Books › The story of the violin, 1904 › scan 57
Scan 57
The story of the violin, 1904
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Story of the Violin
3Now, when our ugly old friends the ravanastrons and sarindas, etc., and their crude companion, the bow, began their wanderings, and how they—after many vicissitudes and much altered—found their weary way along the winding path of time, through Persia to Arabia, until the musical historian sights them through his telescope and pilots them safely farther, we cannot tell; but there is little doubt that a certain bowed instrument, the rebab, ultimately migrated from Persia and Arabia into South-western Europe on its way to kingship and to glory.
5To sum up once more: in whatever light we try to view the subject of the origin and early history of the violin family, we cannot see clearly. It is like standing on a high mount trying to distinguish objects in the valleys and plains below over which evening has already rolled the thick white feather-beds for the night. Here and there a glimpse through the fog—a lighted window far, far away, where Tradition sits spinning her eternal threads, and that is all.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.