Tourte
Paul Childs, Gabriel Schaff, Lucy Sante, Isaac Salchow
273PP ISBN 9780965178822
MAGIC BOW PUBLICATIONS $300
My library is full of books about individual violin makers, monographs on many of the great masters of past centuries. When it comes to the greatest bow makers, though, the list is short: Stewart Pollens’s collaboration with Henryk Kaston on the life and work of François Tourte and Paul Childs’s monographs on the Peccatte family and Persoit. The significance of his writings on these last two families has begged the question of when he might write something similar about Tourte, the single most significant bow maker in the history of the craft. The answer is ‘now’, for this longawaited volume is at last here.
Over the past few decades, the expectations for new books on instruments and bows have changed significantly; one needs not just good photos of good examples, but also a detailed explanation of the life of the artist and his times, as well as a detailed explanation of what the characteristics of workmanship are and how they develop over time.