In The Collector Series (Redway, 7s. 6d.) Mr. Haweis discourses
on vielins with enthusiasm. This wonderful instrument always excites emotion in those who write of it ; it is so different from such dead, lifeless things as pianos. Its eternal youth is one of the violin's charms. We wonder if there is any other instance of an instrument of any kind suddenly arriving at perfection, and not being improved for two hundred years ; which, when made, had in it latent capabilities which were only discovered a century later. The piano-makers had to improve their " action " to keep pace with the fingers of Liszt. &mute and Joachim want nothing more than the work of Cremonese artists, though these artists never could have imagined, nor the composers of that time have conceived, the effects which later musicians would produce from their handiwork. Mr. Haweis gives us a pleasant mixture of historical and technical information together with anecdotes ; his descriptions of famous violins are very interesting.
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