Books › The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871 › scan 84
Scan 84
The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871
6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1pentine varnish, with a coloured bow of beechwood, aptly waiting for an attack upon the strings of its feeble and deformed neighbour, which, when such takes place, certainly does not charm the true and favoured sons of Apollo by its melodious tones.
3The following must, however, forcibly strike the minds of such persons. Violins appear to possess the widest range of prices, perhaps over any other article of such original cost, as whilst we can obtain the one for two or three shillings, we find we cannot possess some of the finest of the Cremonese instruments for several hundreds of pounds; and when such is the case, curiosity must impress the most careless and superficial reader as to the cause of such apparently mad expenditure.
5In former times when Stradivarius, Amati, and Guarnerius flourished, along with many other celebrated makers, the making of such musical instruments was purely an art, for truly such makers were genuine artists; whilst at the present time violin makers, generally speaking, are only traders in it, and instruments, as a consequence, are now ostensibly made for the furtherance of this art, and are thus sent wholesale into the world, faulty and careless in construction; crude, immature, and harsh in quality. The Violin is a favorite, and ever will be, and in view of this alone we shall try to investigate, to the best of our frail ability, its mechanical structure, its workmanship, and its known acoustical principles. The Violin is, as a general rule composed of seventy different parts, but this is not essential, as many of the Cremona instruments had no such number, the back being sometimes
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