Books › The violin : how to choose one, 1893 › scan 21
Scan 21
The violin : how to choose one, 1893
2 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 17. See the scan on archive.org.
1together: it was solely in the wood. Nay, even when these men made many violins out of one log of wood, the violins so made varied in sonority and sweetness, even when of exactly the same model and finish. These makers selected their wood with an instinctive knowledge of acoustics which can only be called genius, but after all the result was a speculation—a lottery—for many of the Cremona makers seem to have been unable to repeat their best results by a fixed method such as that given at the end of this book. The work of a fine guitar maker goes for little in the production of tone in a violin. Ole Bull, in noticing the brothers Amati, said—"The violins of Hieronymus Amati are of larger pattern and flatter model than those of his brother, but are not so finely finished. Their tone, however, is much finer." The roughly-finished violins had the finer tone! and yet we have to listen to gushing writers going into hysterics over the fine work of Stradivarius, and attributing the ethereal tone of his instruments to that! Let me give another example. The late Rev. Wm. Blow, of Kelvedon, Essex, possessed a fine Stradivarius violin which sold for £400 at his death. He also possessed a violin made in the year 1789 by Laurentius Storioni, the last of the Cremona makers of any merit, which he preferred to that Stradivarius violin, and constantly used in his magnificent solo playing, though it was sold by a London firm for £12. This violin is of Guarnerius' model, with purfling coarsely and carelessly put in; beautiful but somewhat hard varnish, and grand wood. You may buy Storioni violins by the dozen at from £10 to £20; but this one was sold by Mr. Blow's widow for £40, and, after passing through the hands of several experienced judges of tone, was sold two years ago for £80. Its special value lies in a few ounces of sonorous wood and some subtle and happy relation between these parts. The Mirecourt manufacturers of fiddles every year put out thousands of fiddles, with work on them positively perfect compared with that on this violin; but where is the tone? or, rather, where are the few ounces of magic-sounding wood? I know two British violin makers now living, one of whom puts out work of which Stradivarius himself would not have been ashamed; the other is a coarser worker; yet he, copying the same models, produces violins with a far grander tone than the first. He has the instinct for selecting the right kind of wood, and often chooses pieces two and three hundred years old. Any violin maker, there-
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