The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-04-03
Old ViOlins.

The Theater of the Royal Institution
was crowded on the occasion of Mr..
Haweis' lecture on Friday evening.
Among other violins he exhibited two
by Stradivarius, one belonging to the
Emperor of Russia, the other lent by
his Royal Highness the Duke of Edin-
burg-a Casper di Salo bass, found in
the late Tarisio's bedroom with his
corpse. The lecturer began by saying
that the collection of violins and BASES
now before the audience, weighing but
a few ounces each, represented several
thousand pounds worth. The variety
in shape and style of the VOL tribe, an
Gent and modern, showed the mex
haustible fascination it possessed over
the mind.
l deal tonight with the construction,
the history and the sound of the violin.
To begin with the wood: At Brescia
makers used pear, lemon and ash; at
Cremona, maple sycamore and of
course pine. The wood came into the
markets of Mantua, Brescia, Cremona,
Venice and Milan from the Swiss
Southern Tyrol, ullimited in supply
often mighty timbers of great age
plentiful then, scarcer now. The
makers had their pick: they tested it
for intensity and quality. Cut strips
of wood and strike them, you will see
how they will vary in musical sound.
When good acoustic beam was found
the maker kept it for his best work.
In Joseph Guarnerious and Stradiva-
RUS the same pine tree crops up at in
tervals of years. A good maker will
patch and join and inlay to retain
every particle of tried timber. Old
wood is oddly vocal. AS sat in my
room surrounded by these instruments
! could not cough or move without
ghostly voices answering me from the
sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries; and even the old-seasoned
backs and bellies of unstrung violins
are full of echoes.
Taking violin and tearing it open
the lecturer continued: "Tbe violin is
made of fifty eight or seventy pieces.
1t is miracle of construction. 1t is as
light as feather and as strong as a
horse. Wood about as thick as half
crown, by exquisite adjustment, resists
for centuries pressure of several hun
dred-weight. The belly of soft deal,
the back of hard sycamore, are united
by six ribs of sycamore, supported by
twelve blocks with Innings. The
sound-bar running obliquely under
the left foot of the bridge is
the nervous system of the violin,
the sound-post supporting the bridge is
the soul, through it passes all the heart
throbs or vibrations generated between
the back and the belly; on its position
depends mellowness, tightness, or in
tensity of sound. The prodigious strain
of the strings is resisted first by the
arch of the belly, then by the ribs,
strengthened with the uprig ht blocks,
the pressure among which is evenly
distributed by the Innings which unite
them, and lastly by the supporting
sound-bar and sound post and back. .
After describing the other parts of
the instrument, Mr.. Haweis alluded to
the Cremona varnish, which he de-
scribed after Mr.. Charles Reade as
probably Heterogeneous varnish, first
of oil with gum in solution, then of
color evaporated in spirit. GA red
and yellow gum appear to have been
used and combined. Although it was
said that the secret was not lost, bod,
as late as 1880, who employed the
Fendts and Lott and always vanished