SAVART, FELIX. - THE RATIONALIZED VIOLIN AND THE PHYSICS OF THE VIOLIN.

Sur la Communication des mouvemens vibratoires entre les corps solides.

Paris, Crochard, 1820. Uncut with orig. printed wrappers (Juin-issue). In "Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Par MM. Gay-Lussac et Arago" Tome XIV, Juin issue, pp. 113-222. (Entire issue in orig. wrappers). Savart's paper: pp. 113-172 and 3 folded engraved plates.

First printing of a pioneer paper on the acoustics of the violin and on the construction of the Trapezoidal Fiddle.

"In his earliest work Savart gave the first explanation of the function of certain parts of the violin. To learn how vibrations are transmitted from the strings to the rest of the instrument, he induced vibrations in a free wood plate by passing a vibrating string over a bridge at its center; he also used Chladni’s sand-pattern technique to observe the resulting nodal lines. Savart showed that the bridge transmits the string’s vibrations; that the plate can be made to vibrate at any frequency; and that the corresponding mode is a modification of an unforced mode. He demonstrated that the sound post also serves to transmit vibrations, and he explained that it therefore should not be placed under a nodal line. Thinking that symmetry and regularity would produce the best tone, Savart built a trapezoidal violin with rectangular sound holes. When the instrument was played before a committee that included Biot, the Composer Cherubini, and other members of the Academy of Sciences and the Académie des Beaux-Arts, its tone was judged as extremely clear and even, but somewhat subdued."(DSB).

The issue also contains Eilhard Mitscherlich' famous paper in the first French version "Sur la Relation qui existe entre la forme cristalline et les proportions chimiques", pp. 172-190.

Order-nr.: 46032