Never have makers of the leading instrument been more numerous. The mystery and romance of that wonderful tone, enclosed within the apparently simple, box-like affair called the violin, has proved an irresistible attraction, and the reward awaiting those who discover the connection and its utilisation as in past times, has fired the zeal of honest builders, and drawn to the art a host of amateurs, experimenters, and theorists. Never has the violin been more earnestly considered at every point; the material for its construction selected with greater care, or workmanship executed with more deliberate attention to tone. The modern builder may justly claim the title of artist and, but for the lingering miasma of exploded theories, have much reason to congratulate himself.
But his troubles do not always come from those outside the pale. Within his ranks is a small section, large by virtue of their insistent clamour, upon whose shoulders the mantle of Stradivari has fallen; those who have discovered the “secret” of his tone and varnish!—not, we may remark, for the first time in fiddle history. Fortunately the green-eyed monster is rampant among them; each is impatient of the claims of the other. Their amateurs are tarred with the same brush, while theorists indulge their bitterness and sarcasm in letters to the fiddle Press. Thus, like the famous cats, are they likely to destroy each other, and bring to naught their cupidity and ability to trade upon prevailing ignorance.
It is the fashion to consider that the mere maker of a violin cannot, with much authority, tell the player anything about tone. To some extent this is due to the ridiculous claims of the mountebanks; to the wearers of the Stradivarian mantle. I admit the opinion is fairly general, and I also admit the claims of the great experts and connoisseurs as unequalled judges of tone. For obvious reasons they would give a fairer criticism on the tone of Joseph Guarnerius, for example, than Joseph would have been able to render on the tone of his contemporaries. But is the connoisseur capable of creating the tone which he judges with such accuracy? He is not. It is a feat entirely beyond his powers, just as it is beyond his power to fashion the replica of a violin upon which is exercised his skilful criticism. The creation of tone is a work belonging to the maker of the violin, and his experience of the subject differs from that of the experts and judges. His work fixes upon him a set of obligations and responsibilities with which connoisseurs and players never come in contact. He has, so to speak, an inside knowledge, while that possessed by others is, in its very nature, superficial; that is to say, they judge, hear, and use the tone of a violin, but remain in ignorance as to the process of its creation. This, of course, refers to the new fiddles. With the old the question of tone does not arise.
Criticism is frequently expressed upon the published claims of the modern makers, especially upon the brazen announcements of those to whom the minds of the old masters are as an open book! It has sometimes appeared to me that, in this age of brilliant commercialism, art is too frequently relegated to the status of a pastime devoid of serious purpose; unworthy of exploiting for the benefit of anybody; that the artist is also looked upon as a sort of drone within the industrial hive, or his occupation the laborious but useless pursuit of a kind of ignis fatuus. Yet art survives commercially, if only as veneer upon the surface of crude utility, proving beyond doubt that dilettantism, at least, still lives! Thus do art and commercialism come closely in contact, and if the artist would exist he must make his appeal after the only manner which the age understands and—advertise! However it may have been in other times, in these days patrons are too busy to make a “beaten path” in the wilderness. If they do not demand, they at least expect the vendor of the beautiful to announce himself.
With some makers the desire for favourable opinions upon tone amounts almost to a passion, leading them to all manner of mistakes. There is little objection in making public the opinions which may be expressed upon the tone of a violin, particularly if made in the Press, or some authority other than the player, but it is well to remember that the value of such opinions is thoroughly nullified by exploiting on their strength violins less worthy. “Testimonials” have been given for violins which, in the bulk, were tonally worthless. An instance is recent history, the makers profiting largely by exploiting examples which they seldom, if ever, duplicated—with results no less disastrous to themselves than to their credulous patrons. “Testimonials,” therefore, are worthless. They refer to one violin only, and not to others by the same maker; a statement which cannot be too often repeated, or too well remembered.
How obviously, then, is indicated the pathway to lasting success; to the satisfaction of all patrons; to fame built upon a solid tonal foundation.
CHAPTER XXI
NOTES ON TONE
Carrying Power.—Here we have that phase of tone which is most elusive. A violin seemingly loud, full and even brilliant, to the player, may, at a little distance, be thin and wailing. Such a violin is lacking in carrying power, and when played with a small orchestra, is rarely heard in the lower register by any save the player. The voice of a true-toned violin is rarely loud to the player, and, in the hands of many, such an instrument never has a chance to display its ability to lead the accompanying instruments. Those unused to such an instrument are charmed, it may be, with the purity of tone, but disappointed with its supposed lack of volume which, in their misguided efforts to produce, is all but destroyed. It is seldom such players can be brought to realise that carrying power is due to purity and not to mere loudness; that a tone which strikes the player as loud and the hearer as weak possesses elements of a conflicting nature which, in their efforts to dominate each other, all but destroy the carrying ability; that tone, when “pure,” is divested of these elements, or most of them, and is naturally less in quantity, or loudness, but greater in penetrative ability; and, finally, that pure tone requires no forcing, or undue pressure, to create a carrying power entirely beyond the possibilities of most loud-toned fiddles. These facts are rarely appreciated save by artists, whether players or singers, and it is seldom that amateurs, or some who rank as professionals, understand purity of tone sufficiently well to recognise what degree of carrying power it will possess. In fact, a loud-toned violin, although lacking the finer elements, is more suited to such players than a purer-toned instrument. It is better that they possess a fiddle with the tone with which they can be satisfied than another which is belaboured with the bow in the vain effort to create what is considered an effective, or “big,” tone. In justice to the player it must be said he is not wholly to blame. Wrong ideals of tone and carrying power are easily formed through the use of an unsuitable instrument. And it must be remembered a player can never “hear himself as others hear him.”
Quantity versus Quality.—“Ruggeri,” writing in the Strad for February, 1913, says: “There seems so often a tendency among violinists of the present day to forget that it is not quantity, but the ‘quality’ of tone that holds the audience spell-bound.” This warning should be remembered by all devotees of the fiddle. While the possession of a beautiful toned violin does not, ipso facto, make a tone-poet of its owner, it is the essential part of his equipment. Tone of superfine quality can only be freely and easily produced from a pure and flexible toned violin, and the importance of such a violin to those who would express the highest ideals in a masterly manner cannot be over-estimated. However sound the player’s theory may be, however high his ideals, he is, in practice, bound to limits of expression which are set by the instrument. Long association and use of a particular violin create a feeling that the limit of the player’s ability to produce quality of tone, and the capacity of the violin for giving it forth, are one and the same, whereas they are entirely different; the player’s ability is constantly growing and expanding, but the capacity of the violin remains always the same. Should this violin capacity be of a low order the player is bound to a dead level of tonal mediocrity, although rarely conscious of the fact. On the other hand, a violin which is practically limitless in capacity for expressing quality of tone places no obstacle in the way of the player whose ambition is to “hold the audience spell-bound.”
Flexibility of Tone.—By flexibility is meant ease of production, the instant tone-response to the lightest touch of the bow—not only in the first, but in the high positions. Without flexibility tone loses its tenderness, most of its qualities of appeal, and delicate shades of expression become next to impossible. Its absence adds to the technical labour of the student and robs the soloist of his main source of inspiration—the command of a supple voice.