Intersections of Music and Science in Experimental Violins of the Nineteenth Century Sarah M
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Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2013 Intersections of Music and Science in Experimental Violins of the Nineteenth Century Sarah M. Gilbert Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC INTERSECTIONS OF MUSIC AND SCIENCE IN EXPERIMENTAL VIOLINS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY By SARAH M. GILBERT A thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2013 i Sarah M. Gilbert defended this thesis on March 27, 2013. The members of the supervisory committee were: Douglass Seaton Professor Directing Thesis Michael Broyles Committee Member Benjamin Sung Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge the faculty of the College of Music for providing me with the Curtis Mayes Orpheus Grant, which allowed me to research experimental violins at the National Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota, in the summer of 2012. I would also like to thank the staff of the National Music Museum, especially Arian Sheets, for their assistance during my visit. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................v Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... vi 1. TRADITION VS. INNOVATION IN VIOLIN MAKING ........................................................1 2. FRANÇOIS CHANOT AND THE LÉTÉ WORKSHOP ........................................................15 3. JEAN-BAPTISTE VUILLAUME AND FÉLIX SAVART .....................................................30 4. OTHER NINETEENTH-CENTURY INNOVATORS ............................................................46 5. INNOVATION IN THE TWENTIETH AND TWENTY-FIRST CENTURIES ....................62 APPENDIX ....................................................................................................................................78 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..........................................................................................................................79 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .........................................................................................................86 iv LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 A cross section of a violin. The bass bar is on the left and the sound post is on the right. .......7 2.1 The backwards scroll, the shield scroll, and the small traditional scroll ................................19 2.2 Chanot Guitar-Violin NMM 1287, front and back .................................................................22 2.3 Ivory and ebony detailing on the saddle, end button, and edges of NMM 1287. The bearclaw marking can be seen running beneath the string holder .................................................................23 2.4 The innovative bridge design for Chanot’s guitar-violin ........................................................24 2.5 Chanot ergonomic guitar-violin NMM 14530 ........................................................................25 2.6 Chanot Five-String Violin/Viola NMM 10011, front and back .............................................27 2.7 The crescent sound holes of Chanot’s five-string violin/viola ...............................................28 3.1 Félix Savart’s trapezoidal violin .............................................................................................34 3.2 Vuillaume’s octobass ..............................................................................................................37 3.3 Vuillaume’s contralto..............................................................................................................40 3.4 Vuillaume’s hollow steel bow ................................................................................................43 3.5 The tip of Vuillaume’s self-rehairing bow..............................................................................43 4.1 Stauffer’s Arpeggione (1833) .................................................................................................48 4.2 Stauffer’s experimental violin with equalized bouts (1826), NMM 10028 ............................49 4.3 (a) Howell’s patented Spanish guitar (1839); (b) Howell’s patented violin (1836) ...............51 4.4 The brands on the top and bottom plates of Howell’s violin, NMM 10238 ...........................54 4.5 Sulot’s patent viola (1828), NMM 14529 ...............................................................................56 4.6 Front and side views of Stelzner’s violotta (1896), NMM 6719 ............................................60 5.1 Rivinus’s Pellegrina viola ........................................................................................................73 v ABSTRACT Tensions between innovation and tradition in violin making have impeded the acceptance of most attempts to improve or alter the structure of the instrument. The nineteenth century, however, saw a proliferation of innovative violins, as luthiers responded to musical developments and changing social and economic environments during the Industrial Revolution. As nineteenth-century composers called for greater range and diversity in timbre, chromaticism, dynamics, range, and key, instruments were developed to accommodate these demands. But perhaps more important than the purely musical considerations was the interdisciplinary collaboration between musicians and scientists in the pursuit of acoustic perfection. Many luthiers viewed themselves as scientists and engineers, experimenting with acoustic properties and new materials in order to improve upon the existing form of the violin. In a reciprocal relationship, acousticians recognized musical instruments as rich sources for the study of acoustic principles, and luthiers consulted with acousticians and engineers about the technical construction of experimental forms. François Chanot, Jean-Baptise Vuillaume, Félix Savart, Johann Georg Stauffer, Thomas Howell, Nicholas Sulot, and Alfred Stelzner developed innovative violins informed by science in attempts to improve the acoustics, playability, and ease of production of the instrument. This paper will examine the environment and conditions in the early-to-mid nineteenth century that impelled these makers to experiment with the traditional form of the violin. Discussing the makers’ biographies and examining the technical construction of these instruments for insight into their novel construction techniques and acoustic properties, this paper relates the experimental trend to the alliance of the sciences and arts during the Industrial Revolution and briefly discusses continued innovation in the following two centuries. A study of the motivations vi and aims of such experimental violin makers and the technical construction of these instruments offers a look into the cultural milieu of the first decades of the nineteenth century, when technology, the arts, history, and science intersected in new ways, challenging musical traditions. vii CHAPTER ONE TRADITION VS. INNOVATION IN VIOLIN MAKING Introduction Interest in the collection and study of musical instruments increased with the rise of the Enlightenment and of colonial forces in the late eighteenth century, as scholars recognized their significance as historical and ethnographic resources, and by the nineteenth century organology had come into its own as an academic discipline. Victor-Charles Mahillon, curator at the Musée Instrumental du Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Brussels, developed the most extensive collection of instruments of the time, and in 1880 he published the first volume of his classification system for musical instruments.1 Erich M. von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, expanding upon Mahillon’s work, introduced a new and more flexible system of instrument classification in 1914,2 which is still in common use today. Influenced by Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), early organologists held an evolutionary and comparative view of the development of musical instruments, believing that the increasing genius of composers generated the creation of superior instruments.3 This teleological emphasis on compositional motivation is no longer widely accepted in the contemporary field of organology, where it is generally held that new compositional idioms tend to follow the creation of innovative instruments. Tensions between changing musical styles and instrumental limitations only partially explain the development and evolution of new instruments. 1 Lucius R. Wyatt, “The Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments,” Music Eduators Journal 53/6 (1967): 48. 2 Erich M. von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs, “Classification of Musical Instruments,” in Ethnomusicology: An Introduction, edited by Helen Myers (New York: Norton, 1992): 444-61. Originally published as “Systematik der Musikinstrumente,” in Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 46 (1914): 553-90. 3 Laurence Libin, “Progress, Adaptation, and the Evolution of Musical Instruments,” Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society 26 (2000): 187-213. 1 While the piano, organ, and most wind instruments have undergone significant modifications