The violin and the art of its construction: a treatise on the Stradivarius violin

Chapter 2: PREFACE.

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About This Book

The treatise offers practical, step-by-step guidance on making, repairing, and caring for violins, grounded in the author's decades of workshop experience and admiration for Stradivarius. It begins with selection and properties of woods, then proceeds through construction details—ribs, back, belly, arching, purfling, thicknessing, f-holes, bass-bar, neck, fingerboard, and dimensions—and continues with fittings such as pegs, bridge, tailpiece, sound-post, and strings. Final chapters address varnish, cleaning, maintenance, and bow construction, combining technical measurements with hands-on tips for professional makers and informed amateurs.

PREFACE.

The highly esteemed author of this treatise, a renowned violin maker and clever repairer, of old instruments, having been denied the pleasure of publishing the same himself, death intervening on January 4th, 1893, his work on the violin and the art of its construction is now published, in accordance with his last wishes.

This treatise will, no doubt, be all the more welcome to professionals and amateurs alike, as to my knowledge no such work has yet been published treating the subject in such an able and thorough manner.

May, therefore, the valuable labours of the deceased author meet with that universal acknowledgment, which in a very high degree they deserve.

Göttingen, April 1895.

The Editor.