Books › The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904 › scan 52
Scan 52
The varnishes of the Italian violin-makers of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their influence on tone;, 1904
9 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1"become acute or shrill (aigu) and meagre (maigre)
2"as it does become: it would become dull (sourd = "deaf) and feeble (faible), as I have had reason to
3"remark (or observe) that it does when I made violins
4"of which the tables were too thin, or to which I
5"fixed no bar; they became dull (sourd) in proportion to the sinking of the table, and never meagre.
6"It appears that in pianofortes the vibrations communicated to the table by a great number of strings which vibrate harmonically with the principal sound (prime note), destroy little by little the texture (contexture) of the wood, with the expulsion of a great number of particles in the form of dust; for if the firwood which has been used in a pianoforte is wrought, it appears to be very porous and as if rotten. It is presumable that the humidity of the air counts for a good deal in this change of its nature: for violins do not deteriorate, although much pressed by the tension of their strings, while guitars, which are no more pressed, deteriorate very promptly. It is the same with violins when they are not varnished: the sound has at first more mellowness and force than if they had been varnished; but it becomes modified little by little, and at length feeble and meagre, which happens in a tolerably short time."
8M. Savart is further quoted (58):—"In general the violins are most esteemed which are covered with an oil varnish" (i.e., a varnish whose vehicle is oil of turpentine). "I believe well enough that this is with reason, since it is more adhesive than that which is made with spirit of wine; it is more suitable for instruments of which the tables are thin,
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