March 30, 1922
Musical courièr
6
VIOLINS, OLD AND NEW
BY CLARENCE LUCAS
Copyrighted, 1922, by The Musical Courier Company,
Again I say that these tests do not prove the new violin as good as the old, unless it can be demonstrated that the old instruments have not been improved or otherwise altered, by two centuries of use. If the old violins have become sweeter in tone with age and service, what is going to happen to the new instruments which are constructed to sound mellow and sweet while new? Time may show that the new violin will not endure the strain. But they maybe stronger than the old instruments for aught I know to the contrary. All who have the welfare of music at heart will hope that the art of making violins did not die with the varnish makers of Cremona.
Commercially the new violins cannot rank with the old, for the new are ever on the increase and the old are disappearing one by one. Collectors buy them up like old furniture by Chippendale or Sheraton. Wealthy amateurs like to have them to gaze at for the glints of golden sunshine and the intoxicating ruby glow they can see in the varnish on the backs of their precious Cremonas. Yet those violinists who write so bitterly against the locking up of old violins by collectors and amateurs must not forget that the rarest among the violinists of genius, Paganini, left his Guarnerius to the city of Genoa, with instructions that no other violinist ever should play on it. Did any collector ever condemn a great Cremona to perpetual silence? I remember standing in the presence of Paganini’s violin in Genoa nearly forty years ago and wondering what Joseph Guarnerius would say if he could see his masterpiece stifled in a glass case. Why not hang the paintings of Velasquez in the dark? Pictures were painted to be seen and violins were made to be heard. The language Shakespeare has put into the mouth of Mowbray, when King Richard II banished him from England, might almost serve as a monologue for a violin which has fallen into the hands of a collector or a wealthy amateur:
And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp,
Or like a cunning instrument cas’d up,
Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
Still, if all the finest old instruments in the world were distributed among the greatest violinists the cost of these instruments would continue to mount, for the simple reason that the old violins are wearing out. They cannot last forever. The wood perishes in time in spite of the preserving varnish. Fortunately there is no prospect of a lack of good violins. The musical public will know no difference, even though the performer may suffer from a sentimental heartache to think that his violin is only an Ingersoll or a Henry Ford, instead of a crumbling Stradivarius or Joseph Guarnerius.
The violin that is young today will be old and mellow by the time the last of the old Cremona masterpieces is a wreck on a museum shelf.
Some of the unknown instruments of today will eventually be made famous by great violinists, in the same way that Paganini established the reputation of Guarnerius, and De Beriot turned the musical world’s attention to Maggini.
A Trick on Wilhelmj.
I played a trick on the great Wilhelmj, which may appropriately be related here. Some twenty years or so ago I occasionally spent an evening with him at his house in St. John’s Wood, London. Now and then he would pick up a violin and twang a few strings with the thumb of the right hand without deigning to place the instrument under his chin. One night after dinner I asked him to do me the favor of trying a marvelous violin I had brought for his inspection. As soon as he saw the instrument I took from the case he _ exclaimed, “Why, that’s only a trade fiddle.” I said nothing. He twanged it as I expected with his thumb and at once was surprised at the rich, full, long sustained tones he got from it. He put it to his chin and played several pizzicato passages with remarkable effect. Finally he reached for a bow. When he drew his bow across the strings, however, the tone was so absurdly thin and nasal that Wilhelmj roared with laughter. I had taken the sound-post out of the instrument. That is why it had such ׳ a guitar like tone when the strings were plucked, and had no tone at all when played with a bow, for the soundpost and the bow must go together. Any cheap, machine made, shellac varnished fiddle without a soundpost will beat the best Cremona on pizzicato tone and win all the votes of the judges in the next room. But I trust that no possessor of a good violin will subject it to the villainous treatment of removing its soul, the soundpost.
month ago, in February, 1922, that wonderful young Russian, Toscha Seidel, told me he was constantly on the watch for a fine red Stradivarius of the grand model.
The reader may naturally ask why the great violinists are not satisfied with the instruments on which they made themselves famous. I told Toscha Seidel that few of his hearers could tell whether he played a Stradivarius or his usual Guadagnini. Seidel at once replied:	“I would know
the difference. It is so much easier to make good tone on a Stradivarius.” Marie Hall, the English violinist who has the good fortune to own the splendid Stradivarius on which the great Viotti made his name a century and a half ago, likewise told me that her instrument plays so easily that she has only to think of the tone she wants and the tone comes. The public in general may know and care very little about the comfort of the violinist, but all violinists are eager to own a Stradivarius or a Guarnerius.
Liked His Stead.
If violinists did not set such a high value on the violins of these two makers in particular there would be very little of the collector craze about them. When they were new there was very little demand for them. As every reader of violin history knows, Stradivarius sent a collection of his instruments to London but could not sell them. The musical world at that time preferred the sweeter, shallower tone of the high arched violins of Amati and Stainer to the fuller tone of the flat Stradivarius. Yet we have the interesting testimony of a cultured musical amateur who lived during the period when the Stradivarius tone was beginning to be recognized. He was the Rev. Thomas Twining, of Colchester, England. In a letter of his, written in 1791 to the musical historian, Dr. Burney, of London, he said :
I believe I have got possession of a sweet Stradivari, which I play upon with much more pleasure than my Stainer, partly because the tone is sweeter, mellower, rounder, and partly because the stop is longer. My Stainer is undersized, and on that account less valuable, though the tone is as bright, piercing, full, as of any Stainer I ever heard. Yet, when I take it up after the Stradivari it sets my teeth on edge. The tone comes out plump, all at once. There is a comfortable reserve of tone in the Stradivari, and it bears pressure; and you may draw upon it for almost as much tone as you please.
The musical value, and consequently the commercial value, of Stradivarius violins was made known to the world by the players of those instruments and not by the hearers in the next room, who are frequently deceived by the performer and led to believe that a new violin is as good as a mellowed masterpiece by a famous old Italian maker. But though age mellows the tone of a violin, it cannot transmute a bad instrument into a golden toned Cremona. The instruments we value so much today were always good. We have the testimony of Roger North, who was Attorney General to James II of England, that Italian violins were highly esteemed in England in his day.
After this wee cannot wonder that among the courters of musick an Itallian taste should prevaile; but there were other incidents that contributed to establish it; one of the chief was the coming over of the works of the great Corelli. . . . Add to this that most of the yong nobillity and gentry that have travelled into Italy affected to learne of Corelli and brought home with them such favour for the Itallian musick as hath given it possession of our Pernas-sus. And the best utensill of Apollo the violin, is so universally courted and sought after to be had of־ the best sort that some say England hath dispeopled Itally of viollins (1728).
The Italian violins which Roger North says were brought into England during Corelli’s period must have been new instruments, for Niccolo Amati, the first great violin maker of Cremona, was at work during the first thirty-three years of Corelli’s life, and Corelli died twenty-four years before Stradivarius died, and thirty-two years before Guarnerius died.
Good Modern Makes.
Violin makers have as much skill now as any of the old masters had, and modern tools are very much better. The same wood grows on the sunny slopes of the hillsides, and unless the whole secret of the Cremona tone lies in the lost varnish, there is no reason why good violins should not be made today. As a matter of fact, some modern makers are producing wonderful instruments which will be the delight of our great-great-grand children, when the alchemy of the years shall have mellowed and sweetened the already good and powerful tone.
During the past year (1921) a modern Italian maker, by name Revalo, has produced some violins which seem to possess all the good qualities of the great masters of the past, and now Professor Franz Josef Koch, of Dresden, has made a quartet of stringed instruments which received the greatest number of votes in competition with a Niccolo Amati and a Guarnerius.
CHICAGO MUSIC HOUSES HELP TO
ESTABLISH NEW ORCHESTRAL SCHOOL
sides presenting a violin for competition in the violin department of the Bush Conservatory, made a large contribution to the fund, and pledged their heartiest co-operation in furthering the plan.
The appeal for the Orchestral Training School was made to_ the music houses, and the following firms have responded with generous subscriptions: Union Piano Company, Lyon & Healy, Wurlitzer Music Company, Bush & Gerts and W. L. Bush personally, Cable Piano Company, Baldwin Piano Company, Bauer Piano Company, Hornsteiner Violin Shop and Clayton F. Summy Company.
The plans for the Symphony Orchestra Training School, as outlined by Mr. Bradley and Mr. Czerwonky, are comprehensive. They include rehearsals of senior orchestra and junior orchestra; some scholarships in all orchestral instruments, with theoretical training; series of concerts in Orchestra Hall next season; opportunities for composers to hear their new orchestral compositions in manuscript; for young conductors to secure experience, and for young artists to acquire routine by rehearsal of solos with orchestral accompaniment.	Jeannette Cox.
On Tuesday evening, March 21, in Orchestra Hall, the Bush Conservatory Symphony Training School Orchestra, one of the newest and most important of Chicago’s musical activities, was launched. Kenneth M. Bradley, president of Bush Conservatory, has for some time entertained this ambition, but he knew that only with the cooperation of a good conductor, such as Richard Czerwonky, and practical orchestra could it be realized.
As far as the financial backing of the project is concerned, the money needed for the maintenance of such a school of high standard has been secured temporarily, at least until a permanent endowment is received through the cooperation of the leading music houses of Chicago with the Bush Conservatory.
J. W. Moist, of the Union Piano Company, first saw the need of support for this movement and his enthusiasm for Mr. Czerwonky made him feel that the success of the movement would be possible with such a man. Here he did not stop. He backed his belief with deeds, and suggested the plan of co-operation between the music houses and Bush Conservatory, offering a good annual subscription until a permanent endowment was secured. Lyon & Healy, be-
HY Cremona should have be'en buried with thee,” wrote H. R. Haweis in his short account of the violinist Ernst. Haweis, of course, did not mean exactly what he said. He would have been among the first to protest against the destruction of a Stradivarius. What Haweis really meant was that no other violinist could draw the same tone from the instrument which Ernst had played. He said that he saw the Ernst violin played every season in the London concert rooms but never heard the Ernst tone again until Madame Norman-Néruda played it. According to Haweis, the instrument was incomplete without the performer, and it yielded a tone quality that corresponded to the artistic nature of the performer.
I attended a recital a few months ago in Aeolian Hall, London. A boy, whose name I do not remember, was playing a number of compositions for the violin. A friend of mine from the violin house of Hill & Sons asked me what I thought of the instrument on which the boy was playing. I said that at first I thought he had an inferior violin, but that he might only be misusing a good instrument. My friend then said:	“That is one of the finest Strads in our
collection.” I learned that the boy was accustomed to play on a stiff, new, violin and could not adapt himself to the unresisting and responsive Stradivarius.
Mellows with Age.
When I read in the newspapers from time to time that violinists were unable to distinguish between the tones of a Stradivarius and a good modern instrument played behind a screen or in an adjoining room, I am by no means convinced that the new violin is as good as the old. Nor do I say that the old violin is better than the new one. Age will not convert a poor violin into a good one. Age, however, makes a really good violin more sensitive to the nature of the man who plays on it. When Paganini was annoyed with his audience in Ferrara he advanced to the front of the stage and exclaimed:	“This is for him who hissed.”
Then he made his Guarnerius bray like a donkey. Paganini had played on many instruments before he met with the Guarnerius on which he always afterwards played. He knew well enough that the old Cremona instrument gave him the greatest scope in producing all kinds of sounds, comical and rough, as well as musical. Paganini could easily have made a cheap trade fiddle sound much finer than his beloved Guarnerius, had he wished to fool a committee of experts. And I cannot help thinking that the violinist who tries to demonstrate the beauty of tone of a new instrument, consciously or unconsciously favors the new instrument and hardly does justice to the old. Once upon a time I played such a trick upon a violinist.
Those who are interested enough in me to look up the biographical sketch of me and my musical work in Grove’s Dictionary, will find that as a hobby I made violins a long time ago. I offer this as evidence of my interest in the art of violin making. Suffice it to say that my fiddles in no way lowered the market value of productions by Amati, Stradivarius, or Guarnerius. Mine have disappeared, I know not where. But some twenty years ago the possessor of a beautiful Stradivarius brought his instrument to my house for a musical evening. During supper time I had a young lady friend of mine leave the table and go to the music room to try the violin. She was an excellent violinist who has since progressed to the higher calling of wife and mother. She played several passages of various kinds and tried all the strings. The violinist in the supper room was in ecstacies over the beauty of the sounds, and asserted that the Stradivarius tone could never be mistaken. Unfortunately for him, however, the lady violinist was playing on a raw, young, home made fiddle of my own, and not on the Strad at all.
In my opinion, the violinist who owned the Stradivarius and played on it every day, and yet could not recognize the tone of it twenty yards away from it, was lacking in that delicacy of ear which all the greatest violinists have. The greatest violinists have also an ideal tone in their mind to which they try to make the violin conform. That is why the tone which Ernst got from his Cremona was not the tone Madame Norman Neruda produced from the same instrument, according to the testimony of H. R. Haweis. If further evidence is required, I may say that the young violinist who possessed the magnificent Stradivarius was subsequently such a failure as a public performer, in spite of the best kind of training in Berlin, Brussels, and Paris, that in despair he took his own life.
Maud Powell's Ideal Tone.
Twenty years ago I played the piano accompaniments for the late Maud Powell at several concerts in London. I once examined her violin very carefully and asked her who the maker was. She told me that her instrument was of no great importance and that she believed it was of English make. Later in her career she came into possession of a fine old Italian instrument which she always afterwards used. She became famous in the musical world before she had a first class violin to play on because she had an ideal tone in her imagination which she imitated as best she could on an indifferent instrument. I cannot believe that her sense of tone was altered by the better violin. All the better instrument did was to enable her more easily and more satisfactorily to reach her ideal. The boy who played on a magnificent Stradivarius in Aeolian Hall, London, a few months ago, had no such ideal tone in his mind. He merely played the violin, and the violin, being a masterpiece of sensitiveness, revealed the poverty of the boy’s musical soul.
Every violinist does his best to get a Stradivarius or a Guarnerius. The French violinist, Thibaud, for instance, was famous as a performer on a Maggini violin long before he was able to get possession of the Stradivarius he now plays. Kreisler made his mark in the musical world without the help of the Guarnerius he now uses. Albert Spalding played for years in America and Europe before he got the chance to buy his famous Guarnerius. Barely a