CHAPTER I

THE VIOLIN

_Charm of the violin; voice of the violin; parts of the violin; construction of the violin; bridge, bass-bar and sound-post; ancestry of the violin; the vielle, or viole; evolution of the violin; corners and bouts; the sound-holes; birthplace of the violin; Brescia; Gasparo di Salò; Maggini and the characteristics of his violins; Efrem Zimbalist’s Maggini; Cremona; the Amati family and their violins; Antonio Stradivari; house of Stradivari described by Haweis; the Stradivari violin; the Guarneri; Joseph del Gesù; Carlo Bergonzi; Jacobus Stainer of Absam; importance of wood for violins; Joachim’s opinion of the Stradivari violin; strings of the violin; the fingerboard and “positions”; harmonics—natural and artificial; portamento; the sordino; the right hand’s work; bowing; pizzicato; position of violins in the Orchestra; the First Violin; Lavignac on the violin; Berlioz on use of violins in the Orchestra; François Tourte, the Stradivari of the bow; evolution of the bow; Corelli, Tartini, Tourte, Viotti, Paganini; Tourte’s model; the bow of to-day._

There is something very fascinating about a violin. This graceful, delicate instrument, which is a marvel of strength, notwithstanding its frail appearance, is beautiful to look at and its voice is lovely to hear.

It is often said that the voice of a violin is so greatly admired because its tones offer the nearest approach to the human voice; but if you think the matter over you will, perhaps, agree with me that the tones of a beautiful violin do not resemble those of a human voice and that they are infinitely more beautiful in quality. There is a mellowness, a softness, a richness, a liquidity, a glossy clearness and a warmth peculiar to the violin and very far away from anything that the human throat can accomplish.

Let us think of the violin’s voice as something individual; and as something delightful and dear to us because it is an individual voice and not because of any fancied resemblance to a high soprano. Indeed, very few of the greatest singers could ever produce such velvety, sweet, poignant, vibrant and insinuating notes as we hear from a luscious Stradivari, a sweet Amati, or a rich Maggini under the bow of a master-violinist.

Everything about a violin appeals to us. There is something so mysterious and ingratiating about the little instrument, neat and trig and curved at the waist, with lines as clean as those of a high-bred race-horse and nerves as tense with excitement, ready to be set quivering at the touch of the bow.

Moreover, the very fact that age improves it, and that the longer it lives the sweeter and richer and lovelier it becomes, gives us almost a feeling of awe towards the violin. This delicate little instrument defies Time and disaster. In that it is superior to man himself: the violin is, therefore, almost superhuman!

How many hands have touched this precious treasure! What scenes has it passed through! How many countries has it visited! How many thousands have listened to its voice!

The violin has outlived them all, generation after generation. If it could only tell us all its experiences and adventures since it was taken down from its nail in a Cremona workshop and pronounced ready for the purchaser who had ordered it!

[Illustration: FIRST VIOLIN, SYMPHONY SOCIETY OF NEW YORK

_Alexander Saslavsky_]

Romance, romance, romance, and nothing but romance, clings around old violins, just like the scent in an old Chinese rose-jar. You cannot get rid of the aroma. And, moreover, you do not want to. This atmosphere of the Past gives enchantment to a violin as it does to a Ming vase.

Then there is something very thrilling in the fact that the violin has a charmed life. Nothing can hurt a violin very much. If it is smashed into a thousand bits, a clever repairer can put all the pieces together again; and the instrument is little the worse for the shock.

Then, too, a valuable old Cremona seems to defy theft. If a thief runs away with one, he has trouble to get rid of it, because few are willing to buy it from him. The pedigree of every famous violin is known; or, in other words, the name of every one of its owners is on record. A fine instrument can be identified eventually.

All violins may look alike to you now; but not after your eyes have been taught to know them. No two violins were ever made that were exactly alike; although, of course, all those that were made by any one maker have, generally speaking, the same characteristics. These characteristics are what one has to learn, in order to become an expert, or a connoisseur. All the celebrated makers gradually developed a “model,” as it is called; and experts and connoisseurs can tell almost at a glance from what workshop any instrument came. Not only the model, or pattern, or shape, as we might call it, declares the maker, but every maker had a special varnish. Every maker also had a special way of carving the scroll, or head, and of cutting the sweeping _f_-holes that give the violin so much expression.

And what would the violin be without these graceful _f_-holes?

It would not only lose its tone, but much of its beauty. These sound-holes are of the utmost importance. Their shape, width and position have all been determined through years—centuries indeed—of experiment.

The whole system by which the sound-waves are set in motion in the _inside_ of a violin and the way they cross each other and issue forth from these sound-holes is strange in the highest degree. It is a miracle!

Altogether, the violin is a very charming, fascinating, mysterious, romantic, delightful, and lovable instrument.

* * * * *

Although the violin may appear to your eyes as a very simple instrument, it is really a very complex one.

If I asked you to describe a violin you would probably tell me that it has a back and front, sides and strings. Perhaps you might mention the bridge and, perhaps, you would not think about this small article. Perhaps, too, you might mention the _f_-holes on either side of the bridge. And there you would stop.

You know very little about a violin, or you would speak of the _belly_ and not the “front” and of the _ribs_ and not the “sides.” And you have not mentioned anything _inside_ the violin. Perhaps you think it contains nothing!

A violin consists of _seventy_ different pieces.

Fifty-seven belong to the construction and thirteen are moveable fittings.

The back (sometimes in two pieces), the belly (sometimes in two pieces), the blocks (six), the ribs (six, sometimes five), the linings (twelve), the bass-bar, the purfling (twenty-four pieces), the nut, the fingerboard, the neck, and the head and scroll (sometimes called the lower nut).

The thirteen moveable fittings are: the tail-piece, the loop, the button, or tail-pin, the screws, or pegs (four), the strings (four), the sound-post and the bridge.

The wood used is of three kinds: maple, or sycamore, for the back, neck, ribs and bridge; pine, or soft deal, for the belly, blocks, linings, bass-bar and sound-post; and ebony for the tail-piece, fingerboard, nuts, pegs and button. The purfling, that narrow edging that outlines the shape of the instrument on both belly and back, is made of thin strips of ebony and maple (sometimes, but not often, whalebone is used).

The parts are put together with the finest glue and invisible joinings. Finally, comes the varnish, which is of the utmost importance.

The violin is, indeed, as a lover of this instrument[1] has said, “a miracle of construction; and as it can be taken to pieces, put together, patched and indefinitely repaired, it is almost indestructible. It is, as one might say, as light as a feather and as strong as a horse. The belly of soft deal and the back of hard sycamore are united by six sycamore ribs supported by twelve blocks with linings. It appears that the quick vibrations of the hard wood married to the slower sound-waves of the soft wood, produce the mellow but reedy _timbre_ of the good violin. If all the wood were hard, you would get the tone light and metallic; if all soft, it would be muffled, or tubby. There is every conceivable variety of fibre both in hard and soft wood. The thickness of back and belly is not uniform. Each should be thicker towards the middle. But _how_ thick and shaved thin in what proportion to the sides? The cunning workman alone knows.”

And now let us consider carefully the three important and highly mysterious organs of the violin. Yes, I am calling them organs. Perhaps I had even better say organs and nerves. These are the bridge, the sound-post and the bass-bar. The two latter are invisible. The bridge, a delicately cut little arch of maple, or sycamore, higher on one side than on the other, perforated curiously but according to a form learned through the experiments of centuries, has been called the “_tongue of the violin_.” The treble foot of the bridge stands firm and rigid on that part of the belly made rigid by the sound-post. The bass foot of the bridge rests on that part of the body, or belly, which vibrates freely, these vibrations being increased and regulated by the bass-bar. Through this bass foot of the bridge the vibration of the strings is communicated to the belly and thence to the mass of air in the violin. The treble foot of the bridge is _the centre of vibration_. The action of the bridge, however, really depends upon the sound-post.

[Illustration: A LITTLE SAVOYARD IN PARIS WITH VIELLE, OR HURDY-GURDY]

The sound-post has been called “the _soul of the violin_.” It is a little pine stick, a few inches long, about the size of a large cedar pencil. It is placed upright about an eighth of an inch to the back of the right foot of the bridge.

“Through it pass all the heart throbs, or vibrations, generated between the back and the belly. There the short waves and the long waves meet and mingle. It is the material throbbing centre of that pulsating air-column defined by the walls of the violin, but propagating those mystic sound-waves that ripple forth in sweetness upon ten thousand ears.”[2]

The bass-bar (or sound-bar) has been called “_the nervous system of the violin_.” It is an oblong piece of wood glued lengthwise to the belly. It runs in the same direction as the strings and acts as a beam, or girder, to strengthen the belly against the pressure of the left foot of the bridge. The bass-bar has to be cut and adjusted to meet the requirements of every violin; and only long experience can determine how _long_, how _thick_ and exactly _where_ the bass-bar should be made and placed. The fraction of a line makes all the difference in the world.

The bass-bar is the only member, or organ, of the violin’s body that has undergone any change since the days of Antonio Stradivari. Owing to the increased pitch (higher tuning) of the present time, the tension, or pull, of the strings equals _eighty_ pounds! Think of it—this frail-looking, delicate, little violin stands a strain of eighty pounds!

In Stradivari’s time this tension was sixty-three pounds. So in modern times it has been found necessary to strengthen the bass-bar by giving it extra depth in the centre and adding to its length.

Now we know exactly what happens. This tremendous strain of the strings (equalling eighty pounds) is resisted first by the arch of the belly; then by the ribs, strengthened by the upright blocks and linings; and, lastly, by the supporting bass-bar.

Another change that has been made in the last century is the lengthening of the neck. This was done on account of the increased technique of modern performers. The scroll, or head, remained unchanged.

The scroll is very indicative of the maker. Any expert by looking at the scroll can tell its maker. Truly we can repeat the words of Mr. Gladstone: “to perfect that wonder of travel—the locomotive—has, perhaps, not required the expenditure of more mental strength and application than to perfect that wonder of music—the violin!”

* * * * *

The violin is three hundred years old, and it is the only musical instrument that has remained unchanged during that time! It has seen viols, lutes, spinets and harpsichords go out of fashion; it has seen many wind-instruments disappear and new ones take their places; it has seen a few developments in the harp; and it has seen the birth of the piano. But the model of the violin that was brought to perfection by the old makers of Cremona, particularly Antonio Stradivari, is so beautiful in form and so exquisite in tone that it has been impossible to improve it.

The violin did not spring into existence under the clever hands of the Italian workmen. It had been developing for a hundred years before the Cremonese makers added their finishing touches. What they did was to take the model that already existed and improve it; and their improvements were so great that they practically made a new instrument of it.

The violin has had a long ancestry. It would take several hours to describe all the peculiar instruments from which it could have been derived. We should have to go back thousands of years, to ancient Egypt and Greece and Phœnicia and even to India. And everywhere we would come across an instrument that is best described as a long box of wood over which a string is stretched, or, in some cases, several strings are stretched.

We date our violin from the Thirteenth Century, a time when many great changes were taking place, when great cathedrals were being built and when Dante was living. Perhaps it would be better to say that the _characteristics_ of our modern violin begin to appear about that time—six hundred years ago—when the Troubadours began to flourish in the south of France, in beautiful Provence, the land of roses and nightingales.

The Troubadour, who was a poet as well as a musician and who wrote the words of his songs as well as their melodies, played upon a _viole_, or _vielle_. Another name for it is guitar-fiddle. The instrument was a kind of guitar, fiddle and hurdy-gurdy all in one, as you will see if you look at the picture of the _Little Savoyard in Paris_ facing page 14, made in 1827; for the hurdy-gurdy of the wandering player is a survival of the old _vielle_. Its body was pear-shaped and over it five strings were stretched. The _vielle_ was a queer instrument indeed; sometimes it was played with a bow; sometimes it was plucked with the fingers; and sometimes it was played by turning a wheel. It was chiefly used by the Troubadours to support the voice, so it was an accompanying, rather than a solo, instrument. Gradually the _vielle_ was made larger; and during this same Thirteenth Century, when there were many new ideas springing up in the world, somebody got the idea of cutting out the sides of the long instrument to form a kind of waist. And this waist was the first step towards our modern violin.

In the Fifteenth Century—two hundred years later—something else happened,—something of importance for the whole future of music. People began to make bowed instruments corresponding to the various kinds of human voices; consequently, these were the treble, or discant, viol; the tenor viol; the bass viol; and the double-bass, or violone.

The next thing that happened—also in this Fifteenth Century—was the invention of corner blocks, which followed naturally from the cutting of the waist, although it took a long time to think of it. You will notice if you look at the illustrations facing pages 22, 24, 30, 34, and 38, that a violin has two sharply projecting points on each of its sides, one at either extremity of the _f_-holes at the waist of the instrument. These sharp corners mark the position of triangular blocks _inside_ the violin. These blocks are glued to the back and to the belly of the violin and the ribs of the violin are glued to the blocks. These blocks are the very corner-stones of the construction of a violin; and they add very much to the strength and the resonance of the instrument.

[Illustration: ST. CECILIA

_By Jan and Hubert van Eyck_]

If you look at the violins and other bowed instruments in many old Italian and Flemish paintings you will see that they have only single corners, as, for instance, the large viol the Angel is holding in the picture of St. Cecilia facing page 18. Nobody seems to know whether single, or double, corners came first; but after a time only double corners were used.

The use of these double corners produced something else that was new. This was the curving of the ribs at the waist forming a hollowed-out place called bouts; and these bouts gave the right hand of the player more freedom to move up and down with the bow. Up to this time the position of the performer’s hand was stiff and cramped unless there was a tremendously high bridge to carry the strings. So when the ribs were curved and the bouts cut, the player’s hand could move more easily and naturally.

But even so, the shape of the violin was not fully determined. These bouts were made according to the idea of every individual maker. They were small and deep in some instruments, long and shallow in others. They were often of enormous size and out of all proportion to the general form of the instrument. Pictures of these old models look very queer to us now.

About the beginning of the Sixteenth Century long and shallow bouts were universally used and the violin began to take the simple and graceful form with the double corners with which we are familiar. But, notwithstanding all these improvements, we have not yet arrived at our perfect violin. The sound-holes, those two curved openings called _f_-holes, on either side of the bridge, were not yet in their proper place.

These _f_-holes were subject to a great deal of experimenting. Strange to say in the old _vielle_, or _viole_, of the Troubadours they were often very nearly in the place they occupy to-day, that is to say partly in the waist and partly in the lower part of the instrument; but the invention of the bouts displaced them, and, sometimes (indeed very often), they appear right down at the very bottom of the instrument near the tail-piece, as you will see if you look at the picture facing page 70. Makers had an idea that the belly should be left as strong as possible and that the cutting of these _f_-holes made it weaker. At first they used a round sound-hole, like that of a guitar, right in the middle of the instrument. Then they made a pair of crescents, or large C’s turned face to face, as you will see if you look at the Angel playing in the picture of St. Cecilia facing page 18; and they liked this so much that they used these C’s for a hundred years (in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries). Then came the “flaming-sword” as in the _viola d’amore_ facing page 50; and then the _f_-hole. But at first the _f_’s were placed back to back. Finally, about 1580, the Italian makers cut their _f_-holes front to front.

By the middle of the Seventeenth Century, about the time that our own country was being settled by the English and Dutch, the violin was ready for the great makers to improve it in beauty of outline and qualities of tone.

The violin is, therefore, almost exactly the age of our own country!

* * * * *

The birthplace of the violin is in one of the world’s loveliest spots—in the fertile plain of Lombardy, in the northern part of Italy, where the eyes of the traveller that have feasted on emerald meadows and sapphire lakes look upward to the snowy Alps, where grew the pines, maples and sycamores from which the old makers obtained the woods for their instruments. The very trees were saturated with beauty as they grew on the mountain slopes. Is it any wonder that the instruments made from such wood should sing?

In this district and in the Tyrol little colonies of lute-makers and viol-makers had lived and worked for centuries, supplying Europe with such instruments as we find represented in old illuminated manuscripts and described in song and story.

Two towns became especially celebrated for their violins,—Brescia and Cremona.

Brescia was famous for two makers: Gasparo di Salò and his pupil, Giovanni Paolo Maggini.

Gasparo di Salò’s real name was Gasparo Bertolotti. He was born in 1542 in the little town of Salò, on the shore of the Lake of Garda, about twenty miles from Brescia.

Brescia was in those days a pretty town, hidden behind fortified walls with the usual belfry, palace and Cathedral soaring above them. The Cathedral was famous for its music and its fine orchestra. The monks were very friendly with the instrument-makers, who had carried on their art and trade from generation to generation ever since the beginning of the Fourteenth Century. In Brescia Gasparo di Salò settled and became well known for his viols and violins. He probably had many orders from the monks, with whom he was evidently on good terms; for when he was ill, at one time of his life, they took care of him. He made most of his instruments from 1560 to 1610, when he died.

His name is of great importance in the history of the violin. The violins of Gasparo di Salò are the earliest that are known. They are very rare, however. The most famous di Salò was owned by Ole Bull, the great Norwegian violinist. It is now in the Museum in Bergen, Norway. Instead of the ordinary scroll it has an angel’s head, which is said to have been carved by Benvenuto Cellini, the gifted silversmith.

“The violins of Gasparo di Salò are of somewhat large build with strong curves and varnished with a dark brown varnish; but their shape corresponds little with that adopted by the great Italian makers. The middle bouts are cut very shallow; the corners project but little and are strongly rounded, while the sound-holes are large and parallel to each other—a feature which is peculiar to the Brescian School. Gasparo selected for his bellies wood of an extraordinary uniformity of regularity of grain.”[3]

[Illustration: VIOLIN

_By Gasparo di Salò_]

By him the present form of the violin was definitely fixed, as you will see by looking at the Gasparo di Salò facing page 22. His tenors and double-basses are superior to his violins and are much sought after.

Maggini was a native of Brescia and worked there from 1590 till 1632, when he is supposed to have died of the Plague. His early violins resemble those of Gasparo di Salò; but gradually the sound-holes grow narrower and by the end of his life Maggini produced violins that were pure in outline and beautifully finished. Moreover, they are famed for their grand, deep, _melancholy_ tone. Maggini had learned to be extremely careful in selecting the wood. In early days the Maggini bellies were cut across the grain like Gasparo di Salò’s; but, after a while, Maggini cut with the grain like Amati. His sound-holes grew more delicate, but they were bevelled inwards (an idea that the Cremona makers rejected). Maggini violins are also distinguished for their clear, golden-brown varnish and for their purfling, which is usually _double_. Very often Maggini indulged his fancy for ornamentation by twisting the purfling into a graceful clover-leaf pattern on the backs of his violins.

Maggini violins are very rare. The last one to come to light was discovered by Efrem Zimbalist about a year ago. The way it came into his possession is as romantic a story as was ever told about a violin.

Zimbalist happened to be at Lake George. A policeman came to him one day and said: “Mr. Zimbalist, I have an old violin that has been in the garret for about seventy or eighty years. I have just been offered a hundred dollars for it and I want you to tell me if I shall take it.” “Bring the violin to me,” said Zimbalist, “and I’ll try it.” The policeman returned with a dark, dirty old instrument, unstrung and in bad condition. It was not prepossessing, but Zimbalist strung it and tried it.

“I’ll give you,” he said to the policeman, “a hundred and fifty dollars for it now; and if I find that it is what I think it is, I will give you a hundred and fifty more.”

Zimbalist brought the violin to New York and took it to a repairer, who worked over it and at length brought it back to its original state. Delighted with the violin, Zimbalist sent the policeman five hundred dollars. Soon afterwards the violin repairer offered Zimbalist five thousand dollars for it. The old, black, neglected violin had turned out to be a beautiful Maggini.

* * * * *

Not very far away from Brescia is the town of Cremona on the river Po. Cremona! The very name gives us a thrill! The town, though small, was an artistic centre. Its school of painting was nearly as famous as that of Bologna, and in its stately Cathedral just as beautiful music was heard as in the Cathedral of Brescia. The wealthy prelates and learned monks encouraged and trained musicians of the first rank; and naturally there was a great demand for fine instruments. Cremona had long been a rival of Brescia in the production of viols and violins and now that Maggini had made so many improvements, the Cremonese makers were quick to follow, so quick indeed and so skilful that Cremona went ahead of Brescia and became the centre of violin-making for the whole world from 1560 to 1760—two hundred years! And it is thrilling to realize that in this little town, in three workshops side by side, on the Piazza San Domenico, _all the great violins of the world were made_ and in friendly competition by the three families of Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri.

[Illustration: VIOLIN

_By Maggini_]

The Amati family was of good position. Their name goes back in the records of Cremona to the year 1097. The first one of interest to us is Andreas Amati, who was born in 1520 and who died in 1611. He may have been a pupil of Gasparo di Salò and then again he may not. At any rate, his model differs very much from Gasparo’s and marks a great advance, although it still retains the stiff, upright Brescian sound-hole. Andreas Amati chose a smaller model with belly and back very high. His outline was very graceful; his scroll beautifully cut; his varnish of an amber color; and he was noted for his _careful selection of wood_. Very few of his works have survived. His sons, Antonio and Geronimo (Antonius and Hieronymus as they are also known), improved on their father’s style. To them is due much of the reputation of the Amati violin; for they reduced the outlines to beautiful curves; were careful about the wood they used; and they perfected a rich, clear varnish. These brothers worked together and apart and produced a model that for artistic design and _sweetness of tone_ has never been surpassed.

Then came Nicolò Amati (1576-1684), greatest of them all. He was the son of Geronimo. First he copied the family model and then developed a style of his own, producing an even more graceful outline, a richer and _deeper_ varnish and a greater power and clearness of tone, without sacrificing the peculiar sweetness and charm that is characteristic of all the Amati violins. Nicolò, as a rule, made rather small violins, but he also made some large ones. These are known as the “Grand Amatis” and they are very highly prized to-day.

“Most of the Nicolò violins before 1645 are of the smaller pattern, but after this date down to 1684, the year of his death, the eye of a connoisseur will notice an increase in size, a finish in workmanship and a more delicate purfle (never double). The model is still somewhat high in back and belly, but with an increasing tendency to get flatter; the side grooving is less pronounced, whilst the corners are noticeably drawn out into finer points full of character, arresting the eye, lightening, as it were, the model and giving the whole physiognomy of the instrument a piquancy hitherto unattempted.”[4]

In his workshop on the Piazza San Domenico Nicolò Amati had many pupils and apprentices. Among them were the Guarneri brothers and Antonio Stradivari.

Everybody has heard of Stradivari, or Stradivarius, for he is often called by the Latin version of his Italian name. Stradivari was the greatest of all violin-makers; and his violins are to-day as valuable as jewels.

[Illustration: CREMONA IN 1830

_By Caporali_]

What Stradivari really did during his long and industrious life was to take the model of Nicolò Amati and improve it, searching ever to get _intensity of tone without sacrificing sweetness_. In other words, he was doing just what Nicolò Amati had done before him; and he applied all his life, all his energies and all his thought to this purpose.

“Stradivari’s main improvements consisted of (1) In lowering the height of the model, that is, the arch of the belly and in altering this flattened curve to a more uniform arch, so as to afford greater resistance to the pressure of the strings. (2) In making the four corner blocks more massive, in an improved method of dove-tailing the linings at the blocks, and in giving a quarter curvature to the middle ribs, the result of which is to make the curves more prominent in the outline and to increase the tension of the parts. (3) In altering the setting of the sound-holes, giving them a decided inclination to each other at the top, thus following the general upward diminution of the pattern and in fixing the position of the sound-holes relatively to the corner blocks. (4) In making the scroll more massive and prominent, thus rendering it less liable to split at the peg-holes and forming more of a counterpoise in the hand of the player.”[5]

Antonio Stradivari came from an old Cremonese family, members of which held public office as early as 1127. There is not much to tell about his life. He was born in 1644 and died in 1737 at the age of ninety-three. When he married in 1667, he left Amati’s workshop and opened his own a few doors away. When Nicolò Amati died, he left Stradivari all his tools. By this time Stradivari had bought a house, No. 2, Piazza San Domenico (No. 1, Piazza Roma from 1870 until it was pulled down), and there in the top loft, or garret, he worked so industriously that the people of Cremona had a proverb “rich as Stradivari.” No authentic portrait of him is known. According to tradition, he was tall and thin. In winter he wore a white woollen cap and in summer a white cotton one and he always wore a white leather apron over his clothes when he was at work.

Mr. Haweis, some years ago, went on a special search for the house of Stradivari and found it, after much difficulty; for the people of Cremona had forgotten all about the man who made their town famous. However, he succeeded in discovering the house. He takes us directly into this romantic spot: “I stood in the open loft at the top of the house where still in the old beams stuck the rusty old nails upon which he hung up his violins. And I saw out upon the north, the wide blue sky just mellowing to rich purple and flecked here and there with orange streaks prophetic of sunset. Whenever Stradivari looked up from his work if he looked north his eyes fell on the old towers of S. Marcellino and S. Antonio; if he looked west the Cathedral with its tall campanile rose dark against the sky; and what a sky! Full of clear sun in the morning, full of pure heat all day and bathed with ineffable tints in the cool of the evening when the light lay low upon the vinery and hanging-garden, or spangled with ruddy gold the eaves, the roofs and frescoed walls of the houses. High up in the air with the sun his helper, the light his minister, the blessed soft airs his journeymen through the long warm days worked Antonio Stradivari.”

Stradivari is supposed to have made two thousand instruments! He also made lutes, mandolins and guitars and every detail of his instruments, including the pegs! In those days princes and other rich amateurs ordered their violins; and they would come themselves, or send some important deputy, to the instrument-maker to talk it all over, and, often, indeed, to give the measurements of their arms and bodies so as to get a violin that should be exactly suited to the performer. In those days the best concerts took place in private homes; and the wealthy patron of art liked to own many fine instruments for his own little orchestra to play upon, and still choicer ones for guests, who, in those troublous times of war, rarely took their own valuable instruments travelling with them. Stradivari, like other makers, was frequently asked to supply “a chest of viols,” or a “set of instruments.” He was, therefore, very busy, filling orders all the time. Meanwhile, he was thinking out, as he filled his orders, the great problem of how to get a more carrying and penetrating tone without sacrificing beauty and sonority. To give an idea of the work he used to have, the King of Poland, in 1715, ordered twelve violins for his court orchestra; then Cardinal Orsini (afterwards Pope Benedict XIII) ordered a violoncello of Stradivari in 1685; and in 1687 the Spanish Court ordered a set of stringed instruments that were ornamented with ivory purfling. One of these found its way into the hands of Ole Bull and was afterwards sold to Dr. Charles Oldham of Brighton.

Stradivari, in his early period, followed the Amati style, with, however, a freer sweep of the scroll. He began to sign his violins, that is to say to put a label, or ticket, inside of them, about 1700; and from that date to 1725 he created his master-works. He gradually diminished the arch under the bridge and, finally, produced the _flat_ model. Stradivari only ceased to work in the last year of his life. For those great violins that are now known by special names, the “Messiah,” the “Pucelle,” the “Viotti,” the “Bossier,” the “Dolphin,” the “Hellier,” and so on, that are now worth fortunes, the maker was paid from fifty to two hundred dollars apiece!

What would old Stradivari say could he know the prices that are given for these violins when they change hands! He would be amazed beyond measure; but his delight would be greater if he could hear the rich tones that are given forth from his instruments mellowed with age. Moreover, violinists did not play in Stradivari’s time as they play now. Could the old Cremonese maker see and hear the violins that he made and learned to know and love as they took shape beneath his skilful touch in the hands of Fritz Kreisler or Efrem Zimbalist—what would he think!

[Illustration: VIOLIN

_By Antonius and Hieronymus Amati_]

An authority tells us that: “After 1690 his individuality began to assert itself, his model became more graceful and flatter, the _f_-holes elegant and reclining, the centre bouts gracefully drawn out, as also the corners; the scroll is bold and striking; the purfling rather narrow; and the varnish beautiful golden, or light red. It was at the end of this period that he made the violins known as the ‘Long Strads,’ so called from their narrowness between the _f_-holes, giving them a lanky appearance, the size varying, and the varnish amber, or light red. The year 1700 brings us to his best period, the model flattish, the wood cut on the quarter and thickest in the centre under the bridge, the curves gentle and harmonious, the wood of the blocks very light, often formed of willow, the scroll perfect in its symmetry. The graceful _f_-holes, the transcendently glorious amber-colored, or ruby, varnish are all characteristics of this epoch of the greatest master’s greatest power. His last instruments have the purfling pointed across the corner instead of following it round; and it is not uncommon to find it running completely through the corner. His ticket runs ‘Antonio Stradivarius Cremonensis faciebat Anno 17—’. His years of experiment resulted in a neatly compacted instrument with light edges, accurate corners, round arching, broadly treated but exquisitely graceful sound-holes and scroll and a varnish soft in texture which shades deliciously from orange to red. From 1703 until about 1709, the year of those famous violins, the ‘Pucelle’ and the ‘Viotti,’ Stradivari seems to have settled upon certain points of construction from which he rarely afterwards departed. In 1711 he made the fine violin known as the ‘Parke;’ in 1713, the ‘Boissier,’ which belonged to Sarasate; in 1714, the ‘Dolphin;’ and in 1715, the ‘Gillot’ and the ‘Alard,’ which experts look upon as the master’s finest creations; and in 1716, came the ‘Messiah.’ No detail of his work was too unimportant for the master’s vigilant observation. That he personally designed the pegs, finger-boards, tail-pieces, inlaid patterns, bridges and even the minutest details of his violin cases, is attested by the numerous drawings of these in the Della Valle collection while the several sketches for bow tips and nuts reveal the interesting fact that he also made bows. Generally speaking, the so-called Lost Cremona Varnish was in the writer’s opinion no secret in Stradivari’s lifetime, but the common property of the lute-makers of the day, who compounded it from the materials used by the great painters of the epoch. Stradivari’s own recipe was inscribed on the fly-leaf of a family Bible, but his descendant, Giacomo Stradivari, destroyed this.”[6]

Two sons carried on their father’s work, but they produced nothing remarkable.

There were five of the Guarneri who were distinguished violin-makers. The first was Andreas, who worked with Stradivari in the workshop of Nicolò Amati. He afterwards developed an original style. The important member was Joseph del Gesù, so called from the “I. H. S.” he added to his name on the labels of his violins. Just why he did this nobody seems to know. As he was the son of Gian Battista, he may have humorously wanted to say he was greater than his father. Joseph, or Giuseppe, Guarneri was born in 1687 and died in 1745. His latest productions, from 1740 till his death, are his best. Whether he was a pupil of Stradivari, or not, matters little. His real master was old Gasparo di Salò; for he revived the bold, rugged outline and the powerful tone of the early Brescian maker, as you will see if you compare the violins facing pages 22 and 38. Joseph del Gesù was searching after _tone_; and he got it. He seems to have led a wild life; and there is a story that once he got into trouble and was locked up in prison and that the jailer’s daughter brought him wood and tools so that he could make violins. These violins are called “Prison Josephs”; and, judging from the number of them in the world, Joseph del Gesù must have stayed a long time in prison and have been very industrious while there.

Paganini had a Joseph del Gesù and preferred it to his Stradivari. He always played upon it; and when he died, he left it to the Town Hall in Genoa, where it is still to be seen. It is represented facing page 38.

One more and we shall have finished with the Cremonese makers. This is Carlo Bergonzi, Stradivari’s favorite pupil. Carlo lived next door to Stradivari; and when the latter died, he moved into Stradivari’s house and lived with the latter’s son. First Bergonzi copied the Stradivari model and then he tried for power; so he endeavored to combine the model of Stradivari and that of Joseph Guarneri. The model that he produced is bold, broad and massive and gives a strong, rich, full tone. Bergonzi worked twenty-five years; but only about sixty authentic instruments of his are known. Bergonzi was born in 1712 and died in 1750.

We must not imagine that these makers of whom we have been talking were the _only_ ones at work in Lombardy during these two hundred years. If we take the pains to look at any books on violin-making we will be amazed at the long, long list of Italian makers of lutes and violins. There were about as many of them as there are makers of pianos in the United States to-day.

There were also many German instrument-makers at work, particularly in the Tyrol, where the pines were so plentiful; but the only one of any great reputation is Jacob Stainer, who was born in the little town of Absam near Innsbrück in 1621. He may have gone to Cremona, which was not far away from his home, and have worked there, or he may have just had some models. At any rate, his violins are more like those of Cremona than are those of any other German maker.

Stainer’s violins bear a rough resemblance to the Amati violins; but they are very much higher, and the _f_-holes are shorter and are very thick and clumsy. Stainer made twelve violins for the Electors of his country; and these “Elector Stainers,” as they are called, are his most famous productions. He died in 1683.

It is said that this old maker used to walk through the wooded slopes of the Tyrolean mountains with a hammer in his hand and that he would knock the trunks of the trees and listen to the vibrations. When he found a tree that suited him, he had it cut down to use in making his instruments.

[Illustration: THE HELLIER STRADIVARI]

The question of wood was of the greatest importance. “The wood must be cut only in December and January and only that part must be used which has been exposed to the sun. You may cut up planks before you find a piece suitable for a really fine back, or belly. Witness the grain of a Stradivari or Amati violin; mark the almost pictorially beautiful health and evenness of its wavy lines, free from all knots, irregularity of growth, studded with symmetrical and billowy veins where the rich sap once flowed. And when the wood is cut it must be tempered and dried, not with artificial warmth but with the slow and penetrating influence of a dry, warm Cremona climate. For no customer, no market could the process be hurried. And the application of the varnish required corresponding care. It was to be perfectly wedded to the rare wood—a companionship destined to last for ages—to outlast so many generations of men and women, was not to be enterprised or undertaken lightly. In the spring when the air got clear and bright and the storms were past, the subtle gums and oils were mixed slowly and deliberately: hours to stand, hours to settle, hours for perfect fusing and amalgamation of parts; clear, white light gleaming from roads strewn with the dazzling marble dust of Lombardy; clear blue sky, warm dry air, and the skill of an alchemist,—these were the conditions for mixing the incomparable Cremona varnish. So deliberately was it prepared and laid on, just where the wood was fit to receive it—laid on in three coats in such a manner as to sink into the dessicated pores and become a part of the wood, as the aromatic herbs and juices become a part of the flesh that is embalmed for a thousand years. All through the summer did that matchless varnish, which some say contained ground amber and which, at any rate, was charged with subtle secrets, sink and sink into the sycamore and deal plates, until now, when age has rubbed away its clear and agate crust in many places, the violin is found no longer to need that protection, for the wood itself seems to have become petrified into clear agate and is capable throughout its myriad pores and fibres of resisting the worm and even damp and other ravaging influence of ordinary decay.”[7]

When Joachim was asked why he preferred a Stradivari to any other violin, he replied: “A Stradivari is a mine of musical sound into which the player can dig and bring out hidden beauties of tone.” And then he went on to say: “While the violins of Maggini are remarkable for volume of tone and those of Amati for liquidity, none of the celebrated makers exhibit the union of sweetness and power in so pre-eminent a degree as Giuseppe Guarnieri (del Gesù) and Antonio Stradivari. If I am to give expression to my individual feeling, I must pronounce for the latter as my chosen favorite. It is true that in brilliancy and clearness, even in liquidity, Guarneri is not surpassed by him; but what appears to me peculiar to the tone of Stradivari is a more unlimited capacity for expressing the most varied accents of feeling. The tone seems to well forth like a spring and to be capable of infinite modification under the bow. Stradivari’s violins affording a strong resistance to the bow, when resistance is desired, yet responding to its lightest breath, emphatically require that the player’s ear shall patiently listen until it catches the secret of drawing out their tone. Their beauty of tone is not so easily reached as in the violins of many other makers. Their vibrations increase in warmth the more the player, discovering their richness and variety, seeks from the instrument a sympathetic echo of his own emotions: so much so that these violins seem to be living beings and become, as it were, the player’s familiars—as if Stradivari had breathed a soul into them in a manner achieved by no other master. It is this which stamps them as creations of an artistic mind, as positive works of art.”

* * * * *

We have talked about the construction of the violin and of its great makers; now let us turn our attention to the actual playing of the instrument.

The four strings—G, D, A, and E—are made of catgut[8] and the lowest—the G—is wound with silver. These strings do not run exactly parallel but taper gradually from the bridge to the nut. The nut is a tiny, raised bar of ebony at the extreme end of the fingerboard; and on the nut the strings rest on their way to the pegs. Through each peg a tiny hole is bored. The string passes through that hole and is looped around itself; and then the peg is screwed up, or turned, until the proper note, or pitch, is found. The violin is tuned in fifths.

These four strings give what are called the open notes—G, D, A, and E. The lowest note possible to get from the violin is this open G.

On the piano every note is ready and waiting for us to touch. Not so on the violin. Every note (except the open ones) the performer has to make. He has only four fingers to make these notes because his thumb simply helps the hand take its various _positions_. Generally speaking, there are seven positions; for the three still higher ones are rarely used. With each position, the hand is shifted a little higher on the neck of the violin; and the thumb and wrist gradually turn, the thumb from and the wrist towards the face of the player. As the hand creeps up upon the instrument, the fingers come closer together and the notes lie nearer to one another on the strings. The flexible little finger can be extended still further in each position while the position of the wrist and thumb is still retained.

As each finger presses the string tightly and firmly, the player shortens the vibration (or length) of the string and gets a special note. He learns to know his fingerboard and where all the notes lie on the strings with their intervals of whole tones and half-tones; and just what finger to place on these notes if he wants to play in the first, third, or fifth, position,—and so forth. The violinist rarely plays in any one position; but lets his wrist move up and down and his fingers fly all over the fingerboard, playing in all the positions just as he pleases. The player has to have a very accurate knowledge of the fingerboard; and then, beyond that knowledge, a very correct ear so that he may play in perfect tune, or good _intonation_, as it is called. A beginner on the violin finds this task even harder than to learn to draw a firm, straight, even and liquid bow. He has to listen to every note he produces and test it, as it were, until, after a time, he learns the fingerboard and his fingers drop on the right spots automatically. Of all musicians the players of strings have the most sensitive, accurate and the best trained ears.

[Illustration: VIOLIN

_By Guarneri del Gesù. Owned by Paganini_]

On the strings certain other notes are produced called harmonics. At certain places on a string there are nodes, as they are called, where, by lightly touching the string with the finger, over-tones are set vibrating. These are very strange and curious. They sound ethereal and flute-like. There are two kinds of harmonics: natural harmonics and artificial harmonics. The natural harmonics are found on the open strings at certain definite places. There are _five_ of these on each string. The artificial harmonics are produced by stopping the string with one finger and touching it lightly with another. These harmonics are harder to master; and they are a great worry to a violinist, because if his violin gets out of tune (drops a little from the heat of a concert hall, perhaps) the proper harmonics cannot be played. The question of harmonics is one that belongs to the science of acoustics and it is a very hard one to understand.

The strings are different in character and quality of tone. The G is very rich and mellow; D and A (particularly D) are sweet and warm; and E is very penetrating. The French call the latter _chanterelle_ because it so often sings the melody.

One peculiar charm about the violin is that though each of these strings has an individual character they “carry over” into each other so beautifully that a good player can pass from one to another smoothly and evenly. He mixes them, as it were, into a lovely whole. In passing from one position to another the violinist often _delicately_ slides with his finger up to, or down from, a note. This effect is called _portamento_; and it is one of the charms in violin-playing. Do not think that with his first fingers, the artist slides along the string until he finds the note he wants. Nothing of the kind. He slides up the string with one finger to _nearly the place_ he wants and then drops another finger firmly on the right note. But this _portamento_ is done so beautifully, so lightly and so swiftly that we never hear a slur, but are only conscious of a lovely and graceful effect.

When the composer wants to produce a very soft and veiled impression he writes on his score for the strings _con sordini_. The _sordino_ is a little brass, or wooden, article that looks like a comb. It is placed on the bridge, teeth downwards, to add weight and to deaden the vibrations. You will often see each of the Strings take his _sordino_ out of his waistcoat pocket and place it on the bridge of his instrument during the performance of a composition. Very few compositions are played with the _sordino_ all the way through.

The left hand of a violinist is, to a certain degree, _mechanical_ and trained to get accurate intonation, perfect position and tremendous dexterity. His right hand has another kind of work to do. The bowing of a violinist is what _breath_ is to a singer and what _touch_ is to a pianist. The beauty and delicacy of tone and the astonishing effects of scattering showers of notes about are all the work of the loose wrist, strong and flexible arm and yielding fingers that hold the bow and draw it across the strings.

[Illustration: INSTRUMENT-MAKER’S WORKSHOP

_Eighteenth Century_]

The rich, velvety, smooth and peaceful _legato_; the detached or short, sharp strokes; the hammered; the jumping; and the harp-like effects, the _arpeggios_ (or open chords) swinging back and forth, are all accomplished by the bow. Once in a great while, we hear a strange and weird effect caused by rapping the string lightly with the stick of the bow. But this is only a kind of trick that composers sometimes introduce. Liszt calls for it in his _Mazeppa_; Saint-Saëns in his _Danse Macabre_; and Strauss in _Also Sprach Zarasthustra_.

More often the violins (and other stringed instruments) play _pizzicato_,—that is the violinist rests his thumb against the fingerboard and plucks the strings with the tip of his forefinger.

Beethoven makes an effective use of this in the _Scherzo_ of his _Fifth Symphony_ and so does Tschaikowsky in the _Scherzo_ of his _F-minor Symphony_.

In the Orchestra violins are classified into First and Second, as we have seen, the First Violins sitting on the Conductor’s left and the Second Violins on his right hand. They sit two and two, each couple sharing a desk. The First Violins sing the high Soprano and the Second Violins the mezzo-soprano. The First Violin in the whole Orchestra is called the Concert-meister, or Concert-master, or simply the First Violin. Very often he plays an elaborate solo passage.

Before the days of modern Conductors the First Violin used to be the Conductor of the orchestra, or, we might say, the Conductor played the violin and led the Orchestra at the same time. But although the First Violin has no longer this double duty, his importance in the Orchestra is very great. On him depends the _attack_ and phrasing of the first violin and to a certain extent of the entire string Orchestra.

With regard to the position of the violin in the Orchestra let us hear Lavignac: “The violin,” he says, “is preëminently a _melodic_ instrument,—the splendid _sparkling soprano_ of the stringed tribe, the richest in varied effects, the most agile and the most impassioned of orchestral elements.”

And now having understood its value as an individual, let us turn to Berlioz to get an idea of its team-work.

“Violins are capable of a host of apparently inconsistent shades of expression. They possess (as a whole) force, lightness, grace, accents both gloomy and gay, thought and passion. _The only point is to know how to make them speak._ Slow and tender melodies are never better rendered than by a mass of violins. Nothing can equal the touching sweetness of a score of first strings made to sing by twenty well-skilled bows. The violin is, in fact, the true female voice of the Orchestra,—a voice at once passionate and chaste, heart-rending yet soft, which can weep, sigh and lament, chant, pray and muse, or burst forth into joyous accents as none other can do. An imperceptible movement of the arm, an almost unconscious sentiment on the part of him who experiences it, producing scarcely any apparent effect when executed by a single violin will, when multiplied by a number of them in unison, give forth enchanting gradation, irresistible impulse and accents which penetrate to the very heart’s core.”

* * * * *

Until the bow was perfected there was no brilliant violin-playing as we understand it to-day. It took a long time for the bow to develop. There was a “Stradivari of the bow”; and the name of this person so valuable to the art of violin-playing is François Tourte (see portrait facing page 44). All bows are made on Tourte’s model. A real Tourte bow commands a high price.

To understand what Tourte did, we shall have to go back to the early days of the violin and see what kind of a bow the old players used.

The earliest bow with which the _viole_, or _vielle_, and the early violin was played was shaped just like the bow from which an arrow is drawn,—a cord stretched from end to end of a stick. It was a very clumsy affair. In the Thirteenth Century when the violin began to develop as we have seen (see page 17), the bow began to change, too. The first improvement was to make one end blunt and to use hair instead of a cord. The head, or tip, was still sharply pointed. Nothing happened until the time of Corelli, the Italian composer and violinist (1653-1713), who did so much to improve violin-playing. He and others of his time used a straight, short bow, which was not at all elastic, although it was made of light wood. This was a distinct gain, as was also the novel idea of a screw by which the hair could be regulated.

The next change took place in the time of another Italian violinist, Tartini (1692-1770), the one who wrote the _Devil’s Sonata_, the melody of which he said the Devil played to him one night in a dream. Tartini used a longer bow than Corelli. It was also thinner and more elastic; but the head of it was still scooped like the ancient ones.

Then, at the end of the Eighteenth Century, François Tourte (1747-1835), worked away making bows, as his father had done before him, until he developed the modern bow. It appeared just about the time of the French Revolution. Like Stradivari, Tourte continued to work till the end of his life. He worked all day in his workshop in Paris, No. 10 Quai de l’École, and on Sundays and holidays he sat on the banks of the Seine fishing, just as they do to-day, and occasionally caught a tiny little fish to the envy of excited rivals around him.

With the stiff, straight, heavy, unelastic bow, the violinist could, of course, produce very few effects. Tourte’s improvements almost revolutionized violin-playing. It is said that Viotti, another Italian (1753-1824), and perhaps up to his time the greatest violinist that had appeared, gave Tourte the benefit of his ideas.

It is only by the use of an _elastic_ bow that a violinist is able to produce his wonderful effects. Bowing is to the violinist what breath is to the singer and touch to the pianist: _it is only through the bow_ that the violinist is able to express his emotions and ideas. So until Tourte’s time there was no real _Art of Bowing_, although Tartini wrote a little book on the subject.

[Illustration: FRANÇOIS TOURTE

“_The Stradivari of the bow_”]

The world was slow to adopt Tourte’s bow; and it was not until Paganini (1784-1840), the Italian wizard, came on the stage that a revolution in violin-playing took place. Paganini used every imaginable movement of the bow and developed the flexibility of the wrist. Then a new School of violin-playing arose and violin-playing gradually developed into what it is to-day.

“Tourte’s first experiments are said to have been made from the staves of old sugar hogsheads from Brazil. This is not unlikely. Probably the best slabs of Brazil-wood employed for this purpose had acquired a certain additional elasticity from the combined effect of exposure to tropical heat and the absorption of the saccharine juices.

“It is certain that the greater elasticity which he secured in the stick by the choice and preparation of the wood, enabled him to carry out to the fullest extent the method of _bending the stick of the bow the reverse way_, that is, inwards, and thus to realize what had long been the desideratum of a violinist,—a _bow which should be strong and elastic without being heavy_. By thus increasing and economising the resistance of the stick, he liberated the player’s thumb and fingers from much useless weight. By a series of patient experiments he determined the right curvature for the stick and the rule for tapering it gradually towards the point so as to have the centre of gravity in the right place, or, in other words, to ‘balance’ properly over the strings in the hands of the player. He determined the true length of the stick and the height of the point and the nut, in all which particulars the bow-makers of his time seem to have erred on the side of excess. Lastly he invented the method of spreading the hairs and fixing them on the face of the nut by means of a moveable band of metal fitted on a slide of mother-of-pearl.”[9]

Tourte’s violin bows are from 29 to 29½ inches long; a viola bow is 29 inches; and a ’cello bow is from 28½ to 28¾ inches. The stick of a violin bow is made of Brazilian snake wood, or lance wood, reddish and slightly mottled. It is cut straight, following the grain of the wood and then it is slightly bent by the application of heat. The hair, fastened into the tip by a plug, is inserted into the nut of the bow (made of ebony, or tortoise shell); it can be made tighter, or looser, by turning the screw in the nut. There are from 175 to 200 hairs in a bow and these are taken from tails of stallions. White hair is used for the violin, viola and violoncello and black for the double-bass. Rosin is rubbed on the bow to increase its friction.

A violinist takes just as much care of his bow as he does of his violin. When he has finished playing, he wipes his violin carefully with a silk handkerchief before he places it tenderly in the case; then he _unscrews_ his bow and places it in the rests in the top of the case.