A Guide to Violin Varnish - A Selection of Classic Articles on the Development and Qualities of Different Violin Varnishes (Violin Series) , livre ebook

Violin Series
A Guide to Violin Varnish
A Selection of Classic Articles on the Development and Qualities of Different Violin Varnishes
By
Various Authors
Copyright 2011 Read Books Ltd. This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Contents
Old Violins and their Makers - including Some References to those of the Modern Times. James M. Fleming
The Mystery of Cremona Varnish. W. Christ-Iselin
Violins and Violinists. Franz Farga
The Violin - Its Famous Makers and their Imitators. George Hart
Old Violins and Violin Lore. H. R. Haweis
A Review of Ancient and Modern Violin Making. W. W. Oakes
Violins and Other Stringed Instruments. Paul N. Hasluck
VIOLIN VARNISH.
P ERHAPS the most interesting subject in connection with violins, after the experiments of Savart, referred to in my last chapter, is the Varnish-that inscrutable mystery, or lost art, which has been a puzzle to all violin-makers for over a hundred years. And yet in the face of a general acknowledgment that the art of making this varnish has been lost, I do not suppose there is a violin-maker in Europe who will not offer to sell you amber varnish, or if he does not so offer, he will perhaps tell you that he keeps it only for his own use. Throughout these chapters I have employed the term amber varnish, whenever I have had occasion to refer to that subject. As opposed to that of spirit varnish, it was likely to be better understood than any other, and it is the one universally in use for the purpose of distinguishing the kind employed by the Cremonese makers (with the one exception already mentioned) down to the days of Storioni. It is, however, a misleading term. What we call amber is a natural product found in many places in small quantities, but it is chiefly by the shores of the Baltic, between Memel and Dantzic, and particularly in the neighbourhood of K nigsberg, where it is collected in large quantities for purposes of commerce. It is supposed to be an exudation from the buried pines, and is found on and near the sea at these places chiefly after heavy storms, its collection being sometimes a rather dangerous occupation, as the fishermen walk into the sea up to the neck, and, glancing along the surface of the water to detect its presence, fish it up into a kind of sack attached to long poles. When they collect it in this manner they do so in companies, in order to assist each other in case of accident. They also procure it by means of mining in Sicily and Poland, and gather it in the beds of brooks and at the mouths of rivers in Siberia and elsewhere. Pieces are occasionally picked up along the shores of Norfolk, Essex, and Sussex, and it occurs at places inland in Switzerland and France. It has even been found in deposits of the London clay at Kensington, and in the greens-and formation in the United States, but this amber yields a varnish pre-eminently unfitted for violins, because of its hardness and want of elasticity, and it was probably never in olden times employed for this purpose. Its rigidity would effectually restrain the free vibration of the instrument, this latter quality being an absolute necessity in a violin. One of the chief reasons for choosing pine for the belly is its elasticity, and it would be curious to find the Cremonese makers-so wise in all other points-employing a varnish which would tend to obstruct the effectual exercise of the very quality which they so highly prized. That kind of copal which is here known by the names of dammar, Indian copal, and gum animi, and which is a product of the Vateria Indica , one of the Sumatra-camphor family of trees, was, in former times, called white amber, as was likewise a mixture of oil and Grecian wax, to which they also gave the name of amber varnish, and it is not unlikely that the error in description may have so arisen, for it is pretty nearly certain now that what we call amber was not in use as a material for the manufacture of varnish during and anterior to the time of Stradivari. The researches made in this direction yield very strong evidence that they then did not know how to solve amber or the hard copal of Calcutta, and that they did not employ these substances in their varnishes. Indeed the proof of this latter position is almost conclusive. For example, a violin by the brothers Amati (Hieronymus and Antonius) was rubbed with a moist linen cloth until the surface warmed and gave off the peculiar odour of mastic mixed with that of linseed oil. A Joseph (son of Andrew) Guarnerius, treated in the same manner, yielded the odour of benzoin, as did also a Joseph del Jesu. Other two instruments by this last maker, when submitted to the same process, gave off the odour of mastic and linseed oil, as in the case of the brothers Amati. From these and other experiments it is evident that the Cremonese makers did not always employ the same materials in their varnishes, and that they always employed the soft resins, such as mastic, sandarach, benzoin, and perhaps, soft copal or dammar. In no case did the operator detect the odour of animi (hard copal) or the very persistent one of the resin called Lub n Matti, a product of two native trees of the Somali country, and which is supposed to be the substance originally known as elemi.
Besides these experiments, there is a certain amount of literary evidence which is corroborative of the position here indicated, if it be admitted that, whatever the materials or methods employed, they could be no secret, but a matter of common knowledge. And I think this must be allowed, for the same style of varnish, with variations in colour, prevailed for over a hundred years, and was practised by nearly as many different violin makers in different places down to the time of Stradivari, when varnish making as a general art made a considerable advance. The probability would seem to be that this so-called amber varnish was the ordinary varnish of commerce then in use, and was only discontinued when the more perfect spirit varnishes for general purposes-though not, as it turned out, for violins-began to be made. Assuming this to be correct, it is found that about the year 1550 the materials in common use for varnishes were benzoin, galipot, Venice turpentine, linseed oil, white amber (a mixture of oil and wax, which was procured from pines in Calabria), mastic and sandarach. The colouring matters were chiefly saffron, sandal wood, dragon s blood, and Brazil wood. In 1564 the same materials are still in use. About 1685 were employed elemi, animi, white amber (this time signifying dammar), mastic and sandarach, turpentine, and so on, down to 1713, when the resins in use were gum-lac, sandarach, mastic, soft copal, called at this time false amber, and bitumen of Judea. The first trace of amber and hard copal being employed in the making of varnish dates from 1737, the very year in which Stradivari died. It was called Martin Varnish, and was discovered or invented by a M. Delaporte, a brother-in-law of Martin. M. Martin received a patent for its manufacture, dated 18th February, 1744. Thirty years before this the solving of amber for a varnish had been tried and failed. During the time Martin carried on the manufacture the process remained a secret, as they were not obliged in those days to give a description of inventions, but it was subsequently published in 1772.
These details may serve to show that the term amber varnish is, as I said, a misleading one. The resins employed by the Cremonese makers appear, both from literary evidence and direct tests, to have been precisely the same as those in use to-day, the modern difficulty lying in the methods employed for solving these resins, and in determining the colouring matter with which they succeeded in charging them. The veins of the wood can be seen through these colours almost as clearly as if one were looking at them through a glass. It is, unfortunately for more definite research, almost impossible to subject the Cremonese varnish, in its present condition, to chemical analysis, because some of its constituents are long ago oxidised; and, besides, it would be almost as difficult to encounter a person in possession of a fine instrument, whose varnish is intact, who would suffer it to be meddled with. Some violins have, however, been tested in the manner cited above, and with the results stated. That the great Cremonese instruments were not covered with what is termed an oil varnish -another phrase as misleading as that of amber varnish -may be easily decided by rubbing them with spirits of wine, which will be found irresistible; while, if the same process is repeated upon any article varnished with amber or hard copal, it will scarcely touch them. Anyone, indeed, who has tried to clean a genuine old Italian instrument by the simplest means, knows how difficult it is to avoid taking off some of its varnish.
It is absolutely necessary that the wood of which a violin is made be thoroughly dry, and this process must be accomplished naturally. It will occupy, sometimes, a period of five or six years. If the wood be not dry, the application of the varnish, by preventing the evaporation of the remaining moisture, would simply hasten that decay which Liebig has described as being a slow combustion, caused by the putrescence of the vegetable albumen. Many experiments have, from time to time, been tried for the purpose of accelerating this desiccation by saturating the wood with compounds, but these have only resulted in failure. All foreign substances artificially introduced into wood have, up till now-with the one exception already named, the mother liquor of salt works-simply increased its density, and rendered it more easily broken. The preference which Savart expressed for oil varnish, because