Books › The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871 › scan 38
Scan 38
The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871
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1Ranking foremost amongst all the learned men who thus investigated the theoretical construction of the violin, and who also combined his theory with practice, was the learned French philosopher, M. Savart, born in 1791, who, for a period of 20 years, ardently and thoughtfully studied those laws of construction, from which laws have been attained the most pre-eminent practical results. To avoid the parrot repetitions or stereotyped teachings of books upon this subject, I merely refer the reader to the rough translation of Savart's lectures, as given at the latter part of this chapter, for therein will the student find much valuable matter, both interesting and instructive. For the present, I shall merely rapidly glance over a few other particulars, several of which are not included in the lectures above referred to. The violins of Stradivarius were chiefly those which Savart experimented upon; but ere he made those important discoveries, afterwards detailed, he had recourse to almost innumerable trials, in every manner which his keen and learned mind suggested.
3Taking the violin as a whole, we find, from Savart's researches, that every element of the instrument was beautifully and skilfully made in a proportionate degree, to maintain the necessary sonority and vibration. In a few, but indeed very few, of the violins of the Cremonese makers, we find some of those rules have been a little departed from; but assuredly, the more they deviate from those well-known facts, the worse they are in quality, and even in those few which have been found dissimilar, it has been always to attain some
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