FRIENDLY ADVICE TO THE YOUNG AMATEUR. First, let a rear-ward attic of your labours be the scene— For, such seclusion best for you (and others) is, I ween. In comfort, there, assume a chair, and be therein at ease, And not as if, un-garmented, you sat upon hard pease. Your fiddle in sinister hand, and in your right the bow, Scan, next, the dotted page awhile, or ere to work you go. Firm as a forceps be your wrist, but flexile as an eel! And—for that struggling shoulder-joint—just teach it to be still; For, mark! the motion of the arm must be ’twixt wrist and elbow, Or else, howe’er you moil and toil, be sure you’ll never well bow! To guide each movement of the bow—to give it vital spring— To send it bounding on its way—the wrist, the wrist’s the thing! Your bow’s relation to the bridge, must keep a just right angle, Or harshly else, and out of tune, your tortured notes will jangle. [340] From heel to point that bow now draw, with action slow and steady— Then back again—and so repeat, till in such practice ready. The same in quicker time then try—and next proceed to draw From middle (with a shorter scope) to point, and back, see-saw. This, too, in swifter time rehearse;—and then, like justice deal Unto the other half of bow, from middle to the heel. There is a word—too seldom heard—not dear to young Ambition— But wholesome in its discipline,—that word is “repetition.” Content to glimmer ere you shine, leap not beyond your bounds! From small beginnings rise great ends—’tis pence that make up pounds. From exercise to exercise, progressive, through your book Work on-scales, intervals, and all—how dry soe’er they look; Nor jerk forth scraps, or odds and ends, of ev’ry tune that floats;— Can any foolery be worse than scatt’ring of loose notes? Let not thy steps untutored move! A master’s ready skill For safety and for succour seek, to curb or point thy will! Plain work precedes all ornament: keep graces for a late Achievement, since you first must build, ere you can decorate. Think elegance a pretty thing, but breadth a vast deal better; Nor, for the sake of lesser charms, your larger movements fetter. It is the pride of players great, a free and dashing bow, As, borne along on waves of sound, to their success they go! Corelli old, contemn thou not! Substantial, good, and plain, He’s like a round of British beef—he’s “cut-and-come-again!” But, as the interval is wide, you need not—nota bene— You need not travel all the road ’twixt him and Paganini. In fiddle-practice, as in life, are difficulties gifts? Yes—double stops are just the thing to drive thee to thy shifts! “Bating no jot of heart or hope,” toil, till, in time’s process, The music that is in thy soul, thy fiddle shall express!
CHAPTER IX.
ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE VIOLIN.
It is a very natural curiosity which engages us to look minutely into the structural peculiarities of that which is a medium for awakening pleasurable sensations within us. The balloon that has borne us aloft into aerial altitudes—and the violin that, under the management of a Vieuxtemps or a Sivori, has transported us, through varying acoustic currents, into the sublimer regions of harmony—are, each, the object of a close and willingly conceded attention.
Quitting the balloon, however, and confining ourselves to the violin—what (let us enquire) are the component parts that make up the “form and pressure,” the “complement extern” and intern, of this material ministrant to our joys and sympathies;—what, also, are the several most remarkable patterns, or models, of the completed instrument;—and who were the originators, respectively, of those varieties of conformation? This latter point of enquiry will lead us to advert, before concluding this chapter, to certain innovations that have been attempted, with more or less felicity, in our own days.
A curious little work on the Construction, Preservation, Repair, &c. of the Violin, written in German by Jacob Augustus Otto, appeared in 1817, and was translated into English some years afterwards. The author, himself an instrument-maker, professes to have studied “music, mathematics, physics, and acoustics,” which respectable preparation certainly adds not a little to his claims to attention, in undertaking to be instructive. It may be worth while here to present, in a condensed form, some portion of his matter, which is both indicative and preceptive. Such of my readers as, with a stronger impulse of curiosity, may desire to possess the whole of the information furnished by his treatise, are referred to the latest English edition of it, which, supplied with an appendix by the translator, Mr. John Bishop, has been issued by the publishers of the present work.
Otto states that the Violin, when complete, consists of fifty-eight different parts—a fact, by the by, which the ordinary observer would be little inclined to suspect[68], and of which, indeed, many a good player is probably not aware. The author makes general complaint, indeed, of the ignorance on the part of many Violinists of celebrity, as to the construction of the instrument. Then, as to the wood—for, “ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius;” that is to say, a fellow so mercurial as your fiddle is not to be created out of any chance piece of timber;—the wood that is generally used is of three sorts: sycamore for the back, neck, sides and circles: Tyrolese soft red deal for the belly, bass-bar, sound-post, and six internal blocks: and ebony for the finger-board and tail-piece. The greatest care and judgment, it seems, are requisite in the selection of the material for the belly of the instrument, on which its tone entirely depends. The wood for this purpose is prescribed to be cut only in December or January, and only that part to be used which has been exposed to the sun.
As to the Cremonas (a word of fondest association to all votaries of the violin!), the oldest of them are those from the hands of Hieronymus (or Jerome) Amati, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, or rather earlier. Next come those of Antonius Amati, belonging to the middle of that century; and then those of Nicholas Amati, towards the end of it. To these makers are to be added Antonius Straduarius, and afterwards (at the commencement of the eighteenth century) Joseph Guarnerius. All these men of Cremona, so renowned for the products of their ingenuity were (according to M. Otto), mathematical builders, and nice observers of the proportions best calculated for imparting a full, powerful, sonorous tone. The instruments by the three Amati are rather higher, or less flat, in the model, than those of Straduarius. Of all the Italian Violins, Hieronymus Amati’s are the handsomest in shape, and the best in make. They are now more than two centuries and a half old, strongly constructed, and likely to retain their excellence another century. Nicholas Amati’s are of rather small size, and somewhat abrupt in the swell of the form. The instruments of Straduarius are most esteemed by Concert performers for the power of their tone. Those of Guarnerius are beautifully constructed, and with a good deal of similarity to those of Nicholas Amati.