The old masters divided the art, or work, connected with the manufacture of a violin into two parts. The first was that of preparing the various pieces of wood and combining them into a more or less finished violin, and the second consisted in so manipulating these parts as to control the tone and cause the instrument to give forth, when finished, exactly the quality, intensity, flexibility and refinement of voice which the maker intended. The resulting violin would, within human limitations, embody the tone ideal of the master. The great tone builders, for the most part, were surrounded by workmen and pupils whose duty it was partly, if not wholly, to prepare the wood and bring the instrument to a more or less rough state of completion. In addition to developing the tone the master designed the moulds and determined the exact size and shape of the instrument, this being a work having much to do with tone as, upon the perfection of the design, depends the type of tone which the master will produce in the instrument. It is probable that some of the Amatis were as well equipped with ideals of tone as Stradivari, but the model which they used prevented them attaining such good results, although producing tone of much refinement. Here is seen one reason for the never-ending changes which the masters made in the shape of their instruments. They were seeking the best possible base upon which to build tonal ideals, and not endeavouring to design a violin which would, in itself, possess these characteristics—an impossible task, as I shall presently show. Equipped, therefore, with high ideals of tone and a splendid model in which to develop and control every essential that makes for the creation of the perfect voice, it is not difficult to understand why certain makers were able to create, with remarkable uniformity, a great toned instrument; or others, with an equally good model, but not so gifted with ideals, a violin inferior in tone; while others again, like the copyist of form, without ideals, or the ability or desire to apply them if he possessed any, turned out a violin lacking in those essentials of tone which characterise the perfect instrument.
The violin has figured in the minds of its devotees as a curio for so long that points relating to its great asset, tone, cannot well be left to a mere statement of fact. Especially is this the case in dealing with matters forming the base of that cult to which they belong, for their knowledge of the instrument, its history, and its makers is profound, and embraces an intimate acquaintance with the many theories and experiments advanced and tried during the past hundred and fifty years to account for and unravel the mysteries of tone. While the reason for tone which I advance in this work is not only obvious, but actually in use at the present day, achieving consecutive results identical with those named in this chapter, it may not be amiss to set forth here, for the benefit of those who may be interested, some arguments in favour of the fact that tone in the violins of the great masters was due to their ideals of tone, and to no other reason. The process employed in developing these ideals was in no sense a secret with these masters. Great results in all art are due to the talents of the artist. Method and process, being but means to an end, may be imparted to another by precept and example, but the ability to express a high ideal was never the outcome of any “secret” in constructing a violin, or the preparation of canvas and pigment, or due to any special virtue contained in mere wood, paint, or marble.
If, therefore, those responsible for the grand tone in the old violins did no more than make the instrument, or supervise its manufacture by the workmen and pupils by whom they were, in most cases, surrounded; if the creation, regulation, and control of tone were due to any set, or even variable, rule of design, construction, arrangement of parts, manner of applying varnish, or method of selecting wood, then the pupils of, say, Stradivari, by following these rules, etc., could not fail to obtain like tonal results. But tone equal to that of Stradivari, or of any other great tone-creator, has never followed the copying of anything that could be discovered by the most painstaking measurement and study of their instruments.
Again. It has always been supposed the old masters attracted pupils desirous of learning from them the purely mechanical art of constructing a violin. With this idea I entirely disagree. There is nothing about the mere making of a fiddle to warrant the supposition. If these pupils were attracted because they wished to acquire, as nearly as possible, the high tone ideals of the masters, and become versed in the delicate method of its embodiment in a violin, for the purpose, in short, that has always attracted pupil to master in all art, the matter becomes clearer. Pupils of the masters frequently stated the fact on their tickets, and it is hardly possible they did so merely to advertise the source of their cabinet-making knowledge. Modern builders, more often than not, work to satisfy connoisseurs of form rather than exponents of tone; but, with the earlier makers, we are assured by an authority of the highest eminence that “tone was the only consideration.”
To hold any other view of tone-creation leads but to confusion. If mechanical construction alone attracted pupils they would certainly acquire all necessary knowledge with the same facility as knowledge is acquired to-day in all branches of mechanical art. There would be nothing connected with the matter that could not be seen with the eye and reproduced with the hand. Even if they failed or were at times careless in the last degree as carvers of wood, we know by the work of Joseph Guarnerius del Gesù, this is no bar to tone.
Yet we have makers taught by the greatest masters, heirs to their models and, in the case of the sons of Stradivari and Bergonzi, to patterns, tools, wood, and even partly finished instruments, but who still failed to produce the tone of their teachers and fathers. Surely no clearer evidence than this is needed to indicate that it was high ideals alone that placed the masters above others—even their own sons—as poets in tone. Let me repeat that this is no mere theory. Violins are developed to ideals to-day, and I believe it has been done since the days of da Salò by one maker or another. By no other process is it possible to create, as the masters did, a tone characteristic of the maker. No mechanical process will produce this result, whatever else it may accomplish, and however complicated, “secret,” or scientific it may be.
I believe experts agree that the most striking characteristic of the old masters’ violins is not simply the grandeur of their tone, but the extraordinary regularity with which this tone was reproduced in successive instruments. It is said that consecutive reproduction of any kind of tone is the most infrequent as well as the most difficult thing in present-day fiddle making. So far as the instrument is concerned, nothing has occurred to make this more difficult to-day than in 1725, when Stradivari, Guarneri, and Carlo Bergonzi were accomplishing their consecutive tonal marvels. The fiddle itself has no secrets which can be hidden. It does not defy analysis, and to add that the mere building of a violin never has given and never will give consecutive tone results, is but to say what is already known and has been repeatedly demonstrated for more than a hundred years. Lest it be supposed that any method is, in itself, a never-failing producer of grand tone, let me say positively it is nothing of the sort. With the highest ideals even the masters did not produce a stereotyped tonal grandeur. A fine tone was, with them, the rule, and a tone of lesser worth the exception—but there were such exceptions. With others less gifted tone of a lower grade was the rule, and fine tone the exception—and here, again, there were exceptions. In both, however, is found the unmistakable and individual character of tone personal to the maker, and inimitable. It is for these reasons that I should condemn any method of tone creation which is purely mechanical; which depends upon method rather than upon ideals, as being entirely outside the system of tone-creation used by the great makers of old time.
While dealing with the old masters and tone, we may as well continue with their immediate followers and devote a chapter to the decline of grand tone after the period of decadence was reached.
CHAPTER V
THE DECLINE OF TONE
As we have seen, tone had an auspicious beginning about 1550; suffered a rather lengthy relapse, but began to recover during the latter years of the next century; took a new lease of life about 1700; and was in full maturity and vigour during the first half of the eighteenth century. It then suffered a second relapse, more extended and more serious than the first, which all but terminated its existence.