Scan 188
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
4 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 138. See the scan on archive.org.
1a marked manner and the purfling sunk into a groove; a parallel of this type of instrument is to be found in the works of Pietro Guarneri and Montagnana. At one time his sound-holes were cut nearly perpendicularly (a freak which, by the way, has some show of reason, for though it sacrifices beauty, it also prevents the breaking up of the fibres), at another shortened and slanting, and some, again, are occasionally seen immoderately long. These hastily-marshalled instances are quite sufficient to show the extent of his experiments, and the many resources which he adopted in order to produce exceptional qualities of tone.
3In order that the reader may better understand the subject, before going farther into the peculiar features belonging to the instruments of Guarneri, we will classify his work. M. Fétis, doubtless under the guidance of M. Vuillaume, has divided the career of Guarneri into three periods—an excellent arrangement, and one that cannot be improved upon. It only remains to point out certain peculiarities omitted in the description of these three stages which M. Fétis gives us. In the first epoch we find instruments of various patterns, the character of the sound-holes being very changeable. At one time there is a strange mixture of grace and boldness; at another the whole is singularly deformed, and the purfling roughly executed, as though the maker had no time to finish his work properly. It seems as if
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