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In most halls the acoustic conditions are best in the evening. "Then there is the matter of the violin. I first used a Joseph Guarnerius, a deeper toned instrument than the Jean Baptista Guadagnini I have now played for a number of years.
The Guadagnini ticket is laid by till dry and then placed in a small drawer in which are a number of others of various makers and nationalities; it may emerge from its obscurity some day and become of use so far as the condition or its legibility will allow.
I regretted giving up my Guarnerius, but I could not play the two violins interchangeably; for they were absolutely different in size and tone-production, shape, etc. Then my hand is so small that I ought to use the instrument best adapted to it, and to use the same instrument always. Why do I use no chin-rest? I use no chin-rest on my Guadagnini simply because I cannot find one to fit my chin.
This being done, the upper tables of both are fetched and tried on, "there," says the chief, "they fit as near as we want them to, and we might almost say they cured themselves." As the Guadagnini had nothing further to be done to it, James is told to proceed with the glueing and closing up. Regarding the glueing and closing up process, we will defer the matter for the present.
"I do not see how any artist can use an instrument which is quite new to him in concert. I never play any but my own Guadagnini, which is a fine fiddle, with a big, sonorous tone. As to wire strings, I hate them! In the first place, a wire E sounds distinctly different to the artist than does a gut E. And it is a difference which any violinist will notice.
The Guadagnini, which I have played in all my concerts here, I am very fond of it has a Stradivarius tone rather than the one we usually associate with the make." Mr.
While we are in the bending mood, however, we will get that Lorenzo Guadagnini into a little better trim, you left it on that shelf over there last week." James fetches it, a rather woe-begone affair to an ordinary observer; it had been cut open, the head sawn off, placed inside, the upper table laid on and a string passed round the waist and tied with a loose knot.
The Guarnerius has a tone that seems to come more from within the instrument; but all in all I have found my Guadagnini, with its glassy clearness, its brilliant and limpid tone-quality, better adapted to American concert halls. If I had a Strad in the same condition as my Guadagnini the instrument would be priceless.
James having finished the closing up of the Guadagnini and taken the instrument with its array of screw cramps into a place where it could repose uninterfered with until quite dry, returns and looks over the violin just brought forth from its retirement. "It seems to me, sir, this back will have to come off before we can properly bring those two halves together."
As Giuseppe called himself "Gesù," so there was a member of the famous violin-making family of Guadagnini who was called "John the Baptist," and of whom I only know that he belonged to a large family. But to turn from these unsatisfactory violin makers to violin players: I know nothing of the great Corelli's personal history; his pupil Geminiani is said to have led a life full of romance.
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