The orchestra and its instruments . radivari, Tourtecontinued to work till the end of his life. He workedall day in his workshop in Paris, No. 10 Quai de PEcole,and on Sundays and holidays he sat on the banks ofthe Seine fishing, just as they do to-day, and occasion-ally caught a tiny little fish to the envy of excitedrivals around him. With the stiff, straight, heavy, unelastic bow, theviolinist could, of course, produce very few improvements almost revolutionized violin-playing. It is said that Viotti, another Italian (1753-1824), and perhaps up to his time the greatestviolin
The orchestra and its instruments . radivari, Tourtecontinued to work till the end of his life. He workedall day in his workshop in Paris, No. 10 Quai de PEcole,and on Sundays and holidays he sat on the banks ofthe Seine fishing, just as they do to-day, and occasion-ally caught a tiny little fish to the envy of excitedrivals around him. With the stiff, straight, heavy, unelastic bow, theviolinist could, of course, produce very few improvements almost revolutionized violin-playing. It is said that Viotti, another Italian (1753-1824), and perhaps up to his time the greatestviolinist that had appeared, gave Tourte the benefitof his ideas. It is only by the use of an elastic bow that a violinistis able to produce his wonderful effects. Bowing is tothe violinist what breath is to the singer and touch tothe pianist: it is only through the bow that the violin-ist is able to express his emotions and ideas. So untilTourtes time there was no real Art of Bowing, al-though Tartini wrote a little book on the FRANCOIS TOURTE 3 Tbe Stradivari of the bow THE VIOLIN 45 The world was slow to adopt Tourtes bow; and itwas not until Paganini (1784-1840), the Italianwizard, came on the stage that a revolution in violin-playing took place. Paganini used every imaginablemovement of the bow and developed the flexibilityof the wrist. Then a new School of violin-playingarose and violin-playing gradually developed into whatit is to-day. Totirtes first experiments are said to have beenmade from the staves of old sugar hogsheads fromBrazil. This is not unlikely. Probably the best slabsof Brazil-wood employed for this purpose had ac-quired a certain additional elasticity from the combinedeffect of exposure to tropical heat and the absorptionof the saccharine juices. It is certain that the greater elasticity which hesecured in the stick by the choice and preparation ofthe wood, enabled him to carry out to the fullestextent the method of bending the stick of the bow therev
Size: 1415px × 1767px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectmusicalinstruments
