Books › The violin and the art of its construction. A treatise on the Stradivarius violin, 1895 › scan 13
Scan 13
The violin and the art of its construction. A treatise on the Stradivarius violin, 1895
2 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Being released from my apprenticeship at the beginning of my fifteenth year, I wandered away to Markneukirchen, there to study violin-making under Hans Ficker; later on I was occupied for a longer period as assistant to Ludwig Bausch, senior, in Leipsic, to whom I owe a great deal, for he strengthened me in my love of the art and settled my belief in the unequalled excellence of Stradivarius. My admiration for this great master increased even more and more, and in my fifteenth year, when I began to work for myself in Hanover, I learned even more of his works and had the happiness to find that my reverence for him was shared by my friend and patron Dr. Joseph Joachim. Ten years later, the latter exchanged Hanover for Berlin, and as I was no longer contented in the former town after his departure in 1872, I gladly responded to a call from him to prosecute my work in the Prussian capital and to continue to study the works of Stradivarius, in order to handle them more worthily and to infuse his ideas into my own productions. I venture to hope that I have succeeded in the first part of my undertaking, for, a great number of instruments have passed through my hands in the course of years, including the incomparable violins belonging to Dr. Joachim. The second part of my task I do not consider accomplished. I am ever taking more and more trouble in working, in the hope of bringing my attempt nearer and nearer to the hitherto unattained excellence of Stradivarius. I therefore beg my readers to regard the following chapters with a favourable eye and to accept them in a friendly spirit as the result of long years of experience, the confirmation or rectification of which I shall accept with joy.
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