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Scan 23
The Violin: How to Master It, 1880
12 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1the violin would be very sure to be sonorous and ringing in tone; but the statement is contradicted by experience, and by many of the best of the real Cremonas, which are sometimes close in the grain, sometimes open, and sometimes fine in the centre, at the joint, and coarser towards the sides. The wood ought to be naturally seasoned, and not forced by being boiled or steamed, or dried in an oven or a warm chamber—that is, it ought to lie for four or five years roughly blocked out in a dry, cool place. Stradivarius, like many of the other great Cremona makers, had a kind of open shed or awning on the roof of his house in Cremona, where his wood was stored on rafters all ready for use, and this shed is still in existence and can be seen by visitors to Cremona
3The Qualities of a Good Violin.
5To sum up, therefore, a violin is to be valued (1) by its artistic make; (2) its age and consequent mellowness of tone; (3) its equality of tone on every string and position; (4) the selection of the wood and the varnish with which it is covered; and (5) by the manner in which it has been preserved, played upon, and developed in tone, by its different possessors.
7In choosing a violin for life, any price from four or five pounds to as many hundreds may be given, though I may remark that it is not unusual for parents to show much liberality in this particular. No good pianoforte can be got for less than $200.00; parents know this, and give that sum, or more, freely; but when it comes to paying for a violin, which, if properly made, improves and increases in value, instead of deteriorating steadily like a pianoforte, they hesitate and look grave over $25.00 or $50.00. It is one of the anomalies of life, and I attempt no explanation, and make no comment.
9The Choice of a Bow.
11The value of a good violin bow lies chiefly in the spring, that is, the curve downwards of the stick toward the hair. Five or six dollars may be given for a bow, good in appearance, yet in a year or two the spring leaves it, and it is quite worthless; while a good one may be hit upon by chance for $2.50, which stands long years of hard work without showing
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