CHAPTER I.
SELECTION OF WOOD.
Many persons of good, practical ability, and moderately versed in the laws of acoustics, with an eye for form, and not deficient in a certain conception of art as art; who have the instinct to check any approach to vulgarity, and work on lines, curves and thicknesses, more or less true, elegant, and the best for producing fine tone, have seen, and will yet again see, their efforts of small avail, cast aside, never to assume even mediocre rank in the stern array of violins of modern make, much less of those of ancient Italy, merely because the wood chosen for the instrument made is of an inferior, probably worthless character, which would have been employed to much more purpose had it been used in the construction of a windmill, or the shaft of a mine.
That is to say, if, as I presume and premise, the first germ in the conception of construction of the instrument be tone, as most assuredly tone it ought to be, not to the detriment of appearance, or to its subjugation as an art work, but as an adjunct or accessory of such importance that it is apparent it must imperatively assume pre-eminence; just as we forget the plain box of the Æolian harp the moment the strings are struck by the passing gale into the most exquisite chords; as, on the contrary, do we seem to wish for no song from the tropical bird of magnificent plumage, and express no surprise that none comes from it. I may put this more plainly as I proceed, and in more homely words. What I want to lay before you now, and must insist upon, is, that you seek for tone, tone before all. Tone you must get at all cost; and to get it, you must have as choice wood as ever can be procured, and fashion it into a singing shell, so that from it pure music may be evolved.
Then you must get this choice wood, but how? Now, the word "choice" presupposes variety from which to select, as I select or choose so-and-so, which is my choice. But I use the word in another way, on the face of it bearing the same significance, but not quite so. I say it is fine, of superb quality for my purpose, which is the emission of the grandest tone possible, rapid, strong and sonorous, from two plates of wood, becoming, if they possess these attributes, choice to me.
We will consider the back wood first. I have thirty pieces from which to take one, which shall act in conjunction with the belly, to be selected later on. Some are plain, pear tree, in fact; others are also plain (I mean as regards figure, or flames, as the Germans say), and of sycamore, others are of maple. I do not select a handsome one for its beauty, just as surely as I do not reject an ordinary one for its plainness. This will show you at once that I am seeking for that which, to my mind, will yield me the finest tone.
Well, but we must determine this before we go farther, and in the rough, the initial stage of the wood, supposed to be old, and fit for the under table of the instrument about to be made. I will try this one of maple—moderately handsome, looking old, but, I fear, not quite honest, as it is too heavy for its bulk. I take the half of it (it being in two parts) and about one third from the top, having the thick edge, or that to which, later on, I join the other thick edge, close to my left ear, my left first finger and thumb grasping it there so as just to free the body for vibration, I strike it near the lower part of the thin side rapidly, with the large joint of the first finger of my right hand. With what result? That of strengthening, almost confirming, my suspicion of its honesty. For I find a lack of energy, of resonance, and of that quality to which I apply the word sympathy. It is crude, it is dull, and it will not do for my purpose.
Well, but as so many go by what so many advocate and so many do, why not try it by placing the plate in this vice, and applying a well rosined bow to draw forth its sonority, etc., etc.? I will do so. I fear many of you, even just in front of me, will scarce gather much from the thin, miserable stuff which the wood says is its voice, and which its vendors assert to be old, well dried, and that for which it was bought. And I pity, indeed, those receding into the misty background, for nought of this squeak will they hear, and well for them! But as this second test is condemnatory and more and more convinces me of the unworthiness of the wood for a violin of high class (or of any violin destined to live), let me put it to a still more searching one, in fact, to two, neither of which, I venture to assert, will it bear.
I clamp it to the bench and proceed to cut with a gouge several pieces from the surface of an area of about three inches, close to the thick edge. These I lay aside as No. 1. Deeper, but still from the same area, more, as No. 2. Deeper, but not now as deep as before, for an obvious reason, according to my theory, which is my last heap and No. 3. Now, gentlemen, will you pass round this handful. No. 1, what is there about it? Really, an acid smell! and No. 2, the same, but less pungent; No. 3, less still! Well, there you have absolute proof of roguery, which, if it were lacking in strength, would be borne out by the diminution of the lying brown colour towards the centre of the wood, that colour, not of age, but of fraud, which, named acid, affects the surface more than the interior, and which the novice gloats over as old and pure as God's mountains!
Well, but in addition to these two farther tests of smell and colour—making wood, almost green wood, of probably not more than four years old, appear to the ignorant one hundred—there is another which I often use, and that is, as I do now, I make the plate rigid, but free to vibrate, so as to allow those mysterious motions play, and I place my ear at one extremity whilst I scratch or scrape, or move the rosined bow over the other.
With a similar result—the tone is not what I want, nor what it ought to be from a piece of really old, well grown wood. But mind, it does not follow that, given these conditions, the genuine thing would be what I want; but there would be more likelihood of its being so, and less annoyance in laying it aside us worthless, as I do this, selecting, for a second trial, a piece of what I call crabbed wood, known by a peculiar curl, and its very handsome and uncommon appearance.
But before I test this, I must tell you that none but a workman of great skill would undertake to put it to use, as it is so "crabbed," so twisted in its fibre, that on the least carelessness of the artist, out flies a chip from where it should not, and a very delicate operation is resorted to in consequence to amend the blunder—insertion of a slip which must match the grain of the original every way, not only in flame, but even just as the flash of that fire falls in its movement when it becomes part of a violin.
I have said earlier "I do not select handsome wood for its beauty," etc., and the loveliness of this piece must not tempt me to sacrifice what I hold of more consequence—tone. But I should do so did I now choose it; for it is weak where it should be strong, and poor, flabby and wretched from the view of acoustics.
So you see how difficult it is even for the eye of experience and the mind of knowledge to wade through the vile to the pure uncontaminated: how much more so him, the sanguine amateur, at once the plaything and the dupe of those who do not scruple to beguile him by the one to the safe usage of the other!
Still, do not let it be supposed that this slight tinge of the minor key is intended to make you despond; on the contrary, I want to show you better things, and mean to do so. And should the doing of it seem to prolong this part of my address beyond moderate limits, my excuse must be its deep importance.
I have laid aside three pieces of sycamore, all, as I believe, very good for the back I purpose making. One is what is called "on the quarter," the other two "on the slab" (these terms I shall explain later, when I have fully spoken of the selection of wood). The two on the slab are in one piece, of course; the one on the quarter in two pieces, one of which, while I have been speaking, I have glued slightly, but firmly, to an upright support of glass, made very rough at the place where I fix the plate, so that the glue may the better hold, temporarily.
The glass, being a non-conductor (or, if it respond in any way, however infinitesimally, it does not perceptibly affect my plate, and in no way my argument), leaves me the absolute control of this wood, and I proceed to lay an English lever watch on several places of it, keeping my ear near to that nodal point where I know will come the inner bout, or D of the violin, consequently the bridge, which I mark with a X. The tick-tack of the watch varies in strength as I get farther from or nearer to a nodal point, as, of course, it was bound to do; but, from experience, it is a fine-toned piece of wood. I detach it from the glass rod, and I try it by my finger and thumb test, and the vibrations and their quality are all I could desire. The signs of age appear genuine: the small pieces I cut from it do not give out any smell which they should not, and I pronounce the wood honest. I try the two whole backs, on the slab: both are good, one very fine in tone and handsome in appearance, which I finally select for the violin about to be made.
Well, but you may say, in all your experiments, it appears to us the result is a question of degree. Exactly, a question of degree, as purity of air is, but who chooses the foul when he can live in the pure? As with flowers in their unassuming simplicity up to such elegance of form, colour and fragrance, that we stand amazed before them! As with man, from the worse than bestial state to which intemperance and crime have brought him, to the calm majesty of that eminence, attained only by the love of truth, of self-government, and scorn of evil-doing!
This question of degree strikes at the root of the whole subject before you: for, upon how you answer it, or to what person or persons you repair for guidance in the selection of wood (being novices), will depend in a great measure your success or failure in the instrument yet unmade.
The upper table or belly, made of pine, Swiss pine by preference, is the most important factor in the production of tone, consequently that to which the chief attention of the artist should be directed. No matter how good be his back or his ribs, or the sweep of his lines or curves, or quality of his varnish and its elasticity or its superb colour, the selection of wood for his upper table or belly, or soundboard, must be his chief concern, and neither money nor energy spared to secure the best.
Well, I have by me several, of various degrees of excellence, and some of very doubtful reputation; nay, I may at once say they are bad—even by their look they are bad. This one is fairly straight in the grain, but it has been dried artificially, not as were the backs, yet more wickedly treated—impregnated with a deleterious something having the power of destroying a germ destined, if left to age, to become the soul of resonance, bringing it at once to a wretched maturity, its cells starved so, that when the strain of three hours' play in a hot room is put upon it, dumb is its voice, poor at the best, and it is played out.
Do you not see that the soft part of the wood running between the lines or reeds, and where lie the cells of the pine, are too rapidly agitated, and cannot possibly hold their own under such worn-out conditions? whereas, given honest wood and genuine age, we should get strength to resist, and from such resistance would come what we seek, richness, possible only from sound resonance.
For these cells must have the vigour of mature age, if that age be 150 years when naturally dried, in them; and my contention is, that the soundest is that which has not been robbed of its sap, as turpentine, before it be felled on the mountain side; but cut when well-grown, and well looked after for some years, then cut on the quarter (of which, later), and left for at least seven more years before we use it; and mind, even then, it is new wood.
I say, this is my contention, and how I account for many superior, great-souled violins, which it has been my hard struggle to produce, yet now gaze on with pride; almost glorying in that enthusiasm which enabled me to combat all against my theory, and do that which I believe was done two hundred years ago, to such fine issues, reviled or not for so doing, is now to me of little consequence.
Yet you must be told that there has been fierce, very fierce, controversy on this point, some going half-way and asserting only a portion of the sap should be withdrawn; some (and one of them a great chemist, a friend of mine) fighting hard to have it all taken away, and artificially dried after that! Does nature do this to the lungs of a Madame Patti or a Sims Reeves before she turns them on the world? Nonsense!
But it is tests you want, and I will supply another, somewhat original. This piece I called above, bad, I lay aside, as No. 1; another, worse in grain, but, I believe, honest, as far as having the sap left in it goes, but not old, No. 2; and a magnificent piece of very old Swiss pine, brown, and honestly brown, with, probably, two or three hundred years of exposure as a beam in a Swiss chalet (for from that place and that dwelling I am prepared to prove it comes to me), which I number 3.
The No. 1 is what I call feverish in its vibrations, and would be certain to give any instrument a hollow tone, an instrument cuddled, tempered, and made to fit the ear of the expected purchaser by the experienced one who has it to dispose of. The tone would not be intermittent—if it were that, we might have some hope of ultimate fulness and fair quality; but it would be loud and coarse; bawling when it should be energetic, yet somewhat hoarse, scarce knowing where to vibrate, it being capable of doing so, and well, when fairly mature. But that which, like the brazen actress, has a word or a sentence ready at any moment, and in any key and in any pitch, say good-bye to that at once.
The No. 2 will be good in about four or five years, but would be bad to work just now, so we will take up No. 3, upon which I must dwell somewhat.
I can depend on the gentleman's word who procured this and other pieces for me; and I imagine his estimate of age is much under the approximate date, for I should say it was nearer three than two hundred years old. The colour all through is a mellow brown; the reed is of medium width, well developed, and nearly equal all over, and it is singularly bowed from bottom to top, meeting, when joined (for it is in two parts), just as will a string of a violin when you hold it in both hands, and twang it to test its equal vibration.
Who is bold enough to assert that this is not a piece of finely developed virgin pine, grown on the southern slope of some Alp adjacent to where it had rested so long, in so mean a position for such finely sounding wood which I have proved it to be, yet destined to fill such an honourable place in the grand instrument of which I treat? No one, I venture to reply; but to my mind, and from experience, it is such, the softer part, where run the cells, being firm, full, and mellow to the thumb nail on pressure (showing, I think, good sap lies dried there), which I have found before in such wood, proved to be grand beyond doubt by its superb tone in a violin.
But I must give you, besides my other tests, that to which I occasionally resort. No. 1, you see, is as I intimated, loud and vulgar, ceasing its vibrations the instant I draw away my test of bow, etc., etc., whereas No. 2 does behave better in this respect, but is crude, and must lie some years longer neglected, when it will be interesting again to test it, by me or some other. No. 3 is all I could wish, or was prepared for, so I will hasten to the final trial and bring this lecture to a close, not subjecting this No. 3 to the trial which the others have undergone, as I am quite convinced of its great superiority, but shall, along with the others, put it now to the concluding one.
From each of the three pieces, 1, 2, 3, I cut a slip, and, as you observe, I put No. 1 in this bright clear fire behind me, prepared so that it shall be as nearly free from flame as possible, to enable me to make the manner of burning of each separated piece more real to you.
From what I have said, leading up to what I now do, I imagine you will be somewhat prepared for the manner in which No. 1 burns, and perhaps the other two. But I hardly think you expected such a wretched flare up as you see here, such a fizzing, spluttering, ragged exhibition of imbecility. What of that sonority which could fill a mighty hall where we find five thousand listeners? Is such flabby nonsense as this to be put into an immortal violin, because it purports to be fine Swiss pine at tenpence? But I reverence its ashes, and will lay them aside for a moment, as I wish you to see them alongside the others, when burnt.
No. 2 is all right as to the sap being in it, but it is too volatile, somewhat crackling in its burning, yet far more steady in its flame, not spending its energy in fireworks, nor giving great cracks, like a whip, and a jump afterwards as No. 1, so we will lay aside his ashes.
Now, look at No. 3, as it burns; and do not say, "You invariably have nothing but praise for your best things, how is that?" because, gentlemen, there is no blame which can be laid to them; that is why, and that is all. I ask you to look at this No. 3. It is a steady piece of business altogether. The flame is strong, bright, and well-sustained, with little or no smoke, and it gradually dies down, as, if you will allow my fancy, does he who has grown in uprightness to fine maturity, hale and beautiful to the last. Look at the remains of the three slips. The first is little more than black fluff; I can actually blow it away, poor rubbish! while the second and third are similar to each other, but the No. 3 is more compact, if I may so say, and this is what its excellence before burning would prepare one for.
And do you now wonder that I so insist on every test possible being brought to bear in this important matter of selection? Which of you would hesitate one moment in his choice between these three bellies now? But you must still bear in mind that what I say I bear out by test, others will decry as false, as their theory is as absolutely opposite to mine as the poles. But it will be proved yet, and on stable grounds; and if I, in conjunction with a man of great scientific attainments, succeed, on my theory, in the injection of liquid rosin, or turpentine, into the cells of a piece of broad-grained pine from which we can be sure its original sap has been withdrawn, and keep it well exposed to dry air for seven or so years; by its side a belly, cut from the same piece, in its sapless state; and then make two violins exactly alike in back and thicknesses of plates, etc., of the two pieces of pine, the one raw and sapless, its other half with an injection of rosin; I say we have done somewhat to allay anxiety on such a vital question, and can the more readily meet argument should we triumph on the point of tone—which is our standpoint—or settle down to take the tapped or the untapped indiscriminately.