The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1879-02-05
Famous Violin Makers.

Famous Violin Makers.
No one can say Just when violins were
invented, but it is certain that, though
the principle of this MISUNDERSTANDING
SIT in vibration upon q sounding. board
was known in the earliest times, the
world still went on harping and drum
ming, playing on pipes, tabors, lutes,
dulcimers and other instruments, OF
which We have no patterns, for more
than FIVE thousand years.
The 6rst violin is said to have come
from the workshop Of studious old in
strument maker, Gasparo di Salo, who
lived in the village of Brescia, in north
ern Italy, toward the last Of the SIX
teenth century. He gave the violin its
present shape and size, and its name,
which signifies "little viol." After
him, in the same town, came many other
makers whom We need not recall, till We
come to the famous name Of Amati.
Andreas Amati lived in the neighbor-
ing town of Cremona, and spent his
time mading viols after the fashion OF
the day. But it was poor fashion, he
thought; and when he heard that Gas
paro di Salo had made great improve.
ments and changes in the instrument,
he iourneyed to Brescia, entered Gas.
paro's workshop, learned all that was
taught there, and then, burning with
new ideas, he went home and estab-
lished in his native village the celebrated
school of Cremona violins. His sons
were brought up to their fathers trade,
and they handed the secrets of it to their
sons, who, in turn, altered and shaped
and invented, seeking perfection.
| About hundred years after Gasparo
di Salo had sent his violin into the
world, q young man named Antonius
Stradivarius WAS among the pupils at
the Amati school. he was slow, silent
youth, not remarkable for anything ex-
cepting his close attention to his work
and his careful study Of his masters in
struments. Even after his apprentice
ship was over, and he had started his
own workshop, he clung to the old pat
terms, copying them in every DETAIL
both faults and merits, and often Sign
ing them with the mama OF his master,
Nicholas Amati. But one day he seems
to have walked suddenly to clearer sight,
and he said to himself:
"There's more music in wood and
strings and horsehair than has ever yet
been brought out. Antonius, that is
your work to do"
So he set about this newly-revealed
task with that quiet zeal and infinite
patience which we describe by the single
word genius" For twenty years he
shut himself up in lonely workshop.
All the long time. between early man
hood and middle age he spent before a
workbench, with compass. or tool in
hand, experimenting with his materials,
testing, studying and applying their
properties and resources. He was fifty
six years old before he was satisfied that
he had reached the best results of his
studies, and then, full OF knowledge and
power, he began, in 1890, to make vio-
Inns with wonderful rapidity, sending
them throughout the musical world,
where their SURPRISING merits made
them and the name of Stradivarius
famous forever.
When we think OF the slow growth OF
the violin, advancing only by centuries,
we can scarcely understand why thing
80 slight, 80 apparently simple, should
have required six thousand years for its
perfection. But what was the problem
which the makers of the violin had set
themselves ? Simply this: No instru-
meht expressed the shrill, clear vibrant
quality OF soprano voice. Beside it,
the tones OF harps, lutes, guitars and
spinets were hollow and ve1ing. Each
violin maker then sought, with his bits
Of wood and strings, to put the air in
motion, to gather the sound-waves and
oonfne them in. the wooded shell, and
to send them back to Us in tones which
should be brilliant, flexible, true and
mellow as the loveliest singing-voice-
a voice without a human body, and yet
one which should thrill us as il it
started from human soul.
This was an immense problem, only
to be solved by countless practical e1-
periments. The theory of acoustics,
which our latter day phi losphers have
made 80 plain, had not the n been formu.
lated, and these oil workmen groped in
the dark, sule Of nothing I'll they tested
it. The least alteration in the curve Of
the lines or thickness, Of the wood, or in
the pr portion of one part to another,
cost years OF study, with daily crm-
PARSONS and failures. The materials
were few; but thousand variations. OF
sound, volume and quality OF tone could
be pro luced from them.
It would be foolish to say that Stradi-
varius and his fellows worked without
method in a hap.hazard way; bat they
certainly made laws for themselves, and
these laws ale based upon scientific
principles 30 exact that Professor 1yn-
dali himself can use nothing which
proves and illustrates his lectures on
sound 80 thoroughly as Cremona 7io.
lin. As to creating human voice, that
is done 60 exactly with every shade and
turn of expression that singing.masters
say no voice can be perfectly true which
has not been trained by the violin, in.
stead of the jangling piano.forte.-M
d. Ruff, in So. Nicholas.