François Xavier Tourte (1747 - 1835) was a
FrenchmanFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
who, though trained as a watchmaker, soon changed to making
bowIn music, a bow is moved across some part of a musical instrument, causing vibration which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones....
s for playing classical
string instrumentA string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones. The most common string instruments in the string family are guitar, violin, viola,...
s such as the
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
.
He made a number of significant contributions to the development of the bow, and is considered to be the most important figure in the development of the modern bow.
Tourte began as an apprentice to his bow-maker father, Louis Tourte
père (c.1720 - 1780).
François Xavier Tourte (1747 - 1835) was a
FrenchmanFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
who, though trained as a watchmaker, soon changed to making
bowIn music, a bow is moved across some part of a musical instrument, causing vibration which the instrument emits as sound. The vast majority of bows are used with string instruments, although some bows are used with musical saws and other bowed idiophones....
s for playing classical
string instrumentA string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones. The most common string instruments in the string family are guitar, violin, viola,...
s such as the
violinThe violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
.
He made a number of significant contributions to the development of the bow, and is considered to be the most important figure in the development of the modern bow.
Development of the modern bow
Tourte began as an apprentice to his bow-maker father, Louis Tourte
père (c.1720 - 1780). After his father's death, Tourte, in collaboration with the violin virtuoso
G. B. ViottiGiovanni Battista Viotti was an Italian violinist whose virtuosity was famed and whose work as a composer featured a prominent violin and an appealing lyrical tunefulness...
, made important changes in the form of the bow in the Classical period between 1785 and 1790. They lengthened them slightly, to 74 – 75 centimetres, and used more wood in the tip and a heavier nut.
Tourte's bows are made from pernambuco wood, the most usual form of wood used on professional bows today, bent by being exposed to heat.
Tourte's bows tended to be heavier than previous models, with more wood at the tip of the bow counterbalanced by a heavier frog (the device connecting the hair to the stick at the end nearest the player's hand).
They generally have a usable hair-length of around 65cm, and the balance point is 19cm from the frog. The bows were elegantly fluted through half, or sometimes the whole, of their length. The curve in the wood was created by heating the wood thoroughly and then bending it. Before Tourte, bows had been cut to the desired bend. The final important change credited to Tourte is the screw in the nut to moderate the tension in the hair. This propelling and withdrawing screw is found on virtually all modern violin bows.
This new design was approved of by
Louis SpohrLouis Spohr was a German composer, violinist and conductor. Born Ludwig Spohr, he is usually known by the French form of his name outside Germany.-Life:...
who described Tourte's bows as having "trifling weight with sufficient elasticity of stick and the beautiful and uniform bending, by which the nearest approach to the hair is exactly in the middle between the head and the frog". He praised Tourte's "extremely accurate and neat workmanship".
At the height of his career, a single Tourte bow fetched 15
Louis d'OrThe Louis d'or is any number of French coins first introduced by Louis XIII in 1640. The name derives from the depiction of the portrait of King Louis on one side of the coin; the French royal coat of arms is on the reverse...
. Tourte destroyed any bow that was not entirely faultless before it left his workshop. He never varnished his bows but only rubbed them with pumice powder and oil. The Tourte pattern was followed by
Dominique PeccatteDominique Peccatte was an influential French luthier and bow maker. He was apprenticed in Mirecourt and later worked with Jean Baptiste Vuillaume....
, Nicolas Eury,
Nicolas MaireNicolas Rémy MAIRE b. 1800 in Mirecourt d. 1878 in Paris French Archetier / bow maker. He trained in the Lafleur workshop also is said to have served his apprenticeship in the workshop of PAJEOT in Mirecourt, and his style will remain close to PAJEOT'S.He opened his own workshop in...
, Francois Lupot,
Nicolas MalineNicolas Maline was a luthier and an archetier/bow maker.He was apprenticed in Mirecourt and worked for Etienne Pajeot, J.B...
,
Joseph HenryJoseph Henry was a French bow maker for string instruments.Henry studied with Dominique Peccatte and established own shop in 1851.His bows are quite rare and sought after...
and
Jean Pierre Marie PersoisJean Pierre Marie Persoit [Persois] - was a great and intriguing French bowmaker or Archetier.One of the first bowmakers to be hired by the young Jean Baptiste Vuillaume....
.
Quotes
"The French bow maker François-Xavier Tourte, more commonly known as François Tourte or Tourte le jeune, is often referred to as "the inventor of the modern bow," or "the Stradivari of the bow." His bows, dating from the end of the eighteenth century and the early decades of the nineteenth, had a marked effect upon the timbre of violins and upon performance practice, enabling new forms of expression and articulation to be developed, and in particular, facilitating the increased use of legato. François Joseph Fétis's entry in the second, expanded edition of his Biographie universelle des musiciens et bibliographie générale de la musique (1860-65) has until recently been the only source of biographical information about François Tourte. Some thirty documents recently discovered in French archives provide further fresh insight into this maker's life and work."
Stewart Pollens,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
He has also been credited with inventing the "spreader block" in conjunction with a virtuoso of the time, who complained that the hair was tangling when installed in a bunched or roped configuration, an additional innovation within the frog structure. The spreader fixes the hair in a flat ribbon which is thereby prevented from tangling.
"Tourte - French family of bowmakers and luthiers. It comprised of Nicolas Pierre Tourte and his sons Nicolas Léonard and François Xavier and perhaps Charles Tourte, son of Nicolas Léonard. In addition, at least two channelled (canalé) bows dating from about 1750–60 exist bearing the brand-stamp A.TOURTE." - Paul Childs
External links