
3sary not only for beauty, but also to secure musical tone. Some makers were expert handlers of tools, but they failed to produce tone-quality, while still others produced tone of a high order, but they failed in workmanship. Stradivari was born with the divine faculty of intuition, a gift of nature, without which no one can reach great eminence either as a maker of violins or bows. He was a law unto himself, and he ascended to heights where none may follow. It is this fact which gained for him the admiration of all interested in his art to the extent that his name has become a household word, and his praises have been sung by poets wherever and whenever the violin has been the subject.
5"The instrument on which he played
6Was in Cremona's workshop made,
7By a great master of the past
8Ere yet was lost the art divine;
9Fashioned of maple and of pine
10That in Tyrolean forests vast
11Had rocked and wrestled with the blast;
12Exquisite was it in design,
13A marvel of the lutist's art,
14Perfect in each minutest part;
15And in its hollow chamber, thus,
16The maker from whose hands it came
17Had written his unrivaled name
18Antonius Stradivarius."
19HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.
21Stradivari lived at the most opportune time. Had he been born a hundred years earlier, it is not improbable that another would to-day occupy the proud place he has held for over two centuries. The development of the violin had already been making progress in Cremona for about one hundred years. Even before Stradivari's birth, or before the time he was old enough to enter upon his career, Nicola Amati had produced those splendid violins from which it was but a single step over the border into the realm of Stradivari's best work. He had, therefore, the tradition of Cremona and the experience of his predecessors in the art, as well as the fostering care and instruction of a great master, Nicola Amati, to render the superb natural equipment with which he was endowed by nature productive of the grandest results. The intense competition existing in Cremona at that time was also a powerful stimulant, calculated to bring to the surface every latent power. No one could exist there who had not ability. Where the standard of work is as high as it was at Cremona, the less proficient must needs seek employment elsewhere—hence the schools of Venice, Mantua, Milan, Florence, Naples, etc. But young Stradivari had never a thought of yielding.
23In the year 1644, according to his own authority, occurred the birth of Stradivari. It is presumed to have taken place at Cremona, but no record definitely settling that point has yet been discovered. Up to the time that the late M. F. I. Fetis undertook his researches among the archives and records for information concerning Stradivari, his birth was placed anywhere from 1640 to 1665. Fetis discovered, however, in 1856, among the Stradivari instruments which had belonged to Count Cozio di Salabue, one in which Stradivari, in his own handwriting, stated his age
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.