Scan 37
The violin & its story : or the history & construction of the violin, 1905
4 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. Printed page 23. See the scan on archive.org.
1Fétis further remarks that with an instrument built as shown by Virdung, the bow could not avoid touching all the strings at once; while the tone which it was capable of producing must have been very weak, as it is only by the angle made by the strings where they pass over the bridge that the necessary swing can be produced which carries the vibrations of the string through the bridge to the belly; and it is the bridge, itself vibrating with vigour, which imparts, with augmented force, those vibrations to the belly necessary to the intensity of the tone. Moreover, we must not forget that from the very first the efforts to produce tone from the strings by rubbing them with the bow have always employed the bridge as a necessary part of the apparatus. We find the bridge is a part of the original Ravanastron, of the Indian Omerti, of the Arabian Rebab and Kemangeh, and in short, of all the instruments which have been played by the bow. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that the omission of the bridge in the figures drawn by Agricola and Nachtigall can only be put down to forgetfulness or want of attention on the part of the draughtsmen who produced those figures. This is also the opinion of Fétis.
3Although this explanation of the absence of the bridge seems the simplest and most natural, yet we cannot accept it altogether without question. The proofs that the draughtsmen were not over particular now and then are plainly enough to be seen; but if we accept the statement that the omission of the bridge is merely due to the neglect of the artist who made the drawings referred to by Fétis, this does not explain the fact that not only in the picture by Virdung (to whom Fétis does not refer), but also in both editions of Agricola's "Musica Instrumentalis," this "great fiddle" is shown without any bridge. A musical writer must have noticed, at the first glance, the absence of this essential part of the instrument; and would not a writer like Agricola have pounced upon this defect in his first edition, and had it made right when his book appeared the second time? Moreover,
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