Scan 130
The violin & its story : or, the history & construction of the violin, 1905
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 114. See the scan on archive.org.
1ponding with the taste of the period, did not call for delicate and manifold shades of tone-colour exhibited in later compositions, and for which special qualities in the bow became an absolute necessity. Corelli and Vivaldi knew but one style of play, to which their bow was adapted, viz., to play a movement over piano, and then repeat it forte.*
3In the fourth stage of development, the wire and the toothed iron were succeeded by a screw in the stick, and through an opening on the under side of the stick passed a female screw fixed to the nut, so that the necessary tension of the bow-hair could be adjusted with the greatest nicety. This construction is found in the bow used by Tartini (died 1770), the famous composer of the "Devil's Sonata," whose style was much more varied than that of either Corelli or Vivaldi. Tartini had his bow made of light wood, and with the stick straight, instead of being bent as it was before his time. His bow had a shorter head, and the part of the stick held by the hand in playing was grooved. This style of bow was, however, not free from defects, and many attempts were made to get better materials and improve the shape. But the man who brought the bow to its highest pitch of development was François Tourte, who was born in Paris in 1774, and died in April, 1835. Tourte's father before him was a skilled workman in this department. He made fluted bows of splendid workmanship, and cut deeper into the head, so that the hair could be more easily fixed, and the hairs laid side by side with greater regularity. The bows of his eldest son, who began to manufacture about 1775, were also greatly prized.
5François Tourte was intended by his father for a watch maker, and was placed in a workshop at a very early age, when he could neither read nor write. Probably it was from this kind of work that he got the skill
7* The student who knows Corelli's works will understand this. Those compositions were essentially for the left hand, the bow being in Corelli's day merely the "tool" with which the notes made by the left hand were made audible.—Translator.
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