Part 7

and turned it to good account. The illustrious Da Salo was very partial to pear wood as well as sycamore, which he cut slab-ways from the tree, as did most of his contemporaries. Stradivarius preferred maple to any other wood, but he went with the times and also employed the woods favoured by his brethren, such as poplar, lime, and even grained pine. A species of red pine, common to the Tyrol, and known to the Italian makers by the name of “Azarole,” was more in favour with the Cremona _luthier_ than Swiss pine. Only the south side, the side exposed to the drying rays of the sun, was used. Indeed, this precaution is one which has been observed by makers for over three hundred years, knowing well that it is one of the first aids towards solving the problem: _Given_: A log of wood. _Make_: A fiddle. The timber must be blameless, free from knots or blemish, and--above all--free from worm, a fate which has destroyed whole forests of pine if the trees are cut at the wrong season of the year. Also the tree must have arrived at a maturity of ten years, and the question of sap flowing through the outer part of the tree must be duly considered. Speaking on this subject, Mr Davidson[28] remarks that, owing to the sap passing through this part of the tree, the wood abounds in saccharine matter and is quickly susceptible to decay. In trees which have arrived at maturity, there is no distinction between the sap and heart wood, the wood being of the same texture throughout and almost uniform. The proper time for cutting trees is when the sap ceases to flow, and experience has determined the month of December to be the best time for this purpose, as the wood which has been cut during this month has been found to have always been of superior quality to any cut during the other months. Monsieur l’Abbé Sibre, author of “La Chelonome ou le parfait Luthérie,” which was published at the beginning of the nineteenth century, voices the merits of wood cut in December and January long before Mr Davidson, and adds the admonition that the wood must be cut from between the bark and heart of the tree. The wood being cut as required from the healthy pine or maple, it is sawn into planks, and,--though the fiddle-maker’s hands are madly twitching to commence operations on it,--subjected to a drying process to be effected by sun and air for at least six years. If at the end of that period of time the _luthier_ is still enamoured of his timber, then he may clamp it and cut it and scrape it into the violin or violoncello of his fancy. Monsieur Simoutre, the French violin-maker and author of some patent improvements which, in common with all innovations connected with bow instruments, have had no lasting effect, contends that the best pine wood comes from Silesia, from La Valteline, Les Grisons, Le Simmenthal in the Bernese Alps, from certain sheltered parts of the valley of the Lac de Joux, in the Canton de Vaud, Switzerland, and from the southern slopes of the Jura Bernois. Modern violin-makers generally employ maple cut from trees growing on the southern slopes of the Carpathians and also in some parts of the Eastern Alps, but where this is not procurable, it has been found that it is not absolutely necessary to range the Alps or the Carpathians in search of suitable wood, for many a fine violin and violoncello have been made from the wainscot or beam of an old-time cottage or mansion. J. B. Vuillaume used to roam over Italy and Switzerland frequently for the sole purpose of picking up choice bits of pine which had probably formed part of a beam or support in some residence for hundreds of years. Out of these purchases he undoubtedly made some of his finest instruments. His example has recommended itself to many other makers, and only the other day we heard of a contemporary English maker whose best violins and violoncellos have been formed from an old beam obtained from a house near Eltham. Such practices as these certainly place _lutherie_ within the range of everyone so inclined, for, who is there in these days that does not possess a likely piece of old furniture? some familiar escritoire, or table, or panel, out of which a possible rival to Cremona’s _chefs-d’oeuvre_ may be conjured by the aid of gouge, chisel, bending iron, and glue pot. In spite of the time-saving effects which the appropriation of the family heirlooms for this purpose would effect, how much more appealing and poetic were the methods of the ancient _luthier_, who went straight to the forest for his wood. Can one picture Stradivarius storing up old beams, and tables, on the roof of his house in Cremona? Can we imagine Guarnerius roaming about the country seeking likely bits of wood in cottages, or the Amatis, or Da Salo, the maker of these gambas, resorting to such a commonplace expedient. No! a thousand times. They went straight to the forest for their timber, wandered through the misty depths of clustered pines, pondering in the deep silence upon many a knotty point of their craft. Or they stood at times on the rocky borders of the wood, where the trees looked down upon the valley from whence the sound of the rushing brook could be faintly heard. From a point of vantage they watched the trees being felled: hearkened to the tone they emitted as their torn limbs bounded from rock to rock: counted the number of circles to ascertain the age of a likely tree: examined the colour with care to judge of its health. If they were satisfied with these various preliminary tests, they bought what they required, stored the planks on the sheltered side of their workshop or on the roof of the same, and watched the hot Italian sun do its work of drying. Not only did the most eminent makers of the past carefully store their own wood, but if they became possessed of a particularly handsome piece they did not scruple to patch and piece it together, so that no scrap of the treasure should be wasted.

[Illustration: THE ‘VASLIN’ VIOLONCELLO BY ANTONIUS STRADIVARIUS. DATED 1725.]

Gasparo da Salo, as we have already said, was an adept in the choice of wood, and he was fortunate in lighting upon some particularly even-grained pine. In these days his work is looked upon as rough, or, to put it more gently, primitive. The recent researches of Il Cavalieri Livi--the keeper of the Brescian state archives--have, however, proved that this was far from the case in his lifetime. Until the results of the Cavalieri’s investigations were published in the _Nuova Antalogia_ on the 16th August 1891, nothing definite concerning this maker’s life was known. Thanks to the Brescian income-tax returns and other authentic documentary evidence it is now proved that Da Salo’s real name was not Salo at all but Gasparo di Bertolotti, that he rejoiced in a grandfather named Santino di Bertolotti who was a lute-maker at Polpenazze, that his father was one Francesco Bertolotti, a painter familiarly called “Violino” by his friends, and that his son, Gasparo, the future violin-maker, was born at Salo, a small town on Lake Garda, not many miles distant from Brescia. Unfortunately the date of Da Salo’s birth still remains unknown, owing to the loss of the pages from the parish register where it should appear, but the income-tax returns for 1568 state him to be twenty-six years of age at that date, and those for 1588, forty-five, thus locating his birth approximately in the year 1542. It is presumed that he learnt his art from his grandfather first, and later from a Brescian viol-maker of the name of Gerolamo Virchi, who stood sponsor to Gasparo’s son, Francesco. The earliest efforts of the great Brescian master apparently did not find favour with his fellow-countrymen, and, this being so, he became discouraged and contemplated trying his fortunes in France. A certain Father Gabriel saw the gifted man’s dispirited efforts, and also observed his intentions. He was reluctant to see one of his flock go forth to a foreign country, and to prevent such a calamity came forward with a loan of £60. Curiously enough this small sum changed the bent of Da Salo’s life. He remained, and encouraged by the faith of the good priest set to work with such definite aim and earnestness, that as a result he soon established himself in a house with a shop in the _Contrada del Palazzo vecchio_. This event occurred in the year 1568. He paid £20 rent per annum for this establishment, valued his stock of musical instruments at about £60, and styled himself _Magistro di Violini_. In 1579 he exhibited the added title of _Magistro di Cittaris_, and in 1583 called himself _Artefice d’instrumenti musica_. Twenty years after his first establishment in the _Contrada del Palazzo vecchio_, he changed his residence to the _Contrada Cocere_, where he claimed to be the owner of violins finished and unfinished valuing quite £200, and where he had acquired the ostentatious title of _Magister instrumentorum musicorum_. The year 1599 found him purchasing another house in Brescia, situated in the _Contrada di St Pietro di Martero_, and between 1581 and 1607 he owned land adjoining Calvagese, near Salo. It was at Calvagese that Da Salo’s son, Francesco, found his bride, the Signora Fior. He also followed the captivating profession of his father, until the latter’s death on the 14th April 1609, when he apparently lost heart, for from that time he ceased to be a _luthier_. Probably he sold the excellent business to Da Salo’s gifted pupil, Gio. Paolo Maggini, who had worked as an apprentice in the Brescian master’s workshop for quite eight years, and was then a bachelor of thirty or thereabouts. In any case, whether he became possessed of the business or not, the esteem which had previously been bestowed upon his instructor fell to his share. On the whole he deserved all the support he gained for he not only equalled Da Salo as a maker but surpassed him in everything save the ugly stiff sound holes which, for some unaccountable reason, he retained.

In the history of the violoncello, it is a puzzling and curious circumstance, that no viola da gamba by Maggini is extant.[29] His violins, violas, violoncellos and double-basses have resisted the onslaught of over three hundred adventurous years, and, this being so, one cannot help wondering why his gambas have not also withstood time’s ravages. The obvious reply seems to be that, “He made none!” However, whether he did or did not, his attitude certainly had no effect on the position occupied by the violoncello at that time. The general feeling about the instrument was akin to the sentiments expressed by the Comte de Rabutin in his “Epistles”:

“Je ne vous aime pas, Hylas; Je n’en saurois dire la cause, Je sais seulement un chose; C’est que je ne vous aime pas.”

Not being liked, and yet appearing among them, musicians were confronted with a difficulty which they solved by placing this “white elephant” in the obscure position of playing the fundamental bass in the music of the Church.

As regards the lack of Maggini violas da gamba, circumstantial evidence may be right after all. The man was a genius, and, true to his instincts, sought after new methods rather than personal gain. He threw aside the useless and picked out the good, and, this being so, it is not surprising that he should prefer to turn his attention to the budding violoncello, rather than the pristine viola da gamba.

In the delightful monograph of this maker’s life--already mentioned--among the excellent summary of the instruments made by him, there is an interesting description of a quartet of instruments generally known as the “Dumas Set,” from its having once belonged to a family of that name. In an ancient château near Lyons the members of the Dumas household passed through the terrors of the first Revolution and saw the establishment of the Empire. They were enthusiastic musical amateurs--friends of Beethoven--and inspired by a genuine love of chamber music they collected together four magnificent examples of Maggini’s skill. Of the four instruments--_i.e._ violin, viola, violoncello and double-bass--which comprise the “set,” the violin and viola are of the most characteristic and perfect type, although the violoncello is also excellent. According to Lady Huggins’s description of the last, “it has two lines of purfling, but no ornamental device. The bottom circle of the sound-holes is smaller than the top. There is the same under-bevelling of the inside edge of the sound-holes, as in Maggini’s other instruments, the same arching of the model. The wood of the back and the sides is cut on the slab” (parallel with the growth of the tree--a favourite practice with the ancient viol-makers). “The back is joined, also the belly, the latter having the wood the ordinary way of the grain, the coarse grain being outside.” As we look at the instrument, the thought involuntarily rises in us--“to Maggini we owe our modern violoncello.” What a curious mixture of the “old” and the “new” is to be found in this instrument. The back cut on the “slab”--in accordance with the long-standing custom--and the belly cut in the improved manner. Maggini, although a great innovator, and the first to cut the wood in the new way--_i.e._ wedge-ways from the tree--was evidently in a state of uncertainty when he made this violoncello. To balance matters he mingled the divers ways, yet, in spite of his hesitation, he came nearer to gauging the most equitable proportions for the violoncello than any other maker of his time. It would be of great interest if it were possible to discover by what means Maggini and his predecessors arrived at their conclusions. Whether it was in the manner of old Mrs Tibbins, who made a fiddle by means of a blunt knife, a piece of glass, and a bent file, or, on the principles of Monsieur Felix Savart. If the ancient _luthier_ planned his work on the latter’s scientific basis, then he was accurate in every detail, for no more satisfactory experiments on the construction of bow instruments have been attempted. The idea of these experiments was suggested by a guitar-shaped violin made by Stradivarius and owned by the elder Chanot. Imagining that so eminent a maker would not have constructed such a violin without good reason, Monsieur Savart--a doctor of medicine--threw up his profession for that of science and interested himself in organising a series of tests in the first half of the nineteenth century. As a result of his labours _luthiers_ were at last confronted with the astounding assertion that an arched surface vibrates less readily than a plane one: that there are points where the vibrations are greatly reduced, and that the aggregate vibration is least at the sound holes and at the corner blocks of a violin or violoncello.

Starting from this groundwork, M. Savart constructed a violin entirely made of flat surfaces and straight lines with narrow rectilinear slits for sound holes (so as to cut as few of the fibres of the wood as possible) and no tailpiece, the drag of the latter on the tender part of the belly being considered detrimental to the instrument. The most astonishing part of this fiddle was that it passed the test of comparison with a Stradivarius victoriously. The members of the Académie des Sciences formed a council and, assisted by such eminent musicians as M. Berton, Catel le Sueure, and Cherubini, sat in solemn judgment. The merits of the instrument were considered by them at several meetings, and the gifted violinist, M. Lefebvre, was requested to play alternately upon a _chef-d’oeuvre_ of Cremona and the Savart “box-fiddle,” in an adjoining room. The decision arrived at by these gentlemen was that the square fiddle was every bit as good in tone--if not better--as the Cremona violin. Of course this was most flattering to the inventor, yet it is a question whether such excellent results would have taken place had the Savart fiddle been in less skilful hands. The great violinist Remenyi maintained that he could produce just as good a tone out of an eight-shilling fiddle as out of a 1000-guinea one. Monsieur Lefebvre’s handling of the “box-fiddle” was doubtless superior to the fiddle itself and,--as Voltaire said of Duport’s violoncello playing,--he made the council of impulsive Frenchmen believe in miracles “by making a nightingale out of an ox.”

A few years previous to Monsieur Savart’s researches M. Chanot--a naval officer, and a member of the distinguished family of violin-makers of that name, being compelled to leave the navy on account of his staunch Royalist predilections--had turned his attention to constructing guitar-shaped fiddles and violoncellos. These were also subjected to similar tests by the members of the Académie des Sciences and--as in the case of the Savart fiddle--pronounced to be superior to the instruments of Cremona. There were independent experts, however, who considered them faulty in tone and only to be regarded as curiosities. In the midst of diverse criticisms, these instruments found a market for a few years, the violins and violas fetching 300 francs, while 500 francs was the price demanded for the violoncellos. Those who desire to pursue the subject of vagaries, will find much to interest them in Mr Davidson’s “The Violin,” and Mr Heron Allen’s “Violin-making as it was and is”; sufficient for present purposes is it to know that such grotesqueness as eighteen stringed violins played with a bow and producing the combined effect of the violin, viola, violoncello and double-bass: the combination violin and violoncello with piano which can be played by one person: the melephone, which was nothing more than a concertina enclosed in a species of violoncello, and other such fallacies, have been relegated to the land of oblivion. Certain it is that the ancient viol-maker never dreamed of such horrors. Once in a way he attempted such a mild invention as a detachable neck, which could be unscrewed and placed inside the instrument through a door in the ribs, like the viola da gamba in the Donaldson Museum, but otherwise his methods, like his varnish, were so simple that he made no fuss about them. He saw no necessity for rushing into print, or taking out patents, or wrangling, or arguing. The traditions of his graceful craft were transmitted by word of mouth and practical demonstration to his pupils, and the pupils, living in an atmosphere of _lutherie_, sucked in the unwritten lore as naturally as the earth absorbs rain. What need to cry out the sky is blue, when all the world can see it!

It was among such surroundings that the mighty Stradivarius learnt his art in the workshops of Nicolo Amati, grandson of Andrea Amati, who made “The King.” The _atelier_ of this maker was a very nest of talent in the middle of the seventeenth century, for Nicolo Amati’s renown attracted all the most enthusiastic young aspirants of the art. It is easy to imagine the grand spirit of emulation, and even rivalry, which must have existed within the four walls of Amati’s premises in Cremona. An unrivalled master of his art at the time, bestowing care and thought on every part of his work, there is no doubt that he did much towards advancing the construction of the violoncello in the matter of experimenting with thicknesses, but he did not alter the dimensions of the violoncello which was at that time about 31 inches in length, if not longer. The majority of Amati violoncellos have been cut down, so that it is difficult to judge of their original size, but it is probable that they originally measured over 31 inches in length. The paramount influence of the Church in musical matters was responsible for the large dimensions of the violoncello at that date; it was looked upon as useful to reinforce the double-bass, or “bass-violin” as it was then called, for the big viols had already gone out of use in Italy in the middle of the seventeenth century. In “The Familiar Letters of Abraham Hill” (London 1767), his brother, Thomas, writing to him from Lucca, 1st October 1657, speaking of the instrumental music he had heard there, says that it “is much better than I expected. The organ and violin they are masters of, but the bass-viol they have not at all in use, and, to supply its place, they have the bass-violin.” According to Maugars in his “Reponse fait à un curieux ...” (1639) the viol was going out of use in Italy, quite twenty years before the above date. “Regarding the viol,” he remarks, “there is no one in Italy now who excels on that instrument, and even in Rome it is still little cultivated: I am very astonished at this, seeing that they had formerly one Horatio de Parme, who was a marvellous player.” The writer of these lines was himself a magnificent performer on the viola da gamba. He visited Rome, where he found the gamba, the theorbo, and harpsichord the most fashionable instruments, and, in spite of the numerous violins and violoncellos being made by Nicolas Amati in his busy workshops in Cremona, these latter were considered to be what Lord Chesterfield would have called “ungentlemanly instruments.” If by chance any enthusiastic amateur was rash enough to adopt the violin, he was careful to hide the fact from his friends for fear of being thought disreputable. This antipathy to the fiddle was just as keenly felt in England, when the encroachment of the new-fangled four-stringed instruments began to endanger the position of the viol. Anthony Wood, writing in 1653 at Oxford, says in reference to this: “Before the Restoration, gentlemen played three, four and five parts with viols. They esteemed a violin to be an instrument only belonging to a common fiddler, and could not endure that it should come among them for fear of making their meetings vain.” This prejudice against the violin is even felt to-day by many people. We ourselves remember an old lady’s astonishment when we confided to her that we could play the violin: “Why!” she exclaimed, “I thought such instruments were only played outside public-houses.”

The degree of excellence attained by such men as the Abbé Maugars, Hoffman, Sainte Colombe, and Marais, on the viola da gamba was certainly detrimental to the development of the violoncello. Maugars spent four years studying the gamba in England in 1620, and when he visited Rome, in 1639, his performances at the house of Signora Leonora Baroni, a famous Italian singer--who was herself no mean performer on the harpsichord and gamba--gained him the highest eulogies, which he recounts with no uncertain voice in the pamphlet already referred to (p. 138). In the face of the prodigies performed by gamba players, makers were content to follow the times and allow the violoncello to retain its large proportions. Even Stradivarius, who made the violin what it now is, did not occupy himself with the dimensions of the violoncello, but adopted the measurements of his contemporaries.