Violin tone and violin makers

by Hidalgo Moya; Towry Piper

A plentiful number of theories have been advanced, all more or less ingenious, to account for the decline of tone after about 1750. The known facts are few and simple. On the one hand we have the sons, pupils, and followers of the masters, while on the other we have the fact that they failed to secure such consecutive tonal excellence—to put it very mildly. To the many theories to account for this another may be added without any great harm. As the decline was in tone, let us look at it from that point.

In purely mechanical affairs progress follows experience and the passing of time. That no such progress followed in this case would seem evidence enough to eliminate the mechanical, or violin-making, factor, and substitute tone-ideals in its place. This, however, by the way. So great were the last three tone creators that there is some excuse for their sons, pupils, and followers failing to equal them. Between 1750 and 1800 there was, doubtless, little demand for fine-toned violins from the makers who were then alive, owing to the large number of master violins handed down from the earlier half of the century. The living makers might well have been forced to compete among themselves for such trade in low-priced violins as they could get. With them it was probably not so much a matter of tonal art as of bread and butter—or macaroni. We are aware that, in all ages of violin making, a demand has existed for the low-priced instrument, numerically in excess of the demand for those of higher price and better tone. Overshadowed, therefore, by the great masters this may well have been about the only demand upon the builders of that time. The question of high tone quality does not enter largely into this demand, but the question of price is vital.

Here, then, we have conditions which would appear to foster a decline in high standards of tone, especially when we consider that the models, as perfected by the masters, even without any special regulation or adjustment, produced a tone which satisfied the bulk of players of that day, just as the same fiddles, now ranking as “old,” satisfy the bulk of players of the present day. Some few makers of that and succeeding times, however, did not appear content to forego ideals. If they did not succeed in reaching the highest standards, they at least kept the wavering flame from dying altogether. We have, for instance, Thomas Balestrieri in 1750, J. B. Guadagnini in 1780, François Fent, 1780, Januarius Gagliano, 1770, Nicholas Lupot in 1820, J. F. Pressenda in 1840, and J. B. Vuillaume in 1870, to mention some of the best known, and not those of more recent times. Thus builders were always turning out fiddles, some of which fell little short of the highest standards, from 1750 down to the present day, for, as will be seen in the chapters devoted to modern violins, some of the instruments produced in these days, regulated to ideals in the old-fashioned manner, uphold the highest standard.

But if grand tone was not extinguished its creators were, and are, sufficiently few in number to warrant the statement that tone has suffered a serious decline. Especially is this realised when the few really great toned fiddles are compared with the number, less notable from this standpoint, produced since 1750. But there is nothing to be gained by labouring this point. It would appear to have been fully appreciated early in the last century, when we find the celebrated experimenter Felix Savart busily engaged in demonstrating, by mechanical methods, the reason for tone; and efforts at a general revival have continued ever since. The fact that tone cannot be seen, while the violin containing it is visible enough, has stimulated curiosity to discover a supposed “lost secret,” which in reality was the method I have named, probably abandoned for the reasons and in the manner already suggested, by all save a few. And it is not difficult to imagine these few, clearly appreciating their advantage, keeping the method of tone regulation and control very much to themselves and, by producing fairly consecutive tonal excellence (while the more numerous contemporary makers were doing the reverse), spurring the investigators to fresh efforts and the scientists to new explanations. Some of these theories dealt with acoustics and are extremely complicated and interesting, but it has never occurred to me that art has anything in particular to do with science, and I certainly do not believe the old masters knew overmuch, if anything, about the scientific side of tone. If the results they achieved have since been found of a highly scientific nature, there is good reason to believe they were unaware of it at the time. We read in Messrs. Hill’s “Antonio Stradivari,” p. 189: “That Stradivari was guided ... by a knowledge of science as applied to the construction of instruments, we do not for one moment believe.” And to this I would add that neither was he so guided in his creation of tone. Savart, in his efforts to unearth the “secret” by the use of some sort of mechanical means, was the first to “attune” the plates and thus produce the best mechanical method yet devised; a method having nothing to do with ideals, but much to do with science. Its outstanding feature is that it produces with uncanny regularity a type of tone which, like the process, may be characterised as mechanical. It is only fair to say of this method that it does, on occasion, result in a tone of much brilliance. Just why it should do so is probably a puzzle to those who employ the process. If they were aware of the reason for this occasional good tone, they could doubtless make it the rule instead of the exception. The reason, however, lies beyond the scope of the method employed, as we explain in the chapter devoted to varnish and tone. None the less, tone produced by “attuning” the plates is not by any means to be derided, although the general results attained do not warrant the high claims made for the process. Among others who laboured towards a revival of tone were the copyist, who let tone take care of itself; the old wood theorists, who considered that tone-quality lay in old wood,[E] and the varnishers, who believed that the “secret” of tone is in varnish.

Curiously enough, amongst those who have so laboured, the elucidation of the problem seems never to have been approached from the standpoint of Tone itself, and they have not regarded tone as an expression of ideals, but a sort of natural result following upon some peculiar or particular virtues to be found in wood and varnish, the maker of the violin being a kind of human machine achieving tonal results by rote and rule. Wood, construction, and varnish do, indeed, seem to indicate the possible avenues through which investigation may be carried. In them undoubtedly lies the reason for tone which, if discovered, would still leave the process by which it was achieved as profound a difficulty as ever. We view the paint upon a pictured canvas without special interest. We know it is paint and leave it at that. Aside from the ideals of the artist we know it possesses no virtues leading towards the creation of a work of art. We have no illusions regarding a combination such as this. If we desired to produce a similar picture we are quite aware that similar paints placed upon canvas of equal size would not be enough. We fully appreciate the fact that colour and canvas are but the means through which ideals are rendered visible, yet, when we turn to the violin, we find this truth abandoned. By the token here expressed all the virtue lies in canvas and paint. To achieve an artistic result is to use a cloth similar to that of, say, Rembrandt (of the same age, if possible), cut to the same size, and apply thereto similar colours—carefully gauging the thickness all over with a micrometer! With all this care we get a picture, but not a Rembrandt. As everything has been done that Rembrandt did, and the result is not exactly what we desire, we take refuge in the only hypothesis left, and agree that a picture so produced must wait for perfection until it is as old as Rembrandt’s. To produce a picture by any such means appears ridiculous, yet it is exactly the means by which it is sought to produce an ideal of tone in the violin. It is not considered that materials and construction are merely the means through which the tone ideal of the builder finds expression, but through some mysterious influence (not yet discovered!) the materials are expected to create some magnificent quality of tone at which the builder must be prepared to stand aghast.

Having now become fairly well acquainted with the old violin, and reviewed the progress of its tone through the past three hundred and sixty-six years, we may consider we have arrived at a point where the modern violin can be admitted, with the object of defining its position from a tonal point of view; first making an investigation into the relationship existing between a new fiddle and tone.

CHAPTER VI
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A NEW VIOLIN AND TONE

Fiddle-making may be either a hobby or a business. Sometimes it is both. It is also more or less of an art, but only the connoisseur is able to explain wherein and why. To the “man in the street” a fiddle is just a fiddle, as like any or all other fiddles, as one pea is like another. Sometimes it is red, sometimes yellow, and sometimes brown. Therein do they differ.

There is nothing about the making of a violin which calls for our special notice. This has been set forth in many exhaustive works, described and illustrated at great length. In a work on tone it would be useless to devote space to cabinet-making. The relation between making a fiddle and tone is all that need concern us here. Let us see just what that relationship is. In order to make the subject clear we must generalise. We cannot go into the numberless and complicated details that affect the sound in one way or another—for good or evil—because it is not sound, not the mere noise a violin will emit, that interests the tone-lover. We procure, let us say, suitable wood and a book on fiddle-making and set to work. In due time, with the exercise of patience and such skill as we can command, we produce a violin—our first—built carefully to the measurements and along the lines of, say, the immortal Stradivari. When the varnish is dry enough we string it up, and not until then do we know what its tone is like! And what, by the way, is it like? The answer is simple enough: it is like the tone of any other fiddle so constructed. We have accomplished tone results no greater and no less than any other copyist has achieved in the past hundred and fifty years, because we have done no more than they have done and no more than any one can do. We have made a box about fourteen inches long, a little over an inch deep, eight inches or so in its widest part, and with an irregular outline. We have slightly arched the top and bottom of this box, and provided it with various fitments and strings. Every box so made will, without exception, produce a sound of some sort, whether made by Antonio Stradivari in 1720, or John Doe in 1916. Sometimes that sound is loud, and sometimes it is weak, often it is both, and again it is neither, depending upon matters which the makers may, or may not, appreciate and, perhaps, alter for the better or worse within these narrow limits. This, then, is the relationship between the raw fiddle and tone.

Both the violin and such tone as it will naturally, or we might say mechanically, possess, is but the crude material which the tone-builder uses. By means of the one he refines, regulates, and develops the other. Manifestly the result depends upon what he considers a fine and telling tone. There can be no guess-work about it, and nothing can be left to chance. He must know exactly when he has reached the result he desires, and the higher his ideals the better the tone. As the raw material in the shape of unrefined tone is, to a greater or lesser extent, filled with flaws, these must be eliminated; as the violins in their undeveloped state ever present tone problems infinite in variation—no two being alike—the tone builder can follow no set rule, and no mechanical method. To achieve, therefore, a thoroughly artistic and satisfactory tonal relationship between the instrument and its voice depends, first, on high ideals and, second, a process elastic enough to meet, successfully, conditions which are always changing.