CHAPTER V

THE DECLINE OF TONE

Position of violin makers after 1750--Difficulty of sustaining supreme ideals--Overshadowing influence of the great violins--The demand for low-priced fiddles--A few tone-builders always living--The art abandoned by all save the few--Attempts at a revival of the “lost” art--Mechanical efforts of Savart--Scientific experimenters--Scientific side of tone unknown to the old masters--Results following “attuning” process of Savart--Copyists, old wood theorists, and varnishers 27-34