The orchestra and its instruments . re very highly prized to-day. Most of the Nicolo violins before 1645 are °f thesmaller pattern, but after this date down to 1684,the year of his death, the eye of a connoisseur willnotice an increase in size, a finish in workmanshipand a more delicate purfle (never double). Themodel is still somewhat high in back and belly, butwith an increasing tendency to get flatter; the sidegrooving is less pronounced, whilst the corners arenoticeably drawn out into finer points full of character,arresting the eye, lightening, as it were, the modeland giving the whole ph
The orchestra and its instruments . re very highly prized to-day. Most of the Nicolo violins before 1645 are °f thesmaller pattern, but after this date down to 1684,the year of his death, the eye of a connoisseur willnotice an increase in size, a finish in workmanshipand a more delicate purfle (never double). Themodel is still somewhat high in back and belly, butwith an increasing tendency to get flatter; the sidegrooving is less pronounced, whilst the corners arenoticeably drawn out into finer points full of character,arresting the eye, lightening, as it were, the modeland giving the whole physiognomy of the instrumenta piquancy hitherto unattempted. * In his workshop on the Piazza San DomenicoNicolo Amati had many pupils and them were the Guarneri brothers and AntonioStradivari. Everybody has heard of Stradivari, or Stradi-varius, for he is often called by the Latin version ofhis Italian name. Stradivari was the greatest of allviolin-makers; and his violins are to-day as valuableas jewels. 1 THE VIOLIN 27 What Stradivari really did during his long and in-dustrious life was to take the model of Nicolo Amatiand improve it, searching ever to get intensity of tonewithout sacrificing sweetness. In other words, he wasdoing just what Nicolo Amati had done before him;and he applied all his life, all his energies and all histhought to this purpose. Stradivaris main improvements consisted of (1)In lowering the height of the model, that is, the archof the belly and in altering this flattened curve to amore uniform arch, so as to afford greater resistanceto the pressure of the strings. (2) In making thefour corner blocks more massive, in an improvedmethod of dove-tailing the linings at the blocks, andin giving a quarter curvature to the middle ribs, theresult of which is to make the curves more prominentin the outline and to increase the tension of theparts. (3) In altering the setting of the sound-holes,giving them a decided inclination to each ot
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectmusicalinstruments
