Books › The Salabue Stradivari. A history and critical description of the famous violin, commonly called "le Messie." Containing many particulars obtained from authentic sources and now published for the first time, 1891 › scan 35
Scan 35
The Salabue Stradivari. A history and critical description of the famous violin, commonly called "le Messie." Containing many particulars obtained from authentic sources and now published for the first time, 1891
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1fire, I assure you, is mainly caused by the oil varnish below; the orange varnish above has a heterogeneous foil below. That inward glow is characteristic of all foils. If you could see the Vuillaume Stradivarius at night, and move it about in the light of a candle, you would be amazed at the fire of the foil and the refraction of light. . . . .
3“A violin varnished as I have indicated will look a little better than other new violins from the first; the back will look nearly as well as the Vuillaume Stradivarius, but not quite. The belly will look a little better if properly prepared; will show the fibre of the deal better. . . . .
5“. . . Sand-paper is a great enemy to varnish; it drives more wood-dust into the pores than you can blow out. . . . The back of the Vuillaume Stradivarius, which is the finest part, has clearly not been sand-papered in places, so probably not at all.”
7With regard to the tone of the instrument, some comments written in 1864 by the well-known authority, F. J. Fetis, are worthy of repetition. He writes of the Salabue Stradivari: “This genuine memorial of ancient manufacture—this instrument which has not resounded under the bow for nearly a century and a half—gives striking refutation to the idea that a free and pure tone cannot be produced from a violin until after it has been long in use; for here, in this new instrument, we find in combination all the qualities of power, mellowness, roundness, delicacy, freedom, with a noble and penetrating tone. In a word, this violin is a type of external beauty and of sonorous perfection.”
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