Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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STEADIVARI STRADIVARI 711
about 1702. "We find him still adhering to the
14-inch length, but broadening, developing,
and arching the model, until it assumes an unsurpassable
grandeur and symmetry. His years
of experiment have resulted in a neatly compacted
instrument, with light edges, accurate
corners, round arching, broadly treated but
exquisitely gi-aceful sound-holes and scroll, and
a varnish soft in texture, which shades delioiously
from orange to red. From 1703 until about 1709,
the year of those famous violins La Pucelle
'
and the ' Viotti,' Stradivari seems to have settled
upon certain points of construction, from which
he rarely departed afterwards. A slight variation
of curve is observable, but the maiu features
and general dimensions agree with one another.
Then followed years of indecision, in which no
consistency of plan is to be traced, and until the
end of his career, some minute changes of thickness,
width, or length, characterise his work.
Yet, in spite of these diversities, the years following
1710 undoubtedly mark the production of
some of his finest instruments. In 1711 he
made the fine violin known as the Parke ' ' ; in
1713, the ' Boissier' belonging to Sarasate ;
in
1714 the 'Dolphin'; in 1715 the 'Gillot' and
the Alard,' which experts look upon as the
'
master's finest creation ; and in 1716 came the
'
Messiah.' These years also mark the production
of some of his grandest violoncellos, such
as the ' Duport,' 1711 ; the ' Batta,' 1714 ; and
—the most superb of all— the 'Piatti' in
1720. All of these are instruments of smaller
proportions (about 29^ inches long) than those
he made anterior to the years following 1700,
which kept to the dimensions of his contemporaries.
That Stradivari did not occupy himself
with the proportions of the violoncello, as he
did with those of the violin, is hardly to be
wondered at, seeing that the capacities of the
violoncello were hardly understood in his day.
It was not until the latter years of his life that
such artists as Franciscello employed it as a
solo instrument, and Stradivari—with his usual
quick responsiveness to the demands of artistic
appreciation— gradually modified the proportions
of his instruments from about Bl-^- inches
to about 29-1^ inches in length, as the progressing
technique of the contemporary virtuosi
exacted a diminution in size.
His violas bear a more distinctive stamp of
his creative genius than do his violoncellos.
The changes so apparent in his violins are quite
as evident in these larger instruments, and
the models marked TV ' '
' and OV preserved in
the Dalla Valle collection evidence that he
made these in two sizes, i.e. Tenor Viola and
' '
'
Contralto Viola.' Before 1690 the influence
of the Brescian school, and of the Amatis, still
ruled the proportions of his violas, but after
that year he adopted a smaller model—about
16A in length—and to this he mainly adhered.
These three members of the string quartet seem
to have occupied Stradivari's attention almost
exclusively. No authentic double basses or any
designs for the same have as yet come to light,
and with the exceptions of the remains of a
viola-da-gamba, a kit,—now in the Muste of
the Paris Conservatoire,—two handsome guitars,
dating from the early years of his career, and
the head of a third, it may be said with truth
that Stradivari's fame rests entirely upon his
violins, violas, and violoncellos. His principles
of construction are analysed in detail in the
work already quoted.
Stradivari's methods have been preserved
from century to century, until they have become
the fundamental basis of the art of violinmaking.
No detail of his work was too
unimportant for the master's vigUant observation.
That he personally designed the pegs,
finger - boards, tail - pieces, inlaid patterns,
bridges, and even the minutdst details of his
violin cases, is attested to by the numerous
drawings of these in the Dalla Valle collection,
while the several sketches for bow-tips and
nuts reveal the interesting fact that he also
made bows. His material, as already stated,
was not always of the finest, owing to the
restriction of limited funds during the early
part of his career. However, it may be said
that in the classification of the relative importance
of the various factors required to make a
perfect violin, material and dimensions are
subservient to varnish, and it was in the
application of this that Stradivari surpassed
his contemporaries, rather than in the discovery
of any new compound for the same.
Generally speaking, the so-called Lost Cremona
'
Varnish ' was, in the writer's opinion, no secret
in Stradivari's lifetime, but the common property
of the luthiers of the day who compounded
it from the materials used by the
great painters of the epoch. Space will not
admit of our discussing the many theories put
forth regarding the component parts which
constituted this varnish. Suffice it to state here,
that in the opinion of the writer—an opinion
which, it must be said, is controverted with
some skill by Messrs. Hill— the late Charles
Reade's hypothesis of an oil varnish over a
spirit varnish is the most fundamentally correct
solution of Stradivari's varnishing (vide JReadiana
and the Pall Mall Gazette, Letters, 1872).
The exigencies of time - limits which have
brought a demand for quick-drying varnishes
in modem times sounded the death-knell of
the brilliant, tender, transparent varnish of
the Cremona School, so that the world has
been forced to acknowledge that it is now a
mere memory. Stradivari's own recipe was
inscribed on the fly-leaf of a family Bible, but
his descendant Giacomo Stradivari destroyed
this, though it is said that he kept a copy of it
which he carefully preserved for any future
members of the family who might adopt the