Books › Violin tone and violin makers, 1916 › scan 48
Scan 48
Violin tone and violin makers, 1916
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 28. See the scan on archive.org.
1VIOLIN TONE
3In purely mechanical affairs progress follows experience and the passing of time. That no such progress followed in this case would seem evidence enough to eliminate the mechanical, or violin-making, factor, and substitute tone-ideals in its place. This, however, by the way. So great were the last three tone creators that there is some excuse for their sons, pupils, and followers failing to equal them. Between 1750 and 1800 there was, doubtless, little demand for fine-toned violins from the makers who were then alive, owing to the large number of master violins handed down from the earlier half of the century. The living makers might well have been forced to compete among themselves for such trade in low-priced violins as they could get. With them it was probably not so much a matter of tonal art as of bread and butter—or macaroni. We are aware that, in all ages of violin making, a demand has existed for the low-priced instrument, numerically in excess of the demand for those of higher price and better tone. Overshadowed, therefore, by the great masters this may well have been about the only demand upon the builders of that time. The question of high tone quality does not enter largely into this demand, but the question of price is vital.
5Here, then, we have conditions which would appear to foster a decline in high standards of
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