THE BOW MAKER

WHIFFS OF VARNISH and smoldering charcoal drifted through the air as François-Xavier Tourte paced the creaky floor of his cluttered workshop. Pausing before a tall window, he gazed down on the bustling streets of Paris, hands clasped behind his back. Tourte had lived near the Seine River since the day he was born in 1747, and nothing warmed his heart more than making violin bows in this room above a music shop at 10 quai de l’Ecole. Yet the master bow maker shook his head at the old-style bow lying on his scarred worktable.

During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, famous Italian luthiers such as Nicolò Amati, Antonio Stradivari, and Andrea Guarneri had made refinements that revolutionized the design of the violin. With an angled neck,