Books › The violin : how to choose one, 1893 › scan 35
Scan 35
The violin : how to choose one, 1893
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 31. See the scan on archive.org.
1of the back and breast pressed outwards by the sound post. Longitudinal cracks are also less to be dreaded than those across. What, after all, is the join usually found up the middle of the breast or back of a violin, but a fracture skilfully repaired? I might say more, that many ordinary fractures will make a firmer joint than that up the middle of the violin, inasmuch as the edges are often serrated and fitted into each other like teeth. I have seen three different violins by Italian makers which were even fractured above the sound post, and yet were so skilfully repaired that the tone was not affected in the smallest degree; and the worst mended violin can be taken down, the straps and patches removed, the badly-joined fractures undone and reglued fairly and squarely by a patient and artistic repairer, and the instrument made practically as good as if never broken. To buy a violin damaged thus, and badly repaired, is certainly a kind of speculation, as I have known a violin which sounded bad when in bad order, sound worse when put into first-class order; but that is exceptional. Many of these violins, however, are very little fractured. I came upon one a few years since, made 130 years ago, which had never been opened, and was perfect as it had left the maker's hands. The varnish was slightly worn under the chin, on the wrong side of the tail piece, but the edges were as sharp as when newly made. When it had been set back in the neck, and fitted with a proper bass bar, the tone was as grand as if it had cost £100, for the wood was exceedingly fine, and the model large enough to give a full ringing tone. It was a grand violin, and a poor thin-toned Stradivarius which I once tried, and for which forty years ago, when prices were lower, £150 was cheerfully paid, would not compare with it for a moment.
3Tubby Violins.
5Sometimes the model of an old violin, otherwise good, is so high and bulging that the tone is hollow or internal—in plain words, "tubby"—which defect may also arise from the back being too thin of wood. Dread word! to whisper it to the owner of a beloved violin is to crush his heart, possibly to make him your enemy for life. The tubby-toned violin is avoided by the experienced for several reasons, but chiefly because its tone does not carry well. It takes a stranger to
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