Customer Reviews

Violin-Making: A Historical and Practical Guide (Dover Books on Music)

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This book is a re-issue of the book "Violin Making as it Was and Is", which I bought about 30 years ago. I thought it was great stuff (except for the stilted writing style of the 1880's) until a professional violin maker laughed and said it was known as "Violin Making as it Wasn't and Isn't." As I have since realized, the details of plate graduation and varnishing are the author's conclusions, but do not necessarily reflect the actual techniques of the masters.
With these cautions in mind, yes, it is a worthwhile read for its viewpoint from over 100 years ago. However, if you want to build instruments, I would strongly recommend paying the price for "The Art of Violin Making."

This book, a reprint of Edward Heron-Allen's "Violin Making As It Was an Is," of 1884 is a very poor choice if you don't know the fundamentals of violin making and you really want to learn. For that, you should start with Simone Sacconi's `The "Secrets" of Stradivari,' probably the single most influential book of the past 30 years (available in Dipper's English or Adelmann's German translation from specialist online booksellers, but not, alas, from Amazon.com). If you are an amateur who wants to make an instrument, try one or more of Henry Strobel's books.

That said, "Violin Making As It Was an Is" is still quite an interesting book. Edward Heron-Allen was a rather brilliant Victorian polymath who had an intense interest in the violin. Somehow, he convinced the distinguished French violin maker George Chanot, then working in England, to show him how to build an instrument. The next thing Chanot knew, and apparently to his intense dismay, Heron-Allen was publishing what he had learned in a magazine intended for gentleman amateurs. His book is based on those articles.

What we have, then, is information about 19th-century French violin making reported through the filter of a talented English amateur. From this perspective, the most interesting part to me was the chapter on using a French outer form. I was also curious about the descriptions of tools and some odd older building techniques such as gluing linen to the sides before bending.

If you do read the book, you should certainly be aware that most of it is utter bunk. At the same time, I find something interesting on almost every page and quite enjoy the author's energetic style. Despite it's strange take on the craft, "Violin Making As It Was and Is" has also had a lot of influence, especially on earlier generations of English makers, who in a time before the proliferation of violin-making schools, made profitable use of what it had to offer.

Another reviewer mentioned the quip about this being "Violin Making as it Wasn't and Isn't" and that is certainly just. I would merely add Pliny the Elder's remark that there is "no book so bad but that some good might be got out of it."

If, like me, your earliest memories are of sitting in front of the T.V., then this book will be a little hard to get use to. Once you get use to the victorian era prose, It gets to be more fun than three days at the circus.

This is not a visual book.Everything you could want is here, but you have to be able to read and follow along. There is a set of the the best plans and templates you will find. They are in the back of the book and reduced in size, but can be enlarged easily enough at Kinkos or some such shop. The templates were taken from a real Strad that he had on his bench. They are painstakingly compiled by a violin maker who apprenticed to Chanot,(remember. This was written in 1885) and there is no detail left out. You have to turn to the templates page while you read, but it is well worth it.

If you buy no other book on violin making, buy this one. It is everything you need.

Short review here...
Violin making has an aura of old-world must and dust surrounding it, doesn't it? When I became interested in luthiery, that ancient aspect really appealed to me. "Seek your information at the source" said a voice inside of my mind. I proceeded to buy every modern book on stringed instrument making I could afford; the glossy pictures and to-the-point captions mke them a good bathroom read, but shallow they are, and I get the feeling that the time honored and tested methodology was meant to remain a secret. NOT SO with this "...Practical Guide". It is written with that early 20th Century algebra manual complexity spliced into the rather personable writing style of the author. Excellent history is the name of the game, and how it applies to the "current" mode of instrument creation. Highly recommended.

I am becoming a professional Luthier and studied in Italy making varnishes etc. This book is the very best you can buy on making a Stradivarius Cremona Violin. I used it to remodel a piece of thick unplayable junk-violin, sold to me with a violin case. I wanted the case not the violin. Now this piece of junk is a valuable violin one of the best in my collection. In the original book as it is and was the building plans for the stradivarius are full size, and precisely drawn. There is a registery for many stradivarius building Luthiers in the world. Most are only allowed to make 15 per year. But times have changed and there are millions of stradivarius copies made in Asia and Europe. However if you really study hard and learn from this book, you will make a valuable instrument. Put the love in the violin and she will make the most beautiful music created from your heart. Buy it, it's worth it!

Who wants to buy a violin, he is in the need of such a book.After
reading this book I decided for a new copy of Guarnerius,which will be scientifically constructed by a german maker.The original cremonas are
difficult to buy,but the new copies made by masters have nearly the same
quality of sound.This book gives us the phenomen of long time.It must be
studied several times.Mr Allen is ingenious in his art,his language is
clear.