Books › The violin and the art of its construction. A treatise on the Stradivarius violin, 1895 › scan 31
Scan 31
The violin and the art of its construction. A treatise on the Stradivarius violin, 1895
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1it having become a perfect passion with him to be always altering the position of the bridge and the sound-post. Indeed, these experiments often lasted until quite a short time before the beginning of a concert, and usually ended with a malediction on himself and his otherwise precious "Josephi" (Joseph Guarnerius del Gesù).
3Still, I must confess that I learned a great deal from his many researches by dint of observation. When Ole Bull was playing at the Theatre in Hanover in cold weather, he always breathed a few times into the F-holes of his violin before the curtain rose, in order to warm the air in the interior of the instrument, as he was of opinion that in consequence the violin spoke better. He may have been right. He also carried E-strings in his waist-coat pocket during wet weather, because he maintained, and perhaps justly, that they then lasted better.
5XIX. THE STRINGS.
7It is very difficult to decide on the quality of the strings; their being light or dark-coloured has no influence on their durability. The natural colour of the strings is dark, those of a lighter shade having been sulphured to render them so. The Italian strings are at present unrivalled, but care should be taken that they do not feel too hard. The choice of strings according to their thickness really depends on personal preference, but as a rule those only of medium size should be chosen, which according to the French measurement of strings would be 14 degrees for the G-string, 23 for the D-string, 14 for the A-string and 12 for the E-string.
9The larger the violin is, the weaker should be the strings. The notion that a half-sized violin should be thin-stringed, is quite erroneous, it should, on the contrary, have
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