Baroque bows

Until the mid-18th century, bows were produced with a different standard of durability in mind. The frog and tip had no metallic reinforcements; buttons were made of organic materials such as horn, bone or ivory; and there was no ferrule before around 1780. Surviving bows are often damaged as a result. Materials for the stick included ironwood, amourette, snakewood, bois de la Chine and bois de corail as well as pernambuco, and the ribbon of hair in the bow was very thin.  The sheer variety of bow forms during this period might at first glance suggest it was a phase of experimentation to improve the bow. The length and weight of the stick ranged enormously, as did the height of the frogs and heads – it was a long way from the standardisation of the 19th-century bow.

Yet, as we now know, 18th-century bows are actually perfect for the music of their time. They are accomplished, sophisticated creations, each one designed for a specific repertoire and expected only to fulfill this function. Unlike modern bows, they were designed to resonate rather than project, and consequently had thinner bow hair to avoid dampening the gut strings. Similarly their open frogs created a slight bevel in the hair, rather than a flat ribbon; this helped to produce a less direct attack and allowed the player to create the contrasting accents necessary in Baroque music.

Overall Baroque bows tend to be shorter in length due to the practice of holding the violin quite low on the chest, but the variety in length and weight of surviving examples again suggests they were designed in response to the needs of different repertoire. Shorter bows were probably used in orchestra pits and for continuo, while longer ones could serve for sonatas and solo playing. Particularly short ones were used by dancing masters to accompany their pupils. Some extremely heavy viol or cello bows of around 80g survive. These are likely to have been used for continuo and recitativo, or possibly for the ‘procession’ basses with thick strings, which needed more weight to attack the note.

Contrasting French and Italian styles of music also influenced bow production in those countries. The French court from the time of Lully and Louis XIV had a famous tradition of ballet, and French bows before 1750 were mostly designed to play elaborately ornamented dance music with strongly articulated down beats. These bows typically have a pike head that is lower than the frog, while the upper two thirds of the stick is fluted. This created a bow that was much heavier at the heel than at the tip, perfectly designed to play accented down beats and lighter up beats. Italian Baroque music placed more importance upon melody, and Italian bows of the early 18th century tend to be correspondingly longer with higher heads, allowing for more lyricism in the sound.