2 Developments in instruments, bows and accessories

Robin Stowell

Few of the world’s top string players perform in public nowadays on instruments made by contemporary luthiers. Most opt instead for antique instruments, especially examples by Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737), Bartolomeo Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù (1698–1744) or other Italian master luthiers, which they are either sufficiently wealthy to own or fortunate to have on extended loan. This is no recent trend. Rightly or wrongly, it has long been believed that the sound potential of most violins will mature with age and playing.¹

There is naturally good reason for the esteem in which both Stradivari and Guarneri have been held, even though during their lifetime the tonal qualities of the highly arched models of the Amati family and the Austrian Jacob Stainer (?1617–83) generally held favour.² The instruments developed by Stradivari, Guarneri and their contemporaries began to reign supreme only after they, in company with most other extant instruments of the violin family, had been subjected to various external and internal modifications towards the end of the eighteenth century, to make them more responsive to changes in musical style and taste.³ These modifications occurred between c. 1760 and c. 1830 as a response to the demand for greater tonal sonority, volume and projection, resulting from the increasing vogue for public concerts discussed in Chapter 1.⁴ Developments in bow construction at about the same time led to the standardisation (c. 1785) of bow design, measurements, weights and materials by François Tourte (1747–1835).

The exterior body outline of instruments of the violin family remained substantially unaltered during the Romantic era despite attempts at ‘improvement’⁵ and the introduction of new designs such as François Chanot’s guitar-shaped violin, Félix Savart’s trapezoid violin, Hermann Ritter’s viola alta, Michel Woldemar’s violon-alto and Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume’s enlarged violas.

The violin

The late-eighteenth-century desire for a more brilliant, powerful sound was met chiefly by subjecting stringed instruments to considerably greater tensions. The fundamental exterior shape of the violin and its normal body-length (typically c. 35.6 cm) remained essentially unchanged. However, makers substituted a longer (by 0.64–1.27 cm to the present standard of 12.86–13.02 cm) and thinner (by c. 3.18 mm) neck and set it at an angle of 4–5 degrees from the body of the instrument (with the level of the nut just below that of the table),⁶ thus eliminating the need for an impossibly cumbersome wedge between fingerboard and neck, in order to enable the fingerboard closely to follow the angle of the strings for clear tone production (see Fig. 2.1). This modification also offered an increase in the playing length of string (by up to 1.25 cm) and resultant tonal benefits.

Figure 2.1 Diagram showing the respective angles of the neck and fingerboard of a ‘Baroque violin’ (above) and a ‘modern’ instrument

The typical neck of most original Baroque and early Classical violins protruded from the instrument roughly at right angles to the ribs; it was generally glued to the body and secured by three nails driven from inside the block. The new neck conformation enabled the full range of the instrument to be exploited. In most cases it involved retaining the original head and grafting it on to a new neck which was then attached through a mortise into the top block in order to provide additional strength to withstand the increased tensions on the instrument; these latter were often exacerbated in many cases by the need for a slightly higher, thinner and more steeply curved bridge, the design of which was variable but gradually standardised.

The position of the bridge may also have been standardised as late as the second half of the eighteenth century. In many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century paintings and engravings of violins, for example, the bridge is depicted much closer to the tailpiece end of the instrument than nowadays.⁷ This is too common a feature to be dismissed merely as artistic licence or representational inaccuracy, especially since bridge ‘footprints’ indicating a variety of playing lengths of string are commonly found on instruments of that period. However, no firm deduction can be made as to its verity without more positive information about the relative situation of the soundpost. If the bridge placement had been even roughly as depicted, it would have been practically impossible for the soundpost to be positioned in anything like its modern relationship.⁸ Indeed, it seems likely that some performers may have played on instruments whose bridges were positioned behind the soundpost, a conformation which would doubtless have produced a warm, mellow tone, but without the volume and potential for projection required by late-eighteenth-century performers.

To support old instruments against the greater pressures to which they were subjected – and the more so when pitch standards began generally to rise – bass-bars were lengthened and made considerably more substantial. Comprising a piece of pine perfectly split and fitted longitudinally to the underside of the bass side of the instrument by the left foot of the bridge, the bass-bar provided the requisite strength to oppose the downward pressure of the strings on the bridge feet. It was of no fixed dimensions for any instruments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, different schools advocating different sizes.⁹ Surviving examples and available evidence suggest that the average bass-bar dimensions used by Stradivari for his violins were:

length:

50 mm away from the upper and lower ends of the belly

height:

6–7 mm under the bridge

width:

5 mm

These measurements are small when compared with the standardised dimensions of the ‘modern’ violin bass-bar, as introduced from c. 1800:

length:

approximately 39.5 mm away from the upper and lower ends of the belly

height:

10 mm

width:

5.5 mm

The soundpost, a small rod of pine wood which links the table to the back, was also made more substantial in order to perform more effectively its structural and acoustical functions.

The longer, narrower neck of late-eighteenth-century violins in turn affected the shape of the fingerboard. By that time increasingly of ebony rather than veneered hardwood, the fingerboard was also narrowed at the peg-box end; it was also broadened somewhat towards the bridge and made more markedly arched throughout in keeping with the typical sweeping curve of the modified bridge. Furthermore, it was lengthened by approximately 5.08–6.35 cm to an average length of 26.67 cm,¹⁰ thus extending the range of the instrument well beyond seventh position and affording players greater facility in the high registers.

It is difficult to establish who actually instigated these modifications to most extant violins. The impetus appears to have been provided by makers resident in Paris,¹¹ of whom Nicolas Lupot (1758–1824) and François-Louis Pique (1758–1822) were especially prominent. The French example was evidently followed by makers in Italy, and German luthiers were also implementing similar changes at about the same time.¹² However, some Gagliano violins made as early as the 1780s combine original necks of almost modern dimensions with fittings of eighteenth-century lightness, and the necks of some English violins c. 1760 were already of approximately modern length.

During this wind of change, particular interest was shown in the ‘classical’ model of Stradivari’s ‘golden period’, whose relatively flat (low-arched) table and back were probably inspired by the compact, powerful instruments of Brescian Giovanni Paolo Maggini (c. 1581 – c. 1632). Stradivari’s ‘flat’ model violin was found to respond best to the modifications and soon began to gain tonal supremacy over the instruments of Stainer and the Amatis. The Italian violinist Giovanni Battista Viotti (1755–1824), the principal inspiration behind the celebrated nineteenth-century French violin school, was influential in establishing Stradivari’s instruments in the favoured position they still occupy today.¹³ His tone evidently had a beauty, breadth and power that his contemporaries regarded as new, and it is probably no coincidence that a reviewer for The London Chronicle (1794) attributed these qualities to his ‘changed violin structure’ which offered greater sound projection. The violins of Guarneri del Gesù, notable for their massive build, powerful tone and a certain ruggedness of character and workmanship, achieved their prominent position somewhat later, thanks largely to Nicolò Paganini (1782–1840), Henri Vieuxtemps (1820–81) and Henryk Wieniawski (1835–80), while Ole Bull (1810–80) and Charles-Auguste de Bériot (1802–70) championed the cause respectively of the Brescian makers Gasparo da Salò (1540–1609) and Maggini.

The viola

Early in its history, the viola was available in various sizes, larger models normally being described as ‘tenor violas’ and smaller ones as ‘alto violas’ in keeping with the registers most commonly exploited within their range.¹⁴ Some ‘tenor violas’ were so large as to be almost unplayable on the arm, notably the Andrea Amati tenor viola (1574) in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which has a body length of 47 cm. Antonio Stradivari’s enormous 1690 ‘Medici’ instrument (48.3 cm long) contrasts with his smaller contralto models (41.3 cm long), while the length of Jacob Stainer’s violas (1649–70) evidently varied between 40 cm and 46.3 cm.¹⁵

Makers continued to produce large and small violas throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, but most larger models were later ‘cut down’ for ease of playing. Smaller models predominated thereafter until the early twentieth century, suggesting makers’ response to technical advances and demands.¹⁶ In the interim, instruments underwent similar (but proportionate) modifications of the neck, fingerboard and internal fittings to the violin in order to increase string tension, tonal brilliance and left-hand facility. Further experiments at acoustical improvement in the nineteenth century turned the instrument’s evolution full circle and involved lengthening or enlarging the body,¹⁷ culminating in the ‘Tertis’ model (with an average body length of 42.5 cm) developed by Lionel Tertis and Arthur Richardson in the 1930s.

The cello

The oldest surviving cello, by Andrea Amati (1572), was made as part of a group of instruments for Charles IX, King of France 1560–74. Along with the rest of Andrea Amati’s cellos, this instrument’s peg-box was probably made to accommodate only three strings (tuned F–c–g);¹⁸ it underwent modification later to accept a fourth peg. After Agricola, most descriptions of the cello cite four strings tuned B¹–F–c–g, a tone below modern tuning; the latter was introduced in early-seventeenth-century Italy but spread only slowly, the old ‘B¹’ tuning continuing to appear in England into the eighteenth century.

The early cello was also made in a wide range of sizes. The first instruments made in Cremona by Andrea Amati and his family were large, c. 79 cm in length of back. Almost contemporary with these were smaller cellos made in Brescia, with a corresponding back measurement of c. 71 cm. These two sizes seem to have persisted as alternatives well into the eighteenth century, but Cremonese makers’ preference for the larger model unfortunately resulted in the majority of seventeenth-century cellos made by the most revered violin makers being ‘cut down’ for modern use and thereby losing the original integrity of their design.

The standard back length in use nowadays is approximately 75 cm, a median measurement between the two earlier sizes which was first employed in Cremona towards the end of the seventeenth century. Stradivari had already made several instruments of the larger pattern when Francesco Rugeri began to work to a 75 cm model. Stradivari’s revised pattern on that size, the ‘B’ form introduced after 1707, did much to gain for the cello its current status in music, offering fuller tonal projection and a greater range of expression.¹⁹

Many other aspects of the cello’s background history were the subjects of wide variation and experimentation well into the eighteenth century. Most of the Cremonese makers made instruments of hybrid form, designs incorporating characteristics of both the cello and bass viol. Stradivari made at least two cellos before 1700 with a flat back, while other luthiers, including Amati and Joseph ‘filius Andrea’ Guarneri, made bass viols in cello form, illustrating the common ground between the two instruments and indicating the quest for a design which incorporated the agility of the viol and the sonority of the cello.²⁰ Other hybrid models include the five-string cello, the harmonicello of J. C. Bischoff, the heptacorde devised by Raoul and Vuillaume, and Johann Staufer’s arpeggione.

While the design of the cello reached its ideal with Stradivari’s ‘B’ form, changes in detail and fittings, many in common with the violin and viola, have continued until the present day. The short, stocky eighteenth-century neck has been increased in length by c. 2.5 cm and made slimmer to facilitate playing in the upper positions, and the old system of nailing the neck to the body, or setting the ribs into slots cut in the side of the neck, has been abandoned in favour of mortising the neck into the upper block. The fingerboard has been lengthened to extend the range on each string, but it is now made of solid ebony rather than veneered wood in order to resist the wear caused by metal-covered strings. The bass-bar has increased in length and depth to provide more support for the lower-register strings. The bridge is now generally lighter and its delicate form has evolved into two basic designs: the French, which is the more common, and the even lighter Belgian model, which is used in the interests of greater volume rather than tonal breadth. A further refinement to the fingerboard was introduced by Bernhard Romberg (1767–1841), who flattened it beneath the length of the C string to provide increased clearance for the wide vibration of that heavy string when played forte, and thus avoid its grating buzzes and rattles against the fingerboard surface. Romberg’s recessed fingerboard, adopted by his protégé Dotzauer and by Spohr for the violin at the beginning of the nineteenth century, was never universally accepted.

Perhaps the most important development for the player was the adjustable endpin, introduced by Adrien Servais in the mid-nineteenth century to give the instrument greater stability during large shifts of the left hand.²¹ Fitted directly to the cello, its metal spike can be stored inside the body of the instrument during transportation and be extended to the required length to raise the cello into a comfortable playing position. It only gradually became accepted as a standard fitting but it has played a significant part, in its various forms, in the development of left-hand technique and tonal quality.

Accessories

Strings

Silk, steel, brass and copper strings were available during the seventeenth century but do not appear to have been widely used by string players of the violin family. From its inception until into the eighteenth century, the violin was normally equipped with strings of gut.²² By the early eighteenth century, gut (or silk) strings wound with silver (or copper) began to gain preference in many countries for their superior tonal potential for the violin’s g and the viola’s c and g strings and the cello’s C and G strings, allowing for an increase in mass without an increase in diameter and a consequent loss of flexibility.²³ Emanating from Bologna, they are mentioned by Playford as sounding ‘much better and lowder than common Gut Strings, either under the Bow or Finger’.²⁴ Their gradual adoption led to the eventual demise of the tenor-size viola.

Despite the increased loyalty to overspun strings and the well-publicised disadvantages of gut – notably the need to keep them moist, their tendency to unravel, their sensitivity to variation in atmospheric temperature, the common incidence of knots and other imperfections – the combination of plain gut e², a¹, d¹ and a g with copper, silver-plated copper or silver round wire close-wound on a gut core was the violin norm throughout the nineteenth century.²⁵ Nevertheless, Gunzelheimer was still a strong advocate of all-gut violin stringing in 1855, while Alberto Bachmann recorded (1925): ‘The fourth or G string is the only covered string used on the violin.’²⁶ A few performers, most notably Fritz Kreisler, persevered with a gut e² until at least c. 1950; however, gut was gradually replaced by a steel (so-called ‘piano-wire’) variety, championed in particular by Willy Burmester and Anton Witek, which was accompanied by its metal adjuster for greater facility in fine tuning.

Available evidence regarding pitch, string tensions and string thicknesses is so conflicting, and circumstances were so variable, that it is impossible to draw definitive conclusions.²⁷ Some scholars believe, for example, that eighteenth-century strings were generally thinner than their modern counterparts, in keeping with the lower string tension and generally lower playing pitch of that period;²⁸ others disagree, some quoting Sébastien de Brossard’s statement (c. 1712) that the contemporary silver-wound d¹ and g violin strings were thinner than their counterparts made simply of gut.²⁹

Clearly, string thicknesses differed considerably according to considerations of pitch (thicker strings were employed for the lower pitch standards), the size of the instrument employed, the situation, national or individual tastes regarding string materials, and many other variables. Italian and German violinists generally used thicker strings, strung at greater tension, than the French, presumably with greater brilliance and volume in mind. However, Quantz acknowledges the use of thick and thin strings and Leopold Mozart recommends, for optimum tonal results and reliability of intonation, the use of thick strings for ‘flat pitch’ and large-model violins and thin strings for ‘sharp pitch’ and small models.³⁰

Paganini evidently used very thin strings, whereas Spohr claims that optimum string thicknesses for any instrument can be determined only by experiment, with equal strength and fullness of tone from each string as the ultimate goal.³¹ Spohr employed the thickest strings his violin could bear, so long as their response was quick and easy and their tone bright. He employed a string gauge to ensure the uniformity of his string thicknesses.³² This device comprised a metal plate of silver or brass with a graduated slit, lettered for each string, and with regular markings from 0 to 60 (see Fig. 2.2). The scale unit of Spohr’s gauge is not stated, but the thickness of each string was ascertained at the point where it became lightly wedged in the gauge (e¹ = 18; a¹ = 23; d¹ = 31; g = 25).³³

Figure 2.2 String gauge: Louis Spohr, Violinschule (Vienna, [1832])

Chin-rest

The chin-rest (Geigenhalter: literally, ‘violin holder’) was invented by Spohr in about 1820 to ensure the greater stability required for increased mobility of the left hand and greater freedom in violin bowing.³⁴ Spohr’s model was made of ebony and was placed directly over the tailpiece, not to the left side as is usual today (see Fig. 2.3). It only gradually achieved general approbation, but it was probably fairly widely used in violin and viola playing, together with the various models it inspired (e.g. the low, ebony ridge employed by Sarasate and others), by the mid nineteenth century. Nevertheless, many leading players, among them Wilhelmj, evidently rejected utilising such equipment.

Figure 2.3 Spohr’s chin rest and its position on the violin: Louis Spohr, Violinschule (Vienna, [1832])

Mute

Use of the mute was gradually extended from ensemble to solo playing during the eighteenth century. This device, generally of wood or metal (Quantz states wood, lead, brass, tin or steel, but dislikes the growling tone produced by the wood and brass varieties),³⁵ underwent no fundamental change in design until the mid nineteenth century, when the inconvenience of manually applying or removing a mute during performance prompted Vuillaume to invent his Sourdine pédale.³⁶ However, this latter, enabling violinists to apply the mute by means of gentle pressure with the chin on the tailpiece, gained, like Bellon’s invention, only ephemeral success.

Shoulder pad

(Pierre Baillot 1835) was one of the first writers to recommend the use of a shoulder pad to facilitate the correct and comfortable support of the violin. He suggests that ‘a thick handkerchief or a kind of cushion’ might be used to fill in any gap between the player’s left shoulder and the instrument, particularly in the cases of children, youths and women.³⁷ However, dress codes were often such that shoulder pads were not regularly employed by violinists or violists.

Wolf(-stop) mute

This device is attached to the G string behind the bridge of the cello. Its function is to eliminate or suppress the ‘wolf’ note or notes on an instrument. These are notes which, owing to that instrument’s structure, are too loud or too soft or difficult to play precisely in tune compared with other notes.³⁸

The bow: history and development

The use of a bow to draw sound from a stringed instrument has been traced back almost six centuries before the violin family’s evolution; not surprisingly, string players at first adopted the types of bow employed by players of other stringed instruments such as the rebec and viol. These bows were unstandardised as regards weight, length, form and wood-type but had certain general characteristics in common. Many early-seventeenth-century models were probably quite short, but evidence points to an increase in length by the end of the century.³⁹ They were usually convex and the narrow skein of horsehair was strung at fixed tension between the pointed head (in some cases there was no distinct head, the hair merely meeting the stick in a point) and the immovable horn-shaped nut at the lower end of the stick.

Few examples of seventeenth-century bows have survived, but iconographical evidence suggests that fashions in bow-types related directly to musical tastes and requirements. Short, light and fairly straight bows were ideal for dance musicians and were especially popular in France, while the increased cultivation of the sonata and concerto in Italy encouraged the use of longer, straighter (but sometimes slightly convex) models capable of producing a more singing style with a greater dynamic range. Solid, convex bows of intermediate length tended to be favoured by German players, probably because they offered greater facility in the execution of the German polyphonic style.⁴⁰

The gradual interaction of national styles during the eighteenth century and the demand for increased tonal volume, cantabile and a wider dynamic range (met also by developments in instrument construction), prompted the production of longer and straighter bowsticks. Straightening of the stick required modifications in the height and curvature of the so-called pike’s (or swan’s) head, in order to allow sufficient separation of the hair and the stick; and when, towards the mid eighteenth century, makers began to anticipate the concave cambre of the ‘modern’ stick, further changes in the head-design were required for optimum hair/stick separation at the middle, marking the demise of the pike’s head in favour first of the various hatchet head models and finally the bows of substantially ‘modern’ design, which closely resemble the model standardised by François Tourte (?1747–1835) during the 1780s.

Bow-lengths varied considerably, but the eighteenth-century trend was towards bows with a greater playing length of hair, especially in Italy. Sir John Hawkins confirms (1776): ‘The bow of the violin has been gradually increasing in length for the last seventy years; it is now about twenty-eight inches [i.e. 71.12 cm overall length]. In the year 1720, a bow of twenty-four inches [60.96 cm] was, on account of its length, called a sonata bow; the common bow was shorter; and . . . the French bow must have been shorter still.’⁴² By c. 1750 the average playing length of violin bows measured approximately 61 cm, although Tourte père produced some longer models. Table 2.1 provides a general overview of weights and measurements of extant violin, viola and cello bows c. 1700 – c. 1780.

Table 2.1 Weights (in g) and measurements (in cm) of violin, viola and cello bows (c. 1700 – c. 1780)⁴¹

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		Violin	Viola	Cello
Overall length	minimum	70.5	69.5	67.2
	medium	72.5	71.5	70.9
	maximum	73.9	74.0	74.3
Diameter of stick at frog	minimum	0.85	0.88	0.85
	medium	0.88	0.95	0.99
	maximum	0.91	1.00	1.09
Diameter of stick at head	minimum	0.51	0.58	0.56
	medium	0.57	0.60	0.66
	maximum	0.70	0.62	0.75
Hair to stick at frog	minimum	1.55	1.60	1.85
	medium	1.77	1.77	2.07
Width of hair in frog	minimum	0.62	0.85	1.00
	medium	0.82	1.03	1.16
	maximum	1.05	1.15	1.45
Bowing length	minimum	60.1	59.9	56.7
	medium	62.5	62.5	59.6
	maximum	64.2	64.7	62.2
Weight	minimum	47.0	59.0	65.0
	medium	51.5	64.0	76.0
	maximum	58.0	71.0	86.0

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Many early-eighteenth-century bows were fluted in all or part of their length. They were generally lighter than modern models, but were nevertheless strong, if somewhat inflexible, and their point of balance was generally nearer the frog, owing to the lightness of the head. Most types tapered to a fine point at the pike’s head and were commonly of snakewood (‘specklewood’), but pernambuco, brazil wood and plum wood were certainly known and pernambuco was increasingly used as the century progressed.

The type of nut employed for regulating the hair tension varied from a fixed nut to the crémaillère device (comprising a movable nut, whose position was adjusted and secured by a metal loop locked into one of several notches on the top of the stick) and, generally by c. 1750, the ‘modern’ screw-nut attachment. This latter device was probably invented in the late seventeenth century, David Boyden citing a bow in the Hill collection (London), in original condition and date-stamped 1694 on its movable frog, which is adjusted by a screw.⁴³ The frogs of this period were completely unmounted and were of ebony, rosewood or ivory.

Few seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century makers stamped their names on their bows. Instead, bow-types became associated with distinguished performers. Both Fétis (Fig. 2.4) and Woldemar (Fig. 2.5) illustrate four eighteenth-century bow types, named respectively after Corelli, Tartini, Cramer and Viotti,⁴⁴ while Baillot (Fig. 2.6) illustrates six varieties (Corelli, Pugnani, two unnamed transitional types, Viotti and Tourte).

Figure 2.4 Violin bows c. 1620 – c. 1790: François-Joseph Fétis, Antoine Stradivari, Luthier Célèbre (Paris, 1856)

Figure 2.5 Violin bows of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: Michel Woldemar, Grande Méthode ou étude élémentaire pour le violon (Paris, c. 1800)

Figure 2.6 Violin bows of the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: Pierre Baillot, L’art du violon: nouvelle méthode (Paris, 1835)

The term ‘Corelli bow’ appears to have designated the common early eighteenth-century Italian sonata bow with its straight or slightly convex bow and pike’s head, while the ‘Tartini bow’ (Baillot’s ‘Pugnani bow’ looks very similar) seems to have referred to a straight, apparently longer bow of more streamlined design, which, according to Fétis, was constructed from lighter wood and fluted at its lower end in the interests of lightness and greater manual control.⁴⁵ This would appear to be the bow type illustrated in the violin treatises of Leopold Mozart and Löhlein as well as in numerous iconographical sources of the period up to roughly the last quarter of the century. The ‘Cramer bow’, one of the many transitional types between the various Italian models and the Tourte design, was in vogue between c. 1760 and c. 1785, especially in Mannheim, where Wilhelm Cramer (1746?–99) spent the early part of his career, and in London after he had settled there in 1772. Longer than most Italian models but slightly shorter than Tourte’s eventual synthesis, it was also distinguished by its characteristically shaped ivory frog (cut away at both ends), the slight concave cambre of its stick, and its bold, yet neat ‘battle-axe’ head (with a peak in the front matched by a peak in the back of the head proper).⁴⁶

Michel Woldemar records that the ‘Viotti bow’ ‘differs little from Cramer’s in the design of the head (although this is more hatchet-like with a peak in the front only), but the nut is lower and brought nearer the screw attachment; it is longer and has more hair; it looks slightly straighter when in use and is employed almost exclusively today’.⁴⁷ It is possible that Fétis’s and Woldemar’s ‘Viotti bow’, with its fully developed hatchet head, is actually the Tourte bow in all but name. Certainly Tourte would have been influenced by those performers who frequented his workshops either to suggest ideas and improvements or simply to inspect and play examples of his work. Fétis implies that there was some collaboration between the two personalities, but Baillot’s illustration of the ‘Viotti’ and Tourte bows as two distinct models, the ‘Viotti bow’ for the violin (c. 72.39 cm) being slightly shorter than the Tourte (c. 74.42 cm), suggests otherwise.⁴⁸

François Tourte initially served an apprenticeship as a clock maker, only later joining the family bow-making business as his father’s pupil and assistant. He experimented with various kinds of wood in order to find a variety which offered those qualities of lightness, density, strength and elasticity demanded by string players of his day. He eventually concluded that pernambuco wood (Caesalpinia echinata) best satisfied these requirements. According to Fétis, he further discovered that, after thoroughly heating the stick, he could bend (rather than cut) it to the desired concave cambre, thus preserving the wood’s natural resiliency.⁴⁹ Tourte’s sticks tapered gradually to the point, the diameters of violin bow-sticks measuring about 8.6 mm throughout the 11 cm length of their lower ends and decreasing evenly by 3.3 mm to their tips.⁵⁰

Tourte also standardised the length and weight of bows of the violin family, determining the ideal length of the violin bowstick to be 74–5 cm (providing a playing length of approximately 65 cm and a balance point about 19 cm above the frog) and the optimum overall weight as about 56–60 g, somewhat lightweight by modern standards. Viola bows were slightly shorter (c. 74 cm) and heavier and cello bows shorter (72.2–73.6 cm, with a hair length of 60.3–61 cm) and heavier still. The pronounced concave cambre of the Tourte bow necessitated changes in the design of the head to prevent the hair from touching the stick when pressure was applied at the tip. The head was consequently made higher and heavier than before, Tourte opting for a hatchet design and facing it with a protective plate, generally of ivory. He redressed the balance by adding the metal ferrule and inlay to the frog, and any further metal to the back-plates and the screw button (see Fig. 2.7).

Figure 2.7 Violin bows (c. 1780 – c. 1820) by François Tourte

From about the middle of the eighteenth century, the amount of hair employed in the stringing of bows was gradually increased (from about 80–100 to in excess of 150 individual strands, according to Spohr),⁵¹ presumably with the contemporary demand for greater tonal volume in mind. To counteract the irregular bunching of the hair, Tourte increased the width of the ribbon of hair (to measure about 10 mm at the nut and about 8 mm at the point),⁵² and he was one of the first makers to keep it uniformly flat and even by securing it at the frog with a ferrule, made originally of tin and later of light-gauge silver. A wooden wedge was positioned between the hair and the bevelled portion of the frog so that the hair was pressed against the ferrule by the wedge and the ferrule itself was prevented from sliding off. A mother-of-pearl slide (recouvrement) was also fitted into a swallow-tail groove in the frog in order to conceal the hair fastening and enhance the bow’s appearance. The metal heel-plate on the frog is also believed to have been added by makers during the last decade of the eighteenth century; François Tourte was one of the first to use it with some consistency. Of variable dimensions, its principal function was to strengthen the back of the frog, but it also brought to the frog the additional weight desired by many players of that time.

The Tourte-model bow enabled performers to produce a stronger tone and was especially well suited to the sustained cantabile style dominant in the period of its inception. Its ability to make smooth bow changes with the minimum differentiation, where required, between slurred and separate bowing brought the later ‘seamless phrase’ ideal nearer to reality. A normal straight bow stroke, with the index-finger pressure and bow speed remaining constant, produced an even tone throughout its length because the shape and flexibility of the stick enabled the index-finger pressure to be distributed evenly. Variation of this pressure, bow speed, contact point, type of stroke and other technical considerations provided the wider expressive range so important to contemporary aesthetic ideals, in which the element of contrast, involving sudden changes of dynamic or long crescendos and diminuendos, played a significant role.

The hair of most pre-Tourte bows was generally capable of considerably less tension than that of Tourte models. Thus, it yielded rather more when brought into contact with the strings and produced, according to Leopold Mozart, ‘a small, even if barely audible, softness at the beginning of the stroke’.⁵³ A similar ‘softness’ was also perceptible at the end of each stroke, thus resulting in a natural articulation of the bow itself. The concave bow stick of the Tourte model, on the other hand, yields very little when pressed on the string and thus affords a more or less immediate attack. Furthermore, its quicker take-up of hair, greater strength (particularly at the point) and broader ribbon of hair also contributed to a considerable widening of the vocabulary of bow-strokes.

Universal approval of the Tourte bow was only slowly won. Michel Woldemar claims (1801) that the similar ‘Viotti’ model was exclusively used,⁵⁴ but many French makers continued to make bows modelled on pre-Tourte designs, and Baroque transitional and Tourte models co-existed in most orchestras and in solo spheres, as did violins with Baroque transitional and/or modern dimensions and fittings, well into the nineteenth century.⁵⁵ Nevertheless, Spohr, who is known to have purchased a Tourte bow in Hamburg in 1803, records that Tourte’s bows, though expensive, are ‘the best and most sought after’ and ‘have won for themselves a European celebrity’ on account of their ‘trifling weight and the elasticity of the stick, the . . . graduated cambre . . . and the neat and accurate workmanship’.⁵⁶

The full potential of the Tourte bow was probably not realised until the early years of the nineteenth century, when its inherent power and its expressive and other qualities could be implemented on an instrument modified to fulfil similar ideals. Apart from a few minor nineteenth-century additions, refinements and unsuccessful attempts by others to improve the bow, it has been imitated universally as the virtual blueprint for all subsequent bow makers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, particularly by Jean Grand-Adam (1823–69), Jacob Eury (1765–1848) and J. P. M. Persoit (?1782 – c. 1855). François Lupot (1774–1837) is normally credited with the addition (c. 1820) of the underslide (coulisse), a piece of metal affixed to the part of the frog that comes in sliding contact with the bowstick and designed to prevent any wear on the nut caused by friction with the stick, while the indentation of the channel and track of the frog and the combination of rear and upper heel plates into one right-angled metal part are normally attributed to Vuillaume.⁵⁷ Otherwise, few of Vuillaume’s inventions in bow-making survived the test of time.⁵⁸

Although the inventor of the metal thumbplate is unknown, the device was championed by Etienne Pajeot (1791–1849), whose bows are generally more elegant in the profile of the head than those of Tourte. Dominique Peccatte (1810–74) developed a more robust, more heavily wooded stick, generally with a rounded cross-section and a higher frog than his predecessors,⁵⁹ while François Nicolas Voirin (1833–85) produced a lighter, slightly longer and more delicate-looking bow in his mature years. Particularly characteristic is the slimmer profile of the head (with a notable thinning of the two faces), which is also markedly less square than that of Tourte’s design, and the different cambre, the progression of which has been moved closer to the head for additional strength and suppleness in the stick. The balance of the bow was redressed by a reduction in the diameter of the lower end of the stick, where the frog was appropriately in proportion. A similar design also achieved some popularity with makers such as Alfred Joseph Lamy (1850–1919), the Thomassins and the Bazins but never seriously challenged the Tourte model’s supremacy.

English bows tended to be made more with functional durability than artistic craftsmanship in mind, as is generally borne out by their square heads, roughly planed shafts and block-like ivory frogs. Nevertheless, these ungraceful bows generally possessed fine playing qualities. John Dodd (1752–1839) was probably the first English maker to adopt similar modifications to those introduced by Tourte. Whether he actually copied Tourte or arrived at a similar design quite independently has never been proven.⁶⁰ However, Dodd was less consistent than Tourte, experimenting widely with various weights, shapes of head, lengths and forms of stick and mountings on the nut. Close examination of his bows generally reveals cruder and more primitive craftsmanship. Many are slightly shorter (in both the stick and the playing length) and lighter than the average Tourte model; and their frogs lack a metal ferrule. Indeed, Dodd is believed to have produced full-length Tourte-model bows only late in life; those earlier sticks that have survived underwent later ‘modernisation’, their plain ivory mountings being either adapted or jettisoned.⁶¹

Aside from any repair, restoration or general maintenance that they will inevitably have undergone over the years, most members of the violin family made before c. 1800 have thus been subjected to a substantial transformation process.⁶² If the various accessories used by players nowadays that were not part of seventeenth- or eighteenth-century string playing are also added to the equation, the instruments used by our modern quartet players are far from being the authentic products of their makers. In truth, those who have paid inflated prices at auction or private sale for a Stradivari, Guarneri or an instrument of equivalent status set up for modern concert use have purchased one that is arguably barely more than half ‘original’. However, that the instruments of Stradivari and Guarneri continued to prosper many years after their deaths speaks wonders for these makers’ vision, foresight and expertise and may provide justification enough for the present-day veneration and valuation of their creations.

The development of historical performance in theory and practice to form a significant part of mainstream musical life in the twentieth century has occasioned a second reversal in the set-up of some old instruments.⁶³ The scarcity of genuine period stringed instruments of good quality has obliged performers either to have a good seventeenth- or eighteenth-century instrument converted from its modified state of c. 1800 back as closely as possible to its original condition, or to commission an historically accurate modern copy of an original instrument by a master craftsman. Many have taken the first option, despite a common view that tampering with a valuable instrument may prove unwise for both tonal and investment reasons. Nevertheless, the Stainer and Amati models, which suffered most from the late eighteenth-century conversion process, have proved prime candidates for such re-adjustment. One London-based restorer and expert on historical instruments, Dietrich M. Kessler (b. 1929), recalled with some amusement how he spent the first twenty-five years of his career converting instruments from their original to modern specifications, only to devote an equal period thereafter to returning others to their original condition!⁶⁴

Modern experiments and the infiltration of electronic and computer techniques into the quartet repertory have placed further demands on the equipment and accessories required by participating ensembles. Modern developments have included Carleen Hutchins’ new family of violins,⁶⁵ comprising eight instruments constructed on the basis of mathematical design, acoustical theory and classical violin-making principles, and electric violins, violas and cellos. Although Hutchins’ instruments have attracted new compositions, they have scarcely been exploited in the string quartet genre; nor has Kagel’s requirement of prepared instruments for his Quartet (1974), discussed in Chapter 7. But the development of electronic instruments has equipped players with a new flexibility and versatility for the third millennium.⁶⁶ It has opened up an almost limitless sound-world with the potential for amplification (with or without filters/boosters), modification (through tremolo or vibrato, ring modulation, ‘wah-wah’ etc.) and alteration (‘fuzz-box’, envelope shaping, echo and reverberation effects with time delay and echoes, and distortion) at the flick of a switch.