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From Mozart to Paganini (and into the 20th. century) From Mozart to Paganini (and into the 20th century) On the design of bows and their playing characteristics If you take a close look at the violin works of Mozart it can make you wonder why there are so many extremely difficult bowings, especially as Mozart wrote most of these works for his own use. Only if you consider that his bows where extremely light (40-50 grams) and quite short (the kind of bow that goes for a "baroque bow" nowadays), and thus very agile and bouncy, this matter appears in a completely different light. By the end of the 18. century the music world changed dramatically - it moved into big concert halls and a bourgeois audience. A much more powerful sound was now required, which led to the development of stronger and longer bows. One of the transitional models was the so called "Cramer" bow, with a quite strong, convex stick, a high head and an adjustment screw. In the early 19. century the modern bow with an even stronger (and heavier) stick from Pernambuco and the ferrule was developed by F. X. Tourte. These new bows were ideal to fill the new, very large concert halls with sound and worked great with the late classical and the new romantic music. During this time baroque music and early classical music ceased to appear in the concerts. These very strong bows made bowing techniques like that of Nicolo Paganini finally possible. With the revival of Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart in the mid 19. century musicians where facing the problem that their instruments and bows did not quite suit this music. This slowly lead to a renaissance of period instruments and bows. Their feel and sound differs quite strongly from the "modern" instruments and so most musicians need to concentrate on one style. An additional problem is that baroque-instruments sound good only in relatively small concert halls. Solving this dilemma was the pivotal idea for the Arcus bows: To combine the lightness and agility of the 18. century bows with the power of the 19. century bows - and make them so strong and fast that the works of the 20th century can also be played safely and precisely.
On materials, the tuning and overtones The objective of making a bow with a significantly improved resiliency almost automatically leads to a hollow design from high-density carbon fiber. Luckily this design is also superior to all other materials in sound - more clear and powerful than wood, richer and warmer than metal. This design and material makes it possible to tune the sound of the bows to the instruments ideally. (On a wooden bow the sound is defined almost completely by the material.) This way we can optimize the sound of the bows according to the different instruments. Possibly the biggest improvement we where able to find for violas. One can easily hear the sound to be less nasal, but open, round and warm when played with an Arcus bow. The stiffness to weight ratio of wooden bows results in a tuning of about 15 Hertz. This is below the audible range and creates both problems with playing (shaking bow) and ergonomics (comfort). Arcus bows are tuned to about 50 Hertz. This resonance nicely supports the low register in the instruments, and the problems of the traditional bows are solved completely. Due to the higher tuning, the range of overtones reaches further up, too. This results in a warmer, richer sound in the upper positions. The bow - the tool of the musician Today it is generally expected of every musician that they should be absolute flexible - to play music of all periods in whatever situation and acoustic situation in perfection. An Arcus bow can be of great help in this respect. And beyond there are other, everyday troubles - and solutions!
More about the design of the Arcus bows. |
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