Books › The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871 › scan 166
Scan 166
The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871
4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1the solution of the query as to the composition of this beautiful and diaphanous substance! Volumes have been written containing the authors' choicest receipts for this varnish, or rather its imitation, but with what result—despondency, for the common cry is, "the secret is lost, never to be regained." A few enthusiastic writers have even gone so far as to declare that the varnish made the violin, or, in other words, that the superiority of our ancient instruments arose solely from the excellent qualities of their varnish—an idea so monstrous and opposed to reason, that they might, with equal probability, have concluded that a worthless violin only required to be placed in the hands of an eminent player in order to be transmuted into one of the finest and most bewitching toned instruments which ever graced the orchestra.
3That the varnish bears an important influence upon the quality of the instrument is not to be doubted, but this influence must be regarded in a modified degree. Would the so-called re-discovered Cremona varnish of Monsieur Grivel if applied to a faulty-constructed instrument, ever render it a good one? Never; for the fault, arising from malconstruction, would never be redeemed by the application of a coating of varnish. The Cremona varnish was considered by many makers to be composed principally of amber dissolved in some suitable fluid, which solvent has now unfortunately been lost in oblivion, whilst others adopted a somewhat different theory by supposing the amber had been dissolved in oil, constituting the old "oil-varnish" of a somewhat similar nature to the common amber oil-
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