François Tourte

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engraving of François Xavier Tourte 1818

[edit] Biography

François Xavier Tourte (1747 - 1835) was a Frenchman who, though trained as a watchmaker, quickly changed his focus to making bows for playing western classical string instruments such as the violin. He is considered to be the single most important figure in bringing the bow into its modern form.

Tourte's father also made bows, and initially he set up business with F.X.'s brother. They quarreled, however, and went their separate ways.

Tourte's bows were a great improvement on existing forms of his time. His were better proportioned and made of lighter wood. He would also flute his bows throughout half, or sometimes the whole, of its length in a highly elegant manner. But most importantly Francis Tourte is credited with having invented the nut that was able to moderate the tension in the hair. This nut worked via a propelling and withdrawing screw and is to be found on most modern violin bows.

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. He established the standard size for violin bows, at around 75 centimetres. 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).

FRANÇOISE XAVIER TOURTE Le jeune ( 1747 - 1835 ) most famous maker of all times. Initially a clock maker, he went on to designed the modern bow, thanks to his apprenticeship with his father, Louis Tourte Père ( c.1720 - 1780 ) , also bow maker.

The modern bow was approved of around 1785 or 86 by Spohr, who described them 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" as well as the "extremely accurate and neat workmanship" in Spohr's " Violinschule " published in 1832.

Tourte designed it with Viotti's suggestions. Thus, from the collaboration between these two great men, FXT developed the ideas which would culminate in the creation of the modern bow 1785-1790.

Tourte, according to Fetis, fixed the length of the violin bow at 74 to 75 cm, the playing hair at 65 cm, and the balance point at 19 cm above the frog. The weight averaged at around 56 grams. Each bow fetched 15 Louis d'Or, and each bow, unless entirely faultless, was destroyed.

He never varnished his bows but only rubbed them with pumice powder and oil. Tourte achieved his bend ( as is still done now ) by heating the wood thoroughly and then bending it. Up to then, bows had been cut at once to the desired bend. The Tourte pattern was followed by Dominique Peccatte, Nicolas Eury, Nicolas Maire, Francois Lupot, Joseph Henry and Persois though these followers did (especially Peccatte and Voirin) tended to make bows about 1 cm shorter.