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diff --git a/78831-0.txt b/78831-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d8ad95d --- /dev/null +++ b/78831-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10763 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78831 *** + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE + +Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. + +Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. + + + + + Collector Series + + OLD VIOLINS + + + + +[Illustration: + + AUTOGRAPHS AND ENGLISH + MANUSCRIPTS The Collector Series WATER-COLOURS + + STAMPS TAPESTRY LACE AND MINIATURES + EMBROIDERY + + OLD + VIOLINS + + BY + REV. H. R. HAWEIS + + EDINBURGH + JOHN GRANT + 1910 + + FINE PRINTS ENGLISH + BOOK PLATES + + COINS PICTURES + + PORCELAIN OLD BIBLES ANCIENT GLASS +] + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAP. PAGE + + PRELUDE 7 + + I. VIOLIN GENESIS 15 + + II. VIOLIN CONSTITUTION 22 + + III. VIOLINS AT BRESCIA 30 + + IV. VIOLINS AT CREMONA 42 + + V. VIOLINS AT CREMONA (_continued_) 60 + + VI. VIOLINS IN GERMANY 91 + + VII. VIOLINS IN FRANCE 104 + + VIII. VIOLINS IN ENGLAND 118 + + IX. VIOLIN VARNISH 146 + + X. VIOLIN STRINGS 153 + + XI. VIOLIN BOWS 161 + + XII. VIOLIN TARISIO 171 + + XIII. VIOLINS AT MIRECOURT, MITTENWALD, AND + MARKNEUKIRCHEN 186 + + XIV. VIOLIN TREATMENT 198 + + XV. VIOLIN DEALERS, COLLECTORS, AND AMATEURS 214 + + POSTLUDE 237 + + DICTIONARY OF VIOLIN MAKERS 239 + + BIBLIOGRAPHY 281 + + DESCRIPTION OF PLATES 287 + + + + + OLD VIOLINS + + + + +PRELUDE + + +What is the secret of the violin? Why is it that when a great +violinist appears all the other soloists have to take a back seat? + +The answer is: the fascination of the violin is the fascination of +the soul unveiled. + +No instrument--the human voice hardly excepted--provides such a rare +vehicle for the emotions--is in such close touch with the molecular +vibrations of thought and with the psychic waves of feeling. But +whilst the violin equals the voice in sensibility and expression, it +far transcends it in compass, variety, and durability. + +Consider the singular completeness and perfection of this instrument +as a sort of physical and vibratory counterpart of the soul. The +four strings no doubt limit and define its compass, and only in +the quartet and collectively, is it capable of extended effects of +complex harmony; but as a tone-producing instrument and within its +limits it is perfect--every gradation of sound between tone and +semitone is attainable, and for no other instrument can this be +claimed. + +Next I observe that the violin possesses a trinity in unity of power +which invests it with a quite singular and felicitous completeness of +its own:-- + +(1) _Accent_--and in staccato passages almost the accent of +percussion. + +(2) _Sustained sound_--to a degree far beyond the capabilities of the +human voice. + +(3) _Modified tone_--and in such refinement of gradation, that the +melting lines of the spectrum can alone supply us with a parallel or +analogy. + +Your piano possesses _accent_, but once strike a note, soft or loud, +and it passes beyond your control. + +The piano has little _sustained_ and no _modified tone_. + +Your organ has _accent_ and _sustained tone_, but in a very imperfect +sense _modified_ tone; and a brief survey of all musical instruments +now in use will convince the student of acoustics that nowhere but +in the violin do we find to anything like the same degree, that +trinity in unity of power summed up in _accent_, _sustained_ sound, +_modified_ tone. + +But the half has not yet been revealed. The trinity of power in +the violin is placed under the immediate control of two hands--of +ten fingers, each hand functioning differently. The hand on the +finger-board is engaged in pressing the strings; the other hand +wields the bow, and not only sets the strings in vibration, but +drives, tears, plunges, caresses, checks, prolongs, magnetises and +regulates, in an altogether marvellous fashion, the outpourings +of sound, which are in reality the outpourings of the musician’s +soul,--and further: + +Has it ever occurred to you, my reader, how differently the same +piece of music, or, for the matter of that, the same violin, sounds +in the hands of two different players? + +A few of Paganini’s solos were written down, and Sivori, who passed +as his only pupil, was in the habit of playing some of them; yet no +one was ever wrought to frenzy or melted into a passion of tears by +that elegant performer. I have often heard him. The gentlemen in the +orchestra remained calm, and listened with admiration and approval. +But when Paganini played, the drummer on one occasion so shook with +excitement that he was utterly incapable of playing his part at all, +and Professor Ella, then a violinist at the first desk, went up and +did it for him, whilst the other violinists were so lost in wonder +that they could hardly concentrate their attention sufficiently to +come in at the “tutti.” + +When Paganini raised his bow on high, it came down on his four +strings with a crash. What made it sound like thunder? It was the +thunder in his soul! When his violin wailed with sweetness long drawn +out, why did the tears roll down the faces of hardened orchestral +veterans, and even great virtuosi like Lindley and Dragonetti? Why +did the people just go off into fits of laughter when a comic vein +seized the prodigious Maestro in the midst of his variations on the +Carnival de Venise? + +I have heard Wieniawski play his since much hackneyed “Legende”--it +may have been somewhere in the sixties. I never heard anything so +weird--spirit voices in the twilight--the wail of lost souls--one +positively saw ghosts. I have heard the “Legende” a hundred times +since by Neruda, Nachez, Sarasate, and I know not how many more, but +I have never again seen ghosts. + +What was it? It was the mystery of _touch_. The language of touch is +but half understood, but the language of touch is the language of +soul, and the perfection of touch is reached when a sensitive finger +controls a vibrating string or nerve and sends its own psychic thrill +along the waves of sound or sensibility. + +The same no doubt is true of the pianoforte touch, though in a less +degree, because a percussive touch can never have the power of a +sustained and modified pressure. + +Recent science has thrown some curious sidelights upon this same +sense of touch. It affirms that the trained fingers of the blind +actually acquire from exercise, practice, and adaptation, new +nerve-cells filled with grey matter exactly similar to the thinking +and feeling grey nerve matter of the brain--in fact, the fingers +of the sensitive musician have the power of thought and emotion +delegated to them; and just as thinking matter is not confined to +brain cells, but extends all down the medulla oblongata, which +responds to stimulus, even when the head is cut off--so we now know +that brain cells may be acquired, I had almost said cerebrated, and +used even by the fingers. + +Now, supposing we bring these thinking, pulsating finger-tips and +wed their subtle pressure to waves of sound, who shall say that these +special sound waves may not be so impregnated with brain waves as +that sound thus charged with soul may convey through the auditory +nerve to other souls the passion, the emotion, the sorrow, the +joy, and whatever else is generated in the heart and brain of the +musician? ’Tis not more inconceivable than thought-reading. + +This goes far to account for the personal fascination which players +exercise through their art. Their soul waves becoming brain waves, +float out, charged with whatever is in the musician; and if there is +nothing in the musician, as not unfrequently happens, they float out +charged with nothing! + +The witchery of the violin for collectors is perhaps more difficult +to explain. Very often these fanciers don’t play, and still more +often they seem to have an objection to other people stringing up +their treasures and playing on them. It is the construction, not so +much the sound of the violin, that deprives the collector of his +senses; but we ought to be very thankful to these monomaniacs, for +without them there would be few masterpieces still extant; through +them the violin goes into a period of Devachan, or enforced rest. At +all events, it cannot be worn out, or chipped, or rubbed, or trifled +with by repairers whilst in the collector’s cabinet. + +All the finest violins are known and carefully stalked--the health +of their owners watched; and when the time comes, they either find +their way to the open market or are picked up briskly by the great +dealers, sometimes for fabulous sums. Mr Hill of Bond Street thinks +nothing of a thousand pounds for a really fine specimen of Strad. + +Watch the collector exhibiting his treasures to a select company +after lunch. You will soon see he is not the daft creature whom the +uninitiated who only want to _hear_ the fiddle are apt to suppose. +He knows the influence which that old Gasparo or Maggini had upon +the Cremona school. He marks with admiration the emergence of the +Amati and Guarnerii from the Brescian models; for him even the quaint +long ∫ ∫’s of the old makers stand in lovely contrast with the more +graceful but still pointed sound-holes of Joseph or more rounded ones +of the great Antonius. To him that ancient viola cut down from a +larger-sized model of viol now extinct, and placed side by side with +an Amati tenor, is as interesting as the study of comparative anatomy +to a scientist. + +Then your collector is never tired of dwelling on the perfection of +those forms which slowly emerged as the survival of the fittest in +that exciting quest for the sensitiveness, sweetness, and sonority +of tone which occupied the lifelong meditations of Nicolo Amati +and Stradivari. Anon he will call your attention excitedly and +sympathetically to the grace of the curves, the surface never flat +or board-like, but full of a variety of levels like the satiny +surface of a fine human body. You might almost believe that a whole +system of muscle--a very living organism--lay beneath the “back” +and belly, which to his eyes are alive with swelling and undulating +grace;--and then think of the varnish like a sheet of thin jasper, +at once shielding from decay, whilst revealing as years roll on the +transparent filaments of the mottled maple or sycamore and the pine, +and crossed between the fibres with millions of tiny rays which +betray the desiccated cells--now fit for resonance--through which the +sap once flowed! + +But I must not anticipate matter which more properly belongs to +violin manufacture. I only wish to affirm, in justification of the +existence of players, hearers, and collectors alike, that the violin +charm has its own rationale. + +I may perhaps be pardoned if I close this prelude with some words +which I used before the Royal Institution in 1872. + +“The violin is perennial. It grows old with its perpetual youth. +There is no reason why it should ever wear out. It sings over the +graves of many generations. Time, that sometimes robs it of a little +varnish, has no power over its anointed fabric. + +“The hard durable substance steeped in silicate-like varnish has +well-nigh turned to stone, but without sacrificing a single quality +of sweetness or resonance. + +“The violin is the only fossil which still lives, and lives with a +fulness of life and a freshness that contrasts quaintly enough with +the fleeting, sickly, and withering generations of man. Even should +mishap bruise or break its beauty it can be endlessly restored. It +is never fit for death; it survives a thousand calamities; nay, +even when cut up and dismembered, its several parts, scattered +through a dozen workshops and three hundred years, live on with a +kind of metempsychosis in new forms, and still cling strangely to +their individuality, so that men taking up a patchwork violin say, +‘It is fine--the front is poor, the head is tame, but see here is a +Stradivarius back!’ + +“Thus human in its power and pathos, superhuman in its immortal +fabric, the violin reigns supreme, the king and queen of all +instruments--and, in the hands of a Paganini, a Joachim, an Ernst, or +a Sarasate, the joy and wonder of the civilised world.” + + + + +CHAPTER I + +VIOLIN GENESIS + + +To me it has always appeared unimportant and not very interesting +to answer the question, “Were or were not the ancients--by which we +usually mean Babylonians, Egyptians, or Greeks and Romans--acquainted +with the fact that stretched strings could be set in tonal vibration +by means of horse-hair, reed, or some other fibre?” They knew most +things, and how much they knew we are only now beginning to discover. + +At one time we thought that even the Romans did not know that water +rose to its level, but they were well acquainted with the fact. + +We pride ourselves upon the triumphs of modern surgery, but we +now find that the Egyptians were also great surgeons and operated +successfully for calculus. + +The wonders of electric telegraphy are doubtless of modern origin, +but the Greeks were at least aware of the attractive properties of +amber, which they called “Electron,” though they made no use of +electricity, and they may very likely have been acquainted with the +principle of rubbing, as they certainly were of plucking, a string in +tension to produce a sound--without ever elaborating the idea in an +instrument for musical purposes. + +Both Fêtis and Vidal deny that any instrument of the viol tribe +existed in antiquity, apparently on the slender grounds that the +few fragments of pottery, papyrus, or mural decoration known to +us have not yet revealed the fact. I think it probable that these +savants are wrong. Like the use of the wheel, bow and arrows, bow and +string for drilling holes, the bow or something like it employed for +musical purposes is likely, on _a priori_ grounds alone, to be of +immense antiquity, and at least as old as the knowledge of percussion +instruments such as the drum, or of wind instruments such as the +pan-pipes. + +I don’t lay any great stress upon pictures of stringed instruments +with something like a bridge taken to prove the existence of a bow, +especially if the bow happens to be absent--a guitar has a bridge +but no bow, so has the zither and the bandoline, which are plucked +with the fingers or a plectrum. The much-talked-of Canino Vase (fig. +103, vol. iii. of Micali’s _Storia Degli Antichi Popoli Italiani_), +showing apparently a sort of instrument with apparently a sort of +bow, has been held by some to be conclusive that something like the +violin tribe was known to the Etruscans. Possibly! Personally I am +not satisfied that it is a musical instrument at all which is figured +on that same vase--it might be anything, from a rattle or a torch to +a broom or a dust-pan. The strongest point in its favour as a musical +instrument is not the rough image on the vase, but the fact that a +musician, astronomer, and doctor, by name Chiron, is seated beside it. + +We probably see the descendants of any such instruments as may have +existed in those times in the Ravanastron, which has been recognised +by some as the oriental precursor of the occidental fiddle. + +Altogether, I think that, from the musical point of view, too much +time, and a surplus of barren antiquarian lore, have been bestowed on +the origin of the viol tribe. + +Our business begins not even with the building up of the viol out of +the Rebek, Crouth, and Rotta (see “Music and Morals,” p. 382), but +with the emergence of the violin tenor, violoncello, and double-bass +out of that confused, tentative, and often grotesque crowd of viols +and viol da Gambas, specimens of which are still exhibited behind +glass in our Art Museums and Loan Collections. We have little to +do with them. They are of no more living account than the Egyptian +mummies in the British Museum. A few retain a gleam of practical +importance for the violin collector, because they have been cut down +for tenors or otherwise used up during the last three hundred years +by violin makers: the others remain of interest to musicians only; +like the bones of fossil crocodiles, they are curious studies in the +comparative anatomy, not of reptiles, but of musical instruments, +that is all. + +No, it is with the distinct evolution of the violin, by which I +mean the violin tenor, violoncello, and double-bass types, from the +nondescript, dusky, tubby, ungainly machines, muffled in sound and +dubious in form, that for me at least begins the history and the +interest of the violin tribe. + +The genius of these elect types is inseparably connected with +song--sacred song. + +Viols were used in churches to play chants in unison with the monks’ +voices (probably also to assist their defective musical ear). When +the singing-schools of Italy arose and divided the voice into treble, +alto, tenor, and bass, a suitable viol was told off as the companion +of each voice. Soon after this the modern divisions, the octave and +the discovery of the perfect cadence, laid the foundation of the art +of modern music (Monteverde, 1570). The violin emerged. + +The endless discussions as to exactly when the violin proper made +its appearance, or the tenor proper, or when the viol da Gamba got +modified into the current violoncello size and shape, will probably +continue to agitate those whose minds have a special aptitude for +such researches. A very general statement will probably satisfy +general readers, and even special lovers of the violin. + +The name of Duiffoprugcar haunts this dim transition period, +and although the violins extant under his name have all been +discredited, and not always distinguished from Vuillaume’s clever +forgeries, I remember one of the first judges in Europe, who was +certainly quite alive to the tricks of the trade, showing me a +reputed Duiffoprugcar (hung and labelled in the South Kensington +Museum), which he then believed to be genuine. It had lost the +tubby characteristics of the viol tribe; it was, in fact, an early +Brescian violin, linen-lined, but its claim to be a Duiffoprugcar was +withdrawn. + +[Illustration] + +Duiffoprugcar was born in 1514 at Fussen, in the Bavarian Tyrol. He +was an inlayer and mosaic worker. He is now known to have visited +Paris, and to have worked at Lyons. There is a fine portrait of +him etched by the engraver Wariot in 1562, and a curious viol is +extant by him, with a map of Paris inlaid at the back, once owned +by Vuillaume, and within recent years secured for the Brussels +Conservatoire Museum by its intelligent curator, Mr Victor Mahillon. +Mr Donaldson’s beautiful viol da Gamba is the only other known +specimen of his work. There is no evidence that Duiffoprugcar ever +made what we should call a violin, and very good negative evidence +to the contrary. In a curious old print exhibiting his portrait, a +copy of which is owned by Messrs Hill, amongst the various viols +represented no such instrument as the violin appears. + +It is easy to see how inevitable was the differentiation of the +violin tribe from the first moment that a vocal quartet came to be +conceived of. First the viol is selected to double a part, next a +viol is made in a modified way to suit the part, and very soon the +modification assumes the forms and proportions known as violin, +viola, and violoncello. + +But in the early days of violin genesis the instrument was +quite subordinate to the voice; it only gradually conquered its +independence with the emergence of the string trio and string +quartet. It would happen thus:-- + +Two people would meet to sing, and the missing tenor or bass voice +would be supplied by a viola; or three would meet who could not sing +at all, when it would occur to them that the vocal parts might be +played instead, and with even more accuracy perhaps than the very +average voices would attain to. + +The instrumental trio and quartet thus at once came into being. + +Next, music would be written independently for such combinations, and +the voices would be egged out altogether, and presently the treble +or violin would show a tendency to throw the others into the shade, +and at last be thought worthy of a solo _all to itself_, and thus the +independent position of the instrument would quickly be established. + +All attempts to date exactly the stages of this differentiation of +the violin tribe are likely to be misleading. + +You cannot say exactly when perspective was discovered or +rediscovered by the Italian painters, it developed gradually; and so +the violin developed gradually, born of new musical needs and new +musical knowledge. + +In the midst of the old chaotic world of viol noises that preceded +it, the struggle to displace the old viol players and the slow +disappearance of the whole clumsy craft is aptly summed up in the +words of one who lived at the moment of transition. He writes-- + + “In former days we had the viol in + Ere the true instrument had come about; + But now we say, since this all ears doth win, + The violin hath put the viol out.” + + + + +CHAPTER II + +VIOLIN CONSTITUTION + + +One of the subtle charms of the violin is that it may be called +bisexual. + +It unites in itself and welds together the masculine and feminine +qualities. + +Its very fabric is bisexual. The soft, easily moved vibrations of +the swelling front are controlled, checked, and yet excited by the +slower and harder pulsations of the maple back. The porous deal and +the close-grained maple or sycamore thus thrill together, and each +supplies the deficiency of the other, both blending in harmonious and +sympathetic union, the ribs welding the back and the belly into an +organic whole, whilst the sound-post, poetically called by the French +the soul of the violin (_l’âme du violon_), collects the quick and +slow vibrations, and fusing them, produces the subtle resultant of +violin tone. + +That tone is the offspring of neither back nor front, nor ribs alone, +but of all these differently vibrating surfaces, collected and made +musical in the “soul,” and poured forth as the breath of life from +the ∫ ∫ holes as out of the very mouth and nostrils of the violin. +Surely the children of the violin are nothing but the sweet and +subtly compounded sounds that it utters. + +The bisexual figure holds good even to the bow and strings. The bow +is the male and the strings are the female elements. They can only +vibrate when touched--swept into a tempest of emotion or caressed +into tender whispers. + +They wait and pine for this magic touch, and long for their own +fulfilment. They are so sensitive that they respond to the lightest +feathery kiss of the powdered and anointed horse-hair--they murmur, +they sigh, they scream, they weep, they laugh, but only when +smitten, coaxed or agonised, sometimes almost torn, at others calmly +and masterfully swept; whilst the finger-tips, pressing out the +vibrations and generating those magnetic thrills which go forth +charged with the musician’s very thought and feeling, aid and abet +the masculine power of the bow. They are its ministers; without +them the might of the bow itself would be impotent; without them +the very strings would be unable to yield their infinite variety of +tone and inflection of meaning. Yes, certainly the violin is of all +instruments the most human, personal, and sympathetic, for the violin +is truly bisexual. + +It is also a miracle of art, strength, and simplicity--we may say at +once, as light as a feather and as strong as a horse. It is composed +of thin sheets or slips of wood, only about a fragment of an inch +thick; but, by the simplest and soundest mechanical construction, +these are so put together as to resist a strain of about a +hundredweight upon the belly, neck, and tailpiece, from the tension +of the four strings. + +Six sycamore ribs and twelve internal blocks and linings suffice to +hold the back and belly together. + +The neck carries the ebony finger-board and lifts its characteristic +scroll or head--so expressive that makers can almost be recognised by +its physiognomy. + +The neck is let solidly into the ribs and fastened against the lower +part of the belly. When firmly glued it is extremely difficult to +detach it, and once only in my experience has the neck of a violin +proved unequal to support the enormous pull made upon it by the +strings. + +It was in Ceylon. The heat was intense and moist. I had borrowed a +violin for experimental purposes in one of my lectures at Colombo. +In the middle of an attempted passage the neck quietly doubled up; +the strings fell in a loose cluster. The glue had liquefied, and +the whole fiddle came to pieces in my hands. What no time nor wear +and tear had been able to effect had been suddenly achieved by the +peculiar hothouse, vapour-bath treatment of the tropics. + +The early viol-makers no doubt at first selected their wood +empirically; but it soon became an established rule to take a soft +wood for the belly and a hard wood for the back. If all were soft, +the sound would be muffled and tubby; if all were hard, the sound +would be metallic and light; neither must the thickness of back and +front be uniform--each must be thicker towards the middle, but how +thick or how thin must depend upon the relative densities of the +wood. The problem was to find the relative densities which would +best vibrate together--a cunning connoisseur in timber can judge of +these densities even by the feel of the wood. Of course the densities +will affect the tone yielded by the wood when set in vibration, and +it is difficult to believe that Stradiuarius and his school were +unacquainted with some exact technical method of testing the acoustic +properties of these woods. + +Monsieur Savart’s experiments with specimen strips of Stradiuarius +backs and bellies showed that in most cases tested there was the +difference of one tone between the belly and the back. A 1717 +and a 1708 Strad back both yielded a F♯, a 1724 and a 1690 Strad +bellies gave the interval, so that Stradiuarius worked his backs +and bellies on some regular principle. On examining specimens of +Joseph Guarnerius, it was found that his best were made with only a +full tone between back and belly; but occasionally the interval was +greater. + +The sound-bar is a subtly proportioned strip of pinewood running +nearly all the way down the middle of the belly inside. The +increasing tension of the modern pitch has made it necessary to +strengthen all the old violin sound-bars, as the increasing demands +for execution have compelled the lengthening of all their necks. + +It is needless to say that the sound-bar readjustment is a delicate +surgical operation, more difficult than the substitution of a long +violin neck for a short one, for the neck no more affects the tone +than the screws in the head. But any blundering with a sound-bar is +fatal to the nervous system of the violin; the _wolf_ may suddenly +be evolved--that horrid dull growl which sets the teeth on edge, and +which, once generated within the violin, is so difficult to diagnose +or to cure. The best old masters finished everything inside their +violins as carefully as the purfling and the joinings which would +meet the eye, and this although a century might elapse before those +tiny smooth blocks in the angles, or that carefully-cut close lining +of wooden strips fitting neatly to the bellies as a glove to the +hand, might chance to be seen at all. + +Many forgeries have thus been rudely unmasked, the forger only having +troubled to make clean the outside of the cup and platter, whilst +within you find the dead men’s bones of his slovenly dishonesty. He +worked only to sell, and to sell by deception (not because he cared +for his craft or respected his instrument), and his works do follow +him! But as Mr Lowell says-- + + “Men as worked thorough is the ones that thrive, + But bad work follers you as long as yer live; + Yer can’t get rid on it, just as sure as sin, + ’Tis allers askin’ to be done agin.” + +The finger-board is of black ebony; in the old fiddles it was often +inlaid. There need be little said about it except that the old +masters would be puzzled to know what a player could want with our +long finger-boards, and still more would they have been puzzled could +they have heard the extraordinary and complex effects we manage to +produce with our extended compass and phenomenal shifts, in spite of +the absence of frets to measure intervals. + +The FINGER-BOARD must be kept smooth and even, or it will not be +possible to “stop” fifths or any other chord in tune. You will +notice in old finger-boards the strings have worn deep channels, +which of course mar the vibration. The height of the strings above +the finger-board is to some extent a matter of fancy, and of course +depends on the height of the bridge. A child or young girl would soon +be discouraged with attempting to press strings raised too high above +the finger-board, and of course the higher you ascend the harder must +be the pressure. On the other hand, if the strings are too close +down, the touch is no doubt light to your heart’s content; but you +cannot get a sufficiently full vibration, and your tone will suffer. + +The BRIDGE! I had almost said the asses’ bridge, for indeed thereby +hangs a tale. The hard-wood bridge, with its whimsical perforated +visage, and its two slender feet clinging closely to the smooth +belly of the violin, has been sometimes treated with scant courtesy +by writers, and even makers do not all seem fully alive to its +importance. I notice repairers will send you back your violin with a +bran-new bridge, and no apology, if they happen to have mislaid or +broken yours. But the bridge not only exercises the most important +and indispensable functions of carrying the four strings under +a combined pressure of seventy pounds, but it is in closer and +more intimate contact with the instrument than any other of its +appendages. It is so squeezed upon the wood as to be almost pressed +into it, far more so than the finger-board or the tailpiece, or even +the blocks and linings. It is charged with the primary vibrations +from the strings and the secondary vibrations of the belly, ribs, +and back; nothing goes on in that wondrous air column enclosed in +the violin walls without the bridge taking cognisance of it, and +possibly hindering or aiding and abetting its successful exit from +the sound-holes. + +I am aware that I have been thought fanciful in this matter, but an +experience of many years has convinced me that it is not easy to get +a bridge that suits a violin perfectly, and most dangerous to trifle +with the close and _quasi_ marital relations which exist between the +violin and its bridge. I dislike new bridges. I love old ones; and +why, when all the rest happens to be old, is the bridge alone to +bring the raw sap of youth to vex the mellow and desiccated repose of +melodious age? + +The position of your bridge, like that of your soundpost, the +adjusting of your screws, the thickness of your strings, belongs +rather to the management than to the constitution of the violin. + +The only further details fit to be noted here seem to be the button +supporting the tailpiece, which has a character of its own, in its +size, material, and fixture; and the far less important tailpiece, to +which we may add the purfling and other occasional inlaying. + +The TAILPIECE, of course, is strictly indispensable, but it does not +much matter what it is made of, or how it is decorated. + +The PURFLING, although occasionally resisting damage to the outlying +edge, is chiefly ornamental, and consists of three thin strips of +wood--two ebony or whalebone, and one of white wood--glued together +and inlaid. + +In the purfling we have the last survival of the inlaying as applied +to musical instruments. You will notice that the further you go +back the more elaborately inlaid are the viols and violins. It was +thought that the instrument, which was little more in those days of +rudimentary music than a toy, might fitly be exploited to show off +the conceit of artists and the skill of cabinet-makers; but as music +developed and tone was reckoned all-important, every detail likely +to interfere with this new development gradually disappeared, till +in the hands of the Cremonese makers the faint memory of all the +gorgeous mother-of-pearl, ebony, ivory, gold and silver embossing, +survives only in the narrow three thin lines of the purfling which +strike the contour of the instrument and give piquancy to its form. + +And thus the perfect sounding violin, though denuded of all +superfluous decoration and meretricious adornment, yet remains a +miracle of art--“a thing of beauty and a joy for ever.” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +VIOLINS AT BRESCIA + + +The violin proper is an Italian creation. It comes from the north of +Italy. Stainer, it is true, is an early maker, and he bore a German +name, but his date is after all 1621-83, whilst that of Maggini is +1590-1632; and if you visit the frontier village of Absam, near the +town of Hall, where he lived, you will observe that he dwelt on the +high-road between the Tyrol and Italy, and that his training, his +talent, and his market were Italian. + +But Brescia was really the home of the violin, and there is possibly +something in the heavy salt seasoning of the Tyrolean pines which +specially favours that peculiar resonance, sensitiveness, and +durability for which the Brescian and Cremonese schools are famous. + +The name of Gasparo di Salò (Bertolotti was his real name), now +chiefly famous for his double-basses and violas, must ever be revered +by students as the master of the great Maggini, who was in reality +the father of the violin, in the sense of having clearly, at once and +for ever, differentiated the instrument as a distinct type. + +Salò is a lovely spot on the shores of the lake of Garda, in the +province of Brescia, and about twenty miles from the big town. It +was early famed for its culture. Foreigners went there for the sake +of its schools, and the Corporation records show that sacred music +especially flourished there. It is now certain that Gasparo migrated +thence to Brescia and worked in that town. Maggini was as certainly +his pupil. This is proved by a legal document, dated 1602, which has +lately been discovered, bearing the joint signatures of Gasparo and +Maggini, who is termed his “garzone,” or apprentice. + +Gasparo’s share in violin-making proper could not have been very +great, as the earliest violin orchestral music appeared in Italy in +1608, and Gasparo died in 1610 or thereabouts--a fact which, taken in +connection with the extreme rareness of any Gaspardian instruments +which can be called violins, seems to argue that the piccolo violino +which was presently going to be master of the situation was only just +creeping up. + +I have seen and played on one very fine Gasparo violin, the property +of Lord Amherst--D and A strings rich and pure, 1st and 4th rather +muffled, but on the whole the tone is mellow and powerful. + +This almost unique Gasparo violin is still bulgy, but a great +improvement on the old viol build; the head is long and +quaint-looking, but lacks that finish and character which later +masters put into their scrolls. Gasparo’s basses are still much +sought after, and Dragonetti possessed more than one. + +A giant specimen, known as the Duke of Leinster’s bass, may still be +seen at the South Kensington Museum, and I exhibited it at the Royal +Institution in 1872. His work is heavy and lacks refinement, but his +tone is grand and full-bodied. + +GIO. PAOLO MAGGINI was the child of his father’s old age, and born +at Botlicino, near the town of Brescia, which afterwards became the +family headquarters. + +Brescia was at this time a strongly fortified place, and a print as +late as 1764 probably gives us a fair notion of what it looked like +between 1560 and 1632. + +Swift brooklets ran down the streets, and outside the walls were +spreading woodlands and ploughed fields. It boasted of a splendid +brick palace, the Broletta, and a massive belfry of rough stone +(Torre del Popolo), a Castello, and an old Duomo; the streets were +adorned with frescoes. The Cathedral of San Pietro de Dom was famous +for its music, and had an organ and full orchestra. The viol-makers +and the monks were then, as they have since been, in intimate +relations, and it was a couple of monks who befriended Gasparo when +he was down in the world in health and fortune, and sadly needed it. + +The princes of Italy at this time (1512-1630) were great patrons +of art, letters, and especially music. Brescia in 1600 was under +Venetian rule. The town or fortress was from its very position +constantly in the midst of wars and rumours of wars, and was +appropriately famed amongst other things for its manufactory of +swords and armour. + +It is surprising how little military commotions seem to have +affected, either at Brescia or at Cremona, the manufacture of musical +instruments. There seems to have been an uninterrupted line of viol +and cither and lute makers at Brescia from 1300 and onwards. + +But when it is remembered that war does not interrupt the functions +of religion or diminish the importance of the clergy (nay, often +enhances both), we can understand that the musical instrument makers +might have been as much in demand, in the stormiest times of the +Visconti and Medici, as druggists, soothsayers, or mountebanks; and +they probably made impartially for friend or foe--for any one, in +fact, who could afford to pay. + +Up to within the last few years very little was known of this man +Gio. Paolo Maggini--Magino or Magicino. As he put only the name +and place, but not the date, on his labels (all dated Magginis are +therefore frauds), it is not easy to assign fixed dates to any of +his instruments, and the personal information to be squeezed out of +them is of the meagrest description. He worked in Brescia; few of his +instruments survive. His violas are as rare as Gasparo’s violins, but +he distances all other makers in the attention that he gave to that +newfangled and suspiciously regarded instrument, the true violin. + +His handwriting, some of which survives, would lead one to suppose +that his education was very moderate, but the signatures of +illustrious princes of this period are no better. Recently, however, +the State Archives of Brescia have revealed some interesting gleams +of information which enable us to show him in his workshop with one +apprentice, Franchino, and a young wife, aged nineteen, Maddalena +Anna, who brought him a dowry, and afterwards children. + +A picture of his house in the Contrada del Palazzo, Vechio del +Podesta, lies before me. It has but two storeys, and the family lived +upstairs, surrendering the ground floor to the violin business. + +In a woodcut by Jost Anian, Zurich (1539-91), we have an authentic +picture of such easy, leisurely, calm workers as Maggini. + +There is the rude substantial bench, the tools, the glue-pot, the +planks and the wood in blocks, bits of fiddles and strips of timber +hung up on the walls; the aproned artificer is carefully trying a +lute as he sits on his three-legged stool. + +What simplicities! Were we to enter in imagination the studios in +which the greatest pictures in the world were being painted about +this time, the same meagre appliances and absence of superfluous +luxury would doubtless have greeted our eyes. + +But our gorgeous modern studios hung with the spoils of the East, and +iridescent with precious pottery and curiously worked metals, our +modern workshops with their exquisite mechanical appliances and all +sorts of labour-saving machines, somehow fail to rival in quality of +production those old masters who sat on three-legged stools, ground +their own pigments, made their own glue and varnish, and chopped and +chiselled their own wood. + +If you consider Maggini’s period (1560-1632) you will see how exactly +the direction of his genius was conditioned by the demands of his age. + +The singing-schools of Naples had resulted in a call for stringed +instruments in increased numbers, but the old viols were seen to +correspond ill to the altered times, and the need for an instrument +which would render leading melodies effectively was felt just in +proportion as such melodies became multiplied with the rise of vocal +music, sacred and profane. + +Most writers on the violin seem to have a passion for cutting up a +maker’s life into periods, as though a man could rise one morning and +say, “Go to now, let us enter upon period number three, in which the +back shall be sloped so, and the belly brought down thus, and the +curve of the bouts tilted, contracted, or elongated thus.” All that +can be safely said is, after such and such a time Maggini or Amati +dropped or adopted this or that feature as a rule, and we may infer +that a maker came under such and such influences, and so forth. + +Now I come to speak of Maggini, I will trace roughly but clearly what +may be called his continuous development, rather than any so-called +three periods. + +Naturally at first the pupil made like his master Gasparo. His +violins suggested big viols on a small scale. They had a heavy look; +they were of large size, which makes the sides seem lower than they +are, for in reality the ribs are not higher than those of the Amati. + +The heads look rough, because, with the reduced size, no increase +of refinement or delicacy has yet been reached; now, they are cut +without symmetry; now, the fluting of the scroll is not smoothed, +even the grooves for the purfling are not neat, nor is the purfling +itself sharp. + +Maggini’s early backs, sides, and bellies are cut on the slab--that +is, across the grain. + +Then Gasparo’s sound-holes have got narrower in the hands of +his pupil, and Gasparo has probably got credit for some of the +improvements of Maggini, as there can be little doubt that some +violins labelled Gasparo are the work of his pupil, just as early +Stradivari violins are in existence signed Nicolo Amati. + +If I may hazard the remark, in my opinion Maggini did not copy so +long or so seriously the work of Gasparo as did Stradivari copy +Nicolo. The reason is obvious. The stride between Gasparo and Maggini +is far greater than that between the late Nicolo and the Strad. By +the time Nicolo died the violin had already risen to that supreme and +independent individuality and dignity which it has never since lost. + +Stradivari got the violin all ready made; it was Maggini’s glory to +have assisted at the individualisation of the “King” type. + +Presently we become aware that Gasparo is dead and buried. The +Maggini bellies now cease to be cut on the slab, but show the long +parallel grain lines of the wood as in the Amatis; the art of wood +selection for sonority and sensitiveness seems already to have +reached the 1650 Cremona level. The sound-holes are more delicate, +but still a little quaint; they are invariably bevelled inwards, a +practice entirely discarded by the Cremona masters. + +Sir Joseph Chitty’s, and Mr Sternberg’s, and the Dumas’ tenors are +good specimens of Maggini’s first independent work illustrating the +above characteristics. The Dumas family were friends of Beethoven, +and enthusiastic admirers of Maggini’s work. They possessed at least +one valuable “chest” of his instruments. A chest is described by an +old writer as “a large hutch with several compartments and partitions +in it, each lined with green baize” (we have since gone heavily into +velvet and plush). + +There are only about eight violas or tenors of Maggini’s known; they +do not vary in their proportions. + +The model of the Dumas viola is of the master’s most arched type--a +feature much exaggerated by Stainer and his followers. It is, like +almost all this master’s specimens, adorned with double purfling, +set close to the edge, with the usual Maggini bevel at the corner +joints. These corners give it a special physiognomy; they are short, +and make no appeal to the eye like the later Cremonas. The tenor’s ∫ ∫ +holes are upright, short, and broad; they are higher than in the same +maker’s violins, the top curves as usual larger than the bottom ones, +the back and belly both in two pieces; the bass bar and blocks inside +have been strengthened; the rough tooth of the well-known Brescian +plane has left its mark on the wood inside. The Dumas tenor is in +exquisite condition; the varnish is unlike the old Gasparo brown, it +glows with rich golden tints. Its type is admirably defined; no one +in looking at this tenor can say, “This is a little violoncello,” or +“This is a big violin.” It is a distinct viola type, and it set the +type for all succeeding violas. The Cremona makers worked on it, but +they did not re-create the tenor; they could not. + +The Dumas-Maggini violin is in equally fine condition; it looks +so new that some have supposed that, although eighty years before +Stradivari, it must be a copy made by Strad of the older master, but +it is absolutely authentic and genuine. + +Before Maggini died, we notice that a very high standard of finish +has been reached, unknown to him in his earlier days, or, as for the +matter of that, to any of his predecessors. Observe the improved +purfling, the bouts and mitres cut with clear intention, but never so +marked in physiognomy as the Amatis, the sound-holes quite as sharp +as theirs; but, above all, the arching has at last come down--this +true hint, so early given, was not at once adopted by Maggini’s +Cremonese successors. Stradivarius at last fixed it and regulated +it in a model from which no later maker has found it safe to depart +with the exception of Duke and Klotz, who obstinately adhered to the +Stainer high bellies with deep side grooves. + +Maggini’s later varnish runs out of the old Gasparo brown into +orange and golden yellow, as luscious as anything to be found in a +Joseph or a Strad. + +[Illustration] + +Although Maggini adhered to his double purfling, there are specimens +of his work in exhibitions without it; and at least one curiously +but not carelessly made instrument is known where the purfling at +the back is neither double nor even inlaid, but merely drawn sharply +in black lines. A very fine single-purfled violin, formerly in the +collection of Prince Caraman Chimay, now in the possession of Mr +Antonietti, possesses an unrivalled tone of the Maggini timbre. Many +of his violins retain the old taste for other inlaid ornamentation. +He does not run into maps and portraits, but a graceful clover-leaf +pattern is often found at top and bottom of his backs, twisted, as it +were, out of the purfling, and a sixfold trefoil sometimes occupies +the centre of the back; but an acute observer has noted that there +is no instance of the central trefoil combined with the clover-leaf +pattern. + +Not less remarkable than this great maker’s definition of the +violin and viola types was his conception of the violoncello. The +Maggini ’cello is not the son of the double-bass, but the father +of the tenor. It is much more like a large tenor than like a small +double-bass; the proportions are, as it were, enlarged from the +tenor, not reduced from the flat-backed bass. Maggini’s bent was +entirely in the direction of the smaller violoncello pattern. + +The early and even the later Cremona ’cellos were too large, and +there is very little doubt that the powerful influence of Maggini +can be traced in the evolution of those perfect but moderately sized +Strad ’cellos which date mostly after 1700. + +The tone of Maggini is full, mellow, and plaintive, rather than +biting like Stainer, bell-resonant like Strad, or soft and sensitive +like Nicolo Amati; but great players like Vieuxtemps, Ole Bull, +Leonard, and De Beriot have found him sufficient, and if more have +not extolled Maggini, it may be on account of the rareness and +inaccessibility of his instruments. + +It has been said by a competent authority that not more than fifty +extant Magginis are known, and in England at present (1897) about +thirty violins, ten violas, and but two violoncellos and one +double-bass. + +Maggini died at the comparatively early age of fifty-one. All +researches made in the archives of S. Lorenzo, his parish church, +have failed to reveal the date of his death, and the worst of it is +that the registers of that church prior to 1700 have disappeared. + +We hear plenty about his wife, Anna Foresti, who died 1651, aged +fifty-eight, and was buried in a neighbouring parish. + +It is more than probable that Maggini himself was a victim to the +plague which raged at Brescia in 1632, and that he was hastily +interred, or, dying at the Pest House, no official note of his death +may have been taken. At any rate, in 1632, the year of the plague, +his son describes himself as “filius quondam Johannis Pauli”--the son +of the late Gio. Paolo. + +His last income-tax return is dated 1626, and he was dead in 1632, +so he must have died at latest in 1632, and therefore could not have +been more than fifty-one. Maggini was doubtless well off, owned +considerable property in and out of town, was the father of six +children, and, what was of far more importance, the father of the +modern violin. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +VIOLINS AT CREMONA + + +Cremona! Amati! two words making melody with their very syllables, +and a deeper harmony still for the lover of music, from the +association of ideas which they excite. + +With the assumed immigration of makers from Brescia--the emergence +of the Amati family (the name of Amati is not found in the Brescian +archives), and their final residence at Cremona--begins the classic +period of the violin. + +Cremona, ancient city of strife, which, owing to its very situation +(κρι μόνος, “high rock” and “alone”), was the battle-point of the +middle ages from the days of the old Goths and Lombards down to quite +modern times; Cremona, with its stately cathedral so little known +or visited, yet possessing two of the finest red lions couchant, +supporting portico columns of one of the noblest cathedral façades in +Italy; Cremona, with its antiquated back streets, its drowsy quiet +life gliding on apart from the beaten thoroughfares of travel--truly, +Cremona town is a place to set one dreaming! + +I have narrated elsewhere my pilgrimage to the place which so +ungratefully forgets almost the very tradition of the Amati, +Stradivari, and Guarnerii, whose fabrics alone have given it a +musical immortality, and whose names are hung up high like the stars, +which no discords of the middle ages, sieges, or brawls can ever +reach. + +Let us now try and come face to face with these immortal makers. + +Andrea Amati (_père_) settled at Cremona, and made violins from +1520-46. He brought with him his brother Nicolo (not the great +Nicolo, afterwards master of Stradivari, _Italian_, or Stradiuarius, +_Latin_). + +Andrea Amati had two sons, Antonio and Geronimo, who made violins +jointly as well as separately. When Antonio married, the fiddles of +neither seemed to improve. The brothers ceased for a time at least +to work together (there being, it is said, a period in which there +are no joint reductions); but as there are much later violins bearing +their joint names, it has been assumed that they again collaborated. +If we trust some of these late labels--the brothers being born about +1555-56, and one of the joint violins being dated 1687--it would +follow that the venerable artificers were still making violins at the +age of 136 years, which beats Stradivari himself, who only worked +till he was ninety-three. + +Geronimo, according to one writer’s account of his labels, went even +one better, for there is a Geronimo violin dated 1698; so if this +Geronimo, brother of Antonio, was born about 1556, which is tolerably +certain, he went on working even longer than Moses, with his eye +undimmed and his natural strength unabated, down to the age of 148! + +The confusion has arisen from confounding Geronimo, brother of +Antonio, with Geronimo, son of the great Nicolo (born 1649, died +1740). But if there exists a signed Geronimo and Antonio dated 1698, +which seems very doubtful, it would be certainly easier to believe +that, as the demand for Italian instruments by makers of repute had +well set in before 1700, the late Antonio and Geronimo label was +stolen from the old workshops--the last two figures of 16--being +filled in, and the label clapped on to cover the fraud; whilst any +Geronimo violin dated 1698 would be by Geronimo, son of Nicolo; or +at most, one made up by some enterprising pupil out of the débris of +the elder Geronimo’s workshop--perhaps about the time that Nicolo +the Great, son of Geronimo and grandson of Andrea, was working with +his pupils, Stradivari and Andrea, Guarnerii, and his own son, the +younger Geronimo or Girolamo Amati. + +But with this Geronimo Amati, son of Nicolo (born 1649), and a +certain Don Nicolo Amati, an Italian priest, we need not trouble +ourselves beyond recording their names. + +A good deal has been said about Andrea Amati and his violins. He was +certainly the founder of the family, but not much is known about him +except that he probably, almost certainly, acquired from Brescia the +Maggini type, and that his violins are somewhat smaller, arched in +the belly, with a varnish that runs out of the Brescian brown into +the mellow and brilliant gold and ruddy tints common to the Cremona +varnish; the later Amatis have a tendency to revert to the browner +hue. + +That Andrea made some choice violins for Charles IX. of +France--twenty-four violins, twelve large, twelve small pattern, +known as “les petits violons du roi”--there can be no doubt, but they +disappeared from Versailles in the political disturbances about 1790. +The arms of France, we are told, were painted on the backs, and they +are said to have been of beautiful workmanship. + +A ’cello, “Andrea Amati Cremonentis faciebat, 1572,” was sold amongst +some others belonging to Sir William Curtis, May 1827. This is known +as the “Bridge’s viollo.” Its history is romantic, it having been +presented by Pope Pius V. to Charles IX. of France, and surnamed the +“King.” + +The Amati characteristic, which culminates, along with other +qualities of sonority, in the great Nicolo, 1596-1684, is sweetness +of tone; but a certain want of power is noticeable, especially on the +fourth string. The “A” is beautiful, the “E” soft and delicate, and +the third very full and round--qualities which are also conspicuous +in the brothers Geronimo. + +But if Amati tone is of cabinet, not concert quality, its quality is +of a kind unequalled for charm and sensitiveness, and although not +loud, some violins made by the brothers have a considerable carrying +power. + +The Amati heads or scrolls retained a certain simplicity and antique +Brescian look even after the finish and form of the body of the +violin had left the Brescian school far behind. The double purfling +of Brescia is also gone, but the brothers purfled very beautifully, +with a bend of perfect regularity and smoothness. + +The violins of Antonio are better than his brother’s, but the joint +violins are the best, and have been oftenest forged. + +The brothers indeed made excellent violas, but, as the fashion then +was, too large. They have been sometimes cut down. Sir Frederick Gore +Ousely once had a fine specimen, which I remember playing upon many +years ago at Tenby--tone very full and mellow. + +Richard Blagrove, a brother of Henry Blagrove, the admirable early +Monday Popular violinist, was a viola player, and used a reputed +Amati, but it was really a Gagliano. Many of us (1897) can remember +how richly it contributed to the triumph of a quartet, of which +Joachim, Riess, and Piatti were often the other members. + +Her late Majesty the Queen had a fine painted Amati, unfortunately +cut down; and Miss Seton’s Geronimo Amati is a rare specimen, and +from the MS. of Ascenzio, a priest at Madrid, we learn that it was a +favourite violin of Charles IV. of Spain. + +Geronimo, after separating from Antonio, reduced the arching of his +bellies, but, singularly enough, without improving his tone-power. +The over-arching of the early makers and scooped side-curves are +generally supposed to be a vice in acoustics finally overcome by +the gentle natural curve and flatter models of Nicolo, but it is +perhaps possible to ride a theory too hard. I have certainly played +on instruments deeply grooved, with rounded bellies, powerful Dukes +and piercing Stainers, which, according to the orthodox theory, had +no business to sound as loud as they did. It is well known that in +both these Amati makers the late Cremona flat curve is conspicuous by +its absence; and whilst I do not for a moment deny that the flatness +of the Stradivari model is preferable, I think the superiority of +the late Cremona tone may be due to a good many other things beside +that. It will always be a question whether the man who makes possible +the last perfection of an art or the man who actually achieves it is +really the greater genius. Pietro Perugino or Raffaello in painting; +Chaucer or Shakespeare in literature; Handel or Beethoven in music; +Gasparo and Maggini or Stradivari in violin-making; but popular +opinion generally plucks the blossom without troubling itself much +about the roots, and the prices fetched by the finest Strad and the +finest Gasparo, or even Nicolo Amati, practically settle the question +as regards the violin-makers. £400 is an unusual price for a fine +Nicolo (£250 is nearer the mark, 1898); £1000 is not an uncommon +figure for a good Strad, and his finest specimens command £2000 +(1898). + +Nicolo, the great son of Geronimo, was born in 1596, and died close +upon the seventeen hundreds, in 1684. Nicolo was quite aware that he +resumed in himself the fine qualities of his distinguished family +and improved upon them. It is true he did not trouble himself much +with his grandfather Andrea, whom he probably regarded as a worthy +old gentleman quite out of date. There could have been little in +those small, almost three-quarter size, brown varnished, and sweet +but feeble-sounding violins to attract the aspiring grandson; but +there were qualities in the somewhat larger models of the famous +brothers, Geronimo and Antonio, which set his hand and head agoing, +when as a boy he fell to copying and carving backs and bellies, and +twisting ribs and throwing scrolls, in his father’s little workshop +at Cremona, opposite the west front of the Saint Dominic Church. + +Nicolo the Great doubtless followed and imitated his father Geronimo, +but wishing to miss nothing, and perhaps labouring under a sense of +obligation or merely out of genuine affection, his labels embody an +immortal acknowledgment of indebtedness to both masters. They run +thus:--“Nicolaus Amatus Cremonem Hieronymi Fil, _ac Antonij Nepos_ +fecit, 1677.” (The italics are mine.) + +Nicolo the Great’s smaller patterns made in his father’s workshop are +not unfrequently to be met with, and can be picked up for between £80 +and £100, or even less. + +But as we watch his dates, the touch of Nicolo very soon becomes +distinctive. On the death of his father and uncle he found himself +in possession of a workshop which inherited a great name, but which +was destined to transmit to future generations the greatest violin +names in the world. Among the pupils of Nicolo in 1653 sat the +brothers Guarneri, Andrea Guarnerius having witnessed the marriage +of his master Nicolo and signed the register; and by the side of +Andrea Guarnerius sat a young man named Antonio Stradivari, or, as we +usually call him, Stradiuarius. + +Most of the Nicolo violins before 1645 are of the smaller pattern, +but after this date down to 1684, the year of his death, the eye of a +connoisseur will notice an increase in size, a finish in workmanship, +and a more delicate purfle (never double). The model is still +somewhat high in back and belly, but with an increasing tendency +to get flatter; the side-grooving is less pronounced, whilst the +corners are noticeably drawn out into finer points full of character, +arresting the eye, lightening as it were the model, and giving the +whole physiognomy of the instrument a grace and piquancy hitherto +unattempted. + +The sound-holes of Nicolo are pointed and somewhat narrow; the scroll +is cut a little too flat for the later taste, but passes as the +century wanes into a somewhat larger and bolder style. The wood seems +to be chosen almost as much for its mottled or fine-grained beauty as +for its acoustical properties. + +The early Nicolo varnish is of brownish Brescian type, but later on +it glows with the rich amber tints of Cremona, and those dragon-blood +stains which give to some Strads and Josephs such warm and generous +tints like the sunlit dashes of mellow red on a ripe nectarine. + +Mr Somers Cocks (1898) has a most glorious Amati violoncello, “one +of the finest ever seen or heard,” so said to me a distinguished +connoisseur. Mr Marshall Bulley’s violoncello, a Jerome (the +younger) Amati, is also a rare gem of tone and workmanship.[1] + +The grand Amati violin pattern runs some of the Stradivari violins +very hard, and is evidently the model on which the 1700-35 Strads are +“calqué,” as the French say. The side-grooving, generally held to +interfere with the volume of tone, whilst supposed by some to add to +its sweetness, has not disappeared as in the Strad grand model, but +it has become less pronounced. The tone is lovely and sensitive, and +the Nicolo is truly delightful to handle. It is _par excellence_ the +lady’s violin. + +The one before me, where the varnish still remains, melts into light +orange with clear golden gleams in it. If Joseph is the strong +male, Nicholas or Nicolo certainly belongs to the softer and more +yielding sex. The tone is most delicate, and of ravishing sweetness. +It seems to leap out almost before the horse-hair has feathered the +strings. It continues to sing on like a vibrating silver bell, as if +intoxicated with itself, long after the bow has ceased its contact. +In the sweet Nicolo the lover finds no bars, no obstacles; it is won +almost before ’tis wooed (Plate V.). + +[Illustration] + +We are interested to know that in his own time Nicolo’s work was +carefully imitated, if not forged; whilst his supremacy over one +of his best pupils, Francesco Rugereo, Rugieri, or Rugerius, was +clearly acknowledged; for we find that a certain Tomaso Antonio +Vitali, who seems to have bought a violin with a Nicolo label inside, +and paid twelve doubloons (or about £12, 10s.) for it, complained +bitterly that on removing the false label he had discovered the name +of Ruggeri underneath it. The aggrieved Tomaso thereupon applied to +his liege sovereign, the Grand Duke of Modena, for summary redress, +avowing that he had given a higher price because the violin had a +label of Nicolo, “who,” he adds, “was a maker of great repute in his +profession, but now it was proved to be only a violin by Rugerius the +pupil, a maker of less credit.” The violin, he said, was scarce worth +to him more than three doubloons; the petitioner therefore prayed +the Duke for redress. Whether he got it or not was no doubt very +important to him, but of very little consequence to us. The fact that +he made the application is the point. + +The GUARNERII family must have made violas or violins as the sand +of the sea in number, if the frequency of their labels may be taken +as any guide; and in truth they were a long-lived and industrious +family, and doubtless made a good many instruments, chiefly violins. +But the reputation of Andrew and Peter, and above all the great +Giuseppe (Joseph) del Gesù, led to the early fabrication of pseudo +Josephs, and labels in numbers far beyond what all the great makers +of Cremona together could have produced. + +Andrea Guarneri (Andrew Guarnerius) the apprentice, as we have seen, +was one of the witnesses to the great Nicolo Amati’s marriage in +1641, and Nicolo enters his pupil’s name in the church register as +aged fifteen, which gives us the year of his birth, 1626. He worked +on till 1698; in 1652 he married, and two of his sons, Giuseppe (not +the great Giuseppe, his nephew) and Pietro, worthily sustained and +improved upon their father’s reputation. + +Many of the violins of Andrea Guarneri are of the smaller Nicolo +pattern, but somewhat inferior, and not always well finished. The +wood of his rare ’cellos, however, although plain in appearance, can +boast of singularly fine acoustic qualities. + +There is a well-known ’cello now (1897) belonging to Miss Theobald, +of his finest workmanship. + +Giuseppe, second son of Andrea Gianbattista Giuseppe, born 1666 +to 1739, as distinguished from Del Gesù or “Jesus” Giuseppe, +struck out a freer line of work. His narrow-waisted boldly-curved +instruments, with their Brescian-looking sound-holes set low down, +his rich, almost too profusely rich, varnish and fine wood, but not +over-finished workmanship, give his violins quite a characteristic +appearance, and in power of tone they are superior to his father’s. +But next to the great Giuseppe del Gesù, Pietro Guarneri is the +flower of the family, and most sought after by amateurs. + +The grain of his bellies is often wide, the distance between the +sound-holes is conspicuous, the sound-holes themselves are rounder +and less Brescian, the scrolls are beautifully cut, and the varnish +is superb, from golden tints to pale red, which has thrown some +writers into rhapsodies about setting suns and the colours of the +rainbow. + +Passing over a lesser Pietro, son of the lesser Giuseppe, son of +Andrea, who worked at Mantua, we come to the one man who, with the +exception of the great Nicolo, is worthy to measure swords (or bows) +with Stradivari. He came, singularly enough, from a side branch, and +not in direct descent from Andrea or any violin-maker, being the son +of one John Baptist Guarnerius, and was born at Cremona in 1683. + +The father of the great Giuseppe was the son of one Bernardo +Guarnerius, who was a cousin of Andrea, and therefore the great +Joseph was nephew of Andrea Guarnerius, just as the great Nicolo was +the nephew of Andrea Amati; but a distinguished fact separates our +Giuseppe from all his illustrious kinsfolk, and it is this, that his +father, Bernardo, does not seem to have been a violin-maker at all, +so the young Giuseppe owed his teaching most probably to his uncle +and cousins. + +Most writers have speculated blindly enough upon his distinctive +appendage “del Gesù” some talking about the Jesuits or a supposed +religious bent. This is one of the many cases where sapient +antiquaries, in seeking for recondite origins, neglect the simplest +facts and ignore the easiest explanations. What can be more +simple than for the great Giuseppe, conscious of his superiority +to Gianbattista, son of Andrea Guarneri, as well as anxious to +distinguish himself from Gianbattista, his father, and coming _after_ +both, though _preferred_ before them, should call himself the “del +Gesù” or Jesus, who followed after the John Baptist of the family? +So far from indicating any particular reverence for religion, the +assumption of this bold title seems to me to partake more of a +certain irreverent levity; and if, as tradition says, the great +Giuseppe or Joseph was somewhat of a free liver, and perhaps even a +sceptic, he may have had small scruples in so lightly treating sacred +names and subjects. + +The question as to who may have been his master, and the influence +(or otherwise) of Stradivari upon him, has also been involved, as I +think, in needless mystery. + +Since Del Gesù worked at Cremona and must have been, as a cousin and +nephew, a good deal with his uncle and cousins, Andrea, Giovanni, +and Pietro, who lived there, it is no great stretch of fancy to +suppose that when he showed the family bent for violin-making, +he should have been apprenticed to study the art with his cousin +Giuseppe, son of Andrea, in which case he must have lived next door +to where Stradivari was working all through his finest period; and +though Giuseppe’s violins are rightly said to be in the style of his +cousin’s Gianbattista, and he may have drawn his early inspirations +from his cousin, it is impossible to suppose that so able a man +could be in daily contact with and yet wholly insensible to the +influence of the greatest maker who ever lived. Why, he not only +worked next door to Strad, but probably met him every afternoon at +the neighbouring café, and was doubtless often about his shop, year +in year out. + +Of course the differences in the work of the two great masters are +obvious. The massive, bold, and original lines and less scrupulous +finish of Joseph the Great, the powerful (almost brutally powerful) +scroll, the loud trumpet-like imperious tone, all mark the masculine +as contrasted with the sweeter and more feminine qualities of the +gentler, bell-like Strad. The fact also before alluded to, that +between the back and the belly of the Strad there is usually but +one note, whilst between the back and belly of the Giuseppe del +Gesù there are sometimes more, all prove sterling and distinct +originality, as Rafael was distinct from Perugino or Michael Angelo +from Leonardo da Vinci. But enough; for to draw these comparisons +before describing the master may seem like putting the cart before +the horse. + +So let us now, without further ado, locate the great violin shops at +Cremona and peep into workshop No. 6, in the Piazza S. Domenico, now +Piazza Roma. + +In about 1540, Andrea Amati had set up his modest establishment, +trained his sons, and taken apprentices, bequeathing to Nicolo his +plant and pupils. + +Stradivari and the early Guarnerii then worked together, cheek by +jowl; by-and-by Stradivari migrated to No. 5, next door, and the +Guarnerii with Giuseppe del Gesù, who died in 1745, the latest and +greatest of that family (surviving Stradiuarius, who died in 1737, +eight years), then set up at No. 6. + +As I have had occasion to remark elsewhere, these three names, Amati, +the Guarnerii, Stradivari, there be none like them; these three shops +opposite the big Church of S. Domenico, now demolished, there never +were nor will be three such violin shops. + +Here were made, in long, quiet years of peaceful labour, between 1560 +and 1760, in steady and friendly rivalry, all the greatest violins in +the world. + +The Giuseppe del Gesù on which Paganini played, now in the Town Hall +in Genoa, the Stradiuarius on which Ernst, now Lady Hallé (1898), +plays, Canon Percy Hudson’s violoncello, Joachim and Wilhelmj’s +“Strads,” the Alard, the Betts, the Dolphin, the Messie, the Pucelle, +the Tuscan, the Fountaine, the Rode, and the Viotti--these be the +wonders of the violin world. + +But in following the development of the Guarnerii family into the +seventeen hundreds, the position of Giuseppe del Gesù, the king of +the Guarneri, must be clearly defined before we describe the rise +and progress of Stradivari, who ran parallel with, and who, in the +estimation of most violinists, seems to combine in himself, the _ne +plus ultra_ of all violin perfection. + +Nothing about Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù is more remarkable than +the determined way in which, after examining the Amati types, he +deliberately went back to the Brescian Gasparo and Maggini models +for inspiration. The time had come when powerful tone was wanted. +The Amatis were sensitive, sweet, and weak; in the larger and more +massive Brescians Giuseppe found the suggestion of what he was +destined to make perfect. If only he could add their volume to the +Amati sensitiveness--an hour more or less spent on the cutting of +corners or neater purfling--what did it matter? Strength, power, +was what he wanted, and the sentiment is thrown off in the bulldog +type of his head or scroll, in the thickness of his boards so much +criticised, in the boldness rather than the grace and delicacy of his +curves. + +He tried many experiments: flat make, full make, sound-holes +cut almost perpendicularly, shortened, slanting, and sometimes +disproportionately long. He was watching the effect on the volume and +quality of tone, and when he had in his own way conquered that secret +of grand sonority, whether empirically or by calculation, then, and +not till then, his workmanship improves. + +He was like a man who had no time to think of the delicate cooking +till he had stayed his main appetite. His frequent habit of cutting +the wood upon the cross, _à contre sens_, as in the case of Mr Alfred +Gibson’s instrument (1897), a superb specimen of Del Gesù, shows up +the coruscations of the grain, and brings out each pore and vein by +the agate-like varnish--not agate-like in the sense of the French +chippy varnish, but in its clear crystalline depth and transparency. +Del Gesù’s varnish is never clotted, but is laid on thoroughly, yet +with a light hand. Mr Ruskin used to say that Sir Joshua Reynolds’ +touch was so light that he could paint on a gossamer veil; Del +Gesù’s brush is also as light as a feather. Some of Del Gesù’s later +violins, dating from about 1740, after the death of Stradivarius, are +amongst his finest. The one used by Professor Sauret, and the other +lent to Mr Ludwig by Mr Frazer, are particularly fine, and belong +to this period. Paganini’s Joseph, now in the Town Hall at Genoa, +Alard’s, in the Museum of the Conservatoire of Music, Turin, and +Vieuxtemps’, now in the possession of Maurice Sons, also belong to +this great period. + +The life of Joseph Guarnerius is more or less enveloped in mystery. +It seems, for instance, utterly impossible to get at the truth about +the so-called prison fiddles. Whenever a Joseph or a presumed Joseph +which is not up to Joseph’s standard comes into the market, it is +dubbed a Del Gesù prison-fiddle. + +The story runs that Giuseppe, being a somewhat reckless person, got +into trouble and was locked up for many years, during which time the +gaoler’s daughter got him any wood she could find, and he made these +inferior pot-boiling fiddles, which she disposed of for such moderate +sums as she was able. + +I prefer to put this legend wholly aside. Del Gesù may not have held +sacred things in high estimation, and he may have been somewhat of a +free liver--this rests on the authority of Carlo Bergonzi’s grandson, +who was not even a contemporary of Del Gesù--still he may have got +the gossip from Bergonzi, his own father, who was Stradivari’s pupil, +and doubtless a rival maker; and tongues may wag when interests are +or seem to be opposed, and stories will come forth finely variegated +when there is an extraordinary absence of reliable facts, as there +undoubtedly is in the case of Del Gesù. + +[Illustration] + +There is, however, no direct evidence whatever that Del Gesù was for +years in prison and that he died there, as says the legend; but Canon +Bazzi of Cremona has lately unearthed one Girolamo Guarneri who _did_ +die in prison in 1715, and the names of two very different men, one +illustrious and the other obscure, have before now got mixed up, to +the detriment of the illustrious one. + +Something similar is said to have happened to the great Athanasius, +whose name has been confounded with that of the obscure Pope +Anastasius, in whose presence a creed was recited by one Bishop +Victricius, and the confession of faith thus recited by command of +_Anastasius_ now passes as the creed of Saint _Athanasius_, since it +emphasises the Trinitarian doctrine chiefly connected with the name +of that illustrious doctor. + +A Giuseppe del Gesù is much more difficult to find than a Strad--his +output, as compared to that of Stradivarius, is as one to six; his +life was shorter, and his working career probably more erratic. But +he is placed on a level with the immortal Antonio by some who know +how to handle him, and the prices of his wares have already reached +four figures. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +VIOLINS AT CREMONA--_continued_ + + +There is something inexorable about the concensus of posterity. + +Individuals may chafe under it, and writers may try to reverse its +verdict. You even have crazes for the revival of neglected poets, +painters, and musicians, but you will never succeed in pushing from +their pedestals the great gods whom posterity has once decided to bow +down to. + +De Beriot may choose to play on a Maggini, and Paganini may prefer +his Joseph, but even Maggini, Nicolo Amati, and Giuseppe Guarnerius, +who stand round as it were saluting one another, leave Stradivari +apart by himself like a Colossus on a mountain, and yet no one, not +the greatest connoisseur, is able to say exactly why. When so many +esteem individual violins above some Strads, and when Joseph del +Gesù is held to run the magic master very hard, still Strad stands +apart upon his mountain for all men to look up to and wonder at. And +why? We can only say it is the way with all the greatest; there is +something of the mystery of heaven about the incommunicable touch; +the true aureole forms about no head to order, and the lonely seats +are kept for the mighty. + +Antonio Stradivari or Stradiuarius was born in 1644, and died, in his +ninety-third year, in 1737. We get the date of his death from the +register, and the date of his birth is fixed by a violin label (1736) +in his own handwriting, in which he states that he was ninety-three +years old when he made the instrument. + +Stradiuarius married at the age of twenty-three a woman of +twenty-seven, who had been a widow for three years, whose maiden name +was Ferraboschi, and he adopted her one little girl. By her he had +six children, some of whom died before him. His second wife, whom he +married several years later, bore him five children, two of whom died +before him--so that in all Stradivari had eleven children. None of +them seemed to have inherited their father’s genius; only Omobono and +Francesco Stradivari made even decent fiddles, and so far maintained +the great name as to succeed at first in selling their wares at +their father’s prices. The buyers probably hoped that at least the +wood might have been selected by Stradivari _père_, and much of it +probably was; and if there was the chance of getting a spare rib or +back or belly with a touch of the master upon it, it was surely worth +a little speculation. + +Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri, as stated before, were young +_garzoni_ or apprentices together in the workshop of the great Nicolo +Amati--sat on the same work bench, used the same tools, and doubtless +discussed the same problems. + +In and out of that shop ran, no doubt, the boy Giuseppe Guarneri to +see his uncle Andrea. He must have always found Stradivari there; +and when, later on, Giuseppe imbibed a taste for fiddle-making, and +became himself the great Del Gesù, it is hard, I insist upon it, to +believe that what must have been a lifelong acquaintance with the +mighty Stradivari should have had no influence whatever in forming +his ideas and methods. + +There is no mention of the youthful Stradivari having accompanied +Andrea Guarneri to the wedding of his master, Nicolo Amati; Andrea +was doubtless the older pupil, and Antonio Stradivari was taken on +later. + +“If thou wouldst teach, learn; if thou wouldst create, first copy.” +It is generally held that for some years, roughly between 1660-70, +Stradiuarius simply made up, blocked out, drew, glued, mixed varnish, +and worked generally, but without signing his own name to any +fiddles. He was _learning_; but in 1660 he begins to sign his name, +not from pride, but because his master made him do so. From before +that date to about 1670, which brings us to within fourteen years of +Nicolo Amati’s death, he made what are sometimes called Amati Strads. + +At this time Antonio followed closely the violins of the early Nicolo +rather than the grand Amati pattern, but he appears to have followed +his master’s developments continuously, slowly, but surely. + +There exists a Stradivari violin with a label Nicholai Amati (anno +1667), and about that date (when he married) Antonio seems to +have left his master’s workshop, but still continued closely to +copy Nicolo, and many violins of his between 1660 and 1670 pass +as Amatis, whilst others are called Amati Strads, and some are +apparently joint productions. + +When Stradiuarius married (about 1667) and left Nicolo Amati, he set +up round the corner in the same street as the brothers Guarnerii, and +almost next door to them, in the square opposite the great Church +of S. Domenico. From about this time connoisseurs notice a great +improvement in Stradivari’s technique; but up to 1672 at least, +remaining a close copyist of Amati, he doubtless kept on terms of the +closest intimacy with Nicolo, now in his decline, and benefited by +the abundance of orders flowing in for Amati violins which the old +master was unable to execute. + +From 1660 to 1684 was a period of great activity, perhaps haste; +even some pot-boiling Stradivari violins may then have been made as +the young family increased. Antonio’s wood is often plain about this +time, and not up to the best taste and selection of his master, but +he evidently remained his right-hand man to the end; and when Nicolo +died, at the ripe age of eighty-eight, he left all his tools and his +plant not to his son Girolamo, then about thirty-five, but to Antonio +Stradivari, then just forty years old. + +In 1680, four years before the death of Nicolo, Antonio had so far +prospered as to be able to buy his house (which I visited in 1880), +at 1 Piazza Roma, for about £800. Desiderio Arisi, a Cremonese, has +left an interesting MS. in which he speaks of “his intimate friend +Antonio Stradivari.” The MS. is dated 1720, or seventeen years before +the death of Stradivari. + +Arisi alludes to a point of great interest which early excited my +attention and curiosity--the many-sidedness of the man. “In Cremona,” +writes Arisi, “is also living my intimate friend Antonio Stradivari, +an excellent maker of _all kinds of musical instruments_.” Indeed, +he could make anything that was in demand, and he did; he could +“fancy-purfle” to order, inlay, make fiddles in odd shapes, or +with a twist in the curve here or there, or longer or shorter for +experiment, or big or small. + +The Marquis Carlo dal Negro of Genoa owned a Stradivari harp in 1820. +The master was not above making mandolines and lutes to order. Messrs +Hill own a perfectly plain Stradivari guitar in fine condition. It +is of exquisite close-grained wood. I have often wanted to hear the +sound of that guitar. I noticed a Stradivari cithern in the South +Kensington Loan Collection with an elaborately carved female head of +great beauty. I did not wonder that he who could carve such scrolls +could carve a head or anything else. + +There are, or were, within the present century, other gems of +workmanship, some of which it is to be feared have perished, +children’s fiddles, instruments made with small figures, flowers, +arabesques. Everything that comes from his hand is finely accurate +in drawing. Sometimes his decoration is merely painted in black, +sometimes ivory, ebony, or mother-of-pearl is used, but everything +Stradivari did was perfectly done; he qualified himself to the _n_th, +as mathematicians say, for each branch of his art. + +In these days one man draws, another blocks out, another inlays, +another finishes. Stradivarius did all, and did all consummately +well. His heads and arabesques are worthy of Cellini, his inlaying +of the finest Florentine marqueterie; his scrolls and curves are of +Pheidian beauty; his varnishing is his own. + +On the death of Amati, Stradiuarius and the Guarnerii had the Cremona +market to themselves, and whilst the competition was quite wholesome, +there is no reason to suppose that their rivalry was other than +a friendly one. They had all been brought up together, they had +worked as boys together, they had doubtless lent each other tools, +touched up each other’s backs and bellies, varnished each other’s +ribs, criticised each other’s scrolls from boyhood; and now that the +Cremona violin was in the ascendant, and kings and nobles from Spain, +France, Germany, Saxony, and even England were anxious for Cremona +fiddles, there was a market for them all. + +The bitterness of competition is not always due to rival makers, +but often to over-production; and such a thing as over-production +of fiddles in those days was unknown. Nay, the orders that came in +could not be executed fast enough. Music walked faster than the +instruments could follow it. When the King of Poland wanted a Strad +violin he knew his man, and sent his Capelmeister Voleme to Cremona, +with orders to stop there and bring back the twelve violins ordered +for the court orchestra. “So,” says Arisi, “Voleme arrived in 1715 +on the 10th June, and remained there three months, and when all the +instruments were ready he took them with him to Poland.” + +But at this time Stradivari was at his zenith. “There is not in the +world,” writes Lorenzo Giustiniani, a Venetian nobleman, to the great +artificer in 1715, “a more skilled maker of musical instruments than +yourself, and as I wish to preserve a record of such an illustrious +man and famous artist, I trouble you with this letter to ask whether +you feel disposed to make me a violin of the highest quality and +finish that you can bestow upon it.” + +But we must not anticipate. + +After the death of the illustrious Nicolo Amati, this patient +pupil, this careful copyist, this accurate and tireless student and +experimentalist, begins to assert his strong individuality. His +scroll departs from the feminine Amati type, and becomes striking +and independent, his sound-holes recline more, his corners are +pronounced, his middle bout curves are prolonged, his varnish is +almost fancifully varied from rich gold to soft velvety red. His wood +is now invariably chosen with the utmost care, and as he made chiefly +for the nobility, royalty, and the higher clerical dignitaries, he +was not only on his mettle, but he could afford to work just as he +chose. + +In 1682, Michele Monzi, a rich Venetian banker, sent him an order for +a chest of violins, altos and ’cellos, which were to be presented to +our King James II. They were so much liked that his Majesty ordered a +viol di gamba of Stradiuarius in 1686. + +[Illustration: + + Rode Strad Spanish Tenor Spanish Strad + + Christina Strad + + CELO] + +In 1685, Cardinal Orsini, afterwards Pope Benedict XIII., had ordered +a violoncello and two violins of him, besides making him “one of his +private attendants,” an honorary title, but equivalent to appointing +Stradiuarius instrument-maker to the Cardinal Archbishop. We commend +this fact to his Holiness Pope Leo XIII. (1897), who has lately +placed the violin on his _index expurgatoritus_ of instruments, as +being too frivolous for the solemnities of divine service! Yet Pius +IX. was a pretty good fiddler. + +In 1687 Stradivari makes his famous set of instruments for the +Spanish Court, inlaid with ivory, with a scroll-work running round +the sides. One of these rarities--a violin--found its way into the +hands of Ole Bull, the famous violinist. It has been since sold in +England to Dr Charles Oldham of Brighton. The tenor is, I believe, in +existence. When last in the market, it had lost its ivory purfling, +which has since been exquisitely replaced by Messrs Hill. + +There are extant several very small violins made evidently to order +about this period. The fallacy of different sizes for different ages +from childhood upwards is one which will always smile to makers +and those acute persons who teach the violin and buy their pupils’ +instruments, which of course have to be changed as the children grow +up, for larger and larger ones. I have always protested against this. +A child of eight had much better play the violin like a violoncello +(at the age of seven, as I did myself) than be given a small one; but +when I was eight I could hold a full-sized violin to my chin--not +quite in the correct position, no doubt, but near enough. Thus from +the very first, when at six or seven years of age, I played the +violin like the violoncello, I never had to _unlearn my intervals_ +in stopping the strings. _The brain learns intervals._ An habitual +tenor player never plays the violin quite in tune, and _vice versâ_; +and so every time a larger violin is placed in the pupil’s hands, the +brain is bothered with the narrower stopping learned in the preceding +period. Still, no one can regret the exquisite cabinet, almost toy +specimens, made by the Amati and Guarnerii as well as by Strad. +Artistically they are gems; musically, fallacies. I have never got +anybody to agree with me about not using dwarf fiddles. Joachim, I +believe, contended that for a child to use a large fiddle stiffens +his muscles. I don’t believe it; it certainly did not stiffen mine. +I believe I am also in a minority in my partiality for old bridges. +Neither theory is, in fact, “good for trade.” + +In 1690 Stradivari executed a celebrated order for the Prince +of Tuscany, through the Marquis Bartholomeo Aribati. Of these +_chefs-d’œuvre_ the Marquis writes: “I assure you the Prince has +accepted your instruments with more pleasure than I could expect. The +players in the orchestra are unanimous in expressing appreciation. +They declare your instruments to be quite perfect; they all say +they never heard a violoncello with such a tone as yours. My having +brought to the knowledge of such a person as his Highness your great +skill will doubtless procure you many orders from his exalted +house”--and then follow more orders for two tenors. On this occasion, +we learn, from the relics of Stradivari in the possession of the +Marquis della Valle, that the great violin-maker characteristically +enough made the most beautiful cases for the royal instruments, +decorating them profusely with armorial bearings and symbols +appropriate to each instrument. + +[Illustration: + + Rode Strad Spanish Tenor Spanish Strad +] + +The order was given in 1684, but the instruments were not handed in +till 1690. The Grand Duke, it seems, came back for more, as there was +found amongst his instruments a violin of the grand pattern bearing +the later date, 1716. + +I cannot forbear to call attention to the exquisite +chromo-lithographs of the Tuscan violin, and the lucid description +and history of this last-named famous masterpiece, in Messrs +Hill’s handsome monograph. He declares it to be in the very finest +preservation still, with an unbroken and authentic record, and to +possess all the noblest qualities of the incomparable master. It is +on the very verge of his great period, bearing the date 1690, and +was bought by Mr David Ker in 1794. The Tuscan viola and violoncello +are still in the Institute at Florence, and I advise all lovers of +Cremona who get the chance to go and inspect them. + +The only other point of great general interest before the year 1700, +when Stradivarius enters on his golden period, is the deliberate +manufacture of a certain number of violins on a pattern distinct from +the Amati, and from any patterns adopted by himself before 1686-1694, +or after 1700. These instruments are known as long Strads, and they +seem to be a sort of constructional or experimental link between +the smaller Amati pattern and the grand Strad pattern of 1700-37--a +model evidently suggested by the grand Nicolo, but not adopted by the +cautious Strad till some years after Nicolo’s death. + +From 1694 to 1700 Stradivari not only went out of his way to make +long Strads, which not only looked longer because they were narrower +and pinched in, but actually were longer--_i.e._ 14-inch, as compared +to the 1690 13-inch Strad. In other respects also he walked through +his own traditions. Having mastered all violin lore, he was evidently +at last trying a series of daring experiments to settle in his own +mind once and for ever certain problems of tone. + +We have known painters trifle with colour in the same way. +Gainsborough would paint his blue boy, and Whistler symphonies in +green, mauve, or anything else unexpected, and Turner would recreate +the light that never was on sea or land; but in reality it was no +trifling, but study in arrangement of colour. So you can have study +in construction, empirical ventures, and a testing of tone problems, +whether in sound or colour. + +As Stradivari mused and carved, and glued and varnished, year after +year, his meditations might run thus: “Flatten the belly--thicker +here or there according to wood, density of fibre; air column +restrained by narrow width, as in the long pattern, but same +cubic inches of air allowed for in length or height of ribs, only +differently defined by different shapes of instruments. Enlarge +width, thin planks, but try different thicknesses; see how different +densities of wood go together. Try old seasoned wood for back, newer +for belly, or _vice versâ_; if wood hard, thin it; if soft, thicken +it; try effect of higher ribs on flat curves; lower the ribs on more +bulgy curves and grooved sides. What did Nicolo aim at with his grand +pattern? Adopt his width and size, and flatten his belly. Try and +save his sweetness (did the grooves give that?) with the flatter +back and belly, which gives louder tone, adopting the mathematical +curve of nature, suggested by the vibration of a string; certainly +that gives power. Is a joined back, or a back in one piece, best or +indifferent? That would depend on wood attainable. How would it be +to patch bits of precious wood if inter-congenial? That generally +succeeds. A good secret that, but an open one--wanted always the +patcher!” + +This idea of patching was certainly one of the most inspired thoughts +that ever occurred to him. He seems to have kept wood of the finest +acoustic properties for his best orders. He had favourite planks; we +can trace one of these by a stain that runs through the grain, and +the wood crops up again and again in some of his best fiddles. + +The plank must have been known to his pupils, for the remains of it +were worked up after his death. + +“Now for the sound-bar,” ponders Stradivari; “thick or thin, +according to the density or elasticity of the back and belly. And its +position? A little transverse, of course--slightly diagonal to be in +the line of vibration. Study effect on power of different strings +by placing it a fraction of an inch one way or another; place it +slightly aslant for experiment. And the varnish?” But that will call +for a few separate paragraphs by-and-by. + +I have tried to indicate the kind of observation and meditation, +demanding unlimited time, patience, and love, which Stradivari +devoted for the better part of a century to his art, and without +which those Cremona _chefs-d’œuvre_, the Dolphin, the Messie, Tuscan, +Betts, and Pucelle Strads, could never have come forth. + +I have alluded to Strad’s taking late to the large Amati pattern for +violins, inclining for some time to the small size. I do not know +that any one has yet noticed that in violoncellos Strad reversed this +order of work, making his early violoncellos large, and diminishing +their size. As he reached his golden period he probably felt that the +demands made by virtuosity and tone-power were quite alike consistent +with a larger type of violin and a smaller and more manageable size +of violoncello. + +The violinist is well aware of the value of Strad’s golden period, +which will cost him gold; for, after about 1700, a fine Strad will be +worth to him from £1000 and upwards, according to its condition. + +The long apprenticeship was at last over, and in 1700 the master +had reached the ripe age of fifty-six, an age at which so many have +achieved their greatest work. He was at the acme of his power, +experience, and fame; no one could teach him anything now, and +apparently he had nothing to learn. He could at last wield his tools +as a Millais or a Tadema wields his brush, a Flaxman his pencil, a +Canova his chisel, or as a Mozart or Wagner handles his score. He +knew what he wanted, and he could do it, and do it with a spontaneous +ease and joy which seems even now to smile to us from the saucy +corners of his bouts, the free daring curves of his grand pattern, +and the lightly tossed and lifted scrolls. + +No one has failed to notice the masterful ease, the emancipation from +all mannerism, the cool defiance of precedent and uniformity, and +even symmetry, which characterises his great period from 1700 to 1730. + +The violins are not all alike. Strad knew that the secret was not +merely in the pattern or shape; he could vary his curves, and yet +produce masterpieces, because he knew all about the air column, the +wood densities, and the proportions and quantities which should be +combined for the requisite result, and he could mix them differently +like a master colourist. He no more treated every violin as if it +had the same constitution than does a physician treat every human +body alike; it is not so much nitrogenous or carbonaceous food, and +so much liquid, but it is these and other things used in proportion, +according to your digestion and temperament, which will produce in +that instrument, your body, the harmony of health; and how close is +the analogy between the constitution of a violin and that of a human +body--how varied is the texture, the tissue, quality, fibre, and +density of the component parts of each--I have endeavoured to point +out as succinctly as I could. + +So, in the grand period, the grand pattern Strads are all made +with a trained, almost inspired instinct, according to those laws +which govern the tone qualities aimed at; but the fiddles are by no +means alike to look at. They have the charm of imaginative variety, +combined with the unity of supreme excellence. + +To this great period belongs the Dolphin Strad, so called, it is +said, from the melting and almost iridescent tints of the varnish. +To me, however, the violin almost suggests the life, freedom, and +elegant poise of that graceful fish whose name it bears. The beauty +and acoustic properties of the Dolphin wood are quite special, and +can easily be compared with other violins of the same period, some of +which are much plainer to look at, and somewhat different in form, +and though very charming, hardly so bell-like in tone. + +The last time I had the privilege of touching the Dolphin Strad was +at my lecture on violins before the Royal Institution in 1880. I +shall never forget its ringing notes and its exquisite sensibility. +It seemed anxious to speak before it was spoken to; when touched, +it seemed to do all for itself like magic. Instead of the player +showing it off, it shows off the player; he begins to feel he has +nothing to learn in tone production. It is almost like sitting at +those ingeniously contrived pianos that make elaborate music, and +you merely have to put your hands on a dummy keyboard, press the +keys, and appear to be playing, and then you roll off Chopin and +Mendelssohn perfectly, though you can scarce play your scales! Since +then Vuillaume’s sound-bar has been replaced with a stronger one by +Messrs Hill. It seemed to me quite perfect before, but I suppose one +must bow to experts in such matters. + +The best opinion limits the number of instruments which Strad made to +about two thousand, only eight hundred of which at most are known to +be extant. Compared with any other maker except Vuillaume, both as +regards output and survival of work, Strad probably bears the palm. + +An elaborate description, a careful portraiture of every known Strad, +together with its history, as far as recoverable, I must leave for +some more gifted and industrious recorder. I believe Messrs Hill are +preparing the most complete monograph on Stradivari which has ever +yet or is ever likely to appear, and I only wish I could dip into +their MS. and steal a few pages. It will certainly, when it appears, +be a monumental work, and there is no time to lose, as many of these +gems are known to have been destroyed, others dismembered, whilst +some are at the bottom of the sea. There are, however, a few more +famous specimens, which are of such unique interest that they cannot +be passed over even in so general a survey as this. + +Mr Croall (1897) of Edinburgh is the happy owner of M. Artôt’s Strad, +varnished dark red, quite perfect, and one of the finest known for +tone; it is dated 1716. Lady Hallé still plays on Ernst’s violin, +bought for £500, and presented to her by the Earl of Dudley and +some others. I shall never forget the wonderful effects elicited +from it by the great magician Ernst in his palmy days, nor can I +understand the statement recently made that its tone is difficult to +elicit. I have heard the faintest vanishing whisper of its strings on +the Covent Garden stage when, as a boy, I was seated up in the top +gallery at one of Benedict’s monster season concerts early in the +fifties. + +A romantic interest attaches to two Stradivari violins which have +come down to us in absolutely perfect condition: one is called the +Messie, the other the Pucelle or the Virgin. + +The Messie was secured by Vuillaume after the death of that +remarkable man Luigi Tarisio, to whom further on I devote a special +section. It bears date 1716. + +Tarisio would never let it be seen till Vuillaume possessed it; it +had then never been touched or played upon. He lengthened the neck, +but, without _inserting_ his new neck, he fixed it to a block placed +outside the ribs. Count Cozio de Salabue had bought it in 1760, but +never allowed it to be played upon. + +Tarisio bought it after the Count’s death, and at his own death in +1854 it passed to Vuillaume, and was exhibited (No. 91) in the South +Kensington Loan Exhibition of 1872, and for the first time unveiled +beneath glass to the gaze of admiring thousands. + +When I first saw the Messie I could not believe my eyes. It was +covered throughout and uniformly with thick rich red-brown varnish, +laid on with a firm brush, level and lavish. It seemed to have +left the workshop only the day before; the anointed glitter of the +fresh varnish was upon it, it looked hardly dry. It is of the grand +pattern, but not heavy and massive like some of the great Del Gesù’s, +but beautiful as a Pheidian carving, full of a certain special grace +and elegance. One “∫” is a shade lower than the other--a practice _so +common_ with Strad, especially in his later period, that it must have +been intentional, his artistic eye not tolerating even the suggestion +of mechanical uniformity. The Greeks worked similarly, no two sides +of their Corinthian capitals ever quite matching. + +The “Messiah” back is in two pieces, the corners are absolutely +unrubbed, and completely covered with varnish--of no other specimen +can this be said. The head is light and graceful, “the scroll,” as +I have elsewhere observed, thrown off like a ribbon lightly curled +about the finger, and drawn in, one side of the scroll cut a little +lower than the other; the lines of the scroll are picked out with +thick black paint; only faint traces of this remain in other violin +heads. The black outline was artistically conceived, as it called +full attention to the scroll curve, always so characteristic a part +of violin physiognomy. + +As the Messiah recently bought by Mr Crawford of Edinburgh for £2000 +has now been played upon, it seems a pity that the world should not +sometimes be allowed to hear its voice; and I venture to say that a +well-advertised concert, in which two of our finest violinists should +be invited to play on the Messiah and the Pucelle--_i.e._, each +player upon each instrument once, thus giving four solos, so that the +audience might hear the same violins under different fingers--would +be an epoch in the musical world. The announcement would doubtless +pack St James’s or any other London hall. + +The Pucelle or Virgin is the last Stradivari violin I have space +to notice. The “Virgin” is so called because its interior organism +had, up to the time when it came into M. Vuillaume’s hands, not been +interfered with--_i.e._, the inside bass bar had never been touched. +All the old violins have had these bars strengthened, and their necks +lengthened, to meet the strain of the modern high-pitch tension of +the strings on the belly, and the lengthened finger-board which the +development of advanced virtuosity demands. + +These readjustments the Pucelle owes to Vuillaume. She is in fine +preservation otherwise, although her varnish is a good deal rubbed +in places. Her contour, so fanciful are even good judges, is by some +considered more graceful than that of the Messiah, but less graceful +by others. To me there seems to be little to choose between them; +each is a distinct conception. + +The Virgin’s varnish is of a rich soft brown and yellow tone, rather +contrasting with the Messiah’s bright red. The head is stronger and +less graceful than that of some Strads (the Dolphin’s, for instance); +the Virgin’s back is in two parts, the belly is a little higher than +that of the Messiah. The only vestige of repair about her is where +the chin has rubbed into the purfling, which has accordingly been +renewed. The corners are somewhat fancifully cut, running straight +out in the top bouts, and hanging away in the lower bouts; there is a +rather marked indentation of the curve beneath them. + +The Virgin is labelled 1709, and she reached Paris in 1840 (of course +it is a Tarisio violin); it has been owned by Mons. le Roy, a banker, +and passed to his heir, Mons. Glanday. She is now the property of a +member of the same family, and is very jealously guarded by her owner. + +In vain does imagination seek to recover the image of the great maker +as he lived and moved and had his being through ninety-three years of +shower and shine. Undisturbed by petty sieges and local disturbances +and changes of administration, sought for and admired impartially by +the friends and the foes of his country, he wrought out calmly his +own matchless ideal. + +Violins have no politics, and the great republic of Art dominates +the ages, and comprehends whilst it survives the rise and fall of +dynasties and empires. + +I sometimes seem to see the grand old man standing at the door of +his modest but comfortable house--a tall, thin, perhaps rather gaunt +figure, most likely not a man of many words, carrying on for ever +mental processes connected with his subtle handicraft, seldom seen +without a chisel in his hand. + +Behold him just risen from his stool, or come round to superintend or +criticise a carelessly cut scroll of Bergonzi, his best pupil; and +before he goes up into that almost sacred attic, open to the air, at +the top of the house, where hang the varnished fiddles and anointed +strips a-drying, he mutters a rebuke or rectifies a curve. + +The old man comes to the door, and stands for a moment looking down +the street. He wears his woollen nightcap and his inevitable leather +apron; he salutes the neighbours as they pass, but they do not stop +to speak to him, they know he has no leisure for that. Only later, +at the café-cabaret, it may be, he will chat with Joseph Guarnerius, +and exhort him to more refinement; or tell his sons they will never +uphold the reputation of the firm if they do not work harder; and +as it is known that the master detests interruptions at home, in +those moments of rare leisure when he emerges with the regularity of +clockwork to sip his _vino_ or _sirop_ or coffee, Capelmeister A. or +Padre B. or Monsignor C. may surprise him for a chat, and inquire +timidly when the violoncello or quartet of violins ordered are likely +to be ready, and get for reply something too enigmatic or oracular to +be of any service; so patrons or patrons’ emissaries had to sit down +at Cremona and wait on the master’s convenience for the masterpieces +that could be got nowhere else. + +His prices seem to have been altogether moderate, but we must +remember that the value of money was far greater in those days, a +sovereign going then nearly as far as five go now. + +He sold his violins for £10 (= £40); the original price of his +violoncellos and violas does not seem to be known. + +Although he had a large family, he must have made, if not inherited, +money, for there seems to have been a proverb current at Cremona, “As +rich as Stradivari.” + +Some years ago, fresh from my visit to the house of Stradivari, then +still standing in the Piazza Roma, Cremona, I gave a full description +of the great maker’s _entourage_, which I need not here repeat; but +a single paragraph may serve better than anything that I can now +write, at the distance of over a decade, to place the reader in the +atmosphere in which Antonio Stradivari worked for more than half a +century. + +I stood in the open loft at the top of his house where still in +the old beams stuck the rusty old nails upon which he hung up his +violins. And I saw out upon the north the wide blue sky, just +mellowing to rich purple, and flecked here and there with orange +streaks prophetic of sunset. Whenever Stradiuarius looked up from +his work, if he looked north his eye fell on the old towers of S. +Marcellino and S. Antonio, if he looked west the Cathedral with +its tall campanile rose dark against the sky, and what a sky! full +of clear sun in the morning, full of pure heat all day, and bathed +with ineffable tints in the cool of the evening when the light lay +low upon vinery and hanging garden, or spangled with ruddy gold the +eaves--the roofs and frescoed walls of the houses. + +Here, up in the high air, with the sun his helper, the light his +minister, the blessed soft airs his journeymen, what time the +work-a-day noise of the city rose and the sound of matins and vespers +was in his ears, through the long warm days worked Antonio Stradivari. + +Before the time came for the busy hand to fail, Antonio ceased to +sign all the violins that he made; but, with an old man’s natural +pride, he continued to sign a few down to the year of his death, +registering the number of his years in each case, and it is from one +of the latest of these, dated 1736, that we know his age. + +He sank quietly to rest, evidently worn out naturally and nobly, if +not with his eye quite undimmed and his natural strength unabated, +certainly still full of marvellous vigour, unpalsied senses, and +undulled perception. + +When the Chapel of the Rosary in the Church of S. Domenico, opposite +to which he had lived all his life, was pulled down, his funeral +tablet was rescued, and it is now in the Town Hall at Cremona; but +where are his ashes? Are they in the present family vault of the +Stradivaris, in the Campo Santo of Cremona, or in the parish of S. +Matthew? I was unable to ascertain. The tablet bears the following +simple inscription:--“Sepolcro di Antonio Stradivari E svoi Eredi, +Anno 1729.” + +Many of his family had preceded him to the grave, both of his wives +and six of his eleven children, his last wife dying only nine months +before him, a significant and painful event in a life so regular +and uneventful, and one which may not unnaturally have hastened +his own end. None of the family seem to have been buried in the S. +Domenico vault, but in one belonging to Signor Francesco Vitani, in +the parish of S. Matthew; so it may be Antonio lies there. + +[Illustration] + +The Church of S. Domenico was pulled down several years ago; the +house of Stradiuarius was destroyed only recently. The Piazza S. +Domenico is now the Piazza Roma, and when an average Cremonese is +asked about Stradivari, he thinks of the fashionable _avocat_ of +that name, who appears to spend his time chiefly at Milan, and may +possibly resent the notion that a man in good society should ever +have had ancestors connected with fiddle-making. _Sic transit._ + +The achievements in violin-making up to the first quarter of the +eighteenth century are clearly summed up in the names of Antonio +Stradivari and Giuseppe (del Gesù) Guarneri. + +It would be an interesting and thorny question to debate whether any +variations of importance or additions in excellence have since been +noticeable, and of course we naturally look to the best Cremonese +makers, who followed these giants of tone-power and sweetness. + +The name of Carlo Bergonzi at once stands out as worthy, if not to +be bracketed with that of the two mighty men, at least to receive +their mantle and reflect something of their lustre. Carlo Bergonzi +was Stradivari’s favourite pupil; he lived next door, and afterwards +occupied Stradivari’s own house with his son. + +He finished many of his master’s late violins, and issued some +others after his death collected from the débris of the great man’s +workshop; and Stradivari left him all his tools and plant. + +He worked at Cremona between 1720-47 or 50, and followed at first +Stradivari’s example; for as Antonio made his early fiddles on the +pattern of Nicolo Amati, so did Bergonzi closely copy the grand Strad +pattern. But later on, and before the death of the old man, Bergonzi +conceived the ambition of attempting to weld the power of Giuseppe +Guarnerius with the round, bright, bell-like sweetness of the +Stradivari. To what extent he succeeded must be left to the judgment +and decision of connoisseurs, but the grand quality for which his +violins are increasingly appreciated is, no doubt, their powerful +sonority; that he clearly saw must be the indispensable quality for +all violins of the future. + +The old tinkling days were over; the feeble, scraping, and muffled +viol tone was a thing of the past. The instrument had finally emerged +from the cloister, was no longer to be a mere adjunct to the voice +in dim sacristies and cathedral choirs; its sphere henceforth was to +be out in the wide, wide world, its triumphs were to be won in the +concert room, the opera house, and the grand musical arenas of solo +virtuosity. + +And so, undoubtedly, what Bergonzi aimed at was body of tone and +_carrying power_, and he won it. This dominant idea has modified +even his pattern. He looks bold and loud. Yet is the pattern not +Guarneri, but Stradivari modified. Notice the larger breadth of the +top curve, a certain bold angularity about the bouts, and a freer +development of the lower part of the violin as well; the sound-holes +set lower and nearer to the purfling, and the flat model which +Stradivari discovered to be favourable to loudness. The scroll is +also characteristic--flatter in some places than that of his master, +but made to look bold and full of self-assertion by reason of the +strongly-defined and prominent curl of the ear, which stands out and +at once challenges attention. + +The whole build is massive. The Bergonzi will outlast the Strad; it +will be the survival, if not of the fittest, of the strongest. The +very varnish is laid on with a lavish hand, to allow for wear and +tear; it is even clotted in places, and is said in some specimens +to have cracked and become scurfy. It is of a red Cremona brown, +velvety, and quite the right sort. + +Until within the last few years Bergonzi has not received his dues; +the scarcity of his instruments may in part account for this; but in +France, and especially in England, he is now fully recognised and +much sought after. There are, however, only about sixty authentic +instruments of his known. His working life was but about twenty-five +years. Two notable Bergonzi violins are those in the possession +of Miss Eissler and Signor Simonetti. There is a famous Bergonzi +double-bass of singularly fine quality now in possession of Mr I. +Sears of Boston. In Count Cozio de Salabue’s collection there were +two very fine Bergonzi violins, dated 1731 and 1733. + +There were five other Bergonzis--a son and grandsons; they all made +fiddles, but they were of no account, and were far surpassed by some +other makers who themselves belong to the decline period of the +Cremona school. + +Although I have called Bergonzi Stradivari’s best pupil, it would be +very unfair to ignore the merit of Lorenzo Guadagnini (1695-1740), +the only one of that name who poses as a pupil of Stradivari. He was +born at Piacenza, but lived at Cremona till about 1740. In about 1795 +he removed to Milan after leaving his master at Cremona, but returned +to die in his native town. His make is bold, his model flat, his +varnish not so rich as his master’s, his head original, but without +the grace of Antonio. + +His son, Giovanni Battista, born at Piacenza, 1711-1786, made +violins which are almost more highly esteemed than his father’s. He +imitated Stradivari perhaps more closely than his father, but Count +Cozio de Salabue, who thought very highly of him and bought several +instruments from him, is careful to mention that Giovanni Battista +Guadagnini prided himself upon being no mere copyist. In fact, the +Guadagnini in the hands of Mr Willy Hess is quite equal to the best +of Lorenzo’s work. He was always changing his place of residence, and +wandered from Piacenza to Milan, and at last to Turin, where he died. +His own explanation was that the envy of rivals made each town too +hot for him, but his neighbours said that his frequent migrations +were due to his own hot temper. There were seven Guadagninis who made +violins between 1695 and 1881, but of these the first two, father and +son, alone need be taken account of. + +It has been the fashion to separate the Italian makers into schools +according to the place at which they happened to live--the Milanese, +the Venetian, the Neapolitan, the Bolognese, etc.; but it is much +more important to notice the influences under which the chief makers +worked than to identify them with special towns. + +A Cremonese who works at Venice but carries the Cremonese traditions +with him, is still a Cremonese, and belongs to the Cremona school. + +Thus, the “mighty Montagnana,” as the novelist Charles Reade called +him, made Cremona violins and violoncellos at Venice. He worked +between 1700-40 as a pupil of Stradivari, and survived his master +only three years. But he came to him when the Cremona art was +already perfected, and studied the finest models, assisting in all +probability at the very manufacture of the most wonderful instruments +in the world. With such a training, on his arrival at Venice he +easily took the lead and kept it, and to this day his instruments, +especially his matchless violoncellos--alas! too few in number--are +little if at all inferior to the best of Antonio. + +Montagnana’s outline is by no means a servile copy, of Stradivari. +It is flattened at top and bottom, and seems to the eye less +graceful; but in his selection of wood, his glorious varnish, the +relative thickness of his slabs, and in the cunning knowledge of +those fibre densities in back and belly which are likely to sound +well together, he is second to none. + +Montagnana no doubt embodies and transplants to Venice the Cremona +secrets. As I noticed in the case of Bergonzi, Montagnana, owing to +the paucity of his instruments as well as to the splendour of his +contemporaries, Strad and Giuseppe Guarneri, has not until lately +received the honour which is due to him. He suffers, too, from having +often been labelled Guarnerius or Bergonzi, makers who had the vogue +of the day. These frauds are now being unmasked, and the few great +successors of the Cremona giants, Bergonzi, Montagnana, Guadagnini, +and Balestrieri (very fine in Guadagnini’s style, flat, big build, +powerful tone), and Storioni, have at last a chance of taking their +proper places and fetching their prices. + +When we come to Lorenzo Storioni (1769-99) we come to the last maker +of importance who can with any show of plausibility be called even a +second or third rate master of Cremona. Storioni’s model was Joseph +Guarnerius, but he copied him more in his rough work than in his +great qualities. In his varnish we notice the singular change which +came over the Cremona varnish after about 1760. Up till then all the +Cremona violins have the Cremona varnish; after that time it simply +disappears. Why is it? This interesting problem I shall have to +consider in my chapter on Cremona varnish. + +Storioni’s instruments are not much esteemed in England as yet, but +are thought a good deal more of in Italy. + +I may here fitly mention the Gagliano family, who are associated +with the Neapolitan school, but really derive their importance +from Cremona. Alessandro Gagliano, the first of the name, was +distinguished for his very fine red varnish, 1695-1730. A violin +remarkable for its tone is the Gennaro Gagliano that has been used by +Mr Otto Peiniger for solo purposes during many years. + +Alessandro Gagliano was actually in early life a _bonâ fide_ pupil of +Stradivari. Finding himself, no doubt, unmercifully overshadowed by +the prestige of the immortal workshops in the square of S. Domenico +at Cremona, and being a person of native enterprise, Alessandro +Gagliano migrated to the South, carrying with him the Cremona +craft, and founded the so-called Neapolitan school. His model was, +of course, the approved flat one of the golden age, 1700-37, but +his scroll is small and rather mean, the ∫ ∫ are set low down, and +the work is sometimes lacking in finish. It is in the varnish of +Alessandro Gagliano that we see some connection with Stradivari, his +varnish very often being fine in colour and of the right texture. + +Attempts have been made to classify the various towns in which +Italian violins were made during the Cremona period into schools, +which is about as profitable an occupation as the attempts to divide +the work of individual makers into distinct periods--one period runs +into another, and one school runs into another. + +Roughly speaking, you find but two influences--the Cremona, _i.e._, +the Nicolo, the great Giuseppe and greater Antonio influence with its +flat form, gentle curves, and red and yellow varnish; and the German, +_i.e._, the Stainer model, of which I shall presently speak, with its +elongated form, arched belly, deep side-grooves, and brown-yellow +varnish. + +Some fine Venetian and Milanese makers like Montagnana and Serafino +inclined to Stainer, whilst the Roman and Neapolitan adhered more +to the Cremona type; but Stainer himself learnt at Cremona, and all +the best men like Tecchler (Rome) and Gagliano (Naples) who went +South copied either Stradivari or Giuseppe Guarnerius. The Milanese +school, on account of the great importance of the capital, naturally +attracted good makers like Grancino, Testore (pupil of Grancino), and +Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza (1687-1720). + +Venice, Florence, and Bologna can also boast of a few respectable +names, but I prefer, for the sake of completeness, to treat them +later more in catalogue style, for the guidance of the student, and +not to mix them up with the great central figures which have formed +the subject, and I hope absorbed the attention, of the reader of this +section. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +VIOLINS IN GERMANY + + +Of course, by this time, “every schoolboy,” to use Macaulay’s famous +phrase, knows that most things--including, alas! violins--can be made +in Germany faster and cheaper than anywhere else; and if we trust to +German writers like Dr Schebek, we might almost believe that viols, +not to say the violin, originated in Germany. + +I am quite willing to leave the viol origin an open question. If, on +the one hand, Albert Dürer and his father-in-law both made violins +and dated back to 1500, Benvenuto Cellini tells us that long before +1500 his father made the finest Italian viols at Florence; and an +ingenious writer has now unearthed a print by Maso Fineguerra, the +father of engraving about 1460, in which Thalia is represented +playing on a small violin pochette or kit--which, by the way, has +rather upset the idea that the kit was a reduced violin, but seems +to show, on the contrary, that the violin followed the kit instead +of the kit following the violin, the kit being in reality a small +violin. It is thus triumphantly argued by Mr Fleming that even the +predecessor of, and every suggestion of, the violin came from Italy; +but in his ardour he fails to notice that although an Italian print +shows a woman playing on a kit, the kit she plays on might all the +same have been “made in Germany.” + +If I see an English picture with a tomahawk and a boomerang, I do not +assume at once that the objects depicted were necessarily “made in +England.” + +But, as far as this book is concerned, such questions are of quite +secondary importance. It is sufficient to notice that the first +instruments possessing the distinctive features of what we call the +viola and the violin, as distinguished from the viol tribe, came from +Brescia and Cremona; and that the greatest, if not the earliest, +German maker, Jacobus Steiner or Stainer, is commonly reputed to have +studied at Venice, or, as some say, learnt his art under Nicolo Amati +at Cremona. + +As we approach the great figure of Stainer we are in the presence of +a man who stands only second in popular estimation to the greatest +of the Cremona masters. Indeed, so great a musician and eminent +an authority as Sir John Hawkins writes in 1776: “The violins of +Cremona are _exceeded_ [_sic_] only by those of Stainer a German +whose instruments are remarkable for a full and piercing tone.” +The popularity of an English maker, Duke, who followed the German +Stainer model, and whose fiddles were all the rage when good Sir +John wrote, may have a little blinded his eyes to the Cremona +_chefs-d’œuvre_--few of which, if any, he had ever seen. But it is no +small tribute to the power of the German that for at least a hundred +years he retarded the due recognition of the Cremonas and gave a +faulty direction to the violin pattern throughout England, France, +and Germany. + +The arguments in favour of Stainer having visited Cremona in his +early life rest a good deal on romance--the story of his having +been a pupil of the great Nicolo, whose daughter he is said to have +refused to marry, is unreliable. Whether he went home or stayed at +home and married the village belle whom he appears first to have +compromised, and who bore him seven daughters and one son after +marriage and one daughter before, it matters very little to us. + +Poems and novels have been written about this unhappy child of +genius, but, as far as I can gather, the only reliable facts seem to +be these, and they have been quite recently unearthed and sifted by +Herr Ruf, who died at Hall in 1877:-- + +Jacob Steiner or Stainer was undoubtedly born at Absam, a village not +far from Hall. The townlet lay on the high-road between the Tyrol and +Italy, and doubtless nothing that went on in the northern cities of +Lombardy was long in finding its way to Hall, for mules and pedlars +constantly carried all sorts of merchandise--viols, and violins, and +lutes amongst other things--to and fro. The great argument against +Steiner ever having received early instruction at Cremona seems to +be that he affected the tubby raised bellies and deep side-grooves +of the old German viols; but it must be remembered that if as a boy +he came under Nicolo Amati’s influence, it was at a time when Nicolo +himself approached far more nearly the raised viol form than he +did later on when his own model improved. The Steiner pattern is +therefore consistent with all these theories:-- + +Firstly, that Steiner adopted the raised pattern which he found at +Cremona, and which was then common throughout the violin-making +world; that, returning early to Absam, he adhered to it, and, perhaps +from motives of national pride, accentuated it _Germano more_. + +Secondly, that he visited Cremona later, when his own model was +already formed, and was too proud to alter it. + +Thirdly, that German he was, and German he remained, and never went +to Cremona at all. + + * * * * * + +All these questions, upon which much ink and paper have been spent, +remain more interesting to the antiquarian than to the collector. +Still, an indescribable interest and a deep human pathos seem to +cling about the meagre facts of this remarkable man’s life. + +Stainer’s popularity was so enormous that ten times the number of +violins he could ever have made have been attributed to him, and his +name has been forged quite as often as that of the great Stradivari. + +Stainer married in 1645, and was appointed one of the Archducal +servants, 1669; he advanced rapidly in favour, became violin-maker to +the Emperor’s court, and was turning out instruments as fast as he +could make them, forming such admirable pupils as Klotz and Albani, +when he fell a victim to the _odium theologicum_. + +Heretical books were found in his possession, or heretical opinions +were expressed by him, or both. He was, in fact, a Lutheran, and a +Lutheran in Absam was far too near to the preserves of Mother Church, +and very soon, like a hawk on a pheasant run, he was shot down. +Stainer was also miserably in debt, and perhaps somewhat litigious, +as people of genius and independence of character are wont to be. + +In 1677, having got out of prison, Jacobus petitioned the Emperor +Leopold, whose protégé and employé he had been, and who was a +great musical amateur, for money. Leopold lost his opportunity; +unlike Ludwig of Bavaria, who won for himself an easy immortality +by supplying Wagner with funds, Leopold turned a deaf ear to the +immortal violin-maker. + +Stainer seems to have dragged on a wretched existence for six years +longer, overburdened with care and debt. The attentions of his wife +and eight daughters did not prevent him from going mad with worry +and want; nay, a helpless and incompetent family may even have +contributed to this so unhappy close of a splendid but blighted +career. + +They show even now at Absam the bench to which the wretched man is +said to have been bound when his paroxysms came on. He died in 1683, +not only insane but insolvent. His wife died in great poverty six +years afterwards, in 1689. + +There seems no room in this sad life-story for his sentimental +retreat into a monastery on account of his inconsolable grief for the +death (?) of his wife. Had she been such an inestimable blessing, +we might have expected her to have kept her gifted husband alive, +managed his household more thriftily, rescued him from his debts, +moved the hearts of his great patrons, or at least saved him from +going mad. + +But, on the other hand, eight daughters were doubtless a trial to +a couple who seemed always hard up; and the one son, born in 1657 +and dying in infancy, as we learn from a tombstone in the Pilgrims’ +Church at Absam, deprived the great artificer of a coadjutor who +might have been interested in building up the firm, and, perhaps, +brought into it those business faculties without which the most +brilliant abilities in every department of life so often make +shipwreck. + +A certain Marcus Stainer, whose reputed date is about 1665-69, and +who called himself citizen and violin-maker, it is difficult to +connect with the illustrious Jacob, although he has been called his +brother, and some say he was a monk and actually assisted Jacob +Stainer in the workshop. + +The great violinist Tartini is said to have possessed two of this +man’s instruments, called Peter and Paul. + +Veracini, another eminent soloist, is said to have lost both of them +in a shipwreck. + +Herr von Reimer possesses a violin with label “Markus Steiner Burger +und Geigenmacher, anno 1659” (not a very clerical label, by the way), +and that is all that can be ascertained about this other Stainer; for +of an Andreas Stainer, 1660, nothing but the name is known. + +So everything tends to keep the ill-fated genius Jacob apart. Alone +he remains as the one important rival of the Cremonese school; alone +he stands at the head of all the Germans. Genuine Stainer instruments +are rare; Stainer labels, copies, and forgeries are innumerable, and +one of the greatest curses of the fiddle market. + +The general look of a Stainer is so distinct from that of any maker +except such as copied him, that it must arrest the attention of even +a casual observer. + +The Stainer belly is much higher than the back, the rise is kept up +through half its length; the varnish is yellow (or as in the Elector +Stainers), with a sort of pale-rose flush in it. + +The early pattern, deep Amati side-grooves, the long-shaped, +beautifully thrown end of the scroll, sometimes a lion’s head carved +with the art of a Stradivari, the narrow purfling lying close to +the sides of the strong, roundly moulded edges, the circular-topped +sound-holes rather shorter than the Cremonese, peg-box often dark +brown, contrasting with the palish-yellow belly--such are the leading +characteristics of the great Jacob. + +His earlier specimens bear varnish something akin to the Amatis; they +are also of the smaller pattern. A good example of them is one in the +possession of Mr Russell of Bedale, Yorkshire, dated 1645. + +Jacob’s finest type may be seen in the famous Elector Stainer; of +these he is said to have made twelve, one for each of the Electors. +The popular legend refers them to his Benedictine monastery, but +there is no shadow of proof that he ever was there at all; perhaps, +however, if one Markus Stainer who is reputed to have made Peter and +Paul was a monk, _he_ may have been a Benedictine monk, and as the +obscure Guarneri who did get locked up seems to be responsible by +transference for the great Joseph del Gesù’s legendary incarceration, +so Monk Markus may do duty for J. Stainer’s reputed sojourn and +residence in a Benedictine monastery. It matters very little when +the Elector Stainers were made; most connoisseurs are agreed that +the two quite authentic “survivals of the fittest” are miracles of +workmanship, beauty, and the perfection of Stainer tone. + +The Stainer tone! What is there about that tone, which for 150 years +so fascinated the musical world as to dull the perceptions of so +experienced a professor as Sir John Hawkins to the more exquisite +timbre of the finest Cremonas? No one but myself is responsible for +the following conjecture. + +Perhaps there is less tonal difference between the early Amati and +the later Strad than between the early Amati and the full-blown +Stainer; and it may have been the sharp, pungent contrast--the type +of tone that was _quite new_, as it were an original creation--which +at once arrested and held the ear of that epoch. For, after all, +musicians in the seventeenth century were only beginning to be +cultivated in the delicate appreciation of tone _nuances_. The proof +of this would not be far to seek. It is quite notorious, though +to us amazing, that the differences between the Amati, the Strad, +the Guarnerius, and the Bergonzi or Ruggerius, should not have been +more clearly apprehended. When, for instance, a man--an orchestral +leader, too--had bought a Ruggerius and paid for a Joseph, we do not +find that he was dissatisfied with it until he discovered that the +_label_ was false. The superb qualities of the great Joseph have been +appreciated only since the Strad craze; but the world-wide cult of +Strad dates from Tarisio, who began his work of violin exploration +and discovery in 1827, dying only in 1854. But any tyro would be +arrested by the clear, sharp, biting tone of Stainer. A violinist +in the orchestra could make his Stainer cut through all the first +fiddles, and once the taste for that sort of tone was excited, it +would be to the ear what curry, or vinegar, or quinine bitter, or +absinthe is to the palate. The Stainer tone is a sort of drastic, +stinging stimulant to the ear, almost an intoxication; and the ear +that has been once caught by it craves for it, and misses it even in +the loud richness of Joseph, the exquisite velvety timbre of Amati, +or the superb ringing brightness of the great Antonio. + +Thus, in his own original way, Stainer met the crying want of his +age for loud and piercing tone. He was the very antipodes of the +tubby, muffled sound of the old viols. With a bound he reached the +opposite pole. The coarse ears of the multitude were at once tickled +and “grisé,” as the French say, by his wiry intensity; and soloists +soon found that it was an immense help to wield a novel and stinging +timbre which, without any special gift of theirs, awakened attention +like the roll of a drum, or the blast of a cornet, or the tinkle of a +triangle. + +These considerations alone, in my opinion, account for the popularity +of Stainer in all ages; the bulk of hearers belong to the musically +untrained, who like pungency, and desire above all to have their ears +tickled. + +Just in proportion as music developed and the musical ear got trained +to higher and higher refinement, so that specialities of tone became +a cult for the ear, as specialities of colour for the eye, just in +that measure did the great and subtle qualities of the Cremona school +emerge, whilst the rage for Stainer, Klotz, and Duke declined. + +I have no wish to disparage these last-named fine artificers. The +increasing rarity of their instruments, and the really splendid +qualities which we grant ungrudgingly to the best of them, must +always make them much prized, and I fully expect that in a few years +there will be a revival of the Stainer craze, and that his violins +may then touch Cremona prices. I shall be very glad if they do; it +will mean that at last we shall get something like a definite sifting +of this great master’s best specimens, and that in this shaking +in auction rooms, and in the cabinets of collectors, the forged +parasites and impudent copies which have for years sailed under false +colours--labels (libels, I mean)--will fall off into the limbo of +violin refuse and other things “made in Germany.” + +The best pupils and followers of Stainer were Klotz and Albani; +but as it became the fashion to dub every one who made respectable +violins in Germany about that time, and showed traces of the Stainer +model, “pupils” of the great man, modern writers have grown properly +cautious about dogmatising. + +If all Stainer’s reputed pupils had really worked with him, they +ought certainly to have married his eight daughters and relieved him +of some of his heavy family responsibilities. + +Sebastian Klotz or Kloz (1675) and his son Mathias (1696-1709) made +excellent violins, and some prefer the son’s to the father’s. There +were, besides, four other Klotz, relationship uncertain. Sebastian +of Mittenwald visited Florence and Cremona; but although when he +returned to his native town he announced his intention of making +a second Cremona of Mittenwald, he and his family adhered mainly +to the Stainer model, and reproduced very successfully the Stainer +tone. Vidal says that his sons inundated Germany with false Stainers. +Of the great violin manufactory which, on the suppression of the +Mittenwald Fair in the seventeenth century, is said to have revived +the commercial prosperity of the town, no trace now remains; but it +is certain that, whilst the Klotz family lived and worked, a pretty +steady stream of pseudo- (or _scuola_) Stainers poured forth from +Mittenwald till about the year 1750. + +The Albani family, like the Tecchler, stand midway between the +Cremona and the Absam school, but Albani _père_ (1621-73) was +certainly Italian, though he was born and lived at Botzen, in the +Italian Tyrol, where he made German fiddles in the Italian style +and for the Italian market, although his son Joseph was also bitten +with the Cremona model. Albani’s violins pass for Italian; they are +varnished red, and rival the Amati tone, and the Joseph Albanis are +more highly esteemed than the violins of Albani _père_. + +It is further significant of Albani’s popularity in Italy, that +the most accomplished maestro and composer of the early part of +the eighteenth century, Corelli, played on an Albani. This appears +certain from an examination made by Mr Arthur Hill of the will of +the late William Corbet, who had a large collection of rare fiddles, +and disposed of them in his will, where mention is made of an Albani +fiddle, which he left with the memorandum that it had _belonged to +Corelli_. This is a very interesting example of a carefully excavated +fact, and does Mr Arthur Hill great credit. + +Tecchler, also called a pupil of Stainer, is perhaps most esteemed +for his violoncellos, the best of which run the Strad ’cellos very +hard. A very fine Tecchler ’cello is in the possession of Mr E. +W. Hennell (1898), and there are several others in this country. +Tecchler seems to have made few, if any, violins, which is strange, +as his master made few, if any, violoncellos; he worked in Rome +between 1695 and 1735. His instruments are sometimes rather +cumbrous; his varnish is yellow, like Stainer’s. + +The subsequent history of “violins made in Germany” is, to say the +least, very mixed; nothing so good as Stainer was done there before +him, and nothing equal to him has been done there since. + +The golden age of German violin-making begins and ends with Jacobus +Stainer. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +VIOLINS IN FRANCE + + +Italy and Germany have to look back to their golden age, but it seems +as if France and England had to look forward. + +France and England have never yet gone beyond a doubtful silver age, +but there is good reason to think that the manipulation and alchemy +of time, whilst thinning out by wear and tear and loss the older +gems, will not only transform the Piques and Lupôts, and perhaps the +Vuillaumes and Chanots, but also the Banks, Forsters, and Fendts, and +probably the Dukes and Hills, into golden quality, with very advanced +prices; and so, instead of being, like Artemus Ward’s future, +_behind_ them, they may still be found to have their future _before_ +them. + +The French work contemporaneous with the Cremona period is not +nearly so interesting, nor do the makers appear to have been nearly +so capable as the men who followed them towards the close of the +seventeen hundreds. This is no doubt accounted for by the streams of +violins pouring out of the Italian and German workshops, the superior +reputation of Cremona, which drew at once the patronage of the +Spanish and French Courts, and perhaps the small demand for stringed +instruments in France compared with the huge demand in Italy and +throughout Germany. + +So there was a poor market as yet for French work. + +In Italy, in the luxurious little Duchies and Principalities, as +well as in the churches, and in Germany in the small Electorates, +each of which supported its band and gave an indirect impetus to the +churches, Reformed and Roman Catholic, violin-making flourished, and +so it came to pass that Italy and Germany made for all the world. + +The Cremona period in France can boast of but two considerable names, +Jacques Boquay (1705-30) and Pieray (1700-25). Boquay worked on the +early Cremonese model, which had already been left behind by the +modified forms of Stradivari (1700 great period). His violins have +not yet reached a high selling figure, but may possibly rise; they +are by no means scarce; his varnish is reddish-brown, transparent, +warm and soft. He reverted to the Jerome Amati type, arching even a +little more than Jerome. + +The quality of his tone is good, but it lacks power, which in these +advanced days tells against him except for cabinet playing. + +Claude Pieray (1700-25) worked in Paris, and followed the later Amati +contour, but he was far enough removed from the Cremonese influence +to follow a line of his own. Whilst varying, some think capriciously, +the thickness of his wood, and not always securing the best quality +of wood, he varnished pale red, and turned out a small and large +pattern; but he evidently inclined to the larger pattern of the late +Amati Strad. + +A violin of Pieray’s was advertised in the sale of Tom Britton, the +musical coal-heaver, as “a very beautiful violin, and _as good as a +Cremona_,” which shows that even at that date the Stainer influence, +then so strong in England, had not dimmed the fame of Cremona. +However, it would of course have been absurd to compare him to +Stainer, the affinity between Pieray and Amati being too obvious. + +But the really great silver-gilt if not golden age of French +violin-making dawned with Lupôt (1736-58), was extended by Pique +(1788-1822), Vuillaume (1798-1875), Chanot (1801), Gand (1802), and +Aldric (1792-1840), famous for his varnish; and Fent,[2] an admirable +copyist, whose violins often sell as Lupôt’s copies of Strad. + +The labours of these great French disciples of Cremona, copyists and +occasional forgers as they were, are sufficient to decide for ever +the superiority of the Strad model over all others. Their lives were +chiefly occupied in reproducing the unique Antonio minutely without +attempting the least modification of the ultimate Cremona form, which +he had defined. + +The firm of Lupôt, immortalised by Nicolas Lupôt (1758-1824), dates +back to 1696 or somewhat earlier. The father and grandfather of +Nicolas Lupôt resided at different times at Plombiers, Luneville, +and Orleans, but Nicolas was born at Stuttgart in 1758. He returned +to Orleans in 1770. + +[Illustration: F. TOURTE] + +[Illustration: N. LUPOT] + +Nicolas Lupôt was a man of great discernment, and not carried away +with the fashion of the times. Although during the first twenty years +of his life he must have seen and heard the German model of Stainer +extolled, neither his own work nor yet his father’s show any leaning +towards it. His eye was enamoured with the Stradivari grand pattern, +and his best violins are such loving and faithful copies of the +great Antonio that many amateurs and some professional judges have +been deceived by them. But Lupôt never got rid of the glassy, chippy +French varnish, and although his warm orange tints are generous and +the varnish has been laid on with a lavish hand, the rubbing bare +by time of a Lupôt is very different from that fading away upon the +fibres of a Strad, where always a subtler film protecting the wood +seems to linger, a sort of mist of varnish to the end. + +But Nicolas Lupôt was a great workman, and, as Hamlet modestly puts +it, “indifferently honest”--that is, honest as violin copyists go. He +did not imitate, he _copied_, and varnished throughout; he never aged +his copies prematurely, or tried to take in buyers; he reverenced his +great Cremona model too much to palm off his own work as those of the +master. Of course his violins have rubbed since and aged since, but +they have aged and rubbed honestly, and are every year increasing +in value, and distinctly mellowing in tone and sensitive quality. +The moment Nicolas Lupôt arrived in Paris, early in this century, +his talents were recognised; orders flowed in, and he remained and +remains without a rival in the French school. + +He was appointed maker to the Paris Conservatoire, which involved +the manufacture of the annual prize violin to be presented to the +gold medallist of the year, and to this academic privilege we are +doubtless indebted for some of his finest efforts. A violin which +would annually at the time be associated with one of the chief +musical events of the year, and come under the criticism of all +musical Paris, would certainly call forth the mettle of one who +admittedly “took the cake,” but was not without formidable rivals. + +One of these rivals was Pique. He was in the habit, it is said, of +buying Lupôt’s fiddles unvarnished, varnishing them, and labelling +them with his own name. He had better have left the varnishing alone +and contented himself with a fraudulent label. It is surprising +that he should have stooped to such a device. Pique is quite a +considerable person, second only to Lupôt as a maker. He must have +been influenced by commercial considerations, but his dishonesty is +a great tribute to the superior popularity and merit of Lupôt. Still +Pique was so clever that he could have afforded to be honest. + + * * * * * + +François Gand, who entered as Lupôt’s pupil in 1802, was much beloved +by his master. He became his best pupil, married his daughter, and +succeeded to his business in the Rue Croix des Petits Champs in 1824. + +Time has invented a new industry--the art of repairing--which +François Gand raised to a veritable fine art (Mennégand, Kolliker, +Rambeaux and W. Ebsworth Hill have since rivalled him). Pique would +join and split mutilated grain in such a way that, without the aid of +a microscope, the patch or closed fissure cannot be spotted. He would +spend days over mending a crack; it became with him a sort of passion +of ingenuity. + +It was almost worth breaking a fiddle to have it mended by Gand, and +his exquisite skill and profound knowledge as a repairer no doubt +gave rise to the common but risky notion that an old violin was +improved by being mended, as some surgeons pretend that a skilful +operation will not only prolong life, but positively improve the +constitution. The firm of Gand and Bernadel is still of high standing +in Paris. The violins of François are useful and solidly built, but +lack altogether the Italian grace and finish of his master, Lupôt. + +Pique (1788-1822) is by some held to have run Lupôt very hard as a +copyist of Stradivari. Pique avoids at once the error of the vulgar +copyist, who cannot refrain from emphasising the peculiarities of his +model, and the sin of the brazen forger, who bakes and rubs, treats +with acids, and simulates the cracks and the wear and tear of time. +But Pique had some conscience. He may have passed himself off as +Lupôt, but at least he never posed as Stradivari. + +Those conversant with Pique’s instruments observe a very high and +conscientious finish throughout. Spohr, the violinist and composer, +played for many years on a Lupôt, and was never tired of extolling +both Lupôt and Pique. Pique died in 1822, two years before Lupôt, +and his violins improve every year, and will by-and-by fetch prices +second only to those of Lupôt, which are already up to £200 (1897). + + +A VIGNETTE OF J. B. VUILLAUME. + +If I were to seek for an appropriate pendant to the figure of +William Ebsworth Hill in London, I could not find a better one +than Jean Baptiste Vuillaume of Paris. Yet the two men were very +different;--the careful, neat, systematic enthusiast, with a shrewd +eye to business, and the dreamy worker always apparently in the midst +of a chaos of material, out of which he alone could select at a +moment’s notice what he required; the ready purveyor of whatever sort +of article happened to be wanted, and the careless distributor of his +wares, who forgot what he owed his customers, and kept them waiting +for months; the clever copyist, the reverent repairer, the ingenious +brain for ever evolving new sorts of bows, fiddle shapes, screws; and +the idolater of the old forms, who had so firmly grasped the truth +that violins and all that belonged to them had culminated at Cremona +before the middle of the eighteenth century, that he never aspired to +invent anything new or alter anything old;--the Parisian, who made +many fiddles, and died rich; the Londoner, who made few fiddles, +but repaired innumerable antiques, and died with but a moderate +competence. The force of contrast could go no further; nay, you can +look at the two men’s faces, and see the secret of their characters +writ plain enough. + +[Illustration: J. B. VUILLAUME] + +[Illustration: WILLIAM EBSWORTH HILL] + +I can remember old Hill’s dreamy gaze, peering at me with screwed-up +eyes through his spectacles. You were nothing in particular to him, +duke or pauper; it was your fiddle that gave you the importance +or the reverse in his eyes. But look at Jean Baptiste Vuillaume’s +portrait--it lies before me as I write: the jaunty embroidered and +tasselled velvet skull-cap, the well-arranged black satin tie, the +well-cut coat, the grave sharp look and keen eye, not dreaming at +all, but taking everything in at a glance; the mouth a little aslant, +as we often see it in men of speculative and ingenious minds; the +firm fine nose, and the strong quiet face, but a face that betrays +a mind ever alert, capable of dominating its owner’s gifts, his +customers, and the market generally, whilst the man was genuinely +devoted to the art and craft which made him great, and rich, and +famous. Yes, the two great connoisseurs might well hang side by side +in twin frames, for they are two types, united by a like enthusiasm +and speciality of craft and knowledge, but differently interesting, +variously unique each in his own way. + +Both were hereditary violin-makers, and the tendency--I had almost +said the cult--was born and bred in the blood. + +Vuillaume was early saturated, in his father’s workshop at Mirecourt, +with all the secrets and arts of the trade, long before he served his +apprenticeship. But Paris drew the young fellow, then only nineteen, +with an irresistible magnetism. + +Victor Hugo, that typical Parisian of Parisians, has somewhere +described the Frenchman’s inborn love of his capital, the centre to +him of life, art, pleasure, movement, industry, and invention. So to +Paris must your Jean Baptiste go. But to whom?--to whom but Chanot +(Francis), incomparable worker, copyist, forger, suitable adept, +indeed, for such a bright novice. + +With Chanot, Vuillaume remained till 1821, when he went over to Lété, +the organ-builder, who also dabbled in fiddles, and was glad to +have at his beck and call as a foreman such a specialist, with all +the experience of Mirecourt and the craft of Chanot at his back; in +fact, he lost no time in taking the young man into partnership, and +the partner throve so well that he married in 1828, being then just +thirty years old. + +Things ran smoothly with Vuillaume; his wife did not drink, or abuse +him, or waste his money. His home was happy, and, in the sunshine of +domestic peace, his talents expanded in the direction of that growing +market which was created by the taste for old fiddles, excited by +Tarisio, and supplied by the not always scrupulous skill of Chanot. + +But Vuillaume went one better than Chanot. Chanot’s trick was to +produce such deceptive copies or patch with counterfeit backs +and bellies of his own--or to forge downright a whole antique, +to be foisted upon some unwary but ill-informed enthusiast. But +Vuillaume, to his honour be it said, soon discerned that the world +at large could not be won by fraud, but that men were the slaves of +imagination and sentiment. This timely and philosophic discovery made +him famous and wealthy, almost at a bound. He loved the old Italian +fiddles; he had the best opportunities of seeing them; his admirable +technique enabled him to copy them accurately--to counterfeit the +wear and tear, even the cracks and worm-holes, the inlaying, the +rubbed varnish, the old wood; and for about five pounds, or even +less, he proposed to provide people with new fiddles, which looked +like old ones worth fifty or a hundred pounds. + +The device succeeded beyond the dreams of avarice. Orders poured in +faster than they could be executed. Just look at the old man’s face. +Can you not see the shrewdness, betrayed by that slight pucker in +the lip, which discovered and worked this now familiar tendency of +human nature to possess what _seems_, if you can’t afford to buy what +_is_ really good? It is the secret of cheap art, shoddy satsuma, +coarse blue china, common silks, oleographs, and sham Palais Royal +jewellery galore--every bazaar reeks with it; whilst the biggest +warehouses are not above selling a made-up wine that deceives the +palate, a walking-stick not ebony, only paint or stain, and furniture +not really inlaid, but ditto ditto. So Vuillaume began early those +amazing copies, chiefly of Stradiuarius, which even now deceive the +innocent, and for a moment may even puzzle a connoisseur. Well, it +was no doubt shoddy, but shoddy of the best sort; shoddy raised to a +fine art, like those roses so subtly made out of silk or cambric that +we might easily pop them into water to prevent them from fading. + +This new-found copying industry was a delight as well as a profit to +the clever French craftsman. + +He loved a Cremona; he copied it as men copy the old masters again +and again, till they know every touch of the immortal workman, and +revel in its reproduction. + +“I have completed,” remarked Vuillaume in his declining years, “three +thousand instruments, all sold, all paid for, and the money spent, +and it affords me great satisfaction.” + +Like Ebsworth Hill, Jean Baptiste loved to do it all himself. Every +instrument was varnished carefully by his own hands, and many are +made throughout by him. + +But what is the actual merit of Vuillaume’s violins? Fine work, yes; +admirable counterfeits, yes; but the great expectations raised by the +appearances are unfortunately not always answered by the tone. His +best are good, and will run into forty pounds, perhaps more; but his +worst are dear at five pounds. Nor can Vuillaume pretend to rival in +power his great French predecessors, Pique or Lupôt, who copied, but +without registering the defects of age, accident, and decay, which +are so cleverly reproduced in Vuillaume’s typical specimens. + +It is an exaggeration to say that Vuillaume baked his fiddles; but +he treated the wood chemically in various ways, besides reproducing +cracks and even worm-holes; and this artificial age put upon +his planks not only fails to carry the mellowness and timbre of +wood grown naturally old, but seems actually to impair instead +of improving its quality, and this is but too apparent as the +instruments recede in time farther and farther from the hand of the +too cunning artificer. + +There are, however, a few fine quartets of instruments, one of which, +made for the Comte de Chimay, was lately exposed to public view in +Messrs Hill’s windows in Bond Street. These are varnished equally +throughout, and no attempt at aging the wood or tampering with the +surface is visible. The work throughout is charming and finished, +as in the best Cremonese models, and the only wonder is, that as +everything about them is so good, the tone is not better; still, +everything is relative. But Vuillaume claims to be judged by a high +standard, and so we judge him. + +Vuillaume’s ingenious brain was ever devising improvements and +novelties, but few of them have turned out successes. + +He made a violin tenor, but it never came into use, it being too +cumbrous. He made a steel bow; but, although hollow, it was found to +be too heavy. He made a sourdine tailpiece which acted on the bridge, +but it has never superseded the usual simple dummy contrivance. He +made a self-hairing bow, which is still sold by Mr Withers; but most +violinists prefer to pay a small sum and get their bows haired, just +as most men prefer to get themselves shaved--it is less trouble, and +does not cost much. + +Apart from his undoubted finish as a workman, and skill as a copyist, +Jean Baptiste Vuillaume’s title to fame will rest largely on his +connection with Tarisio. As we have seen, he not only dealt with him +living, but bought all the violins found in the bedroom along with +the peasant carpenter’s lifeless body. + +His possession of the Messie, which he kept in a glass case, and +never allowed any one to touch, was a source of great anxiety to him +during the Paris Commune in 1870. + +He writes to Madame Alard, his daughter, who married the celebrated +violinist of that name: “In my last I spoke to you of Alard’s violin +and my Messie, and of certain valuables I have here. I do not know +what to do with them, for if one survives, one will be able to +recover the valuables when the hubbub is over; and some _sous_ can be +buried, but violins cannot be buried.” And again: “Where ought I to +place all these in case of pillage?” + +He referred chiefly to his violins, and old medals received in the +Paris Exhibition from 1827 to 1855, and the Great Exhibition medal in +London, 1851. + +Later on we are relieved by reading: “I have found quite a safe +hiding-place protected from fire, _et puis à la grace de Dieu_!” + +All went well with the treasures, and in 1875, when he died, the +Messie fell to the joint share of his only two children, Jeanne +and Claire. Jeanne (Madame Alard) bought out Claire’s interest for +five hundred pounds, the violin at that time being valued at one +thousand. In 1890 Messrs Hill bought it for Mr R. Crawford for the +unprecedented figure of two thousand pounds, the largest sum ever +given by a dealer for a single instrument. Mr Charles Reade valued it +at six hundred, but that was several years ago, when a first-class +Strad could be obtained for about three hundred and twenty pounds. +Prices have run up since then, and (like “Charley’s Aunt”[3] as we +write) are “still running”! + +Down to the end of his life Vuillaume was a great dealer, and he +hurried over to London when quite an old man to attend the sale of +Mr Gillot’s fiddles. He mistook the date, and arrived a day after +the sale. He came into Mr Hill’s shop in Wardour Street, and gave +vent to his disappointment. Mr Hill, whom he always visited when in +London, had bought several instruments, and had a second deal with +Vuillaume then and there, much to the Frenchman’s gratification. It +is interesting to catch this glimpse of the two greatest dealers +and artificers of the age face to face for one moment, and in such +friendly and characteristic relations. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +VIOLINS IN ENGLAND + + +It is an amusing fact that hardly a Continental writer on musical +instruments, M. Vidal excepted, has thought it worth while to give +any reasoned account of the English viol and violin-makers who have +occupied such a distinguished place in the history of the art. + +I heard the other day of an American school atlas which left out all +the islands in the world as unimportant details calculated to confuse +the minds of young students. England, of course, being a small +island, was one of the first to disappear. + +The names of Barak Norman, Banks, Forster, and Duke may be somewhat +confusing, but we must risk the mention of them just for the sake of +an approximate completeness. + +The fact is, that in Queen Elizabeth’s time the English were really +almost a musical people. Whether the viols came across from the Low +Countries or Germany or from Italy has never seemed to me a matter +of much importance. Undoubtedly the viol and its descendants is +cloisteral, and that means Italian, since all the arts along with +Christianity spread from the great Italian centres--Rome, Florence, +Milan, Brescia; and in Elizabeth’s time Italian influence is as +marked in English music as it is in the Shakspearian drama, or in +these gorgeous brocades, silks, and tapestries that still dazzle us +behind glass at the South Kensington Museum, or in such Elizabethan +gems of Renaissance architecture as Knole and Hatfield, which seem to +touch as with the glory of a foreign world the palatial seats “of our +old nobility.” + +Modern music rises in Elizabeth’s reign with Monte Verde and the +discovery of the octave and the perfect cadence. + +Along with it rise the Italian singing-schools of Naples; whilst the +viols, improved to meet the new demands, culminate in the Brescian, +Maggini and the Cremonese Amati patterns (the very word Madrigala, +the hymn of the Mother of God, is Italian and cloisteral), and the +viols which accompanied such part-songs were doubtless of Italian +origin. + +But, for all that, the viols were genuinely naturalised and +acclimatised in England, and for a short time it seemed as if England +were even going to lead the art of viol manufacture. + +The father of Galileo the astronomer declared in 1583 that the +best lutes were at that time _made in England_, and we know that +lute-making and viol-making so invariably went together that in +France and Italy the violin-maker is to this day called a “lutier”; +and J. J. Rousseau remarks, a little loosely perhaps: “The viol +passed from the Italians to the English, who _first_ began to compose +and play harmonised pieces for it, and who imparted the knowledge to +other kingdoms.” + +Mace, an old writer and quite a musical expert (1676), mentions +the viols of Ross (1598) and Smith (1633) as “old instruments” in +his day. But the movement did not go on, and I cannot for a moment +doubt that what checked the rise of music and the manufacture of +musical instruments in this country was that same Puritan craze which +snubbed art, smashed the stained glass, and mutilated our cathedrals +throughout the land. + +Viols had by this time crept out of the cloister and joined hands +with the frivolous Rebek, used at fairs and pothouses. At all events, +in Cromwell’s time and the “Barebones-praise-God period,” everything +that savoured of festivity was tabooed, and the fury against art +seemed part and parcel of all sincere religion, according to the +masses at least. + +To Cromwell’s honour be it set down that he was personally no +such extremist, and that he, moreover, saved for us Raffael’s +cartoons; but still music in any of its secular forms was mightily +discouraged by the Puritans, whilst in its higher religious form it +was associated with Prelacy and Papacy, and we have to wait for that +reaction in favour of the world, the flesh, and the devil, which +marked the Restoration, and which also made provision for the more +innocent as well as the more perilous delights of music in the home, +the concert room, the theatre, and the sanctuary. + +In Charles I.’s band (1625) there were “eleven violins and four +viols,” so at last the violin was creeping up; but not until Charles +II.’s restoration did the full-fledged violin come in with a rush of +“four-and-twenty” fiddlers, over whom presided no less a person than +the immortal Thomas Purcell, who, in a brief span of life, achieved +his almost Mozartian fame, and died at the early age of twenty-seven, +just ten years younger than the incomparable Wolfgang Amadeus. + +The King had no doubt got his notion of fiddle bands from Louis +XIII.’s “petits violons du roi”; and from the French Court, our +“merrie monarch” borrowed a good many other ideas of a less +respectable and harmless character. + +The King was so seriously addicted to music that he could hardly +hear a sermon and never eat his dinner without the solatium of his +four-and-twenty fiddlers. + +“They played before him at his meals,” writes Anthony Wood in the +diary of his life, “as being more airy and brisk than the viols”; +and the grave Evelyn much resents the invasion of the upstart “petit +violon” and its profane intrusion. He writes in 1662: “One of his +Majesty’s chaplains preached, after which, instead of anthem or +solemn wind music accompanying the organ, was introduced a concert of +twenty-four violins between every pause, in the French fantastical +light way, better suiting a tavern or a playhouse than a church.” + +’Tis an ill wind that blows nobody and nothing any good, and we +cannot doubt that his Majesty’s royal mistresses, like the Duchess +of Cleveland (Barbara Palmer), the Duchess of St Albans (Nell Gwynn, +the actress), the mother of the Duke of Monmouth (Lucy Walters), the +Duchess of Portsmouth (Louise de Querouaille, a French girl), greatly +favoured all the more frivolous diversions with which secular music, +and especially the new-fangled violin, were associated. + +These ladies were bound to be musical, as music undoubtedly delighted +the “merrie monarch,” and flattered his jaded tastes by its frequent +novelty and emotional excitations. + +The revellers at Whitehall soon attracted to the capital the greatest +violin players from foreign parts. The supremacy of the new violin +pattern was achieved, and the rage of virtuosity began. + +Even John Evelyn succumbed to the witchery of Thomas Balzar, a Swede, +who arrived in 1656. He seems to have been the Paganini of the +period, and electrified the Court. Evelyn calls him “incomparable”; +he played off at sight the most amazing difficulties with ravishing +sweetness and “improvements”; he played a full concert on his single +instrument, so that the rest flung down their violins, acknowledging +the victory. As to worthy Mr Paul Wheeler and Mr Mell, who were the +Spohrs and De Beriots of their day, they had to hide their diminished +heads. + +We are not surprised to hear after this that his Majesty installed +the great Balzar as director of his twenty-four violins, retained his +services at court, and buried him in the cloisters of Westminster +Abbey. + +It will be convenient to focus our attention on English violin-making +about this time, for doubtless the arrival of these foreign players, +and the popularity of the king’s band, gave a great impetus to our +native manufacture. The supply of foreign violins, for which there +was now a growing demand abroad--_i.e._, in England and France--began +to give out as the century waned. There were plenty of old _viols_, +but no _old violins_ to fall back upon; the violin was a new product; +and, as the court set the fashion, we should naturally expect +the English viol-makers would be wide awake to the importance of +supplying the new want, and such was the case. + +The Brescian and Cremonese fiddles were hardly known in England, and +what the Italians made were chiefly for home consumption. + +As the English were great viol-makers in Elizabeth’s time, we may +ask: Why did they allow the Italians to take the lead in violins? Why +is the English school of violins at least fifty, and the best English +violins a hundred years later than the early Cremona _chefs-d’œuvre_? +Why is Nicolo Amati’s date 1596-1684, whilst W. Forster is 1713-1801, +Duke 1769, and Banks 1795? The answer is not far to seek: the fact +that violin manufacture was checked by the Puritan movement in +England, whilst its progress in Italy was steady and continuous, +enabled the Italians to steal a march upon us which turned us into +pupils, and pupils afar off too, when we resumed the industry. I do +not say that the superior climatic conditions and generally the art +atmosphere of the small Italian courts must not also be taken into +account; but when attention was called to improved tonal quality, and +a timbre, power, and sensibility undreamed of by the old viol-makers +became _de rigueur_, in response to the demands of virtuosity and the +advance of the musical art, Italy was bound to win; such Tyrolean +woods, such varnish, such sun, such sentiment, as was required for +the perfect evolution of the violin, could hardly be found outside +Italy. Both Spain and Germany confessed to the fact, nor could +England put it aside. Accordingly, the highest praise that was ever +given to an English maker was given to Benjamin Banks (1727-95), who +was called “The English Amati”; but to this day no one has ever been +called “The English Stradivari”! + +Passing by Aireton (died in 1807), who copied Amati, but used yellow +varnish; Henry Jay (1744-77); the famous kit-makers (the kit is a +tiny instrument with normal neck and finger-board, used chiefly by +dancing-masters), the Kennedys, father and son (1730-1870), most +prolific but mediocre fabricators, chiefly of violins and tenors; +Panormo and Parker, the two first excellent eighteenth-century +makers; we make special mention of John Rayman, one of, if not the +earliest, English violin-maker. “An extraordinary Rayman” was amongst +the violins owned by Britton, the musical coal-heaver. Urquhart was +also a maker of exceptional originality. + +Pamphilon (1685) was a fair and excellent workman, high model, +moderate tone, with quite splendid varnish. “Peter Walmsley, at Ye +Golden Harp in Piccadilly,” good copyist of Stainer and an excellent +maker, we are bound to notice on account of his early date and more +solid reputation. + +“Barak Norman” worked and sold fiddles at St Paul’s Churchyard +(1683-1740). His label runs thus, with a ✠ and crown above it, +similar to the labels of Del Gesù, some of which he may have seen: +“Barak Norman and Nathaniel Cross, at the Bass Viol in S. Paul’s +Churchyard, London, fecit 1702.” + +Mr Walter Brooksbank of Windermere had one of the Cross viol da +gamba, in which, after the style of the early bell founders, the +instrument is supposed thus to speak for itself. “Nathaniel Cross +wrought my back and belly” (the scroll and sides being by Barak +Norman). + +Meares, about whom little to speak of is known, except that he was +probably a pupil of Rayman’s, is reputed to have taught Barak Norman. + +Meares is known to have adopted the Brescian model. He was probably +the earliest English maker of violoncellos. He retains some of +the decorative use of purfling, which rapidly went out as the new +violins came in. He runs his purfle into his monogram with attendant +flourishes. Meares made at first chiefly viols, after that tenors of +excellent quality. + +His violins are much esteemed. He was a close copyist of Maggini. + +Three of his viols were exhibited in the South Kensington Loan +Collection of 1872, but one of them, dated 1690, had been cut down. + +It remained for Stradiuarius, in the dawning year of the eighteenth +century, to discover and fix the model of the bass viol that needed +no cutting down. + +The musical world owes a debt of eternal gratitude to the Forster +family; there were four of them. + +“Great-grandfather John (1683), maker of spinning-wheels and violins. + +“Grandfather William, _the_ Forster, commonly called ‘Old Forster.’ + +“Father William, No. 2, who also made spinning-wheels. + +“William, No. 3 (1764-1824).” + +His sons, the two brothers William (1733-1824), and Simon Andrew +(1731-1869). + +The second Forster (1739-1807), William, called “Old Forster,” bears +off the palm. + +Born in the north, a native of Brampton, he made his market, like his +father, out of the spinning-wheel industry of Cumberland, but he was +a many-sided man, a great repairer of viols, and afterwards a maker +of violins, the greatest maker in the north--the greatest maker in +all England. + +He commended his violins to the public by playing on them himself. He +was not beneath playing at country dances and on village greens. + +We may be sure he never lost an opportunity of parting, for a +consideration, with the violin he played upon--since naturally, +people would often be seized with a desire to possess themselves of +an instrument which they had heard discourse such excellent music and +to the purpose. + +Indeed, I have sometimes known professors in these days who would so +cunningly play to their pupils that they have been able to palm off +for considerable sums quite inferior instruments. + +How much more easy must it have been for the man who made them, +and made none but the best, and played them on occasions when his +purchasers’ spirits were high and their dispositions yielding, to +dispose of his exceptional wares. + +About 1759 Forster seems to have concluded that Cumberland was played +out, and, sighing for new worlds to conquer, he came south. He was +quite a young man, but in the great whirlpool of London, as it was +even then, he seems to have sunk so low as cattle-driving, but that +is in itself a tribute to his versatility and pluck. Presently he +sets up in the Commercial Road, East, but finding there neither +demands for spinning-wheels nor fiddles, takes to gunstock-making, +till he at last “strikes ile” with one Beck, of Tower Hill, and there +makes such fiddles that Beck grows fat while Forster remains lean. + +Unable to get his wages raised, he leaves Beck in 1762, and sets up +at Duke’s Court, a site now occupied by the National Gallery. + +For about ten years Forster adopted the high Stainer pattern, then +so popular in England, and attracted the patronage of amateurs like +Colonel West. Afterwards he set up in St Martin’s Lane, and then +went to 348 Strand. He had by this time attracted the attention of +royalty, and the Duke of Cumberland, George III.’s son, is said even +to have once dined with him off black pudding. + +Old Forster’s versatility and enterprise is still further shown by +his opening communications with the great Joseph Haydn, and it is +chiefly to him that England owes the introduction and publication of +Haydn’s immortal Symphonies. + +The shrewd old man doubtless saw the profit which lay hid in a scheme +which would popularise the greatest _writer_ for stringed instruments +who ever lived, and he had not miscalculated. + +The same cleverness which prompted him to give the English a dose of +the Stainer model when Stainer was the rage, prompted him to revert +to the later Amati grand pattern as he reached his ripe maturity. He +also changed his varnish before the close of his life, and is said +to have found the secret of solving amber with the assistance of the +chemist Delaporte, who invented some stuff known as the Verins Martin. + +Amongst his patrons were George III., who, as Prince of Wales, was +fond of playing the violoncello, probably one of “Old Forster’s,” +and who, when he asked Haydn, who had been listening to him, how he +thought he played, received the altogether diplomatic reply, “Vy, +your ’ighness do play like a Brince.” + +Peter Pindar (Dr Walcot) and Bartolozzi the engraver were also +amongst Forster’s patrons. He made but four double-basses, and his +tenors and ’cellos are thought better of than his violins. They are +steadily rising in value. He died in the same year as Haydn (1808). +His son William already suffered much from the foreign competition, +which was just beginning to tell, the duty which protected the +English manufactures having been removed. + +William made some very good instruments, but they do not equal his +father’s; and he made a great deal of rubbish for the trade besides. + +There was no doubt a certain erratic vein in the Forster family, +which in Old Forster took the shape of amazing versatility and +profitable enterprise, but which in his son and grandson degenerated +into speculative eccentricity. The son went in for buying grocery, +and invested in other bad businesses. The grandson turned out very +unmanageable, but clever and many-sided; he worked for a time with +Thomas Kennedy, but got away from him and went in for play-acting, +sometimes taking a turn in the orchestra at the violoncello desk. He +made about fifteen instruments altogether, two or three of which only +approached the Forster high level. He died in 1824, suddenly, whilst +still quite a young man. + +His brother Simon made a large number of violins--tenors and ’cellos; +they are those signed S. A. Forster, but they do not rank very high. +He was the first to write a history of the violin, and has deserved +well of all succeeding writers, who quote him with a touching +simplicity of faith, as though, forsooth, because the first, he must +needs be the best authority. + +At the name of Benjamin Banks all tenor and ’cello players lift their +hats; for although the later importation into England of Cremonas +has somewhat obscured our countryman’s fame, his splendid work--even +surpassed, as some think, by his sons James and Henry--is bound to +hold the market again; and a name extolled by the great virtuoso +Lindley, whose favourite instrument was a Banks, is not likely to be +neglected by Lindley’s successors, even though they may be the happy +possessors of Stradivari basses. + +Benjamin Banks (1727-1795) was a contemporary of Old Forster +(1713-1801), but there is no reason to suppose that the two +artificers ever met or materially interfered with each other; for +Banks worked at Salisbury, whilst Forster worked in London, and no +express trains bore fiddles or fiddle-buyers swiftly to and fro in +those days. + +Benjamin Banks copied Nicolo Amati very closely; but Mr Sandys +speaks of a rare long-shaped violoncello of his quite of the Stainer +pattern, with the round-topped Stainer sound-holes. This was none +other than the great Lindley’s famous instrument which so nearly +escaped destruction in a coach accident. The passengers had a bad +shaking and a bad spill, and Lindley and his violoncello among them; +but the rare enthusiast, in the midst of the confusion, had but +one thought. He flew to his ’cello-case, and was found seated in a +ditch, quietly playing away to assure himself that his beloved was +uninjured. + +Mr Lucas had an excellent Benjamin Banks violin, but Banks tenors +and violoncellos are more esteemed. Banks made no double-basses; +his varnish is yellow-brown, of excellent quality, but badly laid +on, that on his bellies being often clotted, so that, in technical +parlance, it is said to kill the grain. + +The Earl of Pembroke, who presumably knew no better, ordered a +violoncello of Banks to be made entirely out of an old cedar-tree, +which had been blown down in his lordship’s park (Wilton). It was, as +might have been foreseen, a great failure in tone. Of course Banks +made it “right enough,” and pocketed the money, but it is doubtful +whether the Earl ever got his money’s worth. + +I remember a very carefully made violin, all of silver, another +expensive freak of ignorance and eccentricity; doubtless it sounded +like a tin kettle, and was musically of no use whatever. Some of us +may have heard an ingenious itinerant violinist playing on a tin +biscuit-box with similar results. + +Benjamin’s scrolls are not very elegant, but that does not affect +his tone. Benjamin had a very good idea of his own importance, and +probably, too, a suspicion of the extent to which his name would be +taken in vain after his death. He tried to make this more difficult +by not only varying his labels in about four different ways, but also +stamping his instruments in several places with his own peculiar +seal, B.B. + +Benjamin’s sons fell far below their father, but the old man left +quite a number of white unvarnished instruments in a cellar when the +business was sold, all of which were duly completed and sent forth +with his name, to which, however, they have but a partial right; for, +as his sons worked with him, it is by no means certain that every +fiddle in Bank’s shop at the time of his death was made by Benjamin +_père_. + +Duke (1754-69) was remarkable as having largely contributed to create +in England the Stainer furore which so confused the judgment of +amateurs in this country, and retarded for at least fifty years the +triumph of the Stradivari grand pattern. In reality the best Dukes +are on the Amati pattern, but they are few in number, and though +there are innumerable fraudulent Dukes about, a real Duke is seldom +seen. The fraudulent Dukes exaggerate the high bellies and deep +grooving of the earlier Amati, and thus pass for Stainer pattern. +Duke’s varnish is also of a yellow or yellow-brown hue. It is not +likely that Duke’s reputation will increase, though the rarity of +genuine Dukes and the plentiful number of counterfeits may still run +up a few real specimens to fancy prices. + +I cannot close this brief survey of the old English makers without +a mention of Bernard Fendt (1756-1832). He was originally a Swiss +cabinet-maker, but coming to London, went into business with Thomas +Dodd, for whom, and with whom, he began to make violins. Fendt soon +got hold of another cabinet-maker, a compatriot, and Dodd took him +also into the business. These two clever artificers soon raised +Dodd’s business to great prosperity, and Dodd thus had the honour of +putting his own name in their violins. All he had done, however, was +to varnish them, but he did that superlatively well, so that Dodd’s +varnish became as famous as Dodd’s bows. + +Fendt afterwards left Dodd and worked for John Betts, who was famous +for his imitations of Amati, which he said paid better than making +fiddles with his own name in them. Many of his best imitations were +made by Fendt, who has thus created the reputation of two makers +besides himself. His son, who died only in 1851, would have equalled +his father had he not been seduced by the vicious practice of +prematurely aging his violins, thus pandering to the taste for old +fiddles at the expense of the fiddles themselves--for it is notorious +that such frauds do not improve by age. + + +A VIGNETTE OF W. E. HILL. + +Dark--yes, to my eyes very dark; but the light in William Ebsworth +Hill’s old shop in Wardour Street was good enough for him; a greater +glare might have flouted those hundreds of old brown fiddles, +and dusty débris of fiddles, which that very moderately sized +establishment was hung, lined, strewn, and littered o’er with. + +So the dim light, relieved on foggy days with a casual gas-jet, or +even a candle-end, seemed better than the garish sunlight for that +dusky brood--even as the moonbeam, according to Sir Walter Scott, +touched the grey ruins of Melrose more tenderly than the light of +day. + +There were no electric lamps in those days (in 1870), consequently no +patent asbestos appliances for converting the impure London gas into +a specious and blazing rival. + +Mr Hill tried to do too much. In his back shop he conducted repairs, +and frequently brought his “repairs” into the front shop. I have seen +him there, behind the counter, busy with gouge, knife, or scraper. +When customers or applicants for advice arrived--some with cheap +German fiddles which they fondly believed to be rare specimens of +Cremona, others with their own good, bad, and indifferent instruments +to be done up--they were received one and all with the same mild and +tolerant inattention, born not of incivility, but of abstraction. +Such as knew Mr Hill in those days, knew the nearest approach we +shall perhaps ever see to the great Cremona makers. I do not say that +any of Mr Hill’s work (barring his exquisite repairs and carving) is +likely to rank with theirs; he was an admirable maker, but he very +soon left off making. When the duty on foreign violins was removed +there poured into England a continuous stream of fiddles, which +entirely swamped the demand for new ones of English make. Mr Hill, +following the market, turned his attention to repairing and dealing; +but the art and craft atmosphere, the knowledge, the familiarity +with violin constitution, the infallible intuition and single-minded +love of the violin for its own sake, as a thing of beauty, wonder, +mystery, more than enough to monopolise a lifetime of devotion--this +is what made Mr Ebsworth Hill the spiritual heir of the grand old +fiddle-makers. “Why,” he said to me once, “talk about not knowing +the touch of this or that maker? I know the sort of tools Stradivari +or Joseph used. I can see the mark of a special favourite knife here +or gouge there. I know which way he used to cut and slice, and how +he held his tool for such and such a kind of finish. I can see ’em +at work, and the handling of one is no more like another’s than the +touch of one painter is like another’s.” + +When you took a fiddle in to show Mr Hill, you had to wait Mr Hill’s +good time; he seldom answered immediately he was spoken to, but would +look up dreamily through his spectacles without laying down his file +or knife, and let off some such dogmatic and oracular sentence as: +“You want to know how I can tell a fiddle. Well, I don’t know how I +can tell; and there are days when I don’t trust my judgment--days I +can’t see, for instance. I leave off looking at fiddles for a day +or two; and when I come back I take up this fiddle and that, and +just at first I can’t see anything--those fiddles tell me nothing; +it’s a peculiar state of mind--just as a player or a surgeon’s hand +gets out, so a judge’s eye gets out. I know exactly when I see and +when I can’t see, and when I can’t see I hold my tongue; and I know +exactly how much I can see, but I don’t tell everybody.” The casual +visitor could make very little of old Hill at first. There was a +curious sort of inner otherwhereness--to coin a word--about him. Some +people found him very trying indeed. You never knew whether he heard +what you said; but when at last he favoured you with a remark, you +discovered that he had not only heard your words, but that he had +accurately gauged _you_. + +His action was often unexpected and sometimes alarming. I one day +entered his shop with a friend who had a fiddle which he much +prized, and indeed it was a really valuable instrument, but needed +overhauling. + +We both stood in front of the counter, and old Hill was bending over +a scroll that he was fitting on to a new neck. I addressed him on +behalf of my friend, but he took no notice whatever; he remained +absorbed in his delicate adjustments; and no Prince of the blood +would have fared any better than we did until he had finished what he +was about. Again I mentioned my friend’s name: “Mr ---- has brought +you his fiddle to look at by my advice. Perhaps you can tell him what +ought to be done.” Hill looked up, nodded, eyed my friend through his +spectacles with cold interest, and then resumed his work. I had to +rouse him a second time before he seemed to grasp the fact that my +anxious friend had taken his precious Cremona from its case and was +standing with it in his hand ready for the magician’s inspection. + +At last Hill laid down his tool, and taking the instrument in his +hands, gave it one quick glance and a couple of taps; he then +deliberately looked in its astonished owner’s face, tore off the +finger-board, loosened the neck, and drove a knife under the belly. +The fiddle was soon in pieces, and he threw the loose fragments aside +in a heap, took up his repairs again, and said he would attend to the +matter by-and-by, and the gentleman need not stop; and we got no more +out of old Hill that day, who immediately became reabsorbed in his +work. + +I shall never forget the rueful and amazed look with which my poor +friend beheld the tearing to pieces of his Cremona, but I touched him +on the arm, and seeing that Hill was in no mood for talk, got him +out of the shop, assuring him that it was all right, and that the +great repairer had shown more interest than usual in his valuable +instrument, or he would never have torn it to pieces then and there; +and with such words I strove to comfort my perplexed and anxious +friend. + +I am bound to add that although Hill kept him waiting several months, +when the fiddle came back its owner was more than satisfied, and +declared that he then heard his Cremona for the first time. + +Mr William Ebsworth Hill came of a family of violin-makers and +violin-players. Joseph Hill, who was born 1715, was proud to trace +his descent from the “Mr Hill” mentioned in Pepys’ Diary as being +employed to alter his lute and viall. + +Joseph was a prolific and excellent violin-maker, and carried on +business in the early part of the eighteenth century at the sign of +the Harp and Flute in the Haymarket. + +He had five sons; all made violins and three played professionally, +whilst the other two, like the present four brothers Hill in Bond +Street, followed their father’s vocation alone. The third son, Lockey +Hill, was the father of Henry Lockey Hill, who became in his turn +the father of William Ebsworth Hill, known in the middle of this +century as Mr Hill of Wardour Street. Hill’s father, Henry Lockey, +an excellent violin-maker, died in 1835. The Hills seem prolific in +sons, and Lockey left four sons. Henry distinguished himself as an +admirable quartet player, and well do I remember the splendid tone of +his Barak Norman tenor at Willis’ Rooms as far back I think as 1848, +when, with Sainton, Piatti, and Cooper--one of the best, as it was +almost the earliest string quartet cast in London--he assisted in +delighting and educating a select public in the mysteries of chamber +music, which has been since so freely expounded by Ella’s Musical +Union and the Monday Popular Concerts. + +Berlioz always spoke of Henry Hill in terms of the highest praise; he +even went so far as to say that he considered him one of the first +performers in Europe. + +It is seldom that a tenor player ever comes in for direct +commendation. He acts as a sort of go-between to violoncello and +violin; but his individual efforts, although so important to the +combined effect, are usually lost sight of between the grand work of +the bass and the brilliant lead and musical embroideries of the first +and second violins. + +There are too few concertos or strong parts written for the poor +tenor, the Cinderella of the establishment, which is regrettable when +one thinks of the glorious violas of Maggini and the Amati. Mr Hill’s +Barak Norman is now the property of Mr Doyle. + +William Ebsworth Hill, our great repairer, connoisseur, and dealer +all in one, was born in 1817. He was educated at the Borough Road +School, under the well-known Dr Lancaster, but it is certain that +he went early to the bench, for at the age of fourteen we find him +employed in cutting bridges in his father’s workshop. + +For this purpose he used only a bradawl and a knife, and towards the +end of his life he returned to bridge-cutting, and has left many +beautiful specimens. His sons have a collection of two hundred, and +no two of the same pattern; they have also reverently preserved +under glass his simple tools. He worked with extraordinary rapidity, +equalled by his fastidious finish. He preferred the commonest +tools, so only they were of the finest metal. He used to scorn the +mechanical labour-saving appliances which now enable workmen to turn +out hundreds instead of dozens of fiddles, and he heartily despised +artificers who needed an elaborate plant before they could produce +anything decent. A good maker, he was wont to say, could make a +fiddle “with a knife and fork.” Mr Hill’s skill in bridge-making on +one occasion misled so eminent a judge as Monsieur Fétis, of the +Brussels Conservatoire. In 1851, the Prince Consort having expressed +a wish to hear a concert of old instruments, a viol d’amore which +was to be played by Ebsworth’s brother, Henry Hill, required a new +bridge, which Ebsworth very quickly made. I remember hearing Hill +perform on this viol d’amore with seven strings, at one of Monsieur +Julien’s Popular Concerts at the old Surrey Gardens. The elaborate +arpeggios were most fascinating, and unlike anything I ever listened +to before or have ever heard since. In due time the viol d’amore, +which had been lent by the Brussels Conservatoire, was returned, +and Monsieur Fétis, who was the Principal, and engaged at that time +in writing his valuable monograph on Stradivari, was very much bent +upon hunting up old bridges. He happened to pitch upon the viol +d’amore bridge, which he declared to be a highly interesting specimen +of the artistic work of the great Cremona period. Mr Alfred Hill, +one of Ebsworth Hill’s sons, happened to be at Brussels, and his +attention was called to Monsieur Fétis’ eulogium on the antique viol +d’amore bridge. “That,” says Mr Alfred to Monsieur Victor Mahillon +the curator, “is not an old bridge; it was cut by my father.” An +incredulous smile overspread the worthy curator’s face, which was +quickly changed into a look of apologetic admiration and surprise +when Mr Hill, junior, turning up the bridge, pointed to “W. E. Hill” +stamped upon it. + +Ebsworth Hill’s father died in 1835, and not long afterwards +Ebsworth, wishing to perfect himself in the technique of his art, +went to study under the accomplished maker Charles Harris, of Oxford. + +About 1838 he set up for himself in St George’s Road, Southwark. + +Mr Woolhouse, the well-known collector, was one of his earliest +patrons; but his fame soon spread, and he found he had more work than +he could well manage. He was also much resorted to as one of the few +men whose judgment on a violin admitted of no appeal, and who could +be trusted to give an honest opinion. + +From Southwark, Hill went to Wardour Street, which for many years +was as much the violin quarter in London as the Rue Croix des Petits +Champs is in Paris. It was there, when I was little more than a +boy, that I first made Mr Hill’s acquaintance. I used to take him +my fiddles, and I was always drawn to the young boys, his sons, who +frequented their father’s shop, and had the profoundest sense of +his importance and ability. It is not too much to say that Arthur, +Alfred, William, and Walter Hill have enjoyed unique opportunities +from their earliest childhood, and have not failed to qualify +themselves assiduously for the high position that the firm of Hill & +Sons now holds in the violin world. + +The boys inherited violin tendencies. They were steeped from +childhood in violin tradition. They had special chances for seeing, +handling, and diagnosing most of the great violins now extant. No +time or money was spared by their father on the boys’ education, and +certainly no boys ever made a better use of their privileges. + +Alfred and Walter went to Mirecourt, to study all that could be +taught in the most scientific and celebrated workshop in the world. + +Arthur stayed at home and kept his eye in, being always in close +attendance on his father, and never missing an opportunity of +acquiring a new fact, or a fiddle, old or new, which was likely to +bring grist to the mill or credit to the firm. + +From what has been said it may have been inferred, and not +erroneously, that Ebsworth Hill was not, financially speaking, +a business man--though he did all his own business. For years +everything that came into the shop passed through his hands; he +made every repair, doctored every fiddle, adjusted every screw, +regulated or replaced every sound-bar and sound-post, and even strung +the fiddles for his clients with his own hand--in short, he did or +closely superintended everything; division of labour, to the extent +to which it is now carried, being a thing unknown in those early days. + +That such a system could not bring in large profits was obvious. Hill +had many bad debts; his memory for fiddles was infallible, but his +memory for accounts shocking, and he was cheated right and left. + +His fame was so widespread that orders poured in which could not be +executed; and when the old man’s apparently inexhaustible powers of +work began to give out, the sons, who had watched proceedings for +years and slowly qualified themselves for every department, came in +and broke up the one-man system--not before financially confusion was +becoming worse confounded. They trained their workmen, distributed +the work, kept proper accounts for the first time, and in a few +years built up what is, perhaps, when considered in all its branches, +the largest individual violin-dealing industry in the world. + +Mr Hill was a man of striking appearance: thin, spare, with light +hair, and moustache early gone grey; blue-grey eyes, very keen; a +thoughtful face, often lighted up with a whimsical smile--for the man +was full of humour, though mostly of a genial sort. + +He was very much more of an all-round man than people who merely +conversed with him on violins would suppose. Highly educated, in the +usual sense of the word, he was certainly not; but he had a great +acquaintance with human nature, and an extraordinary insight into +character. + +His sly remarks on men and their manners, including their morals, +were a perpetual feast to all who were admitted to his intimacy. In +his own special line he was without a rival. He did not always say +what he knew, but he never said what he did not know. + +He was frequently appealed to in doubtful cases, but was greatly +opposed to litigation, and it was difficult to extract from him any +opinion likely to lead to it. + +Once in the witness-box he was what the lawyers call a dangerous +customer. His manner was perfectly quiet, assured, and straightforward. +He was absolutely decided, and would never budge from his opinion, and +under pressure of cross-examination often raised a laugh at the expense +of counsel. + +His sons have treasured many of his wise and witty sayings. On one +occasion he refused to sell to a customer who already owed more than +he could pay. Hill remarked dryly when the gentleman had left the +shop, “That man’s complaint is wind in the pockets.” Of an amateur +who was proud of showing off his style on his fiddles, Hill, looking +up from his work, would say with a comical twinkle, “Hark, now, he’s +doing the lovely.” + +The manner was often worth more than the matter. + +His memory was as extraordinary as Tarisio’s. On one occasion a claim +was brought against a railway company for sixty pounds’ damage to the +belly of a violoncello. The company demanded a valuation, and damages +to be assessed by Hill. The claimant at last angrily submitted. +Hill reported on the instrument, which he repaired for about thirty +shillings. Five pounds he thought would be very liberal damages. The +owner was furious, and would not even accept fifteen guineas. Mr Hill +was at last called up, and made the following unpleasant statement: +“This instrument does not belong to this man at all. It is one of the +instruments belonging to her Majesty, and used by the members of the +private band.” The _soi-disant_ owner was perfectly dumbfounded, but +was obliged to confess that he had actually borrowed the instrument +when employed as deputy in the Queen’s Band several years before, and +had never restored it. Mr Hill had only seen it once before. + +A violin, said to be by F. Panormo, was sold as such by a dealer in +Pentonville Road. It came into Hill’s hands many years afterwards, +who was asked to take it in part payment for another violin. He said: +“This fiddle was not made by Panormo; it was made by my father about +the year 1812 for my brother Henry, and owing to the difficulty of +getting good foreign wood, my father made the back and ribs from +English maple. It could not possibly have a good tone, but I should +like to have it, and will allow £10 for it.” Mr Hill immediately +proceeded to remove the belly. On the inside was written in pencil, +“Made for my son Henry in the year 1812.” + +Mr Hill led an extremely abstemious life. His only relaxations were +reading and long walks on Sundays. Towards the close of his life he +found himself surrounded by his sons, superintending a large staff +of workmen, and his workshops at Hanwell, adjoining his country +home, are well known. For some years before he died the direction of +affairs had practically passed into the hands of his sons, whom he +had so admirably trained to succeed him, and to them is entirely due +the present great commercial prosperity of the firm. + +William Ebsworth Hill sank gradually from senile exhaustion of brain +power, and died in 1895, aged seventy-seven. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +VIOLIN VARNISH + + +When a true chemist enters a laboratory fitted up with the usual +mysterious tubes, crucibles, “baths,” and general apparatus for +distillation, and his nose scents the aroma of gums, spirits, +essential oils, and what not, he experiences an atmospheric sensation +which enthuses him for his work. What the odour of stables is to the +lover of horses, or the smell of paint to the artist, that is the +laboratory aroma to the chemist. + +I have no insight into crucibles, and I don’t like smells. The +proportion of subtle weights and measures, avoirdupois or troy, are +beyond me; the disputations of science and the general incapacity +of scientists to agree about mixed problems puzzles and sometimes +“impatients” me, as the French say. + +In wading through various treatises on Cremona varnish I regret to +say I have experienced vague emotions of annoyance and perplexity +which I would fain conceal from the reader. I should like to pose as +the clear exponent of the famous Cremona secret, or hold some one +fixed opinion, buttressed by arguments weighty enough to confound all +opponents, and based upon the “triumphs of modern research.” The +triumph of modern research seems to me to consist in the discovery +that we have as yet failed to discover the Cremona varnish, as, +although we may speculate about it and at moments seem to come very +near the mark, as yet we cannot make the stuff, or, at all events, +apply it in Cremona fashion to our new fiddles. + +It may be consoling, but not very satisfactory, to reflect that no +one has mixed it or applied it in Cremona fashion since about 1750; +but that fact only serves to whet the curious appetite, and each +writer braces himself for renewed disquisitions, visits workshops, +and scrapes bits off Cremonas when he can, perhaps dabbles himself +with gums and alcohol, and pumps fiddle-makers with a view to +wringing the secret out of the Cremona sphynx. + +So entirely mixed is the whole subject that the violin world can’t +even decide in what the proper functions of the varnish consist. One +maintains that it is merely for the preservation of the wood, another +that it greatly affects the tone, and the third that it is chiefly +decorative. + +To me it seems almost a truism to say that the varnish is good for +all three purposes: that it preserves the wood is certain, though +exactly how is open to discussion; that it affects the tone is +equally certain, though exactly how is still a moot point; that it +is decorative is obvious, though taste in the colouring has varied +with each school of makers as much as some makers have varied with +themselves. + +For my part, after reading a dozen disquisitions on the Cremona +varnish, and inspecting hundreds of fiddles for a quarter of a +century, I applaud the courage and reticence of Mr George Hart, who, +in his valuable book on old violins, gives just five pages on Italian +varnish, with an intelligent description of its various appearances, +a brief quotation from the inimitable writer Charles Reade, and not a +single recipe. + +As I am not writing for violin-makers, but only for collectors, I +shall certainly not rush in where authorities like Mr Hart fear to +tread, and shall content myself with a few probable suppositions and +a few more generally descriptive remarks. + +Some authorities maintain that the wood should be first saturated +with oil before the colouring varnish is applied, a practice which +has a tendency to clog the pores, so that until some age has been +put on and the wood has become desiccated and shaken free from the +grosser oily particles, the vibrations are stifled and the tone +consequently dull. + +Others declare that the sizing of oil should not penetrate the wood +far, but leave it free to desiccate by itself, and merely act as a +sort of veneer for the colour varnish which has got to be spread +over the transparent oil covering. The wood, in fact, has to be +sized first and varnished afterwards. Taking this view, the process +would be something of this kind: The white belly is cut from fine +pine which has been six or seven years drying in the sun, but never +exposed to rain and waits patiently for its anointing. A stick of +that resinous gum beloved of artists, gamboge yellow, from Gamboga, +Siam, or China, is then powdered and dissolved in pure alcohol; sloes +are sometimes added, or when a yellow ground is not desired, sandarak +and the long resinous tears of benzoin are treated with pure alcohol. +When the back, belly, and ribs are thoroughly dry, the colouring, +like a flavouring to taste, is added. + +The chief colouring ingredients appear to be of two kinds of +sandal-wood, one yielding red orange tints, from Calcutta, and the +other a deeper red, from the Coromandel Coast. An alcoholic solution +of these is mixed with essential oil of turpentine, freely oxydised +(or exposed to the air) and laid on the perfectly dry surface in +successive layers, each layer being allowed to dry separately. + +The colour coating thus lies like an agate film over the oil +sizing, and through the top varnish as through coloured glass may +be seen--dyed orange, or red, or brown--all the delicate curls and +fibres of the wood, shown up as by a kind of Röntgen rays by the oil +size. + +We are told that the resins used may be divided into hard and soft, +and that of these the soft, such as mastic and dammar, are the best, +because the most elastic and friendly to the waves of vibration. The +mastic and dammar resins seem to unite, in the greatest perfection, +the three essential properties most suitable for varnish--elasticity, +solidity, and transparency. + +The Cremonese are said to have used nothing but the soft resins. The +much-talked-of, old-fashioned dragon’s blood, a resinous gum from +the Draconian Draco, does not seem now to be commonly forthcoming. +The Calami Draco of Borneo has taken its place. The old dragon’s +blood has been much talked about, and credited with giving a certain +splendid sanguineous flush to some of the rare Cremonese bellies upon +which the judicious amateur dotes. + +And now, what is amber varnish? The usual answer is, there is no such +thing. Certainly it was never used by Stradivari, for it is said +the secret of fusing that hard gum was only discovered by Martin +the chemist in 1737, the year of Stradivari’s death. On the other +hand, I hear that amber has been found in the varnish of Giuseppe +del Gesù--by what analysis I do not know. The usual way of rubbing a +violin and smelling the surface has always seemed to me to furnish a +most unreliable test. One saith, “I smell benzoin”; or another, “I +smell mastic”; and a third, “I smell amber”; and a fourth, “I smell +nought”; and this battle of olfactory organs is like to go on, as +saith the poet-- + + “As long as man has passions, + As long as life has woes”; + +or, as we may say-- + + “As long as man has nose.” + +So here I desire to take my leave of this thorny subject, and with +a sense of relief I abandon crucibles to the expert, and oils and +resins to the disputatious, merely reminding our collectors for +practical purpose that the Brescian varnish is soft and brown, +but without the magical Cremonese transparency; the Cremona is +amber-coloured (early) or (later) light red orange, and sometimes +velvety brown, and very soft and glossy as it rubs away. + +The Venetian varnish of many shades is very clear; the Stainer, +yellow-brown, with a subtle roseate flush at times; the normal +German, brown and muddy; the French, Cremonese in colour, but glassy +and chipping rather than soft and glossy. Some of the English varnish +is remarkable, that of Dodd even approximating closely to the Cremona +school, etc. + +On the whole, the best solution of the Cremona mystery seems to me +that it was probably no mystery at all, which also best accounts for +the disappearance of the varnish towards the middle of the eighteenth +century. It is absurd to suppose that the varnish used by at least +one hundred makers for more than one hundred years (for Italian +violins from 1550 to 1660 up to 1740 all have it) could have been a +secret; it was probably the ordinary varnish of commerce, superseded +by the quicker and more convenient spirit-varnishes which came in and +thrust it out of the market, and these ready-made compounds proved +excellent for furniture which is not prized for its resonant or +variously tinted qualities, but they unfortunately put out of court +the kind of varnish best suited for violins--the yielding, soft, +elastic oil varnish; and the very ingredients, _e.g._ dragon blood +(of the liliaceæ trees), ceased to be in demand, and consequently +disappeared from the Italian markets. + +The materials being now absent, the varnish was differently composed. +The trick of mixing it got lost along with the stuff to be mixed, and +the Cremonese secret, once an open secret, lapsed and lapsed, as it +seems, most irrecoverably. + +At one time every one knew how the ancient war-galleys were rowed; +how the Pyramids were built; how Stonehenge was poised; how the +Medicean poisons were distilled, and how the old masters mixed their +colours; now no one knows. + +Of the Cremona varnish it must be written, as we have to write of +these unexplained disappearances of the lost and missing-- + + “Gone, and made no sign.” + + + + +CHAPTER X + +VIOLIN STRINGS + + +“To scrape the inside of a cat with the outside of a horse” is far +from an accurate or exhaustive description of violin playing, nor can +I understand why violin strings are called cat-gut at all, since they +are made from the intestines of the sheep, goat, or lamb, and have +absolutely nothing to do with pussy. + +I can only suppose that the frightful and melancholy tones habitually +elicited by inexperienced players may have reminded people of the +nocturnal cat sufficiently to credit that maligned animal with +providing part of the mechanical apparatus for their production. + +Of late years a great deal has been said about the extreme importance +of the strings, of adapting the player to the fiddle’s constitution, +etc. I freely admit that some players with very strong hands, like +Lindley and Dragonetti, can manage thicker strings with effect +better than people with weaker muscles. I also admit generally that +it would be a mistake to string a sensitive old Nicolo Amati with +thick strings, which a robust Joseph or Bergonzi might be able to +bear; that a raw new fiddle to be rubbed down in the orchestra will +also take to thick strings; and that it is pretty obvious, as every +player knows, that one cannot stop fifths in good tune if the strings +are not relatively well proportioned. + +It is also a truism that it is best to buy the best strings, and +that false strings are abominable. But I do not go much beyond +this, and I would say about strings what I say about bows, that bad +workmen always complain of their tools, and that, as Paganini was +able--although as a mere trick--to discourse excellent music with +a tobacco-pipe or a reed, so his admirers were often surprised to +notice that he would go into the concert room with his strings very +much out of condition. + +Practically I do not suppose that one violinist in fifty uses a +string-gauge; he soon learns to judge sufficiently by the eye what +his fingers want, what his tone requires, and what his violin exacts. + +Still, in these days of analysis and detail, there being nothing left +untalked about, writers have fastened quite within the last thirty +years on the strings; but I have often noticed that players who fuss +most over these details, which are doubtless of importance, are those +who are least able to avail themselves of the perfect conditions +which they seek. Perfect gut, rosin by rule, and an exquisitely +poised bow, no more make a fiddler than scientific sanitation makes +a healthy subject. I cannot too persistently urge that the violinist +bends conditions to the magic of his will and his skill. + +His business is to qualify _himself_, and then get the best fiddle, +bow, and strings that he can. This ought he to do, and not to leave +the others undone. + +There is no reason to suppose that any advance in the manufacture +of gut-strings has been made since the seventeenth century. Even a +work by Le Roy, dated 1570, gives the best recipe yet known for the +detection of false strings. + +“It is needful,” he says, “to prove them between the hands in the +manner set forth in the figure” (which we reproduce); and he goes on +to explain what everybody now knows--that if two lines only appear, +the string is true; if more, false. But he fails to add that such a +rough test only holds good for the thinner and simpler woven cords. +In Doni’s book (1647) we find such subtleties as these: “There +are many particulars relating to the construction of instruments +which are unknown to modern artificers, as, namely, that the best +strings are made when the north (and the worst when the south) wind +blows”--a suggestive hint relating to the acknowledged importance of +atmospheric, perhaps magnetic, and at any rate climatic, conditions. + +How do we make our strings? + +Putting aside mature sheep and goats, we kill our young Italian lamb +in September. We open him at once, and take the intestine whilst +still warm; stretch it on an inclined plane; scrape it and clean it +thoroughly without delay. We then steep it for about fifteen hours +in cold water, with a little carbonate of soda, and then substitute +tepid water for a few hours more. + +Now we are ready to remove the fibrous or muscular membrane from +between the peritoneal and mucous membrane. This is done by women, +who scrape it with a cane. The precious selected membranes are +then soaked in jars containing an ammoniacal solution; they are +then rubbed through the fingers three times a day, treated with +permanganate of potash, cleaned, sorted, cut, and split; and, +finally, the threads are spun--three or four thin threads for first +violin strings, three or four thicknesses for the second, six or +seven for “D” string. Double-bass strings take up to eighty-five +threads. Further twistings, soakings, and polishings take place, into +which we need not enter, and the strings are finally dressed with +olive oil and then coiled. + +I have gone into these details to show with what care and complex +elaboration string manufacture is carried on. + +The false string is due to inequalities, lumps, and varieties of +texture in the gut; and if only the defective part can be distributed +either near the head or the tailpiece, outside the vibratory length, +your false string becomes true. This is why the experiment of +reversing the string, putting tail portion headwise or _vice versâ_, +will sometimes remedy the defect. + +For the fourth or silver string the gut or silk (which is used) +is wrapped with pure silver, or copper, or alternate silver and +copper wire. The beautiful French patent silver fourth, as smooth as +polished steel, is incomparably best for solo playing; it is also +thinner, in my opinion too much thinner, than the mixed silver and +copper fourths, which are very serviceable for rougher orchestral +work. + +The vice of silver strings is to rise (and of gut strings to fall) +with heat; but if your screws are in perfect order, and you are +expert enough, you will remedy either by a rapid subtle twist during +a bar’s rest, or a quick nipping the head of the peg between the +first and third joint of your left-hand forefinger. I have seen +Sarasate tune two pegs thus in the course of a very brief “tutti.” + +Mr Hart may be accepted as a final authority on the relative merits +and the different schools of violin strings at present in the market, +and his dicta substantially agree with my own experience. Of course +he gives the palm to the Italian strings, which is largely due to +the good climatic conditions, which enable their manufacture to be +carried on in the open air and sunlight of that favoured clime. + +In Rome strings are yellowish, hard, and brilliant, and a little +rough in finish. + +The Neapolitans are smooth, soft in texture, and whiter in appearance. + +The Paduans polished, durable, and frequently “false.” Strings “made +in Germany” (Saxony), as a set off against the swarms of trade German +fiddles, rank next to Italian. + +The French rank third. Their larger strings are better than their +seconds, which are often brittle; their patent first _accribelles_, +made of silk, are hard and brilliant, but not comparable, in my +opinion, to a fine Roman gut “E” string. + +The English make a good, serviceable, dull green looking string, +durable, uneven, and not unfrequently false. To my mind, English +strings are only fit for rank-and-file orchestral fiddling, but not +good enough for the loader. Mr Heron Allen, who has given great +attention to such details, says that the best strings in the market +are imported from Signor Andrew Ruffini of Naples, but I have always +had a weakness for Roman strings. + +Too great caution, however, cannot be used in buying strings. Never +buy from any but the best firms; they can’t afford to keep “job lots, +going vera chep”--these may be bought up by provincial houses and +retailed to an undiscerning public. + +Notice that small “job lot” people do not know how to keep their +strings--or, I should rather say, they keep them too long and too dry. + +It does not follow that even the best strings will turn out successes +if they have been kept too long or too dry. + +I once ordered £1 worth of Roman “E” strings for myself, and another +£1 worth for a friend. They all arrived as dry and brittle as mummy +wood; they all snapped as I put them on. In about a week I got a +furious letter from my unfortunate friend who had trusted me--all his +strings had snapped. + +I have but one counsel to give. Take the best firm’s advice and pay +the best firm’s price--if you can afford it. Always keep a couple +of tested, _i.e._ stretched “E” lengths in your case. If you are a +soloist this will save you some annoyance and delay should your “E” +string go in the middle of a performance. + +So far, then, and no further, need I discuss violin strings; but +there are two other violin adjuncts not important enough to call for +a separate chapter. I allude to the mute and the chin-rest. The mute +is occasionally fixed on the bridge to give the sound that singular +faint far-off twang like the whisper of a ghostly violin. The mute +has the singular property of making the violin abnormally sensitive +for the time. The mute is made of wood, metal, or vulcanite; +personally, I much prefer the metal mute--it does the business more +thoroughly. It is not a good practice to use the mute habitually +while practising to subdue the sound. The violin really resents the +use of the mute at all, but will put up with it for a short time +(just as a good horse will not resent a spur or a bearing-rein in +moderation). For a minute or two after the removal of the mute the +violin does not quite recover its tone; some of the particles in its +wood have been exposed to a different or eccentric vibration by the +dominating mute, and the full tonal vibration is not immediately +recoverable. It is as though you had put a man in boots with leaden +soles for a time, and then suddenly freed him; he would not at once +regain his full suppleness of movement. + +Quite within the last thirty years the cult of chin-rests has become +almost universal. When I was a boy people held the violin honestly +under their chins, and a few used a silk pocket handkerchief. I much +prefer it to this day; but something between the chin and the violin +is no doubt good for the protection of old instruments already too +much rubbed by centuries of beards and bristles. + +I have nothing to say against the various velvet, vulcanite, and +ebony fixed substitutes for the homely pocket-handkerchief, except +that in my eyes they are extremely ugly, and to my chin extremely +uncomfortable; but I may be very much out of date, and in such minor +matters “_chacun à son goût_,” or, as Pepys would say, “there’s an +end on’t.” + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +VIOLIN BOWS + + +He who wields the violin bow aright wields the wand of a magician. +If ever mortal could call the spirits from the vasty deep, it is +the virtuoso who throws into sympathetic vibrations the cords of a +Cremona. + +The wood of his wand, from the forests of Fernambuc or Pernambuco, +choice and seasoned, and delicately graduated and tapering, receives +through the varying pressure of his five fingers the waves of his +personal magnetism. + +The back of his thumb will often touch even the hairs which are +in direct contact with the strings, and therefore the psychic and +emotional vibrations of the artist’s soul are wedded closely to the +physical pulses of sound which throb in the agitated air column of +the Cremona, and flow forth in the air waves (like light and heat), +filling space with their musical magnetism, and seeking only the +medium of kindred spirits and suitable organisms to utter through +the vibrating human nerve tissues of others the open secrets of the +player’s soul. + +No Mesmer, or magician of the East, controls a more subtle force than +does the violinist, who, face to face with his audience, lifts his +tapering wand and rules therewith the + + “_Tides of music’s golden sea setting towards eternity._” + +By those who indite exhaustive historical or constructive treatises +on the violin--the bow, like the violin, has been treated +archæologically--we have been led up to ancient monuments and shown +bows (or things supposed to be bows) on vases, sculptured frescoes, +missals and other monkish manuscripts. We have been sent out to wild +islands and continents, and introduced to the Ravanastron bow of +ancient Ceylon; the bow of the Moorish rebab; the ninth, eleventh, +twelfth, and thirteenth century viol bows of Europe--all more or less +primitive, with sometimes gut for hair, or hair loose, hair limp, and +with no means of regulating its tension except by the introduction of +the fingers to press the hair or tighten it for a moment. + +In Paul Veronese’s Marriage at Cana (Versailles) this is well shown. +Paul himself was a viol player, and apparently held his bow chiefly +by the hair for this same regulative purpose. + +C. Simpson (the division “viol”), 1667, gives a somewhat more +advanced viol bow, in which the hand splits the difference between +wood and hair and rests on both (Fig. iii). Of course, when held to +the chin, this clumsy finger regulation of the hair tension would +be less convenient to manage, and hence we come upon the eighteenth +century with a strip of notched metal (Fig. iv.) and a movable +sliding nut. + +[Illustration: + + I + + Maggini Nic Amati Dolphin Strad Joseph Guarnerius + 1630 1641 1714 1734 + + II + + Corelli 1700 + Cramer 1770 + Viotti 1780 + Tartini 1740 + + III + + Finger control + 17th cent. + + IV + + Cremabliere control + 18th cent. + + V + + Screw control 19th cent.: + Paganini’s bow Tourte 29 inch ’34 + + VI + + 19th cent.: + Hair control. + head. handle. +] + +As for our purpose the violin proper began in the eighteenth century +with the emergence of its true type from the viol tribe, so for our +purpose the violin bow begins with the emergence of the violin. A +glance at the bows of Corelli (1700), Cramer (1770), Viotti (1780), +and Tartini (1740) (Fig. vi.) will show the evolution in the +direction of the Tourte bow; and although Tourte (1740) is generally +credited with substituting the screw for the crémaillère, it will be +noticed that Corelli’s bow (1700) has already got the screw. But is +the Corelli bow authentic, or in reality a bow subsequent to 1740, +the earliest working date of Tourte _père_? + +With François Tourte, the younger son, culminated the art of violin +bow making. He is the Stradivari of the bow. We give his portrait, +but father and son were both master-workers. Although the Stentor +(Fig. vi.) bow’s head has superseded, for some reason, the more +rounded form of François Tourte, nothing has been done since +in advance of Tourte, and “after Tourte” is still the greatest +recommendation a bow can have. + +It is easy to see what called forth François Tourte. He came in +answer to a need. He doubtless heard of Tartini and examined +his bow. It was comparatively short and cumbrous. Forty years +afterwards Viotti comes to Paris, and with him dawns a new era in +violin playing. Refinements and delicacies of tone, upper shifts +and varieties of execution, various styles of bowing, dealing with +staccato, arpeggio, and rubato, methods varied and brought to +perfection, demanded qualities of balance, lightness, and elasticity +which would have been quite thrown away on the old sawing and +scraping school of the seventeenth century. The very Cremona violins, +beginning to mature as the century waned, called aloud for a suitable +and sympathetic companion to caress, excite, charm, draw from them +their sweetest tones and most vigorous powers. + +François Tourte was rescued from the clock-making business, to which +he had been early apprenticed, by the sheer bent of his own genius. +His brother, who worked with his father, was not the genius, and, as +is often the case, the father failed to see which of the two sons was +to carry on the fame of the house, and there may have been jealousies +and disputes besides. The poor stuff given François to work upon +when, after eight years of watch-making, he was allowed to enter the +parental workshop a little, suggests that he was the male Cinderella +of the family. + +He had to deal with strips of old sugar-barrels and fashion them into +bows, which he sold for about fifteen-pence each. But as soon as he +got a free hand he experimented with all kinds of wood, and arrived +at the conclusion that the only wood suitable for his purpose was +Fernambuc wood. It combined stiffness and lightness, but was very +difficult to obtain, on account of so many ports being in those +disturbed times blockaded. Fernambuc wood was only imported for +dyeing purposes, and the price had risen in Paris to five francs +a pound. Then, as only pieces with straight grain were required, +whole trees might be cut up in search of a few likely strips. This +accounts for the high prices of Tourte bows, even when first produced. + +They were doubtless largely labours of love with this matchless +artificer, who could neither read nor write. The nut would be often +made of tortoise-shell, jewelled with mother-of-pearl, and gleaming +with a gold screw button. These cost £12, and would now fetch, if +ever they came into the open market, fancy prices. His bows, mounted +in silver with ebon nuts, sold for three guineas, and now fetch £30. + +Tourte _père_ originated the backward bend of the bow, which is not +cut but artificially bent by heat; but both the father’s and the +eldest son’s bows are held to be now too short for the strain of +execution put upon them by modern players--not so François Tourte’s, +and all bows made “after Tourte.” + +He fixed the proportions--length, between 29·134 inches and 29·528 +inches. The weight of the bend is nicely poised with the gold, +tortoise-shell, or ebon of the nut; in each is a small wedge, as may +be seen in Fig. viii., which nips the hairs and keeps them flat. The +fine selection of hairs, 150 to 200 (modern exigencies require more, +or up to 250), the careful flattening of it out, the preference for +live hair, or hair combed out and not taken from dead horses who +may have lain some time in the shambles; above all, the exquisitely +graduated thicknesses, now held to be _de rigueur_, all characterise +the intuitive genius of Tourte. + +I say advisedly “intuitive genius,” for Tourte had no education but +that of a watch-maker. This may, indeed, have given him his fine +sense of delicate and exact proportions, but it is still remarkable +that examinations of the diameter of Tourte bows in different places +give uniform results. The bows swell or taper in the same place, and +as the air columns in the violins of Strad give the same note, so do +the bows of Tourte yield the same proportions, which it has not been +found safe or expedient to depart from. + +Violin bows may be smaller or larger, _i.e._ shorter or longer, +as far as I can see, without any detriment to Tourte’s principle; +children, women, and exceptionally long armed men may have to +use them, but the proportions, the wood, the balance, even the +mechanique, must be left as Tourte left them--perfect. + +The one point in mechanique in which the invention of F. B. Vuillaume +may be thought to have improved upon Tourte is in his fixed nut for +viola, tenor, or violoncello bows. This consists of a metal nut, +which alone is moved by the screw up and down inside the main nut, +which remains rigid; thus the length of the hair exposed for playing +always remains the same. + +The only other original maker of the first rank and excellence, who +has been nicknamed the English Tourte, was John Dodd. He was born +in 1752, and lived chiefly at Kew, and there he was buried. He was +always out at elbows, even when his reputation was at its height. +Poor Dodd had his friends and admirers. He was his own worst enemy; +he was undersized in stature, and walked with a shuffling gait. He +wore his clothes until they were in rags, and a broad-brimmed hat +somehow gave him an additionally dilapidated air. + +I am afraid he drank, for although his habits were said to be +regular, the most regular of them all was his four daily visits to +the public-house, where he consumed what to less experienced topers +seemed an immoderate quantity of a drink called “pearl.” + +When the old fellow was known to be excessively hard up, kind Mr +Richard Platt, a musical professor of the town, and Dr Sellé, who +has given us some of the above details, came to the rescue. But the +bow-maker tired them all out, and ended at last in the Richmond +Workhouse. + +I will not say whether he can be exactly cited as a frightful example +of the degrading effects of liquor, for he died of bronchitis at the +altogether respectable age of eighty-four. + +Indeed, he had his qualities; no bribe or stress of want could make +him swerve from his sense of what was due to his art. + +His wood is as magnificent as his workmanship. He doubtless had his +secret, but it was possibly one that he could not impart. He would +take no apprentice, for fear he should learn the trick; and whether +he could or could not teach it, he refused £1000 offered him by some +one who wanted to learn it. Dodd’s bows are not very uncommon; he +died only in 1836, and, strange to say, these true musical wands do +not run into a five-pound note yet (1898). + +John Dodd the bow-maker must not be confounded with Thomas Dodd the +fiddle dealer and varnisher, who employed Fendt and Lott to make the +fiddles. John Dodd the bow-maker was the brother of Thomas Dodd. John +lived in Blue Bell Alley, Mint Street, Southwark, before he went to +Kew, but the rustic suburbs suited his habits, and as he had acquired +a European reputation before he died, it little mattered where he +lived. + +Vuillaume of Paris made excellent bows, and even founded a school of +bow-making. Many bows that don’t sell as his are stamped “d’après +Vuillaume,” “scuola de,” which is certainly more respectable than a +forged label to which violin dealers do so commonly resort. + +Vuillaume’s hollow steel bows have never “caught on,” though good +players have used them now and again. But then a good player can use +any bow, and whilst a good bow is a luxury, a real violinist will +be able to perform very respectably with a bad one. It is said that +Paganini on one occasion excited the wonder and enthusiasm of his +audience by performing on his instrument with a long churchwarden +clay pipe, and at another time with a rush! + +It would be unfair even in a sketch like this, which only professes +to seize the salient point of general interest to collectors and +amateurs, not to mention Jacques Lafleur (1760-1832), an admirable +imitator of Tourte. + +Lupôt, brother of the great violin-maker (1774-1837), was the first +to line with metal the groove in the underside of the nut, to +prevent wear and tear of the ebony or tortoise-shell. + +Domminique Peccate (1810-74) is also thought to have almost rivalled +Tourte. He was originally a barber, and transferred the delicacy of +hand required in tonsorial operations to the fine adjustments and +elegant tapering and octagonal proportions of violin bows. + +Peccate went to Vuillaume in 1826, stayed with him eleven years, +and then became foreman to François Lupôt. He ended his life at +Mirecourt, where he began it; latterly he worked entirely on his own +account. + +We have now among us one James Tubbs, whose bows are already known +throughout the world owing to their attractive appearance and good +balance. Time will alone decide Tubbs’ position in the scale of +bow-makers, for time alone will determine the question of “last,” +“warp,” and flexibility, and general endurance of efficiency. + +On rosin, about which pages have been unnecessarily written, I have +but one word to say--get it pure. You can do this by confining +yourself to the best shops, or those who deal with them. Go to Hill, +Chanot, Hart, Withers, and Vuillaume. + +Some ignorant people talk of rosin as “greasing the bow.” Smooth +horsehair or greased horsehair is, of course, useless. It is not +the absence but the presence of friction which sets the strings +in vibration; it is the surface of the horsehair, roughened by +infinitesimal particles of rosin, which prevents the horsehair +touching the string with a continuous pressure, so that it receives +in reality a succession of tiny shocks. This is what renders the +succession of vibrations so rapid as to sound continuous. + +Without rosin, the violin, in spite of strings and bow, and the art +of all Cremona, would be mute. + +To average rosiners let me give a word of advice, early given me by +my old master, Ouri, pupil of Frank Mori: “Don’t rub the horsehair +down smooth with long sweeps, but powder the rosin off into the hair +with quick rubs and a light hand; in this way you avoid rubbing the +oleaginous particles of the gum into stickiness.” + +I notice that the best players use plenty of rosin and never let the +bow get thirsty. I remember the matchless violinist Remenye taking +up my violin and bow and calling aloud for rosin. “Why, you have +no rosin on; you cannot expect the violin to speak without.” Yet I +thought my bow had plenty of rosin on, but it was not enough for +Remenye, who powdered it away in clouds. But please to remember that, +however thirsty the bow may be, the _violin_ does not require to +drink, and the habit of smothering and smearing its beautiful smooth +belly with thin glutinous dust is a most vile one, and worthy only of +third-rate second violins at fourth-rate music halls. These musical +galley-slaves may not have time to clean up; you of the Stradivari +and the Amati violins and the Tourte and the Dodd bows _ought_ to +have, or you are no fit guardian of such treasures. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +VIOLIN TARISIO + + +This extraordinary man, originally an obscure Italian carpenter, +at once created and answered that demand for Italian violins which +followed both in England, and to a great extent in France, the rage +for the German, and especially German of the Stainer and Klotz +pattern. + +Luigi Tarisio, like W. Forster, eked out the scanty income which he +derived from making tables and benches for the peasants by playing +dance music on a very poor fiddle at village routs. + +He wandered from place to place, what time the vintages were being +gathered in, and the simple folk, who turned out in their Sunday +finery for a little relaxation and merriment, doubtless regaled +the Italian carpenter with open-hearted hospitality, whilst he, in +return, mended their benches and fiddled for them at the vineyard +cabarets. + +Our Charles Mathews has given in his delightful autobiography +interesting glimpses of that free, open-air, open-hearted life; +for he also, for a time, lived amongst these rustics of a favoured +clime, enjoying their simple pleasures, and contributing in his own +peculiar way, by his histrionic gifts and a somewhat free-handed +distribution of coin, to their revels and their needs. + +Luigi Tarisio soon began to be dominated by the spell of his violin; +he got to notice other violins, to repair them all in the way of +trade, to possess them, not always very honestly, pitting his own +growing knowledge of their merits against the ignorance or necessity +of their owners. Gradually Tarisio the carpenter and Tarisio the +fiddler seemed to be merged in Tarisio the cunning repairer and +Tarisio the still more knowing buyer. + +He bought chiefly by exchange, for money he had little or none; +but he began in the early years of this nineteenth century to lead +that nomad life--as it seemed to outsiders, the life of a common +pedlar--which enabled him to glide without suspicion into half the +sacristies and convents in Italy. + +Wherever he went, bag on shoulder, and basket of tools in hand, his +cry was not “knives to grind,” nor “shoes to mend,” but “violins to +repair.” + +He usually had with him a decoy violin or two, in the shape of +common fiddles in good playing order; and over a glass of lemonade +or a bottle of wine, in some local café or monasterial domicile of +priest or cathedral musician, the cunning Tarisio would view with +unaffected pity the miserable old battered Cremonas which were then +lurking in a thousand ecclesiastical nooks, split as with the “wolf,” +ill-adjusted, ill-strung, and generally out of sorts, and whipping +out his common fiddle in perfect order, would play a few notes +on each, so manifestly to the disadvantage of the Cremona that an +exchange was soon effected, and Tarisio would decamp with an Amati, +a Strad, a Joseph or Bergonzi treasure, which, after a little clever +mending, might be worth a fortune; and in this way he possessed +himself, often for a few francs, of instruments which now fetch over +£1000 in the open market--if ever they get there. + +Tarisio, with the infallible instinct of a born collector and +connoisseur, in a few years was able to gauge accurately the merits +of the different great Italian makers. He knew exactly where to rank +the Amatis, and how to separate the qualities of the great Nicolo +from those of Andrea; he understood the supreme excellence of Antonio +and the power of Giuseppe, and all other grades of merit of which +even the admirers of the Cremona school in England seemed entirely +ignorant of. All Amatis at that time were lumped together, and +Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri were hardly known at all. + +But Tarisio knew all this, and a good deal more, before he tossed his +heavy bag of old violins one day over his shoulder and set out, they +say, on foot, or anyhow else he could, for Paris; for what market +was there in Italy for such priceless Cremonas when their owners +were prepared to give them up for fiddles worth from five to twenty +shillings? + +But why did Tarisio go to Paris? He probably judged wisely that the +Stainer craze, and the huge crop of common violins then being made +in Germany, would have killed his market nearer home. Then he must +have heard when a boy how Napoleon I. had ransacked the art treasures +of Italy, and how, under the advice of the cultivated Marquis +d’Avèze, who had narrowly enough escaped the guillotine in 1793, the +great conqueror had inaugurated a high Art Exhibition for the people. + +The famous bronze-gilt horses from S. Marco, Venice, the Dying +Gladiator, the Apollo Belvedere, the Cupid and Psyche from Rome, and +Raffaello’s Transfiguration itself, had been carried in triumphant +procession through the streets of Paris, and installed in a vast hall +for the benefit and instruction of the people. Of course a rage for +everything Italian was the result, and the shrewd Tarisio may have +thought, why not a rage for old Italian fiddles? + +One day in the year 1827 there arrived at the shop of M. Aldric, +at that time a famous violin dealer in Paris, a travel-worn man in +ragged clothes, who had begged and fiddled his way for days and weeks +across country. He carried a huge dustman’s sack over his shoulder. +He seemed to M. Aldric a very poor sort of pedlar, grimy and unkempt +enough to claim kinship with the man who had “used somebody’s soap +sixteen years ago, since when he had used no other.” + +The fashionable violin dealer was at first inclined to show him the +door, but probably something in Tarisio’s independent manner betrayed +that indefinable quality we call character, and, more in amusement or +out of pity than with any serious intent to make a deal, M. Aldric +allowed the pedlar to empty his sack of fiddles on his counter. It +is easy to imagine his astonishment at what he saw; but he seems to +have kept up his indifferent manner, not supposing the poor creature +before him could be in the least aware of the treasures he sought to +dispose of. + +M. Aldric was soon undeceived. + +He quickly found the tables turned upon him. + +The clever French tradesman was conversing with the greatest +violin connoisseur that the world has ever seen, or in all +human probability ever will see, for no one can ever again have +Tarisio’s opportunities, even should he unite in himself Tarisio’s +extraordinary qualities. + +Now, the pedlar, with all his enthusiasm and self-sacrifice, was a +man of exceeding cunning, and had that tact, quickness, affability, +and bonhomie which is well known to tourists in Italy, and has often +proved so fatal to the amateur of old laces, pottery, and objects de +vertu, or to such as may have tried to do a little fancy collecting +as they passed through the Italian towns, and haggled over bargains +in small curiosity-shops and market-places. So, with due astuteness, +the shrewd carpenter had not brought his _best_ wares on this his +first visit; he had come on a voyage of discovery, and only produced +a small pattern Nicolo Amati, and half a dozen Maggini, Ruggerii, +and such-like. He had with him no Strad, no Joseph, not even a grand +pattern Nicolo, but he had brought enough. + +M. Aldric, concealing his emotion, and fervently hoping the shabby +man did not know the value of his wares, offered him a small sum for +the lot, which Tarisio refused, doubtless with those picturesque +invocations of horror to the Virgin and all the Saints which seem +necessary to the Italian who attempts to convey to a “screw” the +mingled indignation and pity excited in his generous and artistic +breast by a mean offer. + +Tarisio was certainly disappointed; but he forgot that he himself had +to _create_ the market; and so at last he left, with his empty bag +indeed, but with his ragged pockets far from full. + +Back to Italy, back to his monasteries and cabarets, a little +dazzled; but, with unabated energy, he recommenced his search. + +He was now beginning to be known far and wide as a clever repairer +and a convenient dealer. As his stock of good, bad, and indifferent +fiddles increased he could offer a greater selection, and readily +parted with the worst ones, nicely done up, to his ignorant and +confiding but not over-wealthy Italian patrons. + +When next he journeyed to Paris he met with a different reception. +Vuillaume, Thibaut, and Chanot the elder opened their privileged +doors to him, and especially Vuillaume had the acumen to see that +in Tarisio he had lighted upon what gold-diggers call a veritable +“pocket,” and gave him higher and higher prices for the harvest of +Amatis, Strads, Guarneri, and Bergonzis which now flowed steadily +into Paris through this odd medium. + +Tarisio was far more than a connoisseur and dealer; he was a +singular and most whole-hearted enthusiast. As the novelist Charles +Reade (who was himself a great fiddle dealer and knew Tarisio) has +well said, “The man’s whole soul was in his fiddles. He was a great +dealer, but a greater amateur. He had gems by him which no money +would buy from him.” Mr Reade then goes on to relate how once, when a +splendid equipage rolled by him in Paris, the carpenter remarked, “He +would sooner possess one Strad than twenty such carriages.” He would +stalk the back or the belly of a valuable fiddle until he recovered +the whole, just as the Roman antiquary stalked the fragments of the +Hercules Farnese, finding the trunk in one place and the head in a +ditch miles away. + +Chanot had stumbled upon the cracked belly of a Strad violin in +Spain. Ortega, the fiddle-maker, had sold the remainder, ribs and +back, to a Spanish lady, fitting them nicely with a brand-new back +made by himself! The precious belly caught Tarisio’s eye in the shop +window, and he at last worried Chanot into parting with it for 1000 +francs. Off went Tarisio to Madrid, extracted from the bewildered +Ortega, who had sold the patched Strad, the required information, +interviewed the donna who possessed the patched Strad, and who, +after the fashion of the high-born Spaniard, at once said, “Sir, the +instrument is at your disposition,” which only meant that she would +part with it for a consideration, or what she considered to be the +good round sum of 4000 francs. This was a mere bagatelle for such a +treasure, which, refitted with its own belly by Vuillaume, is now +known as the Spanish Bass. + +It was sold for £800, and exhibited in the south Kensington +Collection of 1872 (No. 188). + +On one occasion, says Charles Reade, Tarisio was crossing the Bay of +Biscay with his famous Spanish Bass. The ship rolled; Tarisio clasped +his treasure tightly and trembled. It was a terrible gale, and for +one whole day they were in real danger. “Tarisio spoke of it to me,” +continues his friend, “with a shudder. ‘Ah! my poor Mr Reade,’ he +exclaimed, ‘the Bass of Spain was all but lost!’” As to Tarisio also +being lost, that did not seem to matter so much! + +It is not too much to say that, with hardly a memorable exception, +all the great Cremonese and Brescian fiddles, which now command such +_prix fous_, have passed through the cunning hands of Luigi Tarisio +the pedlar, and most of them have at one time been benefited by the +tender and artistic skill of Vuillaume, his great patron. + +When Tarisio, who by this time wore a decent coat, and no longer +carried Cremonas in a sack on his back, visited England in 1851, +he was received by the whole trade as a person of rare quality, as +indeed he was. + +Mr John Hart took him to see Mr Goding’s unique collection. As +one by one the owner took his treasures out of a glass cabinet, +before ever he had got within two paces of Tarisio, he was amazed +at hearing their names called out. A glance was sufficient. Tarisio +had had them all through his hands--the “King” Guarnerius, Lafont’s +Guarnerius, the matchless Bergonzi, the Marquis de la Rosa’s +Amati, Ole Bull’s Guarnerius, the famous Serafino ’cello, called +the Beauty--all of which might never have reached Mr Goding had it +not been for the enterprise and indomitable energy of the Italian +carpenter who now stood before him. + +Barring a narrow circle of dealers, it may seem strange that so +remarkable a man should not have been more widely known and esteemed +during his lifetime; but we can well understand that the restricted +circle of dealers amongst whom he moved, did not find it to their +interest to place their special Cremona “pocket” within reach of the +wealthy amateurs out of whom they themselves were busy making their +market. + +Tarisio, had he been dealer first and enthusiast second, might have +done better financially; but he did not do badly, and he wanted +little except the privilege of handling Cremonas to the end of his +life and dying in their good company. + +He did both. Although there was a strain of geniality about +Tarisio, he never seemed to unbend except in the company of +fellow-enthusiasts; and as he was too cautious to give himself +away to Italians, from whom he was gradually securing the spoils +which built up his fortune, fame, and immortality, the only people +who really knew Tarisio were the few foreigners like Vuillaume, +the Chanots in France, John Hart the dealer and Charles Reade the +novelist in England. + +In his own land he remained to the end nothing but the quiet, +unobtrusive repairer and occasional dealer in dilapidated fiddles. + +It seems he had removed to Milan, where he was quite safely hidden, +along with his fiddles, up in an attic at the top of a second-class +restaurant in the Via Legnano Porta Tegnaglia. + +No one was ever allowed to enter his room. He locked himself in, and +he locked himself out. They saw him going up and down the staircase, +and that is all they saw of him. + +One day in 1854 Tarisio dragged himself up those stairs for the +last time. Whether he had any premonition of his end, none may +know--certainly no one was with him when he died--only it was noticed +that he locked himself in, but came out no more; nor had he gone down +to the restaurant for any of the necessaries of life. + +At last the neighbours thought it time to ascertain what was taking +place in that mysterious attic. They seemed to have watched his +strange movements closely, but their efforts to find out who he was +and how he lived had been hitherto fruitless, as he made a point of +carrying on his particular and nomadic business at a distance from +his abode. They were not going to be baulked any longer, so they +knocked, but there was no answer. + +At last they broke open the door, and a strange and piteous sight +burst upon them. There, on a squalid couch, lay the pedlar, quite +dead. + +Around him all seemed chaos--piles of fiddle-boxes, fiddles in and +out of cases, tenors, ’cellos, violins in pieces and violins whole. +Half a dozen Strads there; a Gasparo (afterwards Mr Bennett’s), a +Ruggieri (Mr T. R. Bradson’s); about a hundred Italian fiddles, by +different makers. + +Here, too, was found the “Messie” or “Messiah.” + +These trophies created little enthusiasm at the time, but to the joy +of the relatives, two nephews, who had been hunted up with difficulty +by the municipal authorities, a sealed packet was found containing +valuable securities and a considerable amount of gold. + +The rest is matter of common history. + +The instant his friend and patron Vuillaume heard of the magician’s +death he hurried to Milan, and visited the nephews at their farmhouse. + +“Where are the fiddles?” + +“At Milan; but we have six here.” + +On the spot Vuillaume opened the cases. The first contained a +splendid Strad, the second a Joseph del Gesù, the third a Carlo +Bergonzi, the fourth and fifth two Guadagninis, and the last the +famous Messiah, preserved by Count Cozio de Salabue, intact until +1824, when it was bought by Tarisio. + +Vuillaume came to terms with the nephews for these six, and then lost +not a moment in visiting the famous attic at Milan, where he found +246 more, which he bought at once for £3166, leaving the astonished +heirs no doubt laughing in their sleeves, under the impression that +the _gobe-mouche_ of a Frenchman had been nicely hi-diddle-diddled by +the wily Italians. + +When we remember that a couple only of these gems would realise now +more than the sum Vuillaume paid for the lot, we may well remember +the proverb, “He laughs best who laughs last.” + + +A VIGNETTE OF PAGANINI. + +I have advisedly steered clear in this collector’s volume of +violin-players and violin-music, excepting in so far as they acted +or reacted in any way upon the violin and its progress towards +perfection. From this point of view, the growth of music appears to +be responsible for the definition and survival (as the fittest) of +the violin, violoncello, and double bass; and virtuosity is certainly +responsible for the lengthening of the violin-neck and finger-board, +the strengthening of the sound-bar to resist an increased +string-tension, and the lengthening of the bow. But virtuosity can +claim nothing more than these trifling details. The Strad pattern +of 1684 to 1700 has remained completely unaffected by the feats, +vagaries, or demands of soloists. + +In this the grand pattern violin stands out in sharp and singular +contrast to the old grand pianoforte. The imperious demands of Liszt +and Thalberg, Rubinstein and his followers, have compelled a series +of improvements in strength, sonority, delicate mechanism, and +sensibility, undreamed of by the old firms, and only perfected by the +later Erards, Broadwoods, Collards, and Steinways. But not a single +substantial improvement has been made in the violin since the last +one left the hand of the great Antonio at Cremona, and not even a +trifling modification of any sort has been adopted or applied to the +grand violin of the golden period for at least a century. The excuse +then for introducing the name and portrait of Paganini into this +book is not because he reacted in the least degree upon the art of +violin-making, but because he accepted it as an absolutely finished +art, and asked for nothing which he found not in Strad and Joseph. + +[Illustration: NICOLO PAGANINI] + +Now this is important and interesting, because Paganini was the +greatest of all players in this culminating century of the musical +art--a man admittedly unsurpassed in the opinion of violin experts +like John Ella, Cipriani Potter, Onry, and others, who, for forty +years after his death, listened to all the phenomenal violinists of +an age which boasts of Ernst, Joachim, Wieinawski, and Sarasate and +Ysaye. As it has not been possible to produce the face and figure of +any of these great old makers, with the one exception of Lupôt, who +belongs at best to the silver age, I have thought it worth while to +glorify their work by reproducing the grand though eccentric face +and figure of the one man who has invested their _chef-d’œuvres_ +with that romantic glamour, that almost unearthly prestige which the +violin alone amongst instruments can lay claim to. + +Paganini’s favourite violin, a Joseph Guarnerius, lies in its case +under glass to this hour, open for all eyes to inspect, in the Town +Hall at Genoa, his native town, to which he has bequeathed it. His +dying directions, that no one should ever play upon it, recall +Shakespeare’s curse upon those who should move his bones. The great +musician’s orders have not been quite so scrupulously observed as +those of the immortal bard of Avon. In “My Musical Life” will be +found my “Homage à Paganini,” together with a woodcut of Danton’s +very fine bust, given to me by John Ella, who played in the orchestra +among the violins when first Paganini visited England. + +Nothing is so ephemeral as the fame of an orator, actor, or musician, +unless they leave books or music behind them. Henceforth the +phonograph may do something to give future generations some idea of +the fascination which lived and died with them; but no phonograph +will ever give us even a faint echo of Siddons’ declamation or +Paganini’s playing; these are alike buried with the generation which +they charmed and electrified. But in Leigh Hunt’s description of +Paganini’s performance we have something like a pictorial phonograph, +if I may hazard the hibernianism, of the “Pale Musician’s” mighty +personality and power. Somewhere between the forties and fifties, +I remember, as a very young boy, standing awestruck before a thin, +gaunt, dislocated wax effigy of Paganini in an ill-fitting dresscoat, +with wild dreamy eyes and arm uplifted high--just as Leigh Hunt +describes him--before his bow came down like a crash of thunder on +the strings; but let the lively and graphic essayist who heard him, +speak for himself:-- + +“Paganini, the first time I saw and heard him, and the first time +he struck a note, seemed literally to strike it, to give it a blow. +The house was so crammed that, being among the squeezers in the +standing-room at the side of the pit, I happened to catch the first +glance of his face, through the arm akimbo of a man who was perched +up before me, which made a kind of frame for it; and there, on +the stage in that frame, as through a perspective glass, were the +face bent and the raised hand of the wonderful musician, with the +instrument at his chin, just going to commence, and looking exactly +as I described him-- + + --‘His hand, + Loading the air with dumb expectancy, + Suspending ere it fell a nation’s breath, + He smote, and clinging to the serious chords, + With godlike ravishment drew forth a breath + So deep, so strong, so fervid thick with love, + Blissful yet laden as with twenty prayers, + That Juno yearned with no diviner soul + To the first burthen of the lips of Jove. + Th’ exceeding mystery of the loveliness + Sadden’d delight, and with his mournful look + Dreary and gaunt, hanging his pallid face + ’Twixt his dark flowing locks, he almost seem’d + Too feeble, or to melancholy eyes + One that has parted with his soul for pride + And in the sable secret lived forlorn.’ + +To show the depth and identicalness of the impression which he made +upon everybody, foreign or native, an Italian, who stood near me, +said to himself after a sigh, ‘_O Dio!_’ and this had not been said +long when another person in the same manner exclaimed, ‘_O Christ!_’ +Musicians pressed forward from behind the scenes to get as close to +him as possible, and they could not sleep at night for thinking of +him.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +VIOLINS AT MIRECOURT, MITTENWALD, AND MARKNEUKIRCHEN + + +MIRECOURT + +Mirecourt in Lorraine has the glory of being associated from so early +a date as 1566 with the Cremona workshops. + +Andrew Amati, who made six small fiddles for Charles IX. about that +time, employed Nicolas Renauld of Nancy, who was a pupil of the +celebrated Mirecourt lutist Tywersus, to assist him in finishing +these important court orders, which did so much to establish the +supremacy of the “petit violon” over the crowd of competing viols +which then held the popular ear, and, as we have seen, died very hard. + +The great princes of Lorraine occupied a castle of pleasure called +Ravenel, at a short distance from Mirecourt. + +These accomplished noblemen, touched with Florentine culture, often +made excursions into Lombardy, and delighted in the refinements of +the Italian princedoms and duchies. + +They brought back with them pictures, ironwork, laces, musical +instruments. + +Tywersus, their private lute-maker, was deeply influenced by the +work and models of the early Amatis, and from the school of Tywersus +came Nicolas Renauld, Jean Medard, and Nicolas Medard. When Amati +left Paris, whither he had gone to present his violins in person to +Charles IX., he left behind him Nicolas Renauld, who slipped into +the lucrative post of luthier to his French Majesty, and we find his +friend and co-worker Medard installed in the same fat office under +the Grand Monarque, Louis XIV., who, with his expensive mistresses, +certainly spared no money or patronage to secure those who could +in any way minister to the extravagant court pomp and artistic +amusements of the Pompadour and the Petit Trianon. + +Meanwhile Mirecourt, in the heart of the Vosges mountains, with easy +access to the grand timbers of their ancient forests, within beck +and call of Lombardy, and in close touch with the great Italian +fiddle-makers, Mirecourt long held supremacy as one of, if not the +most important mart of fiddle manufacture. + +It shared with Mittenwald and Markneukirchen the honour of supplying +that rapidly growing violin market which was now springing up, and +whilst Cremona made largely for home consumption and a few foreign +courts, Mirecourt undertook the more modest but equally useful duty +of multiplying Cremona school violins, which circulated far and wide +throughout the French provinces, and frequently reached our own +shores; indeed the fiddles often passed for Cremonas. + +The popularity of these Cremona replicas brought on that inevitable +deterioration in quality which always follows over-rapid production +and cheap wares, and at one time Mirecourt, in spite of its elaborate +industry, was fast becoming a byword for bad fiddles. Happily the +danger was seen and speedily checked, and Mirecourt now stands out +as perhaps the greatest and most excellent emporium of modern violin +manufacture. + +All who wish to know what can be known, go to Mirecourt, just as +people who study art go to Rome and Florence, or people who study the +fashions go to Paris. + +To Mirecourt we owe Rambaux, who was born there in 1802 and died +there only in 1870. + +Francis and George Chanot both came from there. + +The Lupôt family are claimed as natives of Mirecourt, although the +greatest of them, Nicolas, whose violins run some of the finest +specimens of Cremona very hard, was a native of Stuttgard. His father +was a Frenchman, and came from Mirecourt. All his traditions belong +to Mirecourt, and these, as we all know, he carried with him to +Paris, where he died in 1824, and was succeeded by Gand. + +The names of Maucotel, Medard, Menegand, Silvestre, and Deragay, and +above all Vuillaume, must always shed an imperishable lustre upon the +little town in the Vosges mountains. + +Every one of the Vuillaumes, eight in number, including the immortal +Jean Baptiste, were born at Mirecourt. Two settled at Brussels, three +at Paris, but all the others lived and died at Mirecourt. + +William Ebsworth Hill was careful to send his sons to this +celebrated school of violin art, and we may be sure that they did +not come away until they had possessed themselves of everything that +Mirecourt had to teach the violin maker or the connoisseur. + +M. Thibouville Lamy of Mirecourt, who has trade branches in Paris and +London, manufactures a violin at about 3s. 10d. cost price, selling +at about 4s. 6d.; but Markneukirchen probably leads in cheapness and +quantity, if not quality, turning out quite playable fiddles for the +modest figure of £1 to £2, 10s. + +The best Mirecourt fiddles will fetch from £6 to £10. + +The Grand and Bemardel prices range from £16 to £20. + +The ever-increasing demands for “trade fiddles” of all kinds, as +distinguished from the solo violins reserved for the use of virtuosi, +has called forth an abundance of fair makers beyond the limits of +Mirecourt, Mittenwald, and Markneukirchen. + +In England it is enough to mention such names as Hill & Sons; +Duncan of Glasgow; the Chanots, London and Manchester; the late +Furber, London; in Paris, Bernardel, Silvestre, Germain, Audinot, +and Chardon; in Vienna, Zach, Bittner, Lembök, Voigt, Guttermann, +Rampfler; in Munich, Sprenger; in Frankfort-on-Maine, Lenk; in +Breslau, Liebich; in Brussels, Darche; in Lille, Hel; in Milan, +Marchetti; in Turin, Bros. Guadagnini; in Cremona, Ceruti; and for +further general information the reader may consult the tolerably +exhaustive catalogue index of makers at the end of this volume, +for the bulk of which I am indebted to the studious and admirable +labours of Miss Stainer. Her booklet is entitled “Violin Makers,” and +it forms one of the music primers of an educational series issued by +Novello & Co. + + +MITTENWALD. + +In old days Mittenwald, quaintest of Bavarian towns, with its +frescoed houses and its picturesque river-side, for it is on the +banks of the dear Isar, overshadowed by the Wetterstein and Kurwändel +mountains, was a town of considerable importance from very early days +as the halting-place for the Romans on their way to the Danube. + +It long retained its peculiar caravanserai character, which resulted +in the establishment of the handy mart or Mittenwald fair, for which +in more recent times the place was chiefly famous. After the removal +of the fair to Bozen, the importance of Mittenwald began to decline; +trade and commerce suddenly seemed to have made unto themselves +wings, until one Matthias Klotz, who in his boyhood is said to have +been apprenticed to no less a person than the great Nicolas Amati, +settled at Mittenwald, and wrote up outside his house: “Matthias +Klotz, Geigen Macher, im jahr 1684.” The prime hazel and maple, to +be found in the Wetterstein hills, is of splendid quality, and the +woods, then close up to the town, were full of old trees. + +Thither, before the days of Matthias, was wont to come a dreamy, +ill-regulated sort of person, who excited the curiosity, and perhaps +ridicule, of the villagers by tapping their trees with a hammer and +then putting his ear close to the wood to hear the sound. + +They thought he was mad, and he did go mad from worry and want, but +the sanest thing he ever did was to tap those trees and listen to the +sound. + +His name was Jacob Stainer. + +Matthias Klotz was only nineteen when he came to Mittenwald, but by +this time the Mittenwalders, who had heard how the eccentric tramp +with the hammer had gone back to Absam and made the place famous by +his fiddles, were prepared to receive the young workman with favour +and hospitality, for they hoped he might do something of the kind for +Mittenwald. + +They were not mistaken. One year before Klotz arrived at Mittenwald, +Stainer had died incoherent and insane at Absam, and now that the +greatest of German makers was dead, Mittenwald was soon destined to +become noted in its turn for its fiddles. + +It is generally affirmed that Klotz was a pupil of Stainer. Certainly +his relations with Nicolas Amati are not very well defined. The +probabilities are that he was a pupil of both--in the sense of being +familiar with their work. The fact that his violins are sometimes +mistaken for Stainer, points to the strong Absam influence which +was upon him--it could hardly be otherwise--whilst the tendency +noticeable in the fiddles of his son Sebastian, who certainly did +visit Cremona, to bring down the model flatter than was fashionable +at this time, indicates that the firm at all events reflected the +later Amati model of Nicolas, who died the very year Klotz came to +Mittenwald. + +Had Matthias or Sebastian Klotz attended to the methods either of +Stainer or Amati more carefully, they would have observed that wood +cut in spring with the sap in it was not calculated to last like +the drier autumn timber. Whether from haste or ignorance, the Klotz +wood, especially that used by Matthias and Sebastian, is sometimes +found to be worm-eaten, but Sebastian’s fiddles are much esteemed. +His brothers, George and Egidius, and his nephew, Joseph, son of +Egidius, all made fiddles of the same type--varnish running from +yellow to brown, and laid on rather more lavishly than was the habit +of Matthias, founder of the firm. + +The Mittenwald industry, although now less prolific than that of +Markneukirchen, preceded it in point of time, and undoubtedly it was +through Bavarian Mittenwald that the Cremona influence reached Saxony. + +Master Reiter, whose teacher was Johan Vauchel of Wurzburg, is now +the most prominent Mittenwald maker, and Herr Neuner, who was a pupil +of Vuillaume, directs the school and factory. The school instructs +about twenty boys, and is under Government. + +Out of eighteen hundred Mittenwalders, three hundred are +fiddle-makers. + +The place provides from fifteen to twenty thousand instruments per +annum, including zithers and guitars. I will not say that Herr +Reiter, who is an artist versed in the old secrets and the old +enthusiasms, is personally responsible for the “trade fiddles” that +annually pour from the Mittenwald workshops. He himself has made +comparatively few fiddles, but he supervises them all, and remarked +to a visitor the other day, “I, Master Reiter, never let one go out +of my hands that has not been thoroughly tested, and I have sent out +into the world, to Russia, to America, Athens, and where not, some +two hundred violins and twenty-five ’cellos, besides having repaired +some four hundred others.” + + +MARKNEUKIRCHEN. + +Quiet resting-places, secluded valleys of the Tyrol, mountains of +Saxony!--Mittenwald, Markneukirchen, Mirecourt; sleepy Italian +towns!--Brescia, Cremona, once provincial villages like Mirecourt, +far from the stir of mighty cities!--such retreats seem to have been +ever favourable to the development of violin manufacture. Something, +too, of simple and almost _naïve_ religious sentiment has entered +into the production of the earlier violins, most of which were, after +all, chiefly intended for the sanctuary, Catholic or Protestant. + +The arts and craftsbook of the Worshipful Guild of Violin-makers +of Markneukirchen, 1677 to 1772, has lately been unearthed and +translated by the many-sided and indefatigable Heron Allen, and it +throws a kind of sudden flashlight upon the origin of an industrial +centre which has since become one of the most famous emporiums of +violins “made in Germany.” + +Here we read how a mere handful of masters and workmen went out from +kith and kin into a wilderness--some would say a paradise--for the +sake of worshipping God in their own way--that is to say, the new +reformed Lutheran way. They settled, to the number of sixty-six, +about the year 1627, at the retired and mountainous village of +Markneukirchen. The old book which records their uneventful annals +begins characteristically enough with, “In the name of the Holy +Trinity, Amen”; and then follow the names of twelve families, the +principals being Reicher, Hans George, Polles, Gaspar, Schönfeldes, +and Gaspar Hopf; and from this modest nucleus, emigrants, chiefly +from Graslitz, grew the famous Guild, which by-and-by was responsible +for scattering abroad violins innumerable, labelled with every known +name, and of quality good, bad, and indifferent; for it is a notable +peculiarity of the Markneukirchen makers that, whilst they were +compelled by the rules of the Guild to produce diploma instruments +and others of recognised quality, the cost of production has got +down as low as about four shillings, and a very playable instrument, +labelled Stradivari, is actually sold for a sum not much above that +astonishing cost price. + +Many of these workers were all-round men, and did not confine +themselves to fiddle-making. Thus, Carl Frederick Jacob was +carpenter, locksmith, and general instrument maker; one Andrea +Gher, 1587, was a schoolmaster; whilst Gasper Reichel was a barber. +Gottfried Pitz was admitted to the Guild on easy terms, because he +had served his country as a cavalry soldier. + +The master-workers were mostly people of some substance. They had to +pay a tax of one florin on being admitted to mastership; but sons of +a master were admitted on a reduced fee of five florins. + +Most of the masters were expected to have a decent house, with a +room large enough to entertain the Guild with their wives at a +banquet on their installation. As this cost some money--there were +various ways of lightening the burden when the candidate happened +to be a desirable addition to the Guild--he was allowed to pay in +instalments, or part was remitted by favour. A popular means of +effecting economy was to _propose_ to marry the daughter of a master; +that at least staved off payment. The apprentices often got in cheap +that way. + +Hans Adam Narlitzer, who “intended” to marry a master’s daughter, was +admitted on reduced terms, on the understanding that, if the match +did not come off, he was to pay up in full. + +One Kretchman also “intended” to marry the youngest daughter of Hans +Martin Schönfeldes; also Johann Christian Envel, in 1761, had “half +a mind” to marry the youngest daughter of Reichel, and was admitted +for ten thalers; but in case he could not make up his mind to marry +the girl, _or any other master’s daughter_, he would have to pay +thirty-one thalers. In no case is it _recorded_ that any of these +gentlemen failed to marry as per contract; the masters’ daughters +probably took very good care of that, or would have sufficient +influence to suppress the fact of their rejection. + +With the spread of the Reformed opinions, there at first arose +a certain demand for violins in the new churches; but the rigid +Lutherans soon smelled the odour of abuse and reversion to Romanism, +and discouraged any approach to ornate services, or an over-supply +of instrumental accompaniment. A decree that the violins used in +Church should be reduced in numbers naturally spread consternation +throughout the little country town; but the growing demand for +stringed instruments of good quality for secular bands soon +counteracted the effect of sectarian bigotry and clerical parsimony; +and when one Joseph Haydn, bandmaster to Prince Esterhazy in Vienna, +practically founded the modern orchestra with its symphony, and +created the modern oratorio and quartet, the demand for violins +and basses led to a prodigious development of the Markneukirchen +industry; and as the masters not only had ready access to the best +Cremonese models, but were surrounded by some of the finest maple +timber in the world, felled in forests full of seasoned trees +hundreds of years old, the fame of the Markneukirchen makers soon +spread throughout Europe. + +At Mittenwald a similar community flourished, and the crop of German +instruments made, and still made, by these enterprising artificers +have flooded all the orchestras of the world, providing them with +samples of every maker, from Gaspar and Maggini to Stradivari, +the Guarneri, Bergonzi, and Guadagnini. The Mittenwald makers owed +their inspiration chiefly to Egidius Klotz, pupil of the great +Stainer. They were as famous for their fine hazel-fir timber as the +Markneukircheners were for their maple; it was also through the +Mittenwalders that the Cremona methods filtered readily into the more +northern region--Markneukirchen, Prague, Nuremburg, Wurzburg, and +Franken. + +The increased demand for instruments resulted necessarily in a +tendency to deterioration, which did not escape the attention of the +Guild, and rigid rules were drawn up, called “Beneficent Mandates for +the Suppression of Abuses.” + +Every master had to prove himself equal to producing one masterpiece +as a sample of his skill, though it was freely admitted that a cheap +demand involved a cheap type of instrument, which could not be +expected to rival the diploma standard of tone and finish. + +The quaint record of the Markneukirchen arts and craftsbook ends with +the year 1772, and with the words “_Deo Gloria_.” Since that date the +names of Reichel, Schuster, and Paulus have all been _en evidence_ +at various European Exhibitions as medallists and exhibitors of +distinction; but, after a great fire in 1840, a good many families +left the town, and thus the old centre became like a flower that had +overblown itself, and began to obey the inevitable law by which a +mature centre distributes itself gradually, losing as it were its own +central wealth in its circumference, as the seeds of the dandelion +get blown abroad over all lands. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +VIOLIN TREATMENT + + +The notion that the more a fiddle is knocked about the better it is, +is similar to the theory that the more you knock about a horse the +better he goes. + +A good horse will take a great deal of spoiling, and so will a good +fiddle. Your well-bred beast, even when broken down, if you turn him +out to grass and attend to his ailments, will recover marvellously, +and so will a violin, if you glue him up, readjust his nervous +system, keep him dry, and coax him a bit. + +The delusion that a fiddle is all the better for being maltreated +is due to this:--Many people observe that their old, battered, +disorganised fiddles, which went into the skilful repairer’s hands +sounding like tin kettles, come out with the true Cremona timbre; but +that, my deluded friend, is not in consequence, but in spite of the +knocking about to which your favourites have been exposed. + +The fiddle-doctor has attended to your violin’s internal economy, and +gently healed its bruises, killed the wolf or fiddle stomach-ache +from which it was suffering, glued tight the rattling back, ribs, +belly, fixed the loose sound-bar, and readjusted your Cremona’s very +soul (_l’âme du violon_), which is the sound-post and so it fares +well; but remember, ’tis better to keep a fiddle in repair and use +than allow it to get out of both, and go a mere wreck to the workshop. + +I am not forgetting, when I say “use,” that the incessant and +continued playing upon an instrument is said to result in its getting +what Joachim calls “played out,” and that collectors have been great +benefactors by withdrawing choice instruments from wear and tear, +giving them thus long periods of suspended animation; but, as a +general rule, so long as a violin lasts--and how long it will last is +still a vexed question--fair wear and tear and attention is just as +good for a fiddle as work, exercise, and cleanly habits are good for +man and beast. + +Neglect is _never_ good; knocking about is _never_ good! + +Lay it to your heart, O young player! + +What is that precious thing committed to your care? You have brought +it home from the auction-room--your Amati. There was a conspiracy to +keep down the bidding. An influential dealer wanted to buy it cheap, +having already half sold it in advance for twice as much as he meant +to give; he went up to £40 at the auction and stopped, but you were +the dark horse and made another bid; he winked at the auctioneer, +supposing it to be a bogus bid; the man with the hammer paused and +looked at the dealer, who shook his head; for once the dealer had +been too clever and lost his Amati for a £5 note. It was knocked down +to you. + +You get it home; there is something wrong about it; the timbre of the +A string is unequal--sweet, but too weak--it has a crack in one rib. + +You don’t expect a trumpet-sound like that of a Joseph, or quite the +bell-like ring of a Strad, but you do mean to have a quality like +the ripple of water--a round, soft, and incomparably sensitive and +_intime_ tone, not to be surpassed by Strad and never reached by +Stainer. + +Of course your early Nicolo has got to be overhauled. He has got +a crack--perhaps more than one. Why, he is already more than two +hundred years old, and may have a mark of the young Stradivari’s +chisel about him. Of what attention is he not worthy! Take him to a +subtle violin medicine-man, who will at a glance see what he has got +to deal with, and will sit down before him and think! + +He will then take him up, handle him, tap him, pull him to pieces +with excessive care and reflection. When you get him back, you may +still be not quite satisfied, but wait. _Your_ treatment has to begin +where the fiddle-doctor’s ends. + +The convalescent home comes after the hospital--your house is the +convalescent home. + +The glue must dry; the changed sound-post must grow to the +newly-directed strain and tension of the vibrating boards; the +refixed flanks must learn to deal with the air column, and the +filled-up crack, by constantly thrilling with the rest, must have +time to forget that it ever was a crack! + +Be not impatient. Play upon it gently at first, and by-and-by draw +out its tone; lay it aside and watch that no harm comes to it; let it +lie open, with a soft silken wrapper on the strings--near, not too +near the fire; it must not get hot, but, like good claret, just the +temperature of a comfortably warm room. + +Think of it in winter as you would think of your pet canary; +don’t let it get chilled at night; let it be in your own bedroom, +or wherever there is an atmosphere and temperature fit for a +well-cared-for “human.” + +’Tis half human; ’tis caressed by your hand; it lies close to your +cheek; ’tis breathed on by you when you press it, in moments of rare +inspiration and musical trance, between your chin and your left +breast, where its vibrating back actually _feels_ the pulses of your +own heart. The waves of sound that you generate from it are saturated +with the magnetism of your touch; the trembling pressure of your +fingers comes from the shaking of your own life-blood as it beats in +the mysterious valves of the heart, and seems to mingle with those +more than atmospheric, those _psychic_ waves which travel out upon +the air in a flow of magic sound conveying your inmost self to the +inmost selves of others! + +So this half-human thing must live with you and be cared for by and +fare with you, and be kept in good humour. + +See that no clot of dirt be in its case, no speck of rosin to vex and +fret the smooth amber-coloured back. Take it out lovingly; polish it +with soft handkerchief; keep it shining wherever the varnish still +shows up, and scrupulously clean elsewhere. + +The vile notion that a coat of rosin does good, and may be left with +advantage like a festering mass on the belly underneath the strings, +is a most grievous delusion! + +Why suffer the corrosion of the varnish with a foreign substance to +remain there more than on any other part of the wood? + +Rosin is for the strings, not for the belly, and the strings are for +friction, and are intended to be scraped through and worn out and +replaced, but the belly is for vibration and is never intended to +wear out. + +Your rosin is life to the strings, enabling them to speak, but ’tis +death to the wood, stifling its pores and striking it dumb! + +Never touch your violin with oil, or spirit, or colouring. Only a +skilled repairer can venture to do that, and even he will not always +be wise. + +I have seen really good old instruments too much cleaned or daubed +over ruthlessly with muddy brown varnish, much, as Ruskin says, +he saw men with knives and mops of paint at Venice scraping away +and splashing over with raw blue the vast old faded skies of Paul +Veronese! + +A spick and span mania seizes at times upon restorers of all schools. + +A relative of mine had a Spagnoletti restored to him by a cleaner, +but so repainted as to be worthless. + +Have not half the cathedrals in the land been disfigured by +whitewash, starched and bleached just like so much dirty linen, and +the old frescoes obliterated like so many disfiguring stains; and +even now, in these more enlightened days, how many old carvings have +been replaced by modern routine-work sculpture, whilst the walls, +façade, and floor of grand old St Mark’s at Venice have been smeared +over with Salviati’s modern mosaic. Thus have I seen a Maggini +botched and browned over so completely with bad German varnish as to +leave only faint traces here and there of the original coating. + +Never in the matter of varnish dare to _replace_ what time has +stolen; that loss of old varnish is a tribute paid not ungrudgingly +to “the Vandal years,” who have spared the life and been unable +materially to injure the fabric of the rare old instrument. Above +all, thou favoured guardian of a Cremona, never let it get near damp, +or suffer from any other mouldering or corrosive influence. + +A friend of mine, finding that the worm had got into his violin +_case_, which contained a Guadagnini, proceeded to saturate his case +with benzoin, and before it was properly dry replaced the precious +instrument, with the result that the old varnish was brought up in +blisters all over the back, which is now one crinkled mass, as rough +to the touch as a nutmeg-grater. The varnish was completely ruined, +and what is worse, the violin has never sounded like itself since; a +clear proof to my mind that the varnish affects the tone, or at least +that damaged varnish impairs it. + +It is not at all an uncommon thing to find a violin, which has been +left unplayed upon for some months, sulky when first taken out. + +Do not be rash or fidget with the bridge or soundpost. Warm the +fiddle up gently; rub it lightly with all due care, and play on +it without taking any notice of its temper; go on for a couple of +hours; you will find, to your surprise, that it has recovered all +its own sweetness and charm, and will be ready to charm you with +the delightful sensitiveness of its response. All that was really +wanted was for the temporarily disused channels of vibration to be +again filled with sound--the pores--the desiccated hollows to be +once more shaken up in the old way. The instrument has really gone +to sleep--some of its nerve currents have got sluggish--that is, the +desiccated powder molecules have stuck in the pores and must be set +rolling again. But, like one just awakened, the fiddle takes a little +time to be “all there,” as the idiom runs. + +Something similar may be observed in a large hall. When, after the +atmosphere has been quiescent for some time, speaking first begins, +the speaker will not be heard well; the atmosphere is stiff, and only +when the whole of it has been set in vibration--and that takes a +little time--does it become sensitive and sufficiently elastic to be +capable of transmitting the slightest inflections of sound. + +There is, again, an electric as well as an atmospheric and molecular +state of the air and all other vibratory substances, but this is +a side of acoustics extremely little understood, and can only be +dealt with empirically by speakers, singers, players, and especially +handlers of violins, who will instinctively make use of some laws +which they do not understand, and which indeed do not yet seem to +have been correctly formulated. + +I feel that something ought to be said about the position of the +sound-post, though frankly I would rather not say anything. + +Whatever advice one gives is certain to be wrongly and mischievously +applied. + +Technically, the sound-post should be a little behind the right foot +of the bridge, if you look from head to neck, which is of course +the left foot if you look from neck to head. It ought also to be +straight--if it is aslant--unless the surface of the ends be cut on +a slope. Of course it clings but partially to back and belly, whose +throbs it is intended to blend; a little too near the bridge will +often produce a light hard tone; a little too far will tend to a +loose, muffled, or tubby quality; a little to the right will brighten +the right string at the expense of the left, and _vice versâ_. Get +it exactly in the fit place, and you attain the utmost sensibility +and equal sonority of which your violin is capable. But so capricious +are the vibrational laws, and so subtle are the peculiarities of +each violin’s nervous system, that the position which at first has +failed to yield good results will ultimately be found to have won its +way to the heart of your violin, the instrument adjusting itself to +what was at first an uncongenial treatment of its nerves, until the +nerves learn to sympathise, and even rejoice, in special directions +of pressure and tension induced by the sound-post. When this happens, +better let well alone and don’t attend to outside advice of experts. + +It is seldom wise to encourage an amateur, or any but a skilful hand, +to trifle with the position of the sound-post. If it _must_ be moved +or has fallen down, why then by all means take the advice of an +expert; go to the doctor. + +The same sort of advice may be given about the position of the +bridge. Granted that you have a bridge which suits your instrument +(and the importance of this I have elsewhere dwelt upon), then +consider whether ’tis worth while to move your bridge at all. The two +little side slits in the ∫ ∫ indicate approximately the position of +the bridge; let a violin-doctor determine the right height, which, +remember, must be modified according to its position, and the slope +and elevation of the finger-board. But here again there is a vague +and subtle margin for readjustment; the importance of the bridge’s +position is of course directly related to the whereabouts of the +sound-post, as the bridge is a prime factor in dealing first with the +vibrations transmitted by the sound-post from belly to back. + +There are violins which gain brilliancy by the bridge leaning a +little forward, but this is of course dangerous, as a little more, +and down comes the bridge. The theory of course is for the feet +of the bridge to grip equally at all points the surface of the +belly--flat and close, and with equal pressure. Now, if the bridge +leans forward, the grip of the back part of the feet is slightly +lifted, whilst the pressure of the front part is accentuated, and +if it leans backwards, precisely the reverse takes place. Yet so +capricious are fiddles, that some do not seem to like to have their +bridges quite straight, and so they have got to be humoured. + +Without grave cause I should advise not meddling with bridge or +sound-post after they have been readjusted by a good repairer. He +may not have been quite right; he may not have had the time or +patience to deal with your _malade imaginaire_ of a fiddle--for +amongst fiddles as amongst people, there are _malades imaginaires_ +which baffle the profession--but your fiddle-doctor will be probably +more right than you--fussy, irritable, discontented, inexperienced +amateur, and, if you leave off tampering with the works, the fiddle +will very probably adjust itself and get all right. + +Then of course you must remember that whenever you touch the bridge +you touch the elevation of the strings above finger-board. Put bridge +back, you slacken the touch for the player by bringing the strings +close down on the finger-board; put it forward or tilt it, and you +lighten the touch; make it harder for the fingers by lifting the +strings higher from the finger-board. + +And now a word about your finger-board. This is generally made +of ebony; the old masters used various brownish woods, choosing, +of course, the harder ones, which they often inlaid beautifully. +Sometimes even they used ivory; you may perhaps have noticed that on +some violins you have a difficulty in stopping fifths, or indeed any +chords, in tune. This, unless you are a mere blunderer, comes from +the state of your finger-board. You may not have noticed it, but you +will observe that the strings, by constantly being squeezed by the +fingers against the smoothly-arched surface of the ebony, have worn +channels in the wood, but channels of unequal depths; the consequence +is that the same pressure, forcing two strings down on unequally +raised surfaces, fails to produce that relatively equal pressure +necessary for producing your true fifth; the string also being +sunk, it does not get the full benefit of the finger’s pressure, +as the shock of impact will be broken by the higher level of the +finger-board on either side of the sunken string. + +In this way the tone _quality_ as well as the _intonation_ suffers +from what so constantly eludes observation--a worn finger-board. + +Of course a new finger-board, or the restoration of an old one, is a +very easy matter, and can in no way affect, except for the better, +any violin. + +It may safely be said that no violin now in use has either its +original finger-board or, for the matter of that, its original neck. +Strings of very ill-assorted thickness are also responsible for +imperfect fifths. + +The management of the pegs sometimes presents difficulties to the +novice. Rosewood, ivory, and boxwood have been tried, but ebony +seems to be the favourite, though many incline, as I do personally, +to rosewood, which is less dense, and thus, in contact with the +maple-head (which is again less dense in fibre than the rosewood), +offers a less hard and violent contrast than does the iron ebony to +the porous maple. + +But the all-essential thing is for the pegs to be nicely fitted, and +it is a vile practice to rosin the pegs to make them stiffer, or to +rub them with lead-pencil or whitening to make them turn more easily. + +If your peg sticks, it is either because it does not fit the hole, +is not smooth, or because you have rammed it in too far in order to +resist the pull of a string, probably coiled round and round the pegs +in a tangled, twisted mess. + +There never should be a need for this over-ramming in of the screw, +nor would there be if, when you pulled up your new string to pitch, +you immediately let it down, drew the stretched part tight, and then +screwed up again, when you would find, instead of ever so many coils, +you had reduced the number to one or two, which would at once lift +the strain from your screw, and make it needless for you to force it +in till it stuck and almost refused to move at all. + +You should be able, when your fiddle is at your chin, to nip the +peghead between the first and third joint of your forefinger, and +adjust the pitch to a nicety and in a moment; but then the resistance +of the screw must be so nicely balanced with the tension of the +string as to allow of its moving easily when gripped, and keeping in +its exact place when left. + +It is a very strange thing that, whilst all sorts of mechanical +contrivances for moving violin screws have been suggested, and even +tried and adopted for guitars and double basses, the violin retains +its simple and primitive screw; nor would any one who lays claim to a +decent position in the trade dream of advising a departure in this, +or indeed in any other respect from the custom of the Cremona school +and its successors. + +Concerning the stringing of your violin, beyond the hints I have +given with regard to the accumulation of evils round the peg, there +is not very much to be said. + +The quality, manufacture, preservation, and price of strings has +already been dealt with; and here, as in everything connected with +violins, there must be fine and sympathetic adaptation of strings +both to the performer and to his instrument. + +A young girl will naturally incline to thinner strings than a strong +man, just as she will usually prefer a lower bridge, which will +reduce the resistance because of the reduced distance between the +strings and the finger-board. + +Some players will prefer a thick first or third string, according to +the quality of tone they are able to elicit; some a smooth or rather +thin patent fourth in preference to the usual more roughly-coiled +and thicker G string, which, however, is preferable for orchestral +playing; but, as a rule, buy your strings according to gauge, if +you can’t trust your eye, in a good shop, and you will not be +disappointed. + +Remember, as I have previously intimated, that any great inequality +in the relative thickness of your strings may be quite as much +responsible for your imperfect fifths as an old channelled +finger-board. Use plenty of rosin, and let the string be seasoned +with it right up to the bridge, but not much, if at _all_, below the +top of the finger-board. The rosin must be well rubbed in before you +attempt solo work, as any excess of what I may call raw undigested +powder will produce a most vile screeching. + +The tone of a fine violinist never reminds you of the cat-gut and +rosin. In the pure disembodied tone of Piatti, Joachim, or Sarasate +we entirely lose the sense of all beggarly elements; they have +suffered a change into “something rare and strange.” + +The rough-and-ready way of testing false strings by setting them +in vibration, holding by each end, and twitching till the double +line is seen, and if a third line appears condemning the string as +false, is a method often, not _always_, reliable. You can never be +quite sure till you have put the string on. If false, you _may_ get +a true length out of it by trying another part; but, as a rule, if +one length of a string is false, it is bad all through. A player, +especially a soloist, should always have a length or two of stretched +and tested firsts in his case, or, better still, in his waistcoat +pocket, before he goes on the platform, unless he can ensure the +presence of a second reliable instrument at hand in case of a sudden +breakage. + +Strings have every kind of vice short of downright falseness. You +need not put up with wheezy or dull, or any sort of impure vibration, +and beware of laying the blame on the violin when the string is the +offender. + +Of course, if the sound-bar or the back or belly of the violin is +loose, or the sound-bar askew, that will account for a good deal. By +tapping all round the front and the back, just where these join the +ribs, you can easily discover by a certain jar or rattle whether and +where something is loose; it may be one of the blocks or linings. + +Test the fiddle and you may acquit the strings; test the strings and +you may acquit the fiddle. + +You may sometimes experience a difficulty in playing the A or D +string without striking the E or G; this may be due to your own +clumsiness, but it may also be due to the curve of your bridge being +too flat, or someone or more of the strings having eaten too deeply +into the bridge. + +If your hand perspire much--and all hands perspire--your strings, +especially your E string, will rag out. It is difficult to say +exactly at what stage in the ragging process it is advisable to +change your string. It is strange, but true, that the tone of an old +ragged string is not materially impaired. I have sometimes fancied +that such thorough tough and seasoned strings are even improved in +spite of age and infirmity. Certain it is that the smoothest string +will go without warning, and the raggedest will sometimes hang on +down to a mere thread. + +Paganini perspired frightfully, so much so that he always carried a +dry shirt in his violin case, and a gentleman noticed that when he +opened his case to take out his violin for a public solo, his strings +were in rags. + +I have sometimes observed that, oddly enough, a second or third +string is less durable after it has ragged than a first; the wearing +of the threads which compose the thick strings seems less hard and +tight than those of the thin chanterelle, or the resultant material +is softer and gets soaked and cheesy, and like cheese is readily cut +through by the nails. + +Lastly, the amateurish and falsely-assumed economical habit of +slackening all the strings each time the violin is replaced in its +case is a delusion and a snare; it only worries your instrument’s +nervous system. + +Slacken your _bow_, not your strings. + +The violin gets accustomed to the normal strain, and adjusts itself +to it, and resents being deprived of its due tension as much as an +athlete would resent his dumb-bells being removed. + +The strings are quite as likely to break by being constantly fidgeted +up and down, and the violin is much more likely to get demoralised by +the wearing action and reaction of a varying strain, than if you let +it alone with all its strings at their accustomed pitch. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +VIOLIN DEALERS, COLLECTORS, AND AMATEURS + + +I Have come to the conclusion, “after long years,” that there are +three things about which your averagely honest man has no conscience +whatever--the first is a horse, the second is an umbrella, and the +last, but not least, is a fiddle. + +He will buy from some needy ignoramus a fiddle worth £100 for a £5 +note, if he can. He will sell a fiddle which cost him £5 for £100, +if he can. Truly, the _caveat emptor_ of the ancient Romans covers a +multitude of sins. + +On the other hand, the extreme ignorance of many persons who have +violins to sell offers singular temptations to dealers, who are a +class of people constitutionally on the make. + +In bygone days, people who did not play the violin used to be +criminally careless about the instruments that happened to be in +their possession. Cremonas might lie for years in damp attics, or +hung up in disused cupboards on rusty nails, or away in the dust of +ages on the top of old beds and cabinets. Even if the fiddle was +ultimately stolen--borrowed and not returned--it was thought hardly +worth a serious inquiry; it “was all to pieces” or “only an old +fiddle”; and, indeed, I have before now seen such with the belly off +converted into serviceable dustpans. + +Credulity has succeeded to ignorance, and now any one who has any +sort of shabby-looking fiddle fancies he has got a rare Cremona! + +He will advertise it unblushingly in the halfpenny papers, bring it +gravely to supposed judges, and make a favour of even showing it to a +dealer. + +Nothing will shake the confidence of these simple folk in their +spurious wares; they will bring out a common brown German _dated_ +Maggini, and you point out that Maggini never dated his instruments; +they suppose you to be envious. Or they show you a Stainer rashly +dated fifty years after that maker’s death (such an one was lately +brought to me), with a label so recent that you wonder at the +brazen fraud. As to the good and tolerably deceptive French copies +of Strad, their name is legion, and for a moment a person fairly +conversant with fiddles may be deceived by such a subtle and withal +honest copyist as Lupôt, but to the eye of the experienced dealer +the varnish is quite enough. The varnish that chips off instead of +rubbing away, thus leaving the raw wood more exposed than permeated, +is not Cremona varnish. + +Of course as to the new labels in modern type I have nothing to say. +No one but a complete fool in fiddles could be taken in by them. + +Still, when all gross cases are put aside, there is an excusable +margin left for honest error, especially when personal interest is on +the side of error. + +I have very little doubt that my old friend, the late Mr Cox, well +known as an acute picture dealer, really believed in a certain violin +which he called the Red Knight. He bought it at the great sale of +Gillott’s fiddles as a rare Joseph Guarnerius. + +I would never tell the old man to his face that his Joseph was a very +plausible red Landolpho copy of Joseph, and I was even weak enough +to allow it to lie on the table of the Royal Institution side by +side with the “Dolphin,” Enthoven’s Maggini, the Emperor of Russia’s +Strad, a genuine Nicolas, a Joseph and a Jacob Stainer; in short, the +Red Knight lay by favour for one evening in company with some twenty +gems of worldwide reputation. + +In the course of my lecture, to please my old friend, I took up the +Red Knight, remarking, “Here is a fine violin _labelled_ Joseph +Guarnerius, once the property of Mr Gillott, now owned by Mr Cox.” I +said no more. + +A few weeks afterwards the Red Knight was sold for £300, partly on +the strength of my having vouched for it at the Royal Institution. + +Meanwhile the Jupiter of judges, William Ebsworth Hill, had been +consulted by the purchaser, who, on finding that he had only got hold +of a Landolpho, wanted his money back. + +I think they would have gone to law if they could have counted on me +as a witness; but when I was threatened with a subpœna, I replied, +“I would certainly go into the box, but should have utterly to deny +that I had vouched for the genuineness of the Red Knight or expressed +any opinion whatever about it except that it was ‘a good fiddle +_labelled_ Guarnerius,’ worth perhaps £60 but not £300.” + +The upshot was that I was not subpœnaed. Mr Cox refunded the money +and the buyer restored the fiddle. + +No one doubts but what Mr Gillott, of steel-pen celebrity, did +obtain, chiefly through Charles Reade of “Never Too Late to Mend” +fame, a great many very fine fiddles, but I am afraid that Mr C. +Reade was also responsible for some comparative rubbish like the +Red Knight. Certainly I find a very dubious Strad tenor (one of +Gillott’s) labelled 140 in the South Kensington collection. As to +this particular collector’s specimen, if I grant him his belly and +his sound-holes, it is about all that I can do--for Strad never threw +that scroll nor touched with plane or chisel that back and ribs. + +I brought home from Australia a so-called Peter Guarnerius--really an +excellent violin--but it was no more a Guarnerius than a Strad, and +was sold far under its value as a Camillo Camilli, which it probably +was. But what will you? After all, a fiddle at any given time is +worth what it will fetch. + +The most impudent fraud or the most blatant delusion which has ever +come under my notice was the so-called Maggini exhibited by Mr J. W. +Joyce (110, South Kensington Exhibition, 1872). + +It was made by Bernhardt Fendt, and I gave in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ +of the period its history and the names of its chief owners; but it +was not removed, neither was the Amati tenor (No. 147), labelled and +hung as Maggini, ever re-labelled, nor was a Klotz fiddle which bore +a Stainer label ever corrected. + +The only fraud I succeeded in dislodging was a spurious +Bergonzi--also sent up by Mr J. W. Joyce--which after my attack on +the South Kensington collection of 1872 disappeared. + +The poor thing, no worse than the Bernhardt Fendt which brazened it +out like a false claimant, was merely made a scapegoat of. + +These be among the humours of your loan collections! + +But we must be indulgent. Some mistakes are sure to be made, but it +is only fair to remember that the fiddle world is vastly indebted to +these grand fiddle exhibitions all the same. The exhibition of 1885 +at South Kensington was not one whit less important than the 1872 +show. + +The 1885 specimens were more discreetly selected than those of 1872. +They had the advantage of being largely controlled by Mr Hill. + +Besides the usual supply of leading Italian makers, the English +school was remarkably well represented. There was found a capital +Ford, a maker who has not received due credit for his excellent work. +A good Duke and Walmsley, and a yellow fiddle by Tobin, a man quite +noticeable for the cut of his scrolls, which are always full of +character. + +There was an interesting John Lott, richly varnished. A romantic +interest must always attach itself to this fine maker on account of +his early Bohemian life, recorded by Charles Reade in a memoir called +“Jack of All Trades.” + +Charles Reade, who knew Lott intimately, tells us how at one time he +travelled through Europe with a menagerie and became famous as the +keeper of a most clever but vicious elephant called Djek, who, after +killing ever so many men, had to be demolished herself with a cannon, +and was then cut up for elephant steaks to feed the town. + +It was only after the loss of Djek that John Lott came again to +London and took up the fiddle trade, which he had learned in boyhood. + +Joseph Hill, Lockey Hill, and Banks, were also well seen at South +Kensington in 1885. There was also a matchless Urquhart, very +venerable--Anno 1666--the date of the great fire of London, which +happily spared it! + +The Stradivarius case contained Mr Hill’s interesting 1732 Strad (now +Ysaÿe’s violin), which, although made so late in his life, was signed +by the old man, who after 1730, as a rule, had left off signing his +instruments. + +A truly serio-comic chapter might be written on the huge prices given +for frauds. A friend of mine gave £200 forty years ago for a supposed +Strad (which was only a Lupôt) at a time when £40 was a long price +for the clever Frenchman. + +A violin professor I know sold a very poor Strad the other day, but +made a very good thing out of it. When the lady showed it me, I took +a liberal view, and said that £300 would have been a long price. Her +countenance fell. + +“Good gracious! I gave £600!” + +“Keep it long enough, and _anything_ by Strad will fetch that; but +probably not,” I added, “in your lifetime or mine.” This was some +years ago. + +On the other hand, bargains in Strads and Josephs, Bergonzis and +Stainers, are still no doubt to be got, but only about as often as +bargains in Raphaels, Rubens, Rembrandts, or Tintorets; but amateurs +of pictures and fiddles are mostly wrecked on school-pictures and +school-fiddles, often getting fair money’s worth, but _not_ what they +_pay for_. + +Betts purchased one of the finest Stradivari in the world for 20s. +When John Lott opened it in Vuillaume’s presence, he found the +original bass-bar. The bar--so Charles Reade tells us--was low and +short, and quite incapable of bearing the strain of concert pitch, +and John Lott replaced it with one stronger. The Betts Strad was sold +to George Hart for 800 guineas--a heavy price fifty years ago. + +Mr John Hart, father of George Hart, picked up a violoncello in +Oxford Street for a sovereign or two. The timbre caught his ear as he +passed three street-musicians--violin, cornet, and ’cello. + +Lindley, the great player, came into his shop and bought a fine +Forster ’cello for a round sum. This was the Oxford Street ’cello. + +The destiny of violins has ever been one full of ups and downs, and, +like human beings, they have been literally kidnapped, as in the case +of Spohr’s, which was lifted from behind his travelling carriage; +shipwrecked, like the Peter and Paul, _vide_ page 96; murdered by +those Vandals who patch stray bits of slaughtered Cremonas into +modern fabrics, and sold for slaves, as in last century, to be +scraped in dim churches or ancient orchestras, until found out to be +royalties in disguise by the Chanôts and Vuillaumes of the nineteenth +century. + +One would suppose that the stealing of a first-class instrument would +be next to impossible. Hardly a fiddle of mark now exists which is +not known to one or other of the great dealers in Paris, London, or +Berlin; and whenever it changes hands, it is likely to come before +them again for inspection and verification. Yet some of the famous +Spanish Court Strads have vanished no one knows where, and another +famous Strad from the Plowden Collection, whilst in possession of one +of our diplomats at St Petersburg, disappeared, and has never since +been traced. + +Many years ago I left a Vuillaume, labelled Albani, in a railway +carriage when I got out to take refreshment. I was not gone five +minutes, but in that five minutes my Vuillaume had gone. + +After the death of a well-known nobleman, a certain so-called Strad +in an elaborate case, with finely-mounted bows, was submitted to +Mr Hill for inspection. It was nothing but a common German fiddle; +but Mr Hill told me he had no doubt that the original occupant +of the noble case had been stolen. Probably many such thefts have +been committed by dishonest servants. Nothing could be easier +than to substitute one fiddle for another in houses--and they are +legion--where people do not know one fiddle from another, and where +fiddles lie unused and unvisited in lofts and cupboards, I might +almost say from generation to generation. No soloist who travels +should fail to insure his treasure. Sarasate had a heavy insurance on +his violin when he went to America. + +But worse than theft is mutilation. The chances are that what is +stolen, unless it be stolen deliberately to cut up, will some +day reappear intact; but the chances are small that a mutilated +instrument will ever collect its _disjecta membra_. + +Still, as in the case of Tarisio’s Spanish bass, that too is +possible, just as the recovery of the Hercules Farnese statue, before +alluded to, was possible. + +A well-known amateur whose Strad had been taken to pieces for repair +and the pieces wrapped in bits of paper, on unfolding the fragments +found the head missing. The loss seemed irreparable, but a day or +two afterwards an old apple-woman picked it up in the gutter, and +happened to take it to the very fiddle-shop charged with the repair +of the Strad. That Strad head was worth just 2s.--to the old woman! + +Nothing is easier than the perpetration of a fraud by a clever +copyist if he chooses to attempt it. Incredible as it may appear, +Paganini was shown by Vuillaume two fiddles, one of which was his own +and the other a counterfeit, and was quite unable at the moment to +decide which was which. + +Chanôt’s copy of the Carlino or Kerlino 1454 viol, No. 14, South +Kensington 1872 Exhibition, completely deceived me until I had the +opportunity of handling both instruments at leisure. + +These frauds extend to bows. The Tourte and Dodd bows in existence +that know not Dodd or Tourte are legion. + +I should recommend my readers never to leave a valuable bow in their +case when they send their violins for repair. + +I lost a good Dodd myself in that way. Fine bows are not safe even +in the orchestra anteroom; they get “changed.” It seems so simple to +some people, when a bow, a crush-hat, or an umbrella happens to be +lying about, to mistake it for their own and leave theirs behind, +especially if it is inferior in quality to the one they chance to +catch up by mistake! As luck will have it, ’tis seldom a worse one +that gets caught up! + +A friend of mine happened to leave a fine Tourte bow in his case, +and then he sent his fiddle for repairs to a smart dealer who shall +be nameless here. When the case returned, it had a bow in it, but it +was a copy, and a very good copy, of a Tourte. In this instance the +dealer restored the original under pressure. + +In everything connected with a fiddle and a bow I say, Beware! +Beware! Further, let me say to amateurs, not one in a thousand +of you, even with practice and opportunity, is fit to judge of a +violin; you may easily know what _suits_ you, and that no doubt for +practical purposes is the essential. You can hardly know what is +_genuine_. + +Over and above culture and wide observation and experience, a certain +instinct is required, and few are they that have it. Why, my friend, +if William Ebsworth Hill, from whose judgment there was no appeal, +got “his eye out” when only for a few weeks he left off looking at +fiddles, or distrusted his own judgment on certain days, as to my +knowledge was the case--for he was at once the most diffident and +absolute of men--what chance have you? Why, none at all! + +I will go further than this, and declare that half the violinists now +before the public are no more judges of a _genuine_ fiddle than my +cook. A man may be a judge without being able to play, and a man may +play divinely and not be a judge. At the same time Charles Reade’s +opinion would have been even more valuable than it was had he played +himself. He never would have written those foolish paragraphs about +modern-made fiddles sounding as well as old Cremonas had he played +himself. It is all the difference between a man who looks at another +man on horseback and one who has got to ride the horse himself; the +first may not see much difference in two horses, but the second soon +finds it out! + +Playing the fiddle won’t make you a judge, but you will be a better +judge if you can play the fiddle. I remember showing Remenyi a very +fine copy of Strad which had deceived many. He walked up and down my +room playing upon it with delight, and pronounced it a genuine Strad +beyond a question. It was a Lupôt for all that. + +As for your ordinary amateur, he will judge by an old-looking label, +being unaware that forgers keep old battered counterfeit type in +stock, or he will note the place of the little buttons which fasten +the inner blocks, supposing that each maker had his favourite +position for these buttons from which he never deviated. Others will +prate about Strad’s wasp sting purfle running counter to the angle +of his corners, or declare that one maker never made his back in two +pieces, whilst another never made it otherwise. + +But there is one mark occasionally found in old Italian violins which +I do not remember to have seen forged or imitated, or indeed even so +much as alluded to by any writer. + +If the amateur happens to have an instrument with a little round +hole in the back of his fiddle a few inches below the nut, filled up +skilfully so as to be almost imperceptible, he may be quite sure he +has got an old violin, probably one of the oldest, as the practice +of falling suddenly on the knees and letting the violin hang, in +processions in which the singers went before and the minstrels +followed after, has long been abandoned. + +That little hole, so cunningly plugged, shows the place where a +slight chain connected the instrument to a button-screw or hook, so +that at the elevation of the Host, the minstrel might suddenly fall +on his knees without the fear of dropping his fiddle. I have an old +Andrew Guarnerius so plugged, and the violinist Oury first pointed +this out to me and explained the reason of the plugged hole! + +Scores have sent me descriptions of their fiddles, and expected me +to pronounce on the genuineness of them, or are sure that they own +a real Strad or Amati, because theirs (in their opinion) exactly +corresponds to my description of Strad or Amati in “Music and +Morals.” All this shows that the outside public have not the faintest +inkling of true violin lore. + +Oliver Wendell Holmes felt this when he wrote to me in 1885. + +He had himself written very charmingly on the violin, and the passage +is quoted with approval even by so redoubtable a critic as Mr George +Hart in his admirable book “The Violin” (1887). + +Oliver Wendell Holmes had the acuteness to see that all _mere_ +picturesque writing was valueless from a technical point of view, and +he thus expresses himself to me in a letter dated December 5, 1885:-- + +“I never knew until I read what you say of the instrument what +profanation I had been guilty of to touch one, much more to write +about it!” and he was kind enough to add: “You have given a life +to the fiddle such as nothing but its own music ever gave it +before!”--words which, coming so spontaneously from the author of the +“Autocrat of the Breakfast-table,” I think I may be allowed to quote +with pardonable pleasure. + +There is a point interesting alike to collectors, amateurs, dealers, +and players, which I feel somewhat strongly about in view of much +recent, and, as it seems to me, ignorantly conducted controversy. + +It is whether, as far as tone and sensibility are concerned, the +best modern fiddles are not quite as good as the best old ones. We +hear repeatedly stories of Strads and Josephs being played side by +side with modern fiddles, whilst the best judges have failed to +detect the superiority of the old over the new. This test is most +unsatisfactory. The ear is as easily confused as the palate. It is +currently reported that if you taste alternately port wine, cream, +and sherry, you will not, after a few sips with your eyes shut, be +able to tell the difference; but no one argues from this that _there +is no difference_. The ear is not only easily confused about the +quality, but even about the direction of sound. + +Let one man shut his eyes and another snap his fingers on the right, +left, and above the other’s head several times running, and this one +shall be utterly unable to tell after a few turns where the fingers +are being snapped. No one is a real judge of the distance from which +a sound comes. If, then, we can be easily puzzled when plied with +such tests about the direction and the distance, no wonder if tests +expressly designed to confuse us about timbre should be equally +successful. But the question is practically settled by soloists +invariably preferring a fine old fiddle to a fine new one, not as +connoisseurs, but as _players_, and there must be a reason for this. + +Therefore, I will hear of no talk, even from the lips of a Charles +Reade, about the varnish, the finish, the artistic beauty in form +or colour of the old violins being largely responsible for this +avowed preference. It is tonal power--quality, sensibility, volume, +timbre--a something _personal_, as it were, to the old fiddles, which +points to certain real qualities in their makers which have not since +been rivalled, and this is quite apart from the item of age. + +Age will make a good fiddle better, but it won’t make a bad fiddle +good; it may also be possible to prematurely age a new fiddle, not +with heat or acids, but quite legitimately, by incessantly and for +long periods of time grinding it through every semitone of its +compass, and well-made modern fiddles will doubtless improve every +year, like good wine, up to a certain point. They will then probably +deteriorate. But the age at which the old Cremonas are bound to +deteriorate has happily not yet been reached. + +The root of the matter lies here. + +A listener behind the door may not know the difference between a +Strad or Joseph or some other, but the _player does_. A spectator in +the Park may see no great difference between the pet horse ridden by +the lady and the even more handsome quadruped upon which her groom +follows; but _she_ knows. So the hunter knows his horse, and values +him above another horse which looks better; the beast he rides will +answer to his will, go anywhere with him, and rise to every occasion. + +This is what your Strad fiddle does. + +All violinists will tell you that there is a _reserve_ of force about +a Strad; you can “pull out,” and you will never be disappointed. + +All lovers of Amati will tell you that they find in Nicolo a +trembling sighing sensitiveness, a tenderness, and a tone delicate to +the point of vanishing, which endears Amati to the women, and still +leaves his finest instruments unapproachable for cabinet-playing. + +And all players will tell you that for domination and downright +big-battalion power, Joseph Guarnerius del Gesù has not his equal. + +And the reason for this real, not fancied, supremacy of the great +makers and their best pupils? + +The reason is complex, no doubt--so complex that, when all +precautions have been taken to imitate wood, proportions, varnish, +workmanship, so as thoroughly to deceive the eye, the modern +_chef-d’œuvre_ is, in spite of puzzled auditors, still not identical +in quality with the old Cremona gems. + +I was called the other day to judge a set of English bells, cast with +the same proportions of tin and copper, of exactly the same size, +weight, and model as a suite of Belgian bells cast by Severin Van +Aerschodt; but the sound? + +Ye gods! No silver clang and tin-kettle parody could be further apart +than were those English and Belgian bells. + +But to return to our fiddles. The reasons of Cremona supremacy remain +to be tackled. + +I hazard the following points:-- + +_1st._ Selection of wood. No doubt the old Lombardian forests, with +their salt-impregnated roots, provided rare planks. The vaunted +American woods fail technically to satisfy the Cremona requirements. + +_2nd._ The knowledge, at first empirical, then intuitive, born of a +lifelong study of the relative density of woods fitted to vibrate +together. Nothing can teach this, no rule or measurements; for every +plank varies in porousness, density of fibre, age, and seasoning. + +Charles Reade was napping when he expressed a hope that a certain +Stradivari back, mated with a new belly, might some day be united to +_some_ Stradivari back of which he knew; but unless it happened to be +_the_ belly Strad had selected for that particular back, what reason +is there to suppose that the result would be satisfactory? + +_3rd._ I am of opinion that the old method of careful oil-sizing and +the subsequent application of gum materially affected the tone. + +Think for a moment only of what is implied in the saturation--too +much or too little of the wood--with oils, spirit, gum of this or +that quality. + +Necessarily some vibratory capacities must be affected--for better, +for worse--by the filling in, one way or another, of the wood +pores; and do not the commonest of modern artificers admit that the +Cremona varnish, and the exact mode of its application, is as yet +undiscovered; and when they speak otherwise, do they not laugh in +their sleeves? + +_4th._ Admit that the _proportions_ are exactly equal, the column +of air almost identical in cubic measure, about 512 to the second; +still remains the vibratory qualities of infinite varieties of +grain--coarse or close, loose or serried--in wood fibre acting upon +that air column. + +The old makers varied their models, but, no doubt, had regard to the +thicknesses and the subtle relations between the hard and soft woods +which would produce the power or quickness of reply, or sweetness, or +penetratingness aimed at. + +It _may_ be that the secret for the production of these is quite +incommunicable, just as a painter, an actor, a singer, a sculptor +will do a thing before you, which you cannot do, which he cannot +teach you how to do, though he place his brush, his chisel, his +music, his toga and footlights at your disposal. + +_5th._ We have no time for failures; they had. Endless experiment, +endless comparison, observation, meditation, unlimited leisure: +one and the same man made each part, and knew the interpenetrative +qualities and the mutual adaptation of the sundry parts. + +We now have subdivision of labour; each man makes one of the parts, +and some one else puts them together. How can such backs accord +with such bellies? How can such ribs cotton with such strange and +fortuitous planks? Truly a scratch company brought together like +strangers, yet expected to accept their arbitrary assortment, and +make sweet harmony together. But they were not fastened together, in +view of one another, by one and the same master-mind, who knew what +was good for them, and what they were good for! + +_6th._ But given the possibility of favourable conditions--time, +absorption, infinite experience, and all the accumulated knowledge of +the past--and given a modern Nicolo, Strad, Joseph, or even Bergonzi, +and given climate, and given wood galore, and might not we expect +Cremona results? + +Why, yes, with Cremona conditions, certainly, or at least a very fair +approximation; and I am far from saying that we are not on the road +to it. + +Until lately it has not been worth while for makers like the Hills, +the Gands, or the Chanôt firms to do aught seriously but repair or +parody closely for the eye the old fiddles. + +But such of Vuillaume’s fiddles as have not been aged with heat and +acids, and the fine £10 to £30 violins now being made conscientiously +by Messrs Hill, in proportion as old fiddles become rare and +inaccessible, must come to the fore. Anyhow, players will, it is +hoped, give up the idiotic folly of paying large sums for indifferent +old fiddles, even with respectable names, when they can get really +fine new ones for half the money with twice the tone--a good tone, +too, which a very few years will suffice to mellow. + +We write these words in the interest of dealers, collectors, players, +and artificers alike--indeed, it would be well worth while for +collectors even now to get hold of the finest attainable specimens +of new work. As a mere speculation it would be at least as sound an +investment as laying down good vintages of port or sherry. + +A good Hill recently made, price £30 or £40, _e.g._ the fine copy +of the Tuscan Strad, only requires age to mellow it into a price of +three figures. + +These new and garish-looking instruments, which, after all, do not +look more gaudy than the Messie Strad, are exceedingly loud in tone, +and withal very sensitive. + +A certain tartness of timbre merely calls aloud for another ten or +twenty years to soften and refine it into the Cremona tone. + +Meanwhile, the aspirants to Cremona excellence are entertainingly +numerous. From time to time I get letters accompanied with samples +from people who claim to have discovered the secret of the Cremona +varnish. + +Here and there some enterprising maker will get a literary friend to +extol him as the successor of Stradiuarius. + +I came across a pamphlet the other day assigning Cremona rank to +a worthy musician who makes fiddles _en amateur_, and a certain +German working in America, whose violins present all the usual +characteristics of instruments made in Germany. I actually got half +through this remarkable document, written _au grand serieux_, before +I discovered that it belonged to the liver pill, patent syrup, and +soap class. + +Rumours may reach you from America of the wonderful Californian wood. +Well, European experts tell me that, fine as is the marking, it does +not yield the required timbre, and that the planks now coming over +from the old forests of Herzgovina and Bosnia are far superior for +fiddle-making purposes. + +Then think of the care and study in selection made by those old +Italian artificers who frequented the Brescian and Cremonese markets, +and haggled over special bits of timber. They knew exactly where it +came from--the peculiarities of the soil, iron or salt impregnated +from whence it came; whether it was cut as it should be, in autumn, +with the sap out of it, and exactly how long it had been cut, and +to what conditions it had been exposed before it came to be worked +up. The subtleties were endless. Who troubles their heads about such +things now? + +No! The fact about modern fiddles you, my anxious inquirer, may take +it for granted is what I have stated. Take good new fiddles by Hill, +Chanôt, Bernardel, Gand, and, according to the time and individual +or one-man power and skill spent upon them, they will rank high, and +higher by-and-by; and if ever the genius and the conditions which +obtained at Cremona, anno 1700, are again found, then, and not till +then, will the peers and rivals of the Cremona masterpieces be seen +and heard--and paid for. + +It may be rash to attempt a scale of prices, when the experience of +the last fifty years proves that we have to deal with a _sliding_ +scale. Forty years ago my father bought a rather small Andrea +Guarnerius at Puttick & Simpson’s for £4, which could not now be +picked up under £20. No Cremona from 1660 to 1760 can be got for much +less, though many better fiddles can be got for half that price. +Of course the rise in the Strads is quite phenomenal. Stainer, on +the other hand, is not valued as highly by comparison as he was last +century; whilst, owing to the rarity of real Stainers, the demand for +Klotz and Albani, more easily attainable, has somewhat increased, and +generally all the second and third class makers are being hunted up +and command good figures now, just as a man who can’t get Charles II. +silver will put up with William and Mary, Queen Anne, and even the +early Georges. + +It is quite safe to buy Urquhart, Ford, Banks, Forster, Furber +(Henry, David, or John), and Pamphilion; but the once popular “Duke” +days are pretty well over. + +Lupôt should be _always_ secured, and Vuillaumes that have not been +cooked with acids and heat; and no collector will go far wrong with +Pique. + +Venetian fiddles, and especially violoncellos, near akin to Cremona, +will be sure to rise; and, as a rule, the Northern fiddles will +command a better figure than the Southerners--Rome and Naples. + +But all such hints are general, and must be taken for what they are +worth, for stray specimens will often turn up belonging to almost any +school, which will have rare merits and can hardly be accounted for +by any systematic classification. + +The following up-to-date (1898) scale of prices may be a useful but +rough guide to the collector with money that burns his pocket:-- + + +PRICES + +[1898] + + Stradivari £2000 to £200 + Joseph Guarnerius 1000 ” 100 + Other Guarnerii 300 ” 30 + Nicolo Amati, and the brothers + Anthony, and Gerome 500 ” 80 or £50 + Stainer 200 ” 30 + C. Bergonzi 600 ” 40 + Maggini 500 ” 50 + J. B. Vuillaume 60 ” 20 + Lupôt 200 ” 50 + Pique 60 ” 10 + Forster (’cellos) 100 ” 20 + Duke 40 ” 5 + Banks 100 ” 20 + +There are two general rules, which, like all rules, may have some +exceptions--not many:-- + +I. Never buy a fiddle simply at the owner’s valuation; judge it by +your own knowledge if you have any, or that of an expert if you have +none. + +II. If you buy at auction, always go a few pounds better than the +highest bid offered by a _dealer_, and if you win, you will be in +luck. + +III. Before sending a valuable violin to be “done up,” select your +repairer carefully. A fiddle maker is not necessarily a fiddle +restorer, and may be quite ignorant of the traditions which should +regulate this branch of the luthier’s art. + +IV. Get your violin’s pedigree _as far as you can_ in detail, with +names and dates. Had this been always done, exhibitions would have +been spared many a delusion and collectors many a fraud. + + + + +POSTLUDE + + +My task is ended. + +The shades of the great melodious dead still seem to hover around +me--as their echoes + + “Roll from Pole to Pole,” + +and from + + “Soul to soul, + And grow for ever and for ever.” + +Violins may be made hereafter, copies may deceive the eye, sounds +bewilder the ear, but there will never again be an Amati or a +Stradivari, any more than a Phidias or a Raphael. + +The age of discovery comes but once. + +It is big with the future up to the moment when it resumes in itself +the golden heritage of the past. We may imitate, but we cannot +reproduce; nor will that thrill of perfection--that emotion of +eternal novelty which we experience in contemplating and sounding +the Cremona masterpieces--ever electrify those who handle their pale +effigies, uninformed by that secret magic which only appertains to +absorbing things done for the first time. + +Hail! to the mighty dead, whose incommunicable touch is still felt by +millions upon millions from generation to generation! + +Hail! to the mystic life, which still circulates throughout the +arteries of ten thousand orchestral organisms! + +Hail! to the undying names of those who first imprisoned (in order +to set free) the passionate longings and divine aspirations of +humanity--in the + + SOUL OF A CREMONA! + +[Illustration: + + Nicolaus Amatus Cremonen. Hieronymi Fil., ac Antonij Nepos Fecit. + + Gasparo da Salo, In Brescia. + + Andres Guarnerius fecit Cremonæ sub titulo Sanctæ Teresiæ 1696 + + Joseph Guarnerius fecit ✠ Cremona anno 1793 IHS + + Gio Paolo Maggini in Brescia. + + Anno 1733 Carlo Bergonzi fece in Cremona + + Antonius Stradiuarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno 1709 +] + + + + +DICTIONARY OF VIOLIN MAKERS + + + AACHNER, Philipp. A Mittenwalder, 1772; ordinary German characteristics. + + ABBATI, Giuseppe. He worked at Modena, according to Forster, + 1775-93. + + ABSAM, Thomas. Lived at Wakefield, in Yorkshire; but his name, + identical with the birthplace of Stainer, suggests a German origin. + Employed by Pickard, of Leeds; his labels run: “Made by Thomas + Absam, Wakefield.” Date 1810-49. + + ACEVO. Doubtful whether he ever existed. Fétis saw a bass viol + which he connected with his name. It was signed at the back, “Marin + Marais,” but it is all very shadowy. + + ADAM, Jean Dominique, son of Jean Adam. Both worked at Mirecourt, + according to Vidal; both made bows, and the son made the best, and + signed all he sold himself, 1823-69. + + ADAMS, C. Takes rank merely as a local maker at Garmouth, Scotland, + 1800. + + AGLIO, Giuseppe dall’, of Mantua; varnish bright yellow, 1800-40. + + AIRETON (Airton), Edmund, of London. Made good fiddles on the Amati + and Steiner models; he varnished yellow, 1727-1807. + + ALBANESI, Sebastiano, is said to have lived at Cremona; his work is + almost unknown, 1720-44. + + ALBANI, Mathias, b. about 1621, Botzen (Tyrol); d. there 1673. + (_See_ p. 102.) + + ALBERTI, Ferdinando. Milanese; yellow varnish. Label: “Ferdinando + Alberti, fece in Milano, nella contrada delle pesce al segno della + Corona, nel anno 1740-60.” + + ALDRIC. Maker and great repairer. Labels: “Fait par Aldric,” or + “Rue de Seine, 71, près celle de Bussy, Aldric, luthier, Paris, an. + 18--.” (_See_ p. 174.) + + ALESSANDRO. A Venetian maker, 1540. + + ALETZIE, Paul. Worked at Munich; good tenors and violoncellos, + German type, 1710-20. + + ALLARD, François. Successor of Maubert, 9 rue du Petit-Pont, + 1788-89. + + ALVANI. A Cremonese maker, 1750. + + AMATI, Andrea. The father of the Cremona school, 1525. (_See_ Chap. + V.) + + AMATI, Antonio, elder son of Andrea Amati; b. Cremona about 1560. + (_See_ Chap. V.) + + AMATI, Girolamo, second son of Andrea Amati; b. about 1562. (_See_ + Chap. V.) + + AMATI, Girolamo, third son and successor of Nicola Amati; b. Feb. + 26, 1649. (_See_ Chap. V.) + + AMATI, Giuseppe. Said to have lived in Bologna, seventeenth + century. (_See_ Chap. V.) + + AMATI, Nicola, younger brother of Andrea Amati, is said to have + worked with him, 1568-80. (_See_ Chap. V.) + + AMATI, Nicola, son of Girolamo Amati; b. Dec. 3, 1596; d. April + 12, 1684, aged eighty-eight, according to the registers of Cremona + Cathedral. (_See_ Chap. V.) + + AMBROGI, Pietro. Cremona and Rome. “Petrus Ambrogi, Crem. fecit + Romæ, an. 17--.” + + AMBROSI, Pietro. A Brescian maker; very mediocre, 1712. + + AMBROSIO, Antonio d’. Neapolitan, 1820. + + AMELOT. French maker in Lorient; yellow varnish; mediocre, 1812-29. + + ANCIAUME. Existence doubtful. + + ANSELMO, Pietro. Cremona and Venice; small pattern; deep yellow + varnish; fair maker, 1700. + + ANTONIAZZI, Gregorio. Bergamo, 1738; labels bear: “in Colle, 1738.” + + ANTONIO, Cypriano. + + ANTONY, Girolamo. Cremonese pattern; yellow varnish, 1751. + + ARDENOIS, Johannes. Ghent, 1731. + + ARTMANN. Weimar, cir. 1760; pupil of Ernst of Gotha; Amati pattern; + yellow varnish. + + ASKEY, Samuel. Pupil of John Morrison; employed by Corsby, cir. + 1825. + + ASSALONE, Gaspare. Roman; Amati pattern; over-arched; poor yellow + varnish. + + AUBRY. Paris; a nephew of Aldric (who dealt with Tarisio); inferior + to his uncle, 1840. + + AUDINOT, Nestor Dominique, b. at Mirecourt 1842; worked under + Sébastien Vuillaume; took up his business in 1875 at the age of + seventeen; is very industrious, and makes excellent instruments. + Labels: “N. Audinot, luthier, élève de Vuillaume, Paris.” + + AUGIÈRE. Pupil of Clément, Paris; good maker; red and brown + varnish, 1830. + + + BAADER, J. A., & Co. Mittenwald; wholesale producers on cheapest + terms; their Stainer copies are good, 1854. + + BACHELIER. Inferior French maker, 1777-89. + + BACHMANN, Carl Ludwig. An excellent maker of Berlin, 1716-1800; + violins, violas, and ’cellos often mistaken for Cremonas; a viola + player; maker to the Prussian Court; founder of the Berlin Amateur + Concerts; inventor of screw pegs for double-basses. + + BACHMANN, O. Good maker, of Halberstadt; first-rate repairer; wrote + on violin construction, 1835. + + BAGATELLA (Bagattella), Antonio. Padua; good restorer; much + employed by German princes; made few good instruments, but wrote + learnedly on violin construction, 1750-82. + + BAGATELLA (Bagattella), Pietro. Padua, 1760-66. + + BAILLY, Paul. Mirecourt; fair maker; Chicago Exhibitor, 1893. + + BAINES. London; pupil of Furber, 1780. + + BAIRHOF, Giorgio. Naples; Gagliano school. + + BAJONI, Luigi. Milanese, 1840-76. + + BAKER, Francis. London, 1696. + + BAKER, John. Oxford, 1688-1720; excellent tone; yellow varnish; + transition maker. + + BALESTRIERI (Balestieri), Pietro, brother of Tommaso. (_See_ p. 88.) + + BALESTRIERI (Balestieri). Tommaso, brother of Pietro. (_See_ p. 88.) + + BALLANTINE. Scotch, 1850-56. + + BANKS, Benjamin, son of George and Barbary Banks, 1727-95. (_See_ + pp. 130-132.) + + BANKS, Benjamin, second son of Benjamin Banks (1727-95), b. Sept. + 13, 1754; d. Jan. 22, 1820. (_See_ pp. 130-132.) + + BANKS, James and Henry, fourth and sixth sons of B. Banks + (1727-95). (_See_ pp. 130-132.) + + BARBANTI, Silva Francesco. A maker at Correggio, 1850. + + BARBIERI, Francesco. Veronese; early Guarnerian pattern, 1695. + + BARNES, Robert Pupil of Thomas Smith; set up with John Norris, + 1765; employed Aireton, but used their own trade label. + + BARNIA, Fedele. Milanese, 1716-51. + + BAROUX. Paris; very good bow-maker, 1830. + + BARRETT, John. London; a contemporary of Barak Norman and Nathaniel + Cross; long and arched pattern; yellow varnish; sweet tone; + labelled: “John Barrett, at the Harp and Crown in Pickadilly, + London, 1731.” + + BARTON, George. London; d. cir. 1810. + + BASSOT, Joseph. Paris; fine maker; brown and reddish varnish; + earlier yellow and inferior; label: “Joseph Bassot, luthier, Paris, + 1802.” + + BAUD. Versailles; experimented omitting sound-bar, but not a + success. + + BAUSCH, Ludwig Christian. Good bow-maker; Naumburg and Leipsic, + 1805-71. + + BAUSCH, Excellent bow-maker; silver medallist, Dresden; friend of + Spohr, 1840. + + BECKMANN (Bekman), Sweno. Stockholm; rough maker, 1700-6. + + BEDLER, Norbert. Würzburg, 1723. + + BELA, Szepessy. Good contemporary maker; worked at Budapest and + Munich, and is now in London; copies Strad and N. Amati. + + BELLONE, Pietro Antonio, known as Il Pescorino, Milanese, 1694. + + BELLOSIO, Anselmo. Venetian; pupil of Serafino and master of M. A. + Cerin, 1720-80. + + BELVIGLIERI, Gregorio. Fairly good Bolognese maker, 1742. + + BENEDICT, Jose. Cadiz, 1738. + + BENEDICTI, Donate de. Cremona, 1674. + + BENTI, Matteo, b. 1579. Brescia; contemporary of Maggini. + + BERETTA, Felice. Como; Guadagnini school; bow-maker, 1760-85. + + BERGÉ. Toulouse, 1771. + + BERGONZI, Benedetto, d. 1840. (_See_ p. 86.) + + BERGONZI, Carlo. Cremona; the first of the great Bergonzi family of + makers; b. (?); d. 1747. + + BERGONZI, Carlo, third son of Michel Angelo. (_See_ p. 86.) + + BERGONZI (Baganzi), Francesco. Named as early as 1687. + + BERGONZI, Michel Angelo, son of Carlo; b. 1722; d. after 1765. + + BERGONZI, Nicola, eldest son of Michel Angelo. + + BERGONZI, Zosimo, brother of Nicola. + + BERNARDEL, Auguste Sébastien Philippe. An excellent maker who + worked under Lupôt and Gand. Firm: “Bernardel et fils,” then “Gand + et Bernardel”; Paris (1849) gold medal, London (1855) gold medal. + + BERNARDEL Frères. Ernst Auguste and Gustave Adolphe, sons of + Sébastien Philippe. + + BERTASIO, Luigi. Piadena, 17--. + + BERTASSI, Ambrogio. Piadena, 1730. + + BERTET, Joseph R. French maker; little known, 1754. + + BERTRAND, Nicolas. Paris; a few early fiddles, 1686-1735. + + BETTS, John Edward, known as “Old John Betts”; b. 1755, at + Stamford, Lincolnshire; d. March 1823; was buried at Cripplegate + Church; pupil of Richard Duke, senior. (_See_ p. 132.) + + BETTS (Ned), Edward, nephew of John Betts; like him a pupil of + Richard Duke. He died between 1815 and 1820. + + BIANCHI, Nicola. Pupil of Guadagnini, 1800 to 1875; Genoa, Cremona, + and Paris; fair maker. + + BINDERNAGEL. Gotha, 1745-1804; inferior maker. + + BITTNER, David. Viennese, 1862-80; made chiefly for America. + + BLAIR, John. Edinburgh, 1820. + + BLAISE, Mirecourt. 1820; indifferent. + + BLANCHARD, Paul François, 1865-94; worked with J. B. Vuillaume; + very good violins; his workmen turn out good cheap ones; follows + Strad; Mirecourt and Lyons. + + BODIO, Giambattista. Venice, 1792-1832. + + BOIVIN, Claude. Paris, 1735-53; fair maker. + + BOMBERGHI, Lorenzo. Florentine, seventeenth century. + + BOMÉ, Thomas. Inferior; French. + + BOOTH, William. English; 1779-1858; good repairer. + + BOOTH, William, son of W. Booth, senior; b. 1816, Leeds; d. 1856; a + clever workman. + + BOQUAY (Bocquay), Jacques, b. at Lyons. 1700-30. (_See_ p. 105.) + + BORBON (Bourbon), Gaspar. End of sixteenth century; Brussels; + Gaspar model. + + BORELLI, Andreas, 1730-47; Parma; Guadagnini model. + + BORLON, François. Antwerp maker, 1680-1710. + + BOUCHER. London, 1764. + + BOULLANGIER, Charles, b. 1823, Mirecourt; d. October, 1888. Learnt + his trade in Mirecourt till 1843; worked with Vuillaume and Gand + and Bernardel, also for Edward Withers, London; good copyist of + Strad. + + BOUMEESTER (Baumeester). Amsterdam maker, 1637-68. + + BOURDET, Jacques. Fair French maker, 1751. + + BOURGARD, Jean. Worked in Nancy about 1780-87. + + BOUSSU. Bruxelles about 1750-80; fairly good Amati pattern. + + BRAGLIA, Antonio. Modena, eighteenth century. + + BRANDIGLIONI. Brescia; copied Maggini. + + BRANDL, Karl. Budapest; exhibited in London Exhibition, 1862. + + BRANZO, Barbaro Francesco. Padua, 1660. + + BREMEISTER, Jan. Amsterdam, 1707. + + BRETON, J. F. Paris, 1740-80. + + BRETON, Le, b. 1780, at Mirecourt. No great value; 1812 to 1830. + + BROSCHI, Carlo. Parma, 1730-44. + + BROWN, James, b. 1755, d. Sept. 1830. Silk weaver in Shoreditch, + London; pupil of Thomas Kennedy; chiefly a repairer of instruments. + + BROWN, James, jun., son of the above; both father and son fair + workmen; b. Nov. 1786; d. 1860, at White Lion Street, Norton + Folgate; apprenticed to his father, but was principally employed to + make bows. + + BROWN, son and pupil of James Brown, jun. When about twenty years + old, ceased to make instruments. + + BROWNE, John. Cornhill, London, 1743; copied Nicholas Amati. + + BRUBACH, Antoine, b. Jan. 22, 1847, Mirecourt; head of “Klein et + Cie.,” Rouen. + + BRUGÈRE, Charles Georges, b. Nov. 10, 1865, at Mirecourt; excellent + maker; only labels what he makes himself. + + BRUGÈRE, Charles Malakoff, d. 1894. Son of above; made about 100 + good fiddles; the family still work at Mirecourt. + + BRUGÈRE, François, brother of Charles Joseph Brugère. Had three + sons, all makers. + + BUCHSTADTER (Buchstetter), Gabriel David. Ratisbon, 1752; Cremona + flat pattern; good orchestral instruments. + + BUDIANI, Giavetta. Some of his large bass viols adapted for + double-basses with four strings; contemporary of G. P. Maggini. + + BUONFIGLIUOLI, Pier Francesco. Florentine, seventeenth century. + + BURGLE, Johann. A maker in Griezbach, 1828. + + BUSAS, Domenico. Vicenza, 1740. + + BUSSETO (Buseto), Giammaria del. Cremonese viol-maker, 1540-80; + said to have taught Andrea Amati. + + BUSSOT. Paris, 1788. + + BUTHOD. Cheap Mirecourt maker; good strong fiddles fit for + orchestral use; turned out about 900 instruments a year; + contemporary of Vuillaume. + + + CABROLI, Lorenzo. Milan about 1716; indifferent. + + CABROLY. Toulouse about 1740-47; fair. + + CAESTE, Gaetano. Cremona in 1677. + + CAESTO (Caesta), Pietro Antonio della. Treviso, 1660-80; copied + Strad. + + CAHUSAC. London about 1788. Worked with Banks’s sons. + + CALCANI (Calcagni), Bernardo. In Genoa, 1710-50; copied Strad + carefully and with good effect. + + CALONARDI, Marco. Cremona, seventeenth century. + + CALOT (Callot), b. 1810. Paris and Mirecourt; fine workman: good + tone. + + CALVAROLLA, Bartolommeo, of Torre Baldone (Bergamo). About 1753-67, + Bologna and Bergamo; fair. + + CAMILLI, Camillus (Camilus di Camila). Mantua about 1739-50; copied + Strad; resembles also Landolfi; excellent tone. + + CAMILLIO, Davido. Cremona, 1755. + + CAPPA, Giofredo (Goffredo), 1590-1640. Worked with the Amatis; + unequal in work; his instruments have often been cut down. + + CAPPA, Giachimo (Gioacchino) and Giuseppe. Working in Saluzzio, and + in Turin about 1661-1712; indifferent. + + CARCASSI, Lorenzo Francesco and Tommaso. Florence, about 1735-58; + not first-rate. + + CARLO, Giuseppe. Milan, 1769. + + CARLOMORDI, Carlo. Verona in 1654. + + CARON. Versailles, 1775-85. Maker to the Queen; not remarkable. + + CARTER, John. Worked in London, 1780-90, for John Betts. Good; + often sold for Betts’. + + CASINI (Cassini), Antonio. Modena about 1660 to 1700. Made large + violoncellos; fair. + + CASPAN, Giampietro. Venice about 1650; Amati pattern; violins + small, yellow varnish. + + CASSANELLI, Giovanni. Ciano in 1777. + + CASSINEAU. Paris; maker of all sorts. + + CASTAGNERY (Castagneri), Andrea. Worked in Paris, 1732-57; he made + good instruments. + + CASTAGNERY (Castagneri), Gian Paolo. A maker from Cremona, who + worked in Paris about 1630-62; very good and sweet tone. + + CASTELLANI, Luigi, son of Pietro Castellani. Florence, 1809-84; + good restorer of fiddles, but made none. + + CASTELLANI, Pietro, b. Florence, second half of the eighteenth + century. Made only a few violins. + + CASTELLO, Paolo. Genoa about 1750-80; fair. + + CASTRO. Worked in Venice, 1680-1720; indifferent appearance, but + good wood. + + CATENAR (Catenari), Enrico. Turin about 1670; fair; a follower of + Cappa. + + CATI, Pier Antonio. Florence, 1741; famous for his “kits.” + + CAVALORIO. Geneva, 1725. + + CELLINI, Giovanni, the father of Benvenuto Cellini, b. in Florence; + d. there of the pest, 1527 or 1528. Architect; lute and viol maker. + His viols, made about 1500-5, had a great reputation. + + CELONIATI (Celionati), Giam Francesco, 1732. Good maker; Amati + pattern; yellow varnish. “Joannes Franciscus Taurini, anno 1732.” + + CERIN, Marc Antonio. A maker in Venice, 1780-93; pupil of Anselmo + Bellosio; fair maker. + + CERUTI, Enrico, son of Giuseppe Ceruti; b. 1808; d. Oct. 20, 1883. + Cremona, at 14 Via Borgo Spera; made about 365 instruments; much + esteemed in Italy. + + CERUTI, Giovanni Battista, 1755, Cremona; d. 1817. Pupil of Lorenzo + Storioni; good; made about 500 instruments; varnish yellow. + + CERUTI, Giuseppe, son and successor of Giovanni Battista, 1787; d. + 1860, Mantua. Fair maker; chiefly repairer. + + CHALLONER, Thomas. Worked in London in the eighteenth century. + + CHAMPION, Jean Baptiste. Paris in 1783. + + CHAMPION, René. Paris, 1731; finished and graceful; varnished like + Boquay. + + CHANOT, François, son of a musical instrument maker in Mirecourt; + b. 1787, d. 1828. (_See_ p. 112.) + + CHANOT, Georges, a brother of François; b. March 26, 1801; d. Jan. + 10, 1883. + + CHANOT, Georges, son of Georges Chanot. + + CHANOT, G. A. Manchester. + + CHAPPUY (Chapuy), Nicolas Augustin. Paris about 1732-76; fairly + good; badly varnished. Fr. Habeneck played on one of his violins + for many years. + + CHARDON, Marie Joseph, son-in-law and pupil of Georges Chanot, + sen.; b. May 22, 1843, Paris. He succeeded his father-in-law in + 1872; good maker; better restorer. + + CHARDON, Marie Joseph Antoine Georges. Worked under his father. + + CHARLE. Paris in 1748. + + CHARLES, Theress. From Mirecourt, but settled in London, in King + Street, Soho. + + CHAROTTE. Mirecourt; d. 1836; settled in Rouen in 1830; indifferent. + + CHATELAIN, François. About 1777-91; good maker; collaborated + sometimes with Renault. + + CHÉRON, Nicolas. Paris, 1658-91. + + CHERPITEL, Nicolas Emile. Mirecourt, 1841-93; worked with the Gands + at Paris; very good workman. + + CHEVRIER, André Augustin, b. in Mirecourt. Paris, and then in + Brussels, 1838. + + CHIAVELLATI, Domenico. Lonigo in 1796. + + CHIBON, Jean Robert. Paris, 1775-85; indifferent. + + CHIOCCHI (Chiocci), Gaetano. In Padua nineteenth century; good + maker and repairer. + + CHRÉTIEN, Hippolyte, 1845-89. Lyons; excellent maker and restorer. + + CHRISTA, Joseph Paul. About 1730-40. + + CHRISTOPHLE, Jean. Avignon, 1655. + + CLARK. London, living at Clerkenwell. A pupil of Matthew Furber. + + CLAUDOT, Augustin. Paris, beginning of eighteenth century; large + pattern, yellow varnish; wood good, work carefully finished; + branded his instruments with his name, “Augustin Claudot.” + + CLAUDOT, Charles. Paris; but probably came from Mirecourt; + indifferent. + + CLÉMENT. Paris, about 1815-40, in the rue des Bonnes-Enfants; a + good deal sought after. + + COFFE-GOGUETTE. Mirecourt, 1834; excellent maker; fine tone. + + COLE, James. Manchester; pupil of Tarr and George Crask, 1858. + + COLE, Thomas. London about 1672-90; good tenor maker. + + COLLIER, Samuel. London, at “Corelli’s Head” on London Bridge, + about 1750-55. + + COLLIER, Thomas. London, 1775. + + COLLIN, Claude Nicolas. Mirecourt; d. 1864; pupil of N. F. + Vuillaume, Brussels. + + COLLIN-MÉZIN, Charles Jean Baptiste, son of C. N. Collin. + Mirecourt, 1841-89; excellent maker and restorer; good Strad and + Amati copyist. + + COLLINGWOOD, Joseph. Worked in London about 1760, at the “Golden + Spectacles” on London Bridge. + + CONTRERAS, Joseph, 1710-80. Madrid or “Granadino”; beautiful Strad + copyist; has passed for Strad. + + CONTRERAS, son of Joseph Contreras. + + CONWAY, William. London about 1745-50. + + CORDANO, Jacopo Filippo. Genoa about 1774. + + CORNELLI, Carlo. Cremona, 1702. + + CORSBY, George. London; believed to be a brother of Corsby of + Northampton. + + CORSBY. Northampton about 1780; chiefly made double-basses. + + COSTA, Agostino. Brescia and Venice in the seventeenth century. + + COSTA, Marco della. Treviso, 1660-80. + + COSTA, Pietro Antonio della. Worked in Treviso about 1740-65; fair + Amati model. + + COUSINEAU, Georges, 1753-1824. In 1788 was entitled “Luthier de la + reine”; made all sorts of instruments. + + CRAMOND, Charles. A maker in Aberdeen, 1821-34. + + CRASK, George. Worked in various places, Salford, Manchester, etc.; + prolific worker; Italian pattern. + + CROSS, Nathaniel. London about 1700-51. (_See_ p. 125.) + + CROWTHER, John, 1755-1810. He worked occasionally for John Kennedy. + + CUCHET, Gaspard, 1729. + + CUNAULT, Georges, b. 1856, Paris; Miremont, 1874-82; a good workman. + + CUNY. Paris about 1740. + + CUTHBERT. Maker of viols and violins in London, seventeenth + century; fair. + + CUYPERS, Johannes. The Hague about 1779. + + + DANIEL. Antwerp about 1636-56; two specimens in Antwerp Cathedral. + + DANIEL, Charles. Marseilles in 1762. + + DARCHE, C. F. Brussels; was a pupil of N. F. Vuillaume (a brother + of the Parisian maker); better restorer than maker. + + DARCHE, Nicholas. Aix-la-Chapelle. + + DAVID. A contemporary of Pierray; Paris about 1730; indifferent. + + DAVIDSON, Hay. Huntly, 1870. + + DAVIS, Richard. London; employed by Norris and Barnes; but when + Norris died in 1818, he succeeded to the business. He knew little + of violin-making, and always remained more of a dealer in, than a + maker of, instruments. + + DAVIS, William. London (in 1846 sold business to Edward Withers); + restored violins; Maucotel worked for him. + + DAY, John. Ingenious amateur maker, devoted to reproduction of + Cremonas, nineteenth century. + + DEARLOVE, Mark. Leeds, 1812-20. + + DEARLOVE, Mark William, son of Mark Dearlove. Leeds, 1828-62; + employed good workmen--Absam, Gough, Fryer. + + DECOMBE (not De Comble). Paris, eighteenth century. + + DE COMBLE, Ambroise, b. at Tournai, Belgium, end of the seventeenth + century; worked till 1760; said to have been a pupil of Antonio + Stradivari at Cremona; instruments scarce, well made, of excellent + wood, and have a rich tone. + + DECONET, Michele. Venice about 1742-79; Cremona school. + + DEFRESNE, Pierre. Rouen, 1730. + + DEHAYE (Deshayes), nephew and only pupil of Salomon, 1775-1825, + Paris; more dealer than maker; sold all sorts. + + DEHOMMAIS, 1870. Successful amateur maker. + + DE LANNOY, N.J. Lille about 1740-75; fair maker. + + DELANOE, Pierre Jean. Paris, 1754. + + DELANOIX. Brussels about 1760; good maker. + + DELANY (Delaney), John. Dublin in 1808; an original egotist, 1808. + Label bears: “Made by John Delany, in order to perpetuate his + memory in future ages. Dublin, 1808. Liberty to all the world, + black and white.” + + DELAU, Lucien, 1836-48. On the death of Charotte he joined Jeandel + in violin-making, and they continued the business at Rouen. + + DENNIS, Jesse, 1795-1855. London; apprenticed to John Crowther, + 1805; worked under Matthew Furber. + + DERAZEY, J. Mirecourt; successor to J. Nicolas, jun.; sold his + fiddles; made good cheap ones, from 5 to 150 francs; a prolific + firm. + + DEROUX, Sébastien. Mirecourt and Paris; b. 1848; making in 1898; + good restorer; best Cremona models. Signs: “A. S. D.” + + DESCHAMPS, Claude. Paris, 1783-85. + + DESJARDINS. Caen, 1763. + + DESPONS, Antoine. Paris about 1610; rare, but not very good. + + DESROUSSEAU. Eighteenth century. + + DEVEREUX, John. He worked with B. Simon Fendt in London; migrated + to Melbourne. + + DICKENSON (Dickinson), Edward. Strand, London, about 1750-90; + Stainer model; inferior. + + DICKESON (Dickson), John, b. in Stirling. London and Cambridge, + about 1750-80; excellent. + + DIDELIN, Joseph. Nancy, 1765-75; poor maker. + + DIDION, Gabriel. Mirecourt; d. 1881. + + DIEHL (or Diel, as it was originally spelt). Friedrich, son of + Nicolaus Diehl; 1814-67; Darmstadt; fair. + + DIEHL (Diel), Heinrich, a son of Johann Diehl. + + DIEHL (Diel), Jacob, son of Nicolaus Diehl; d. 1873; Bremen in + 1834, then Hamburg. + + DIEHL (Diel), Johann, a brother of Nicolaus Diehl. Mayence. + + DIEHL, Martin. Mayence, eighteenth century; work poor. + + DIEHL (Diel), Nicolaus, b. 1779, d. 1851. Son of Martin Diehl, to + whose business he succeeded. + + DIEHL (Diel), Nicolaus Louis, d. 1876. Was a son of Jacob Diehl; + worked in Hamburg; he published a work on Italian violin-makers. + + DIEULAFAIT. A viol-maker; Paris in 1720. + + DINI, Giambattista. Lucignano in 1707. + + DITTON. London about 1700. In Thomas Britton’s Collection was a + “good violin by Ditton.” + + DODD, Edward, b. 1705, Sheffield; d. 1810, London, at the age of + 105. First bow-maker of this name. He lived in Salisbury Court, + Fleet Street; buried in St Bride’s Church. + + DODD, James, second son of Edward. Also made bows. + + DODD, James, son of James Dodd, sen.; was a good bow-maker. + + DODD, John, eldest son of Edward Dodd; b. 1752. (_See_ p. 116.) + + DODD, Thomas, third son of Edward Dodd. Employed Bernhard Fendt and + Lott; proud of his varnish; an all-round man, and dealer in all + sorts of instruments; violoncellos fetch £50. + + DODD, Edward and Thomas, sons of Thomas Dodd, sen. Both learnt from + Bernhard Fendt, and carried on the business at St Martin’s Lane. + + DOMINICELLI (Domincelli). Ferrara, 1695-1715; studied in Brescia; + copied the Amati pattern; varnish of a golden colour. + + DOMINICHINO, Giuseppe. Verona, 1700; Amati pattern. + + DONATO, Serafino. Venice, 1410-11. + + DONI, Rocco. A priest in Florence, 1600-60; made lutes and violins. + + DOPFER (Döpfer), Nicolaus. Mayence (?) about 1768; instruments well + made, slightly arched; sound-holes small but well cut, varnish + brown. + + DORANT, William. Spitalfields, 1814. + + DORFFEL (Dörffel), Johann Andreas. A violin and lute maker in + Klingenthal, Saxony, in 1743. + + DRINDA, Giacomo. Pianzo, eighteenth century. + + DRÖGMEYER, Hermann August. Bremen; wrote a book on violins, 1891. + + DROULEAU or Droulot. Paris, 1788-1800. + + DROUYN, Dimanche. Paris. + + DUCHÉRON, Mathurin. Contemporary of Boquay, working in Paris in + 1714. + + DUIFFOPRUGCAR (Duiffoproucart), Gaspard, 1514. (_See_ p. 18). + + DUKE, Richard. London about 1750-80. (_See_ p. 132.) + + DUKE, Richard, son of Richard Duke. + + DULFENN, Alexander. Leghorn in 1699. + + DUMÉNIL, N. Paris, 1786. + + DUMESNIL, Jacques. Paris about 1655-60. + + DUNCAN. Aberdeen, 1762. + + DUNCAN, George. Glasgow, 1887. + + DURFEL (Dürfell), J. G. Altenburg, 1778; double-basses excellent; + violins very arched; muddy dark brown varnish. + + DU RIEZ, Nicolas. A good French maker; Abbeville, 1663. + + + EBERLE, Johann Ulrich. Prague about 1730-60; good Cremona copyist. + + EBERTI, Tommaso. Italian maker about 1730-50. + + EDLINGER, Thomas, b. in Bohemia, and was living in Prague 1712-15. + Good. + + EGLINGTON. London in 1802; fair tone. + + ELÉMENT, Jean Laurent. Paris in 1783. + + ELSLER (Esler), Johann Joseph. Mayence about 1715-30; bass viol + maker; transition on verge of the violin. + + EMILIANI, Francesco de. Rome about 1715-20; fine workman; yellow + varnish. + + ENGLEDER, Andreas, Munich, 1854; an original designer. + + ENGLEDER, Ludwig. Bamberg, 1854; German pattern; fair tone. + + ERNST, Franz Anton, b. Dec. 3, 1745, Georgenthal, Bohemia; player + and maker; Stradivari pattern, and some say approached Stradivari + tone. + + EULRY-CLÉMENT. Mirecourt, 1800. + + EURY. About 1810-30, Paris; an excellent bow-maker, 1820. He was + working at 20 rue des Lyonnais-Saint-Jacques in 1820. His bows are + justly celebrated, and are thought to rival even those of François + Tourte. He generally marked them with his name. + + EVANGELISTI. Florence, eighteenth century. + + EVANS, Richard. London about 1742-50. + + EVE, Jacques. German model, arched; brown varnish; good workman. + + + FABRIS, Luigi. Venice in nineteenth century. + + FACINI, Agostino. A monk at Bologna, 1732-42; delicate workman; + yellow varnish. + + FALAISE. French follower of Pique; Cremona pattern; yellow varnish. + + FARINATO, Paolo. Venice about 1700-30; fair maker, Serafino pattern. + + FEBBRE. Amsterdam in 1762. + + FENDT, Bernhard. (_See_ p. 132.) + + FENDT, Bernhard Simon. (_See_ p. 132.) + + FENDT, Francis, fourth son of Bernhard Fendt. (_See_ p. 132.) + + FENDT, François, best known in France as Fent. + + FENDT, Jacob, third son of Bernhard Fendt. + + FENDT, Martin, second son of Bernhard Fendt. + + FENDT, William, second son of Bernhard Simon. + + FERATI, Pietro. Sienna, 1754-64; poor maker. + + FÉRET. A pupil of Médard; Paris, 1708; good maker. + + FERGUSON, Donald. Huntly, Aberdeenshire. + + FERGUSON & SON. Edinburgh, beginning of the nineteenth century. + + FERRARI, Agostino. Budrio (Italy), eighteenth century. + + FERRARI, Alfonso. Carpi (Modena), 1738. + + FERRARI, Carlo. Sienna in 1740. + + FEURY or Ferry, François, son-in-law of Leclerc the violin-maker. + Paris about 1750-60; violins small pattern, the sound-holes small, + varnish red, work good. + + FICHTL, Martin. Vienna, 1750-57; careful in wood and varnish. + + FICKER, Johann Christian. Cremona, 1720-22; German style. + + FICKER, Johann Gottlieb. Cremona about 1788-89. + + FIKER, Johann Christian. Neukirchen (Saxony), eighteenth century. + + FIORILLO, Giovanni. Ferrara, 1780; German and Italian patterns; + violoncellos are best. + + FIORINI, Giuseppe, son of Raffaele Fiorini, b. 1867. Excellent + maker. + + FIORINI, Raffaele, b. at Pianoro. Worked at Bologna. + + FIRTH, G. Leeds, 1836; pupil of William Booth, sen. + + FISCER, Carlo and Giuseppe, brothers. Milan about 1760-64; inclined + to German style, but good varnish. + + FISCHER, Anton, b. 1794, d. 1879. Vienna. + + FISCHER, Zacharie, b. Nov. 5, 1730, Würzburg; d. there Nov. 27, + 1812; first began baking his wood to age it; his violins are still + liked. + + FLEURI (Fleury), Jean François. Paris, 1783-85. + + FLEURY, Benoist. Paris, 1751-91; fair maker. + + FLORENUS (Florinus), Guidantus or Florentus. Bologna about + 1700-60; far from first-class. + + FONCLAUSE, Joseph (called “Le Mayeux”), b. 1800 à la Conté; d. + 1865, Paris. Mirecourt, and employed by Vuillaume. + + FORCHEVILLE, J. Baptiste. Early pochette-maker. + + FORSTER (Foster or Forrester), John, b. Kirkandrews, on the Esk. + + FORSTER, Simon Andrew, son of William Forster (1764-1824). (_See_ + p. 126.) + + FORSTER, William, son of John Forster; b. 1713-14; d. 1801. (_See_ + p. 126.) + + FORSTER, William (“Old Forster”), son of William Forster + (1713-1801). (_See_ p. 126.) + + FORSTER, William (“Young Forster”), son of William Forster + (1739-1808). (_See_ p. 126.) + + FORSTER, William, eldest son of William Forster, 1764-1824. (_See_ + p. 126.) + + FRAISER, Giorgio. Cremona, 1666; worked for Nicola Amati. + + FRANCK. Ghent, 1800-30; chiefly a clever repairer. + + FRANKLAND. London, 1785; employed by the William Forsters. + + FREBRUNET, Jean. Paris 1750-60; good maker; yellow varnish. + + FRITSCHE (Fritzche), Samuel. Leipzig, 1787; pupil of C. H. Hunger; + good maker (Cremona model) and fine repairer. + + FRYER, Charles. London and Leeds, 1830-40. + + FURBER, David. Pupil of John Johnson (1750-60), a maker in London. + (_See_ p. 234.) + + FURBER, Henry John, son and pupil of John Furber. + + FURBER, James, first son of Matthew Furber, sen. + + FURBER, John, third son of Matthew Furber, sen. + + FURBER, Matthew, sen., son of David Furber. + + FURBER, Matthew, second son of Matthew Furber, sen. + + + GABRIELLI, Antonio. Florence, 1760; good violins. + + GABRIELLI, Bartolommeo. Florence about 1730. + + GABRIELLI, Cristoforo. Florence, 1730. + + GABRIELLI, Giovanni Battista. Florence, 1740-70; good tone, + excellent wood, yellow varnish; his violoncellos and altos + considered best. + + GAETANO, Antoniazzi, b. Aug. 7, 1825, Cremona; good maker, has + gained medals of honour; his sons, Ricardo and Romeo, work with him. + + GAFFINO, Giuseppe. An Italian, worked in Paris, 1745-83; careful + maker. + + GAGLIANO (Galiano), Alessandro, b. 1640. (_See_ p. 89.) + + GAGLIANO, Antonio, son of Giovanni, grandson of Nicola. (_See_ + “Raffaele Gagliano.”) + + GAGLIANO, Ferdinando, eldest son of Nicola, grandson of Alessandro. + (_See_ p. 89.) + + GAGLIANO, Gennaro, second son of Alessandro, brother of Nicola; + b. about 1680, at Naples; d. 1750. He was the best maker of this + family. + + GAGLIANO, Giovanni, fourth son of Nicola, nephew of the great + Gennaro; d. 1806. + + GAGLIANO, Giuseppe and Antonio, second and third sons of Nicola; + lived at Naples. + + GAGLIANO, Nicola, eldest son of Alessandro; b. about 1675, at + Naples; d. there about 1745. + + GAGLIANO, Raffaele and Antonio, sons of Giovanni, grandsons of + Nicola. + + GAILLARD-LAJOUE, J. B. Mirecourt; d. about 1870; first an + apprentice and then first workman in the workshop of Gand; fair + maker. + + GAIROUD, Louis. Nantes about 1740. + + GALBANI, Piero. Florence in 1640. + + GALBICELLIS, G. B. Florence, 1757. + + GALBUSERA, Carlo Antonio. Follower of Chanot; made a guitar-shaped + model; violins much praised, but little known now. + + GALERZENA. Piedmont, 1790. + + GALLAND, Jean. Paris, rue St-Honoré, about 1744-50. + + GALRAM, Joachim Joseph. Lisbon in 1769. + + GAND, Charles Adolphe, eldest son of Charles François Gand; b. Dec. + 11, 1812, Paris; d. Jan. 24, 1866. + + GAND, Charles François, eldest son of Charles Michel Gand; b. Aug. + 5, 1787, Versailles. (_See_ p. 108.) + + GAND, Charles Michel, the head of the Gand family; b. 1748, at + Mirecourt; d. 1820, Versailles. + + GAND, Charles Nicolas Eugène, second son of Charles François Gand; + b. June 5, 1825, at Paris; d. Feb. 5, 1892, Boulogne-sur-Seine. + + GAND, Guillaume, second son of Charles Michel Gand, 1792-1858. + + GARANI (Garana), Michelangelo. A maker in Bologna about 1680 to + 1720; small value. + + GARANI, Nicola. 1700. Fair instruments, Gagliano pattern; plain + wood, yellow varnish. + + GARENGHI, Giuseppe. Brescia, 1857. + + GASPARO DA SALÒ, son of Francesco Bertolotti, b. 1542. (_See_ p. + 30.) + + GATTANANI. Piedmont, 1785-90. + + GATTINARI. Enrico. Turin, 1670-75. + + GATTINARI, Francesco, son of Enrico Gattinari. Good maker, 1700-5; + red varnish. + + GAUTROT. Mirecourt, 1855. + + GAVINIÉS (Gavaniès), François. 1700-63, Bordeaux; 1730 Paris, and + was living in Rue St-Thomas-du-Louvre, 1734-63. Unequal maker of + violins, some cheap and poor, others very superior. + + GEDLER, Johann Anthony and Johann Benedict. Fussen, Bavaria, about + 1750-96. Poor violins. + + GEISENHOF (Geiffenhof, Geigenhof), Franz, b. 1754; d. 1821. Fairly + good. + + GEMÜNDER, August, b. 1814, Würtemberg; d. Sept., 1895, New York. + Excellent maker, fine copyist. + + GEMÜNDER, George, brother of August Gemünder, b. 1816 in Würtemberg. + + GERMAIN, Emile, son of Joseph Louis Germain. Turin, 1870-88. + Studied at Mirecourt. Prolific maker, good varnish, fair tone, fine + repairer. + + GERMAIN, Joseph Louis, b. July 23, 1822, Mirecourt, 1868; worked + with F. Gand family and B. Vuillaume. Excellent maker and repairer. + + GERONI, Domenico. Ostia, Italy, about 1800-20. Inferior. + + GHERARDI, Giacomo. Bologna, 1677. + + GHIDINI, Carlo. Parma, about 1746. + + GIANOLI, Domenico. Milan, 1731. + + GIBBS, James. London, 1800-45. Was employed by J. Morrison, George + Corsby, and Samuel Gilkes. + + GIBERTINI, Antonio. Parma, 1830-33. Stradivari pattern. Employed by + Paganini as a repairer. + + GIGLI, Julio Cesare. Rome, 1730-62. + + GILBERT, Nicolas Louis. Metz, 1700. + + GILBERT, Simon, son of Nicolas Louis Gilbert. Metz, about 1737. + + GILKES, Samuel, 1787-1827. Morton Pinkney, Northamptonshire. + London. Worked for William Forster (1764-1824). Nicola Amati + pattern; clever maker. + + GILKES, William, son of Samuel Gilkes, about 1811-75, in Grey + Coat Street, Tothill Fields, Westminster, London. Prolific maker; + chiefly double basses. + + GIOFFREDA, B. Turin, in 1860. + + GIORDANO (Giordane), Alberto. Cremona, about 1735-40. + + GIORGI, Nicola. Turin, 1745. + + GIRANIANI. Leghorn, 1730. + + GIRON. (_See_ “Villaume.”) + + GIULIANI. Cremona, 1660. Pupil of Nicola Amati. + + GOBETTI, Francesco. Venice, 1705. A pupil of Antonio Stradivari. + Alleged fine wood, varnish, and tone. + + GOFFRILLER (Gofriler), Antonio. Venice, 18th century. + + GOFFRILLER, Francesco. Venice. Fair maker; yellow-brown varnish. + + GOFFRILLER, Matteo. Venice, 1690-1740. Careless in wood but careful + in work; yellow varnish; arched pattern violin excellent. + + GONNET, Pierre Jean. Paris, 1775-83. + + GOSSELIN. An amateur maker in Paris about 1814-30. + + GOSSET. Rheims, 1769. + + GOUVERNARI, Antonio. Cremona, 1600-10. + + GRABENSEE, J. A. Düsseldorf, about 1850-55. + + GRAGNANI, Antonio. Leghorn, about 1741-80. Rough workmanship; + inferior wood; sweet tone. + + GRAGNANI, Gennaro. Leghorn, 1730. + + GRAGNANI, son of Antonio Gragnani. Inferior to his father. + + GRANCINO, Francesco and Giam Battista, sons of Giovanni and + grandsons of Paolo Grancino. 1710-60. (_See_ p. 90.) + + GRANCINO, Giovanni, son of Paolo Grancino. Milan 1690-1730. + + GRANCINO, Paolo. Worked at Milan, 1665-90. Pupil of Nicola Amati at + Cremona. + + GRAND-GÉRARD. Vosges, 1790-1810. Also Paris. Prolific but inferior. + + GRANDINI, Geronimo, sen. Mirecourt. Some merit. + + GRANDJON, sen. Mirecourt. + + GRANDJON, J., son of Grandjon, sen. Mirecourt. Fair maker. + + GRAY, J. Fochabers, Banffshire, Scotland, in 1870. + + GREFFTS, Johann. Fussen, Bavaria, in 1622. + + GREGORI. Bologna, 1793. + + GRIMM, Carl, b. about 1792; d. 1855, Berlin. One of the best German + makers. + + GRIMM, Ludwig, son of Carl Grimm. + + GRISERI, Filippo. Florence in 1650. + + GROBITZ, A. Warsaw in 1750. Good violins on the Stainer pattern. + + GROLL, Matthew. Meran, Tyrol, in 1800. + + GROSSET, Paul François. Paris, 1747-59. Pupil of Claude Pierray. + Inferior. + + GROSSI, Giuseppe. Bologna in 1803. + + GROU. 1752. + + GRULLI, Pietro. Cremona, 1883. + + GUADAGNINI, Antonio, son of Gaetano, grandson of Carlo Guadagnini, + b. 1831; d. 1881 at Turin. (_See_ p. 86.) + + GUADAGNINI, Felice, son of Carlo Guadagnini. Turin, 1835. + + GUADAGNINI, Francesco and Giuseppe, sons of Antonio Guadagnini. + Turin. + + GUADAGNINI, Gaetano, son of Giambattista, grandson of Lorenzo. + Turin about 1750. + + GUADAGNINI, Gaetano. (_See_ “Carlo Guadagnini.”) + + GUADAGNINI, Giambattista, son of Lorenzo, b. 1711 at Cremona; d. + Sept 18, 1786, at Turin. + + GUADAGNINI, Giovanni Battista, brother of Lorenzo Guadagnini. + Milan, Piacenza, and Turin about 1695-1775. + + GUADAGNINI, Giuseppe, second son of Giambattista, grandson of + Lorenzo, b. 1736; d. about 1805. + + GUADAGNINI, Giuseppe. (_See_ “Carlo Guadagnini.”) + + GUADAGNINI, Giuseppe. (_See_ “Francesco Guadagnini.”) + + GUADAGNINI, Lorenzo. b. at Piacenza (?) about 1665. A pupil of + Antonio Stradivari at Cremona. + + GUARINI, Joseph. Germigny, Vosges. Good violins, double purfle, + powerful tone. + + GUARNERI, Andrea. b. about 1626 at Cremona; d. there Dec. 7, 1698. + (For the Guarneri family, see p. 51.) + + GUARNERI, Caterina (?), daughter of Andrea. + + GUARNERI, Gian Battista, son of Bernardo, younger brother of Andrea. + + GUARNERI, Giuseppe, known as “del Gesù,” the greatest of the + family. (_See_ p. 51.) + + GUARNERI, Giuseppe Giovan Battista, second son of Andrea. b. Nov. + 25, 1666, Cremona; d. soon after 1738. + + GUARNERI, Pietro, son of Giuseppe Giovan Battista Guarneri, + grandson of Andrea, b. April 14, 1695. 1760. + + GUARNERI, Pietro Giovanni, eldest son of Andrea. b. Feb. 18, 1655, + at Cremona; d. about 1740. + + GUÉDON, Jacques Antoine. Paris, 1775-77. + + GUÉRIN, Alexandre Sauveur, 1834-88, Hyères. Pupil and successor of + Edmond Daniel; works at Marseilles; repairs old instruments and + makes new ones on the pattern of Stradivari; much admired. + + GUERRA, Giacomo. Modena, 1810. + + GUERSAN, Louis. A maker in Paris about 1730-69; one of the best + French makers; great experimentalist; used spirit varnish. + + GUGEMMOS (Gugemos). Fussen, Bavaria. Eighteenth century; poor maker. + + GUGLIELMI, Giobattista. Cremona, 1747. + + GUIDANTUS, Joannes Florenus. Bologna, 1685-1728. + + GUIDOMINI, Lorenzo. Milan, 1740. + + GUILLAMI. A Spanish family, 1680-1780. + + GUITON, R., of Cork. Good. + + GUSETTO, Nicola. Florence, 1730. + + GUTERMANN. Vienna, nineteenth century. Good. + + + HAENSEL, Johann Anton. Was maker and musician to the Duke of + Schönburg at Rochsburg, 1800-15. + + HAFF. Augsburg, eighteenth century. + + HAMBERGER, Joseph. Pressburg, Hungary. Firm still maker at Vienna. + + HAMM, Johann Gottfried. A German who worked in Rome about 1810; + violins ivory edged. + + HAMMIG, W. H. Leipzig, tenth century; good work. + + HARBOUR or Harbur. A maker, London, 1785. + + HARDANGER. Norway. + + HARDIE, James & Sons. Edinburgh, 1837-90. Industrious makers and + exhibitors. Maggini, Stradivari, and Guarneri models. + + HARDIE, Matthew, 1825, and Thomas, 1856. Good violins, violas, and + violoncellos on the Amati pattern. + + HARDIE, Peter. Dunkeld, 1773-1863. Excellent violoncellos. + + HARE, Joseph (or John), 1700-30. Reacted against Stainer pattern in + favour of Stradivari. London, 1726. + + HARHAM. London, 1765-85. + + HARMAND. Mirecourt in 1772. + + HARRIS, Charles. London, 1780-1800. Seldom labelled; his work good, + especially ’cellos, Stradivari and Amati pattern; red varnish. + + HARRIS, Charles, eldest son of Charles Harris. Worked for John + Hart, nineteenth century; yellow varnish. + + HART, John Thomas, 1805-74, London. Pupil of Samuel Gilkes; made + few instruments; reputation for experience and skill in repairing. + + HASSERT. Eisenach, eighteenth century. Good instruments, not much + arched, beautiful wood, amber-coloured varnish; good copyist. + + HASSERT. A brother. Eisenach, 1790, in Rudolstadt. Instruments too + much arched; rather harsh tone. + + HAYNES, Jacob. London, 1746. Stainer pattern. + + HEBERLEIN, Heinrich, jun. Clever maker in Markneukirchen, + nineteenth century. + + HEESOM, Edward. London, 1748-50. Stainer pattern. + + HEIDEGGER. Passau. + + HEL, Pierre Joseph, 1842-95. Seven years in Mirecourt, then + with Sébastien Vuillaume in Paris, and Nicolas Darche at + Aix-la-Chapelle. In 1865 he started his own business at 14 Rue + Nationale, Lille; full of ingenuity; peculiar methods of seasoning + wood without fire; has received much praise and many honours; a + beautiful maker. + + HELD, J. J., b. July 17, 1823-89, Flamersheim, Rheinbach (Cologne). + Great repairer and careful maker of about sixteen instruments a + year; much esteemed. + + HELL, Ferdinand. Vienna, 1854. Eccentric maker of a trumpet-violin. + + HELMICH. Continued Carl Grimm’s business. + + HENDERSON, D. Aberdeen. + + HÉNOC (or Hénocq), François. Paris, 1775-89. + + HÉNOC (Hénocq), Jean (?Georges Bienaimé). Maker, Paris, 1768 to + about 1790. + + HENRY. Paris. + + HENRY, Carolus, son of Jean Baptiste Henry, 1803-59; prolific + maker; inventor of a barytone fiddle (not a success); a good maker + otherwise. + + HENRY, Eugène, son of Charles Henry, 1843-92; an excellent maker of + fine repairs; business continued by Charles Bruyère. + + HENRY, Jean Baptiste, b. 1757-1831, Mataincourt, Mirecourt + (Vosges). He was the head of the present family of makers. + + HENRY, Jean Baptiste Félix, eldest son of Jean Baptiste Henry. + 1793-1858. Paris. Pupil of his father; in Bordeaux, 1822; in + Marseilles, 1825. In 1844 he returned to Paris. A prolific maker, + but never signed. + + HENRY, Octave, son of Jean Baptiste Félix Henry. 1826-54. Paris. In + Grenoble in 1854; made a great many violins. + + HENRY. A violin bow-maker; 1812 at Mirecourt; 1870, Paris; worked + with Chanot; made excellent bows. + + HILDEBRANDT, Michael Christopher. Hamburg, 1765-1800; good work; + fine repairer. + + HILL, Henry Lockey, son of Lockey Hill; grandson of Joseph Hill; b. + 1774; d. Aug. 1835. (For Hill family see p. 133). + + HILL, John. Red Lion Street, Holborn, 1794. + + HILL, Joseph, b. 1715; d. 1784. He was a fellow-apprentice of + Banks, working at “Y^e Harp and Hautboy,” in Piccadilly, London, + under Peter Wamsley, about 1740-42. Worked till 1772. His sons, + William, Joseph, Lockey, and Benjamin, were all makers. + + HILL, William, son of Joseph Hill. Worked in London about 1740-80. + + HILL, William Ebsworth, son of Henry Lockey Hill, 1817-95. The + present members of the firm are his four eldest sons: William + Henry, b. June 3, 1857, followed the musical profession for + some years before joining his brothers in the business; Arthur + Frederick, b. Jan. 25, 1860; Alfred Ebsworth, b. Feb. 1862, who + worked for some time at Mirecourt (Vosges), and was the first + Englishman to go there to study; and Walter Edgar, b. Nov. 4, + 1871, who also worked at Mirecourt. They employ a large staff of + assistants in their workshops at Hanwell. (_See_ p. 133.) + + HIRCUTT. London about 1600. + + HOCHBRÜCKER. Donauworth, Bavaria, 1699. Later at Augsburg. Made + some violins, but is chiefly known as the inventor of pedals for + the harp, about 1720. + + HÖHNE. Dresden and Weimar. + + HÖRLEIN, Carl Adam, b. 1829-75. Winkelhof, Würzburg; great + reputation both as maker and repairer. + + HOFFMANN, Anton. Courtmaker in Vienna, 1850. + + HOFFMANN, Martin. Leipzig, 1725; in Leipzig from about 1685; + violins and violoncellos of good tone, inelegant pattern; shows + well the transition period between viol and violin by recurrence to + older types of a five-stringed violoncello. + + HOFMANS, Matthias. Antwerp, 1700-50; choice maker in the Cremona + style. + + HOLLOWAY, John. London. 1794. + + HOMOLKA, F. Kuttenberg, Bohemia, 1850; good maker, but wood rather + too thick. + + HOPKINS. Worcester; exhibited a double-bass in London in 1862. + + HORIL, Giacomo. Rome, 1720-50. + + HORNSTEINER (Hornstainer), Joseph. Mittenwald, 1730; good + double-basses; mediocre. + + HORNSTEINER (Hornstainer), Mathias. Maker in Mittenwald, 1770-1800; + better than Joseph. + + HOSBORN, Thomas Alfred. London, 1629. A bass viol exhibited in + Paris, 1878. + + HUET, Henri. Paris, 1775-90; good workmanship. + + HULINSKI. Prague in 1760; instruments were well made; varnish + red-brown. + + HULLER, August. Shœneck, 1735-76. + + HULSKAMP, G. H., b. in Westphalia. Settled in New York, U.S.A. + In the 1862 London Exhibition he exhibited violins made on a new + pattern. Instead of the ordinary sound-holes, was one round hole in + the middle of the violin, just below where the bow sets the strings + in motion; his innovations ineffectual. + + HUMEL, Christian. Nuremberg in 1709. + + HUNGER, Christoph Friedrich, b. 1718, Dresden; d. 1787, Leipzig; + excellent instruments. + + HUREL, Jean. Paris, living in 1686, Rue des Arcis, at the sign of + “A l’image de St Pierre”; from 1689 to 1717, Rue St Martin, near + the Fontaine Maubué. He was maker of instruments “pour la musique + du Roy.” + + HUSSON. _See_ “Buthod.” + + + IVRONTIGNI, Wougelli. Turin. + + + JACOBS, Peeter. Amsterdam, about 1690-1740; prolific maker; + sometimes mistaken for Nicola Amati; grand pattern; whalebone + purfling; sweet tone. + + JACOBS. Amsterdam; probably son of Peeter; used dark red varnish of + good quality. + + JACOT, A., eldest son of Jean Charles. Paris, 19th century. + + JACOT, Jean Charles. Metz, 1811-87. + + JACQUOT (Jacquart), Charles, 1804-80. Mirecourt; much esteemed; + careful finish; a learned connoisseur and successful exhibitor. + + JACQUOT, Etienne Charles Albert, eldest son of Pierre Charles + Jacquot, b. 1853-82, Nancy. + + JACQUOT, Jules Victor, second son of Pierre Charles Jacquot, b. + Aug. 12, 1855. + + JACQUOT, Pierre Charles, son of Charles Jacquot; b. March 10, + 1828-94. Nancy; had a great reputation, and exhibited beautiful + instruments at various Exhibitions; his two sons worked with him. + + JAIS, Johann. Botzen, 1775; varnished brown. + + J’ANSON, Edward Popplewell. Manchester. Learnt from William Booth, + jun. + + JAUCH, Johann, b. Gratz, Styria; in Dresden, 1765-74. Cremona + pattern; learned maker; tone rather harsh. + + JAY, Henry. A maker of viols in London about 1615-67; justly + celebrated, and on the verge of the violin period. + + JAY, Henry. Worked in London about 1746-68. He was best known + for the small violins or “kits” that he made, which were used by + dancing-masters; also made some violoncellos. + + JAY, Thomas. Working in London from about 1690; made some excellent + violins. + + JEANDEL, Pierre Napoleon, 1812-79. Courcelles-sous-Vaudémont + (Meurthe), Rouen, and Paris; red varnish; good tone. + + JOHNSON, John. London, 1750-60. Stainer pattern. + + JOMBAR, Paul, Paris. He worked for Gand and Bernardel; started his + own business in 1892. + + JORIO, Vincenzo. Naples, 1847, Good. + + JOSEPH, J. Vienna, 1764. + + JULIANO, Francesco. Rome, 1620-70. + + + KEMBTER. Dibingen, 1725-30. Varnish yellow or reddish; neat maker. + + KENNEDY, Alexander. Scotland, 1695-1785. Excellent maker; high + repute; spirit varnish, brown; Stainer pattern. + + KENNEDY, John. London, 1816. Buried in Shoreditch Church. Pupil of + Alexander Kennedy. Violins and violas, all very arched; Stainer + pattern. + + KENNEDY, Thomas, 1784-1870, London. Son of John Kennedy. Worked + sometimes for William Forster; made at least 300 violoncellos, as + well as other instruments. Good tone, fine finish. + + KERLINO, Joann. + + KIAPOSSE, Sawes. St Petersburg, 1748-50. + + KIESGEN, Louis. Paris. Fine workman. Pattern of Gand; red varnish. + + KIRSCHSCHLAG. Tyrol, 1780. + + KLEIN, A. In 1884, Rouen. Important firm. Red varnish. High + Exhibition awards. + + KLOSS, Ernst. Breslau. + + KLOTZ (Kloz), Egidius. (_See_ p. 119.) + + KLOTZ, George, son of Mathias and grandson of Egidius Klotz. + Mittenwald, 1750-70. + + KLOTZ, Johann Carl. Mittenwald, about 1740-55. Excellent work; dark + varnish. + + KLOTZ, Joseph, brother of George Klotz. Mittenwald, 1774. Also + followed the Stainer pattern. + + KLOTZ, Mathias, son and pupil of Egidius. 1650. His three sons, + George, Sebastian, and Joseph, were all makers. + + KLOTZ, Michael and Carl, two brothers. Mittenwald about 1770. A + great many of the violins with “Stainer” labels are made by members + of the Klotz family. + + KLOTZ, Sebastian, a brother of Joseph and George Klotz. 1700-40. + The best maker in the family. Large pattern, not much arched; + varnish is excellent, the tone clear and full. + + KLÜHER. Markneukirchen, Saxony. + + KNITTING, Philipp. Mittenwald, 1760. + + KNITTLE (Knitl), Joseph. Mittenwald, 1790. + + KNOOP, Wilhelm. Meiningen. Stainer pattern; good. + + KOEUPPERS, Jean. The Hague, 1755-80. Well-made fiddles; ugly yellow + varnish. + + KOLB, Hans. Bavaria, 1666. + + KOLDITZ, Johann. Rumburg, Bohemia, 1796. Good violins and violas. + + KOLDITZ, Mathias Johann. Munich, 1720-55. + + KOLIKER, Jean Gabriel. Paris, 1783-99. Clever repairer. + + KRAMER, H. Vienna in 1717. + + KRIGGE, Heinrich. Danzig, 1756-58. Maggini pattern, model large + size, neat edges and work, and double purfling in ink. + + KRINER, Joseph. Mittenwald, 1785-95. + + KRUPP, Pierre. Worked in Paris, Rue St Honoré, 1777-91; he also + made harps. + + KÜHLEWEIN UND TETZNER. Makers in Markneukirchen. Exhibited in + Munich, 1854. + + KÜNTZEL. Berlin. He exhibited a quintet of instruments in London, + 1862; tone excellent. + + KUNTZEL, Laurent. 1790. Hof Bavaria and Breslau, 1815-55. Excellent + violins on Italian model. + + + LACROIX, Salomon. Nineteenth century. + + LAFLEUR. London, brother of the Parisian maker. + + LAFLEUR, Jacques. A bow-maker in Paris. Excellent disciple of + Tourte. + + LAFLEUR, Joseph René, son of Jacques. 1812-74. Excellent bow-maker. + + LAFRANCHINI, Jacobo de. Worked for Maggini. + + LAGETTO, Louis. An Italian maker; Paris, 1745-53; early Italian + model. + + LAMBERT. Prolific but indifferent maker. + + LAMBERT, Jean Nicolas. Paris, 1743-85. Not remarkable. + + LAMBIN. Clever repairer in Ghent, 1800-30. + + LAMY, N. Alfred Joseph. A bow-maker; 1850-89, Mirecourt; excellent. + + LANDI, Pietro. Sienna, 1774. + + LANDOLFI, Carlo Ferdinando. Milan, 1740-75. Unequal maker; at his + best often mistaken for Joseph or Peter Guarnerius; £50 outside + price, but rising in value. + + LANTEZ, M. E., son-in-law of Grandjon, sen. Mirecourt. + + LANZA (Lansa or Lausa), Antonio Maria. Brescia about 1675; followed + the patterns of Gasparo da Salò and Maggini; excellent maker. + + LAPAIX, J. A. Lille (Nord, France), 1840-55. Tried many new shapes + with moderate success; industrious and ingenious. + + LAPRÉVOTTE, Etienne. Mirecourt; 1856, Paris. Made good violins; + beautifully finished; also guitars. + + LARCHE. Brussels, 1847. Dyed his fiddles with acids, with usual + result of impoverished tone. + + LARCHER, Pierre. Tours, 1785. Pupil of Guersan, Paris, but work + dissimilar; brown varnish of poor quality. + + LASKA, Joseph. 1738-1805, Prague. Pupil of J. Kolditz; worked for + best makers in Dresden, Berlin, Vienna, and Brünn; his violins + popular in Bohemia, Saxony, and Poland. + + LAUTTEN, L. W. Tyrol. One “fine and handsome” violin known. + + LAVAZZA (or Lacasso), Antonio Maria. Milan about 1700; Stradivari + pattern; good varnish, pale red. + + LAVAZZA, Santino. Was working in Milan at the same time as Antonio + Maria Lavazza. + + LEB. Pressburg, eighteenth century; one of the best German makers + of his time. + + LE BLANC. Family of makers who, through four generations, worked in + Paris, eighteenth century. + + LEBLANC, Claude. Mirecourt, eighteenth century. + + LECLERC, J. N. Paris, 1760-80; good maker and repairer. + + LECOMTE (or Fouquet-Lecomte), Antoine. Paris, 1775-1800. + + LECUYER, Pierre. Paris, 1775-83. + + LEDUC, Pierre. Paris, 1647; one of the oldest makers there. + + LEEB, J. Carl. 1792-1819. Vienna. + + LEFEBVRE (Lefebre), J. B. A Frenchman who worked in Amsterdam, + 1735-70; Amati pattern; yellow varnish. + + LEFÈVRE (Lefebvre). Toussaint Nicolas Germain. Paris, 1783-89. + + LEGROS de la Neuville, Nicolas. French maker, eighteenth century; + guitars, violins, and violoncellos. + + LE JEUNE. A family of makers who for several generations worked in + Paris; nineteenth century. + + LE JEUNE, François. Paris, eighteenth century; violins and viols; + not remarkable. + + LE JEUNE, Jean Baptiste. Made harps and violins in Paris; + eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. + + LE JEUNE, Jean Charles. Paris in 1776; succeeded by his nephew, + Guillaume Martin, in 1822. + + LE JEUNE, Louis. Paris, 1783-89. + + LE LIÈVRE. Paris, 1750-80. + + LEMBÖCK, Gabriel. 1814-92. Budapest; worked with Fischer in Vienna; + copied Guarnerius; much esteemed. + + L’EMPEREUR, Jean Baptiste. Paris, 1750; few instruments. + + LENK, W., b. 1840; 1881, Schönbach bei Eger, Bohemia; worked under + Klüher in Markneukirchen; then Berlin, Breslau, Vienna; finally + settled at Frankfort; fair maker. + + LENTZ (Lenz), Johann Nicolaus. Came from the Tyrol to London; + friend of Bernhard Fendt; varnished like Dodd and J. F. Lott. + + LEONI, Carlo. Treviso, 1861. + + LEONI. Parma in 1816. + + LE PILEUR, Pierre. Paris, 1750-55. Not very good. + + LÉTÉ, Simon, b. about 1768; 1828 made very cheap, good fiddles for + £1; at one time a partner of J. B. Vuillaume. + + LEWIS, Edward. London about 1700. An excellent maker; yellow and + red varnish; in Thomas Britton’s collection was an “excellent tenor + by Mr Lewis” and a “rare good” bass-violin. + + LIEBICH, Ernst, b. Oct. 27, 1796-1876; Stradivari and Guarneri + pattern; he was the father of + + LIEBICH, Ernst. 1830-84, Breslau. Italian pattern. His son, + + LIEBICH, Ernst. 1862-95, Breslau. Excellent repairer; makes few, + but good; best Italian patterns. + + LIEBICH, Johann Gottfried. 1752-1813. + + LIEDOLF, Joseph Ferdinand. Vienna eighteenth century. + + LIGNOLI, Andrea. Florence, seventeenth century. + + LILLY, James. An English maker, 1821. + + LINAROLO (Linerolli), Francesco Giovanni. A family, seventeenth + century; on the verge of the violin period; some of their + instruments have been adapted for tenors. + + LIPPETA, J. G. Neukirchen, Saxony, 1771. + + LIPPOLD, Johann Georg. 1780. Fair maker; brown varnish. + + LOLIO, Giambattista. 18th cent. + + LOLY, Jacopo. Naples, 1627. Pattern of Grancino; yellow varnish; + made large-sized tenors. + + LONGMAN AND BRODERIP, dealers who employed Jay or Benjamin Banks, + and labelled with their own names. + + LORENZINI, Gaspare. Piacenza, eighteenth century. + + LOTT, George Frederick. 1775-1853. + + LOTT, George Frederick. 1800-1868. + + LOTT, John Frederick, son of G. F. Lott. (_See_ p. 219.) + + LOTZ, Theodor. Pressburg. 1730-40. Good violins. + + LOUIS. Geneva. + + LOUVET, Jean, brother of Pierre Louvet. Paris, 1730-60. Made bad + fiddles, but good hurdy-gurdys and harps. + + LUDICI (Ludge), Geronimo Pietro. An amateur maker in Conegliano in + 1709. + + LUGLONI, Giuseppe. Venice in 1777. + + LUPO, Pietro. Antwerp. In 1559 he is said to have sold to a + musician sent by the town of Utrecht, “five violins enclosed in + their case,” for the sum of £72. + + LUPÔT, François, son of Laurent Lupôt. + + LUPOT, Nicolas. The greatest of the family. (_See_ p. 106.) + + + MACGEORGE. Edinburgh, 1800-20. + + MACINTOSH. Dublin, 1830-40. Pupil of Thomas Perry. + + MAFFEOTTO, Giuseppe. Rome, eighteenth century. + + MAGGINI (Magino or Maglino), Gio Paolo. (_See_ p. 32.) + + MAIRE, Nicolas. A violin bow-maker in Paris; 1800, in Mirecourt; + 1878, Paris; apprenticed to Jacques Lafleur; he made excellent bows. + + MALDONNER. Füssen, Bavaria, 1760. + + MANN, Hans. Naples, 1720-50. His instruments are rare; Stradivari + and Guarneri patterns. + + MANTEGAZZA (or Mantegatia), Pietro and Giovanni. Two brothers + working in Milan about 1750-1800; they made many good altos. + + MANTOVANI. Parma, eighteenth century. + + MARATTI, Giambattista. Verona about 1690-1700. Good tone. + + MARCELLI, Giovanni. Cremona in 1696. + + MARCHETTI, Enrico. Turin, nineteenth century. Good maker. + + MARCHI, Giovanni Antonio. Bologna, 1740-95. Good violoncellos and + violins; violins high model; beautiful maple-wood back and sides; + varnish golden yellow. + + MARCO, Antonio. Venice, 1700. + + MARCONCINI, Giuseppe. Pupil of Storioni; Ferrara, where he died at + a great age, 1841; unequal maker; very good sometimes. + + MARCONCINI, Luigi. A pupil of Omobono Stradivari, 1760; Ferrara and + Bologna; good workmanship; pale red varnish. + + MARIANI, Antonio. Pesaro, 1640 to 1700; not of much value; reminds + of Maggini, but rough, purfling double. + + MARINO, Bernardino. Rome. Worked up to 1805. + + MARQUIS DE LAIR. Mirecourt, 1800. Violins and violoncellos of + Stradivari pattern; work poor, the wood not good; varnish ugly + brown; tone bad. + + MARSHALL, John. London about 1750-60. Stainer pattern; work good. + + MARTIN. A family of makers in Paris, chiefly repairers. + + MARTIN, Jules. Germigny, Vosges. + + MARTIN. London, 1790-95, who lived at Hermitage Bridge, Wapping. + + MAST, Jean Laurent. Paris, 1750. His instruments are well made; + violins; blackish varnish. + + MAST, Josephus Laurent, son of Jean Laurent Mast. Mirecourt; still + there in 1820; better than his father, but not very noteworthy. + + MAUCOTEL, Charles, brother of Charles Adolphe Maucotel. 1807-60, + Mirecourt. Studied under Gand; went to London; excellent tone. + + MAUCOTEL, Charles Adolphe, brother of Charles. 1820-58, Mirecourt. + Apprenticed in Mirecourt; went to Paris; worked under J. B. + Vuillaume; excellent copyist of Stradivari. + + MAUSSIELL (or Mansiedl), Leonhardt. Nuremberg, 1720-50. Stainer + pattern; very good. + + MAYR (Maier), Andreas Ferdinand. Salzburg, about 1740-80. Is said + to have made the small violin on which Mozart learned to play. + + MAYSON, Walter H. A maker in Manchester who began as an amateur, + but soon adopted violin-making as a profession. His instruments are + excellent. + + MEARES, Richard. A maker of lutes. London in 1677; lute and + viol-maker on verge of the violin. + + MÉDARD, Antoine, b. 1621. (_See_ p. 187.) + + MÉDARD, François. + + MÉDARD, Henri. + + MÉDARD, Jean. + + MÉDARD, Nicolas. + + MÉDARD, Sébastien. + + MEIBERI, Francesco. Leghorn, 1745-50. + + MELLING. Paris, 1753-71. + + MELLINI, Giovanni. Guastalla, Italy, 1768. + + MELONI, Antonio. Milan, about 1670-95. Followed the Amati pattern; + his instruments are small, but good tone. + + MENNÉGAND, Charles. Nancy, 1885. Apprenticed at Mirecourt; went + to Paris and Amsterdam; worked with Rambaux; returned to Turin; + consummate repairer. + + MENNESSON, Emile. 1842-98, Rheims. Has made 2380 violins; fine + copyist of Stradivari’s “Messiah” period; gold medallist. + + MÉRIOTTE, Charles. Lyons about 1730-60. Made on the Stradivari + pattern; yellow-brown varnish; good workmanship. + + MERLIN, Joseph. London, 1770-80. His violins and his mechanical + pegs for violins and violoncellos at first the vogue, but have + not maintained their place; he followed the high Stainer model; + instruments were well made, but tone not good. + + MESSEGUER. A Spanish maker, 1646. + + METTE, François. A maker in the South of France. + + MEZADRI (Mezzadie), Alessandro. Ferrara, 1690-1720. Amati school, + but failed to rival their grace; inferior tone. + + MEZADRI (Mezzadie), Francesco. A maker at Milan about 1700-20; his + altos were of small pattern. + + MIALFI, Joannes. A Spanish maker about 1769; nothing remarkable. + + MICHAUD. Paris about 1788. + + MICHELIS, Pelegrino (or Peregrino) di Zanetto, son of Zanetto de + Michelis, b. 1520. Made lutes and other instruments in Brescia; on + the verge of the violin; a fine tenor known. + + MICHELOT, Jacques Pierre. Paris about 1780-95, at the sign of “A la + Mélodie.” He made five-stringed viols and violins. + + MIER. London, 1786. + + MIGGÉ, Otto, b. June 16, 1857, Coblenz; made 80 violins and 14 + violoncellos; good tone. + + MILANI, Francesco. Milan about 1740-60. School of Lorenzo + Guadagnini. + + MILHET. Bayonne, 1820. + + MILLE. Aix-la-Chapelle. A small pocket-violin is known. + + MILLER. London, 1750. + + MILLER, A. St. Andrews, Scotland. + + MINOZZI, Matteo. Bologna, eighteenth century. + + MIRAUCOURT, Ludovic (or Joseph). On verge of violin; still made + viols in 1743. + + MIREMONT, Claude Augustin, son of Sébastien Miremont. 1827, + Mirecourt; d. 1887, Pontorson (Manche); in 1844 to Paris, and + worked first with Lafleur, then with Bernardel until 1852, when + he left France for America, and settled in New York; returned to + France; made chiefly violoncellos; excellent tone; Stradivari + pattern. + + MIREMONT, Sébastien. Mirecourt, 1810. + + MODESSIER. Paris in 1810. His instruments a large pattern; + excellent wood. + + MOERS, Jean Henri. Paris, 1771. + + MOHR, Philipp. Hamburg, 1650. + + MOINEL, Charles, nephew of N. E. Cherpitel. Paris, 1893. Continued + Cherpitel’s business. + + MOITESSIER, Louis. Mirecourt, 1780 to 1825. He made a large number + of instruments; many violins; rather common; fair tone. + + MOLDONNER. Fussen, Bavaria, 1756-98. + + MOLINARI, Antonio. Venice, 1672-1703. + + MONGENOT. Rouen, 1763. + + MONTADE (Montani or Montaldi), Gregorio. Cremona, 1690-1735. Pupil + or imitator of Omobono Stradivari; fairly good. + + MONTAGNANA, Domenico. A celebrated maker in Venice about 1720-50. + (_See_ p. 87.) + + MONTRON. Paris, 1780-90. + + MORELLA, Morglato. A maker of lutes, rebecs, and viols, 1510-50; + has lasted into the violin epoch on account of his viols having + been cut down for violas. + + MORONA, Antonio. Istria (Istrien) in 1731. + + MORRISON, John. 1760-1830. Poor maker; did job work for the trade. + + MOTTENHAVER, Edward. New York, U.S.A., who has taken out a great + many patents for inventions. + + MOUGENOT, Georges. 1843-98, Mirecourt (Vosges). Worked in Brussels + for N. F. Vuillaume, and succeeded him; uses “hands,” but plans + and finishes himself; gold medallist. + + + NADOTTI, Giuseppe. Piacenza, 1760-70. + + NAMY, Jean Théodore. Paris, 1755-1807; fine restorer; worked for + Salomon’s widow in Paris. + + NAYLOR, Isaac. A pupil of Richard Duke; worked at Headingly, near + Leeds, 1778-92. + + NERMEL, J. M. Paris, 1777-89. + + NEUNER, Ludwig. 1840, Mittenwald (Bavaria). Grandson of Mathias + Neuner, also a clever maker of violins, who worked for some time + in London; worked for J. B. Vuillaume, Paris; settled in Berlin; + accomplished maker; sends out from his firm 20,000 instruments a + year; very cheap and good money’s worth; can do better quality when + he chooses. + + NEWTON, Isaac. London about 1775-1825. He made fairly good + instruments, but used a dingy yellow varnish. Sometimes made + violins and violoncellos for Betts, but these were always varnished + by the latter. + + NEZOT. Paris, 1730-60; transition maker from viols to violins; only + a few violins. + + NICOLAS, Didier, l’aîné (known as “deaf Nicolas”), 1757-1833, + Mirecourt; clever workman and large employer; large pattern, loud + tone; suitable for orchestra. + + NICOLAS, François Nicolas Fourrier (was known simply as “Nicolas”), + b. Oct. 5, 1758. 1816, Paris. Made all the instruments used in the + private orchestra of Napoleon I.; careful choice of wood; good + proportions; closely copied from beautiful specimens of Cremona; + not much in fashion now, but good violins of his still about. + + NICOLAS, Joseph, son of Didier Nicolas. 1796-1864. Mirecourt; + eccentric maker; after his death his stamp and his father’s sold + off with stock, and used for violins made by neither. Pupil and + successor of his father. + + NICOLAS, Mathieu. Mirecourt. His instruments of ordinary + workmanship, some yellow or red varnish. + + NIGGELL, Simpertus. A maker of viols and violins. Fussen, 1743-66; + transition maker of viols and violins; flat pattern. + + NORBORN, John. London, 1723. + + NORMAN, Barak, b. 1688; d. 1740. (_See_ p. 125.) + + NORRIS, John, b. 1739, London; d. March 10, 1818; pupil of Thomas + Smith; went into partnership with Robert Barnes in 1765. + + NOVELLO, Pietro Valentino, brother of Marco Antonio Novello. + Venice, eighteenth century. + + NOVELLO, Marco Antonio, a brother of Pietro Valentino Novello; in + Venice at the same time; good work. + + NOVERSI, Cosimo. Florence, seventeenth century. + + + OBBO, Marco. Naples, 1712; ordinary work. + + OBICI (Obue), Bartolommeo. Verona in 1684. + + ODANI, Giuseppe Morello. Naples, 1738. + + ODOARDI, Giuseppe. Working until 1675, Ascoli, Italy; some + confusion about his date, 1675-1740; died at 28; self-taught; an + original genius; about two hundred violins; much valued when can be + found. + + OHBERG, Johann. Stockholm in 1773; fairly good; a yellow varnish. + + ONEDA, Gio. Battista, b. 1529. A maker of cithers and violins (?) + in Brescia about 1562. + + ONGARO, Ignazio. Venice, 1783. + + ORLANDELLI, Paolo. Codogno, Italy, eighteenth century. + + ORTEGA. 1840; maker and repairer. Madrid. + + OSTLER, Andreas. Breslau, 1730; chiefly viols. + + OTTO, Carl August, fourth son of J. A. Otto; b. 1801, Jena; d. + 1883, Ludwigslust; maker to the Mecklenberg-Schwerin Court. + + OTTO, Carl Christian, second son of J. A. Otto, 1792; Halle; + repairs old instruments. + + OTTO, C. W. F. Louis, fifth son of J. A. Otto, 1805-84, Stockholm. + + OTTO, Georg August Gottfried, eldest son of J. A. Otto; 1789, + Weimar; 1857, Jena; good maker. + + OTTO, Heinrich Wilhelm, third son of J. A. Otto; b. 1796. Amsterdam + and Berlin. + + OTTO, Hermann, son of Ludwig Otto, 1859-84. Cologne, St Petersburg. + + OTTO, Jacob August; b. 1764, Gotha; d. 1830, Jena. Pupil of Franz + Anton Ernst at Gotha; settled in Weimar; maker to the Court; worked + also in Halle, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Berlin, and Jena; fine repairer, + but made excellent violins and violoncellos. His five sons all + became violin makers. + + OTTO, Ludwig, son of Georg August Gottfried Otto; b. 1821, Jena; + 1887, St Petersburg, Cologne, St Petersburg. He exhibited three + violins, a viola, violoncello, and double-bass, in London, 1862. + They were all well made, and were moderately priced. + + OTTO, Louis, son of Carl August Otto; b. July 15, 1844, + Ludwigslust. Pupil of his father in Ludwigslust, 1860-65; in + Cologne, 1865-66, then went to Hanover, 1872; then still there + (1898); careful in selection of wood; large Stradivari pattern; + excellent work; has made 238 violins, and many tenors and ’cellos. + First prizeman, Chicago and Melbourne. + + OUVRARD, Jean. 1725-46; pupil of Claude Pierray. Transition maker, + but true violoncello pattern, though continued to make viols. + + + PACHERELE, Michel. A maker in Paris in 1779; followed Guersan; + slightly arched; yellow varnish. + + PACHERELE, Pierre. 1803, Mirecourt; 1871, Nice; fellow-apprentice + of J. B. Vuillaume at Mirecourt; worked at Genoa, and with + Pressenda, Turin; made a great many violins, altos, and + violoncellos, all of good workmanship; varnish too thick; took + Stradivari for his model; a clever repairer. + + PACQUET. From Aix; working in Marseilles in 1785. + + PADEWET, Johann. A good maker; d. about 1874; started at Basle, + 1844, but moved to Carlsruhe. + + PADEWET, Johann, son of Johann Padewet; b. Aug. 23, 1851-95, + Carlsruhe. Hanover, Berlin, under Aug. Riechers till 1874. Assisted + by two workmen, he makes forty to fifty instruments (violins, + violas, and violoncellos) a year, on the Stradivari pattern, using + oil varnish of reddish-yellow or golden-brown colour; good repairer. + + PAGANI, Gian Battista. Cremona, 1747. + + PAGANONI, Antonio. Working in Venice in eighteenth century. + + PAGEOT (Pajeot), son of Louis Simon Pageot; b. Jan. 25, 1791, + Mirecourt; d. there Aug. 24, 1849. A maker of bows. In his + workshops about 8000 dozens of bows were turned out at prices + varying from 6d. to 14s. + + PALATE. Liège, 1710; Italian pattern; excellent instruments. + + PALMA, Paolo. Lucca, 1760. + + PAMPHILON, Edward. A maker in London, on London Bridge, about + 1680-90. (_See_ p. 124.) + + PANDOLFI, Antonio. Venice, 1700-20; good; yellow-brown varnish. + + PANORMO, Edward, either a son or a grandson of Vincenzo Panormo; he + worked both in London and in Ireland. + + PANORMO, George. London. Probably a grandson of Vincenzo Panormo. + + PANORMO, George Lewis, second son of Vincenzo Panormo. Very good + bows; fine guitars and a few good fiddles. + + PANORMO, Joseph, eldest son of Vincenzo Panormo. London. Died in + great poverty; good workman; violoncellos excellent. + + PANORMO, Vincenzo (known as “old Panormo”), b. Nov. 30, 1734, + Monreale, a village near Palermo, Sicily; d. 1813, London. Began + at sixteen; worked in England, Ireland, and Paris; perhaps with + Bergonzi in Cremona; excellent maker; powerful tone; Stradivari + pattern; clear yellow varnish; also guitars. + + PANZANI (Pansani), Antonio. Rome, 1735-85; good maker. + + PAQUOTTE Frères. Henri Félix, 1857, and Placide, 1864, sons of Jean + Baptiste Paquotte, to whose business they succeeded in July 1888. + Paris; a few violins; excellent in tone, but firm chiefly repaired. + + PAQUOTTE, Jean Baptiste. Nephew of Sébastien Paquotte; one of the + best Paris makers of the day, 1860-88. + + PAQUOTTE, Sébastien. Mirecourt, 1800-63, Paris. In 1830 he founded + the business in Paris. + + PARALDIC. 1722. + + PARDI. Paris, 1788. + + PARDINI, Bastiano. 1700. + + PARIS, Claude. Paris, 1775. In 1816 was joined by his nephew; + spirit varnish, a red-yellow colour. + + PARKER, Daniel. London, 1740-85. A very clever workman, possibly a + pupil of Urquhart or Pamphilon. Red varnish, wood excellent, tone + clear and powerful. He made largely for the trade; his instruments + are often sold under other names; no viola or violoncello of his + known. About 1793 instruments valued at five guineas each; about + 1805 they realised as much as fifteen. + + PARTH (or Perth), Andreas Nicolas. Vienna about 1790. + + PASTA, Domenico and Gaetano. Brescia about 1700-30; followed the + Amati instead of the Maggini pattern; poor tone; varnish brown. + + PATZELT, Johann Ferdinand. Vienna. + + PAZZINI, Gian Gaetano. Florence, 1630-70. According to label a + pupil of Maggini; instruments are not common. + + PEARCE, George; b. Nov. 16, 1820, Warminster; d. 1856, London. In + the workshop of S. A. Forster as errand-boy, taught violin-making, + and became an excellent workman. + + PEARCE, James and Thomas. Brothers working in London, 1780-1800; + work poor. + + PEARCE, William. London. + + PECCATE, Charles. Maker of bows in Paris, 1889. + + PECCATE, Dominique. 1810, Mirecourt; d. there, Jan. 13, 1874. In + 1826 was apprenticed to J. B. Vuillaume at Paris, and worked with + him until 1837; then François Lupot died, and Dominique succeeded + to his business at 18 Rue d’Angivilliers; returned to Mirecourt; + ranks next to François Tourte as a bow-maker; at first sold for + 16s., now price quadrupled. + + PECCATE, jeune. A brother of Dominique; also made bows; worked for + J. B. Vuillaume; work is inferior to that of his brother, 1856. + + PEDRAZZI, Fra Pietro. A Dominican friar; working in Bologna in 1784. + + PEMBERTON, Edward. London in 1660; instruments ugly, but tone good + and the varnish fine. It has been suggested that a Pemberton was + the maker of the instrument presented to the Earl of Leicester + by Queen Elizabeth which has “J. 15/78 P.” engraved on the + tail-pin--supposed to be the initials of the maker and the date of + the year (1578) in which it was made. If so, he was the earliest + English maker of the four-stringed violin. + + PERAULT. A maker in Paris, 1775-77. + + PÉRON (or Perou), Nicolas. Paris, 1775-90; appointed maker to the + Duchess of Orléans; instruments well made; yellow-brown varnish; + Gagliano pattern. + + PERRY, Thomas. A maker in Dublin, 1767-1827. He was in partnership + with William Wilkinson; they made good violins. + + PERSOIT. Maker of excellent bows in Paris. He made for J. B. + Vuillaume, 1823-41; but then started a business of his own. He + marked his bows “P. R. S.” + + PETERS, Michael. Weyberg in 1801, judging from two labels in a + bass-viol of seven strings; the first runs: “Dieses Instrument ist + gemacht, anno 1627,” the second is “Arranschirt von Michael Peters + in Weyberg, anno 1801.” + + PETZ. Fussen, Bavaria, 1770. + + PEZZARDI. Brescia, 1580-1610; violins similar to those of Maggini; + sometimes sold as Maggini. + + PFAB. Hamburg. + + PFRETZSCHNER, Carl Friedrich, son of Johann Gottlob Pfretzschner. + Worked in Cremona; no great merit. + + PFRETZSCHNER, Johann Gottlob. Cremona, 1794; not good. + + PFRETZSCHNER. Neukirchen. + + PICHOL. Paris. + + PICINO. Padua, 1712; instruments arched; dark varnish. + + PIERRARD, Louis, 1890. A maker of excellent violins, with red-brown + varnish, and of good tone, Brussels; pupil of Mougenot, but started + his own business in 1883; wrote “Traité de lutherie.” + + PIERRAY (or Pierret), Claude. A contemporary of Boquay; he worked + in Paris about 1700-30. + + PIETE (PICTE), Noel. Paris, 1760-1810; beautifully finished + workmanship. + + PILLEMENT, F. Paris, 1790-1820; capricious maker; dark varnish. + + PILOSIO, Francesco. Gorizia in 1748. + + PIQUE, François Louis; b. 1758 at Rorei, near Mirecourt; d. 1822, + Charenton St Maurice. Went to Paris in 1777. + + PIROT, Claude. Paris, 1800-20; good violins, Italian pattern; + bellies slightly arched, backs hardly at all; the sound-holes well + cut; varnish thick, red-brown or pale yellow colour. + + PITET (or Pilet). A maker in Paris latter part of the seventeenth + century; no great value. + + PIZZURMUS (Pozzurnus), David. Genoa, 1760. + + PLACK (Plach), Francis. Schœnbock, Bohemia, 1740-80; good violins. + + PLANE, W. Glasgow, 1860. + + PLANI, Agostino de. Genoa in 1778; commonplace. + + PLATNER, Michele. A Swiss; working in Rome in 1747; fair + workmanship; rather arched; scroll well cut; varnish golden-red. + + PLUMEREL. Was working in Paris in 1740. + + PLUMEREL, Charles. Angers, France, in 1822. + + POIROS, Louis. French maker. + + POIRSON, Eloph. Paris, 1875-89; first an amateur, afterwards made + for the trade; good work. + + POLIS. Luca de. Cremona in 1751. + + POLLUSCA (Pollusha), Antonio. Rome in 1751. + + PONS, César. Grenoble, 1780-1820; violins large size, arched; work + not good. + + POLRON, Peeter. A double-bass used in the Cathedral of Antwerp is + dated 1647. + + POSTACCHINI, Andrea. Firmo, 1824; excellent maker, and good + repairer of instruments. + + POSTIGLIONE, Vincenzo. 1835 at Naples; good maker, and made many + instruments, which rise every year in value. + + POWELL, Royal and Thomas. Two brothers who worked in London, + 1770-1800; employed by William Forster, and his son, William + Forster; work neat and good. + + PRESSENDA, Giovanni Francesco; b. 1777, Turin; d. there, 1854. + Was the son of a strolling fiddler, Raffaele Pressenda; went to + Cremona; there studied violin-making under Lorenzo Storioni; learnt + there to make the varnish for which his violins were afterwards + noted; Stradivari pattern, not much arched, sound-holes well + cut, proportions correct, wood good, but scrolls rather roughly + finished; red-brown varnish of excellent quality. + + PRESTON, John. York, 1785-95. + + PREVÔT (or Prevost), P. Charles. Paris from 1775-89. + + PRIEUR, Claude Edme Jean. Paris, 1775-89. + + + QUINOT, Jacques. Paris, 1660. Mentioned in 1680 as being “one of + the most clever of the honourable luthiers of Paris.” + + + RACCERIS. Mantua, 1670; similar to the Gagliano family, with one of + whom he is said to have been in partnership. + + RAFFAELLE, Nella (or Della). Brescia, 18th century; pattern + of Maggini; his instruments have the sides ornamented with + inscriptions; brown varnish; no great merit. + + RAMBAUX, Claude Victor, 1806-71; at Darney in the Vosges; d. at + Mirecourt. Went to Caen and worked under Thibout, 1824-27; then to + Paris, where he worked with Gand; great repairer and adapter of old + instruments by cutting down. + + RAMFPLER, Franz, 1834-90, Munich; pupil of Andreas Engleder, + Munich; used his own invented varnish; made good fiddles. + + RANCE, Thomas. Brussels, about 1680-85. + + RANTA, Pietro. Brescia, 1733; Amati pattern. + + RASURA, Vincenzo. Lugo, 1785. + + RAU, J. F. Nuremberg; exhibited at Munich in 1854 a violin of good + though rather coarse tone. + + RAUCH, Breslau, and Rauch of Würzburg, two brothers, 1730-60; good + violins; used their own models; varnish red; tone sound. + + RAUCH, Jacob. Mannheim, 1720-50; good work; violins Stainer tone; + excellent altos, violoncellos, and double-basses. + + RAUCH, Sebastian, 1725-90 Hamburg, and Leitmeritz in Bohemia; + violins arched, not remarkable. + + RAUT, Jean. Bretagne; who worked in Rennes till about 1790; pattern + of Guarneri; red varnish. + + RAUTMANN. Brunswick. + + RAWLINS. London in 1779. + + RAYMAN, Jacob; b. in the Tyrol, but settled in London about 1620-48. + + RAZENZO, Carole. Barcelona, 1690. + + REALLI, Cosmo Battista. Parma, 1667. + + RECHIARDINI, Giovanni (called “Zuano”). Venice, 18th century. + + REGNAUT (Renault), Jacques. Paris, 1665-85; a little pocket-violin, + with silver purfling, was dated 1682; maker to the King. + + REICHEL, Johann Conrad, brother of Johann Gottfried. Neukirchen in + 1779. + + REICHEL, Johann Gottfried, brother of Johann Conrad. Absam; pupil + of Stainer; work rough; red-brown varnish of poor quality. + + REMY. A French maker; 1840, Paris and London; Italian pattern; wood + artificially aged. + + REMY, Hippolyte, eldest son of Jean Mathurin Remy. 1835-70 in + Paris; no great merit. + + REMY, Jean Mathurin, son of Mathurin François Remy; b. 1770, Paris; + d. 1854; his work same as father’s; oil varnish. + + REMY, Jules Hippolyte, second son of Jean Mathurin Remy; b. 1813, + Paris; d. 1876. + + REMY, Mathurin François, 1775-91, Paris; yellow-brown varnish. + + RENAUDIN, Léopold; b. 1749, at Mirecourt; guillotined, May 7, + 1795. He settled in Paris, living in the Rue St Honoré from 1776 + till his death at the sign of “Aux amateurs”; fairly good violins, + but too much arched; varnish almost black in colour; excellent + double-basses. + + RENAULT, Nicolas. A French maker, 16th century. + + RENAULT, Sébastien. Paris, 1775-1805. Cithers of his are known + dated 1779, 1786, and 1804; a violin is described as made on a + good pattern, with yellow varnish of fair quality; worked with F. + Chatelain. Advt.: “Renault et Chatelain, luthiers, font et vendent + louent, achètent et raccommodent toutes sortes d’instruments de + musique, etc., à Paris.” + + RENISTO. Cremona, 1735-40; pupil of Carlo Bergonzi, whose work he + copied closely. + + RESLE, Andrea. Fiesso in 1740; good. + + REYNAUD, André. Tarascon, 1754-66; good violoncellos. + + RICHARDS. London. + + RICHELME, A. Marius. Marseilles; curves of the upper and lower + bouts almost returning to the ancient viol-shape. He published in + Marseilles, 1868: “Etudes et observations sur la lutherie ancienne + et moderne.” + + RICOLAZZI, Lodovico, 1729. + + RIECHERS, 1836, Hanover; d. 1893, Berlin. Was first a pupil + of L. Bausch at Leipzig, then moved to Berlin in 1872, at the + special request of the violinist, Joseph Joachim; made excellent + instruments on the Stradivari and Guarneri patterns; about 1000 + violins and over 200 violoncellos were made in his workshop. + + RIESS. A maker, Bamberg, about 1740-60; fair maker; Stainer pattern. + + RINALDI, Benedetto Gioffredo, Pupil of Pressenda; d. 1890. Turin. + + RIVOLTA, Giacomo. Milan, 1822. Good work. + + ROCCA, Giuseppe Antonio. Turin, 1835-55; worked at one time for + Pressenda; Stradivari pattern; varnish is poor quality. + + RÖSCHER, C. H. W. Bremen, 1871. + + ROGER, G. Montpellier, 1820. + + ROGERI, Gian Battista; b. Bologna, 1650. Cremona, under Nicolo + Amati; Stradivari was a fellow-pupil of his. + + ROISMANN, Johann. Breslau, 1680. + + ROL. Paris, 1753. + + ROMANO, Pietro. Pavia, 18th century. + + ROMARINI, Antonio. Cremona, 18th century. + + ROMBOUTS, Pieter. Amsterdam, 1705-35; he made violins, violas, and + violoncellos, much arched; bright but thick varnish. + + ROOK, Joseph. London, about 1777-1830; good work; Forster pattern. + + ROPIQUET. Paris, 1810-30; he was an orchestral player; made some + violins of no great value. + + ROSIERO, Rocco. Cremona, early part of 18th century. + + ROSIO, Paolo. 1857, Verolanuova; Brescia. + + ROTA, Giovanni. Cremona, 1800-10; rough work; varnish yellow. + + ROTA, Giuseppe Antonio. Turin, 1825; his work similar to that of + Pressenda; varnish is red-brown. + + ROTH, Johann and Christian. Both about 1675, the former at + Darmstadt and the latter at Augsburg. + + ROTTENBROUCK. Brussels, 1700-25; pattern of Amati; red-brown + varnish. + + ROVETTA, Antonio. Bergamo, 1840-70. + + ROZE. Orléans, 1755-65; good workmanship; varnish yellow. + + RUGGERI (Rugieri), Francesco. 1668-1720. Was the first of a family + of makers in Cremona, very often confused with Rogeri of Brescia. + (_See_ p. 50.) + + RUGGERI (Rugieri), Giacinto, son of Francesco Ruggeri; b. in + Cremona. + + RUGGERI (Rugieri), Guido. Cremona about 1720. + + RUGGERI (Rugieri), Pietro Giacomo and Giovanni Battista. Both + working in Brescia about 1700-25. + + RUGGERI (Rugieri), Vincenzo, son of Francesco Ruggeri. Cremona + about 1700-30, is also said to have worked in Brescia. He made many + altos and violoncellos; work rough; last member of this family to + make violins. He also used “il Per” on his labels, for the same + reason, probably, viz., to distinguish his work from that of the + Rogeri of Brescia. + + RUGGERI, Gianbattista. Cremona, _cir._ 1693. + + RUPPERT, Johann Heinrich. Erfurt about 1720. His violins, altos, + and violoncellos were of a flat model, without linings, corner + blocks, or purfling; loud tone, and dark brown varnish. + + + SACCHINI, Sabattino. Pesaro in 1686. + + SACQUIN. Paris about 1830-60; instruments well made, especially the + double basses; followed the Stradivari pattern. + + SAINT-PAUL, Antoine. Paris, about 1765-90. He was son-in-law and + successor of Louis Guersan; his advertisement says, “Il fait + et vend toutes sortes d’instruments de musique sçavoir; violons + de Cremone, violons de sa façon et de toutes sortes d’auteurs; + alto-violas, basses et contrebasses.” + + SAINT-PAUL, Pierre. Paris, 1740. + + SAJOT. Paris, 1730-35; instruments with flat backs; varnish + yellow-brown; the work poor. + + SALINO, J. B. Rome in 1760; very arched; varnish bad, brown. + + SALLE, le Père. Paris about 1825-53. He made a few violins; + beautiful copies of Guarneri; fine repairer and great connoisseur. + + SALOMON, Jean Baptist Deshayes. Rheims, 1747-70 (?); went to + Paris, where his widow carried on the firm, employing Namy; later + he settled in the Rue de l’Arbre-sec (about 1769). He died before + 1772, for in that year Namy is mentioned as working for the + widowed Madame Salomon. He made few violins, but they show good + work, and are on a similar pattern to those of Louis Guersan, his + contemporary; they have yellow-brown varnish; unequal maker; some + good violoncellos and bass viols. + + SALZARD, F. Paris. + + SANONI, Giovanni Battista. Verona, 1740; instruments much arched; + rose-coloured varnish; good work. + + SANTAGIULIANA, Giacinto. Venice, 1830. + + SANTE, Pesaro. 1670. + + SANTE, Giuseppe. Rome, 1778. + + SANTO, Giovanni. Naples, 1700-30; copied Amati; small pattern; well + made; varnish poor. + + SANTO SERAFINO; b. at Udine; worked in Venice about 1710-48. (_See_ + p. 90.) + + SANZO SANTINO (Santo Sentino). Milan, 18th century; good; resembles + Grancino. + + SARACENI, Domenico. Florence, 17th century. + + SARAILLAC, François. Lyons, 1678-1712. + + SASSANO. Fine Italian maker; rarely met with; yellow varnish; + beautiful free tone. + + SAUNIER, Edmond. 1754-80, Bordeaux and Paris. Was a pupil of + Lambert of Nancy, the “Carpenter,” but did superior work. + + SAVANI, Giuseppe. Carpi, 1809. + + SAWITZKI (Sawicki), Nicolaus; b. 1792, Poland; d. 1850; settled in + Vienna; good. + + SCARAMPELLA, Giuseppe, son of Paolo Scarampella; 1838-80 (?), + Brescia, Paris, Florence. He restored the viola and the famous + violoncello of Stradivari kept in the Istituto Musicale of + Florence, and in 1884 succeeded Castellani as keeper of the + collection of instruments there; makes new instruments, following + the Stradivari or Guarneri del Gesù patterns; tone clear and + strong; the work carefully done; reddish oil varnish. + + SCARAMPELLA, Paolo; b. Sept. 25, 1803, Brescia; d. April 7, 1870. A + carpenter by trade, but made many violins, violoncellos, guitars, + and mandolines. + + SCARAMPELLA, Stefano, son of Paolo Scarampella. Brescia, 1843; + settled in Mantua; made many good violins. + + SCHAENDL, Anton. Mittenwald, 1753. + + SCHEINLEIN, Johann Michael, son and pupil of Matthäus Friedrich + Scheinlein; 1751, Langenfeld; large Stainer pattern, but avoided + the arching; full and pleasant tone; but wood not being thick + enough, so not durable. + + SCHEINLEIN, Matthäus Friedrich, 1710, Langenfeld in Franken + (Franconia); d. there, 1771. A violinist, but taking great interest + in violin-making, began by repairing old instruments and finished + by making new ones; much arched; dark brown varnish; work careful. + + SCHELMAYER, Christian. Cologne. + + SCHLICK, Leipzig. + + SCHMIDT. Cassel, 1817; Stradivari pattern, but edges are larger and + purfling not so close to the sides; spirit varnish; wood of bad + quality. + + SCHMIED. Vienna, 18th century. + + SCHÖNFELDER, Johann Adam. Neukirchen in 1743. + + SCHONGER, Franz. Erfurt, 18th century; fairly good. + + SCHONGER, Georg, son of Franz Schonger. Erfurt; better than his + father, and left some good violins; Italian pattern; good repairer. + + SCHORN, Johann Paul; 1680-1716, Innsbrück; made excellent violins; + much arched; good varnish. + + SCHÜNEMANN, Otto. German; appointed Director of the School of + Violin-Making at Schwerin. + + SCHULZ, Peter. Ratisbon, 1854; German school; good. + + SCHUSTER, Gebrüder. Brothers who make cheap fiddles, 75s., good + tone, at Markneukirchen. + + SCHUSTER, Michael. Also connected with the business in + Markneukirchen, Saxony. + + SCHWARTZ, Bernard. French maker who settled at Strasburg, + 1795-1822; two sons, both makers. + + SCHWARTZ, Georges Frédéric; 1785-1849; and Théophile Guillaume, + 1787; Strasburg, 1861, sons of Bernard Schwartz. Pupils of + their father, and at his death succeeded to his business, which + became “Frères Schwartz.” Théophile was chiefly concerned in the + instrument-making, Georges gave his time to making bows; he gained + a well-merited reputation. His bows are generally marked near the + nut with “Schwartz, Strasbourg.” + + SCHWARTZ, Théophile Guillaume, son of Théophile Guillaume Schwartz; + b. Sept. 3, 1821. In 1852 he succeeded to the business in Strasburg + at 2 Place Saint-Thomas; chiefly repairer. + + SCHWEIZER, Johann Baptist. Budapest, 1798-1875; pupil of Geisenhof + in Vienna; his violins not arched; work neat. + + SEGHER, Girolamo; b. 1646. Was a pupil of Nicola Amati, and was + working under him, 1680-82. + + SENI, Francesco. Florence in 1634. + + SERASATI, Domenico. Naples, 1710-50; fair. + + SICILIANO (Ciciliano), Antonio. Venice about 1600. A tenor and a + bass viola da gamba in the Modena Museum, Vienna. + + SICILIANO, Gioacchino, son of Antonio Siciliano. Venice about 1680. + + SILVESTRE, Hippolyte; 1808, Saint-Nicolas-du-Port (Meurthe); 1879, + Sommerviller, near Nancy. Was first a pupil of Blaise at Mirecourt, + then of J. B. Vuillaume at Paris. + + SILVESTRE, Pierre, brother of Hippolyte; b. Aug. 9, 1801, at + Sommerviller, near Nancy; d. 1859, Lyons. Was also a pupil of + Blaise at Mirecourt, then went to Paris; worked with Lupot; + excellent violins; made about 350 instruments, bearing his label: + “Pierre Silvestre à Lyon, 185--.” When working with his brother, + the label used was: “Petrus et Hippolytus Silvestre fratres + fecerunt Lugdun.” + + SIMON. Salzburg, 1722. + + SIMON, Claude. Paris, 1733-88. + + SIMON, P.; b. 1808, Mirecourt. Went to Paris in 1838, where he + worked for some months under D. Peccate; then to J. B. Vuillaume; + made most excellent bows, and generally marked them with “Simon, + Paris,” near the nut. + + SIMONIN, Charles. Mirecourt. Was apprenticed to J. B. Vuillaume at + Paris, and became one of his most able workmen. In 1841 he settled + in Geneva, then went to Toulouse; excellent maker. + + SIMOUTRE, Nicolas. 1788, Mirecourt; d. 1870, at Metz. His son, + Nicolas Eugène, was also a maker. + + SIMOUTRE, Nicolas Eugène, son of Nicolas Simoutre. 1834-89, + Mirecourt. Was first a pupil of his father, then of Darche in + 1852 at Paris; then of Ch. Roth in 1856 at Strasburg; worked in + Strasburg, Mulhausen, Basle, and Paris; a prolific writer on his + art. + + SIMPSON, James, and Son. Were musical instrument makers in London + in 1794. + + SIRJEAN. Maker of bows in Paris, 1818. + + SITT, A. Prague, 1854. Stradivari pattern, which improve with age. + + SLAGHMEULEN, Jan Baptist van der. Antwerp, 1672. The varnish a pale + brown. + + SMITH, Thomas. London, 1740-90. Pupil and successor of Peter + Wamsley; fine violoncellos; Stainer pattern; rising in price. John + Norris was a pupil of his. Label: “Made by Thos. Smith at the harp + and hautboy in Pickadilly. London, 1756;” similar labels were used + until 1766. + + SMITH, William. Hedon, Yorkshire, in 1786. + + SNEIDER, Giuseppe. Pavia, 1700-25. A pupil of Nicola Amati. Violins + slightly arched; varnish is a rich yellow colour; instruments made + by Girolamo, son of Nicola Amati, have often been attributed to + Sneider. + + SNOECK (Schnoeck), Egidius. Brussels, 1731. Amati pattern; dark + reddish varnish. + + SNOECK, Marc. Brussels, 1744. Clever repairer. + + SOCCHI, Vincenzo. Bologna, 1661. + + SOCQUET, Louis. Paris, 1750-80. Not good. + + SOLIANI, Angelo. Modena, 1752-1810. + + SOMER, Nicolas. Paris, 1725-50. + + SPEILER. A German maker, 18th century. + + SPRENGER, Anton. 1834, Mittenwald. Makes violins and violoncellos + on the Stradivari and Guarneri patterns; oil varnish of good + quality. + + STADELMANN (Statelmann), Daniel Achatius. 1680-1744, Vienna, who + showed great ability in imitating the Stainer pattern; he used thin + varnish of a deep amber colour; the work is well finished. + + STADELMANN (Statelmann), Johann Joseph, son of Daniel A. + Stadelmann; good copyist of Stainer, 1764. + + STADL, Michael Ignatius. Vienna in 1770. Fair. + + STAINER, Andreas. Was working in Absam about 1660; made few violins. + + STAINER, Jacob, son of Martin Stainer and Sabina Grafinger. (_See_ + p. 93.) + + STAINER, Marcus, brother and pupil of Jacob Stainer; he worked in + Laufen, Austria. + + STANZA, Giuseppe, b. 1663 in Venice. Pupil of Nicola Amati at + Cremona. + + STATLEE, Anderl. Genoa, 1714. Pupil of Girolamo, son of Nicola + Amati. + + STEININGER, François. Paris, 1827. Excellent maker. + + STEININGER, Jacob. Frankfort, 1775. Nicholas Diehl was a pupil of + his. + + STIRBAT (Stirrat), David. Edinburgh, 1810-15; good. + + STORIONI, Lorenzo. 1751-80, Cremona. Worked at 3 Contrada + Coltellai; he was one of the latest, if not the last of the + celebrated makers of Cremona, and his instruments, though of great + merit, show signs of decadence in the art. (_See_ p. 88.) + + STOSS, Bernard and Martin. Fussen, Bavaria; worked in Vienna; fair + makers. + + STOSS, Franz. Fussen, Bavaria, 1750-98. + + STRADIVARI (Stradiuarius), Antonio, son of Alessandro Stradivari + and Anna Moroni. (_See_ p. 61.) + + STRADIVARI, Francesco, son of Antonio Stradivari. 1671-1743. + + STRADIVARI, Omobono, son of Antonio. 1679-1742. + + STRAUBE (Staube). Berlin about 1770-75. Few known, but good; + excellent repairer. + + STRAUS, Joseph. Neustadt, 1745-50. + + STRNAD, Caspar. 1750. He settled in Prague and worked there, + 1781-95; good maker. + + STROBL, Johann. Hallein in 18th century. + + STURGE, H. 1811-53, Bristol; repairer, Huddersfield. + + SULOT, Nicolas. Dijon, 1825-40. Eccentric maker. + + SURSANO (Sorsano), Spiritus. Cuneo, 1714-35; inferior. + + + TACHINARDI. Cremona, 1690. + + TADOLINI. Modena, 19th century. + + TANEGIA, Carlo Antonio. Milan, 1725-30. + + TANIGARDI (Taningard), Georgio. Rome, 1735. + + TARR, William. Manchester, 1829-55; made some fair double-basses. + + TASSINI, Bartolommeo. Venice, 1754; followed Testore. + + TAYLOR, 1750, London; supposed pupil of Panormo; good instruments, + principally double-basses, and clever at repairing old ones. + + TECHLER (Tecchler), David; 1666-1743. (_See_ p. 102.) + + TEDESCO (Todesco), Leopoldo, 1625-58; pupil of Nicola Amati in + Cremona, 1653-54. + + TEODITI (Teoditti), Giovanni. Rome, 17th century. + + TERNYANINI, Pietro. Modena, 1755. + + TESTATOR, “Il Vecchio.” Milan, 1520; reputed transition maker from + viol to violin. + + TESTORE, Carlo Antonio, eldest son of Carlo Giuseppe Testore. + Milan, 1735-65; followed the Guarneri model; violoncellos and + tenors very good; varnish golden-yellow. + + TESTORE, Carlo Giuseppe; b. at Novarra; settled at Milan about + 1687, and worked there till about 1720; pupil of Giovanni Grancino, + for whose work his instruments are often mistaken; best workman in + this family, but made few instruments. When the well-known Lindley + “Grancino” violoncello was repaired in 1884, the removal of the + Cremona label exposed the original label in good preservation, + as follows: “Carlo Giuseppe Testore allievo di Gio. Grancino in + Contrada Larga di Milano, 1690.” A double-bass of his was played on + by the celebrated Bottesini at concerts; it had a splendid tone. + Label: “Carlo Giuseppe Testore in Contrada larga di Milano al segno + dell aquila, 1700.” He had two sons, Carlo Antonio and Paolo + Antonio, both violin-makers. + + TESTORE, Giovanni, son of Carlo Testore, _q.v._ + + TESTORE, Paolo Antonio, second son of Carlo Giuseppe Testore and + the last maker of this name. + + THÉRIOT, J. B. Paris, 1783. + + THIBOUT, Aimé Justin. 1808-62, Caen. + + THIBOUT, Albert, son of Gabriel Adolphe Thibout. 1839-65, Paris; + succeeded his uncle, Gabriel Eugène, as “luthier de l’Opéra,” and + was succeeded in his turn by the brothers Gand. + + THIBOUT, Gabriel Adolphe, son of Jacques Pierre Thibout, 1804; + Paris, 1858; not as good as his father. + + THIBOUT, Gabriel Eugène, son of Jacques Pierre Thibout. 1825 at + Paris; succeeded his brother, Gabriel Adolphe, as “luthier de + l’Opéra” in Paris; 1861, Boulogne-sur-Mer. + + THIBOUT, Jacques Pierre. 1777-1856, Caen. First worked at + Caen, then under Koliker at Paris; fine maker; excellent tone; + workmanship rivals best Cremona style; varnish red on amber ground. + Advt.: “Nouveau procédé approuvé par l’Institut. Thibout, luthier + du roi, rue Rameau, no. 8, à Paris, 1825.” + + THIBOUVILLE-LAMY, Jérôme. A little before 1867 he became sole + proprietor of the various factories at Mirecourt; he gradually + substituted mechanical for manual labour, and while increasing the + number of instruments made, at the same time reduced their price, + so that at last he was able to exhibit at Vienna in 1873 his famous + violins at 4s., 8s., and 16s. each. By 1887, 35,000 instruments had + been made by this firm. He was awarded a medal, Vienna, 1873; medal + of honour, Santiago, 1875; prize medal, Philadelphia, 1876; and + gold medal, London, 1885. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of + Honour, April 10, 1877, and Officer, Jan. 15, 1892. + + THIN, Mathias and Georg. Vienna, 18th century; good. + + THIR, Johann Georg. Vienna, 1791. + + THOMASSIN. Worked under Clément at Paris, 1825-45; good. + + THOMPSON (Thomson), Robert. London, at the sign of the + “Bass-Violin,” in St. Paul’s Churchyard, 1749-64; Stainer pattern. + He was succeeded by his sons, Charles and Samuel, who worked about + 1775-85. + + THOROWGOOD, Henry. London, 18th century. Label: “Made and sold by + Henry Thorowgood at the Violin and Guitar under the North Piazza of + the Royal Exchange, 17--, London.” + + THUMHARDT, Munich and Straubing in the 18th century; German style. + + TIELKE, Joachim. One of a family of makers. Hamburg, 1539-1701. He + was celebrated for the lutes, theorbos, guitars, and especially the + viols of all kinds which he made, of very fine tone, ornamented + with the richest and most varied inlaid work; one violin of his is + also mentioned. + + TILLEY, Thomas. London, 1774. + + TIPHANON (Thiphanon), Jean François. Paris, 1775-1800. + + TIRLER, Carlo. Bologna, 18th century. + + TOBIN, Richard. London, 1790-1840; pupil of Perry, Dublin; worked + for John Betts; followed the Stradivari or Guarneri patterns; good + maker. A son of his was also a maker. + + TODINI, Michele, 1625. Lived in Rome; made a few violins. + + TOLBECQUE, Auguste, son of Auguste Joseph Tolbecque; 1830-51, + Paris. He was a violoncellist; also worked at violin-making under + Rambaux in Paris; made a small number of new instruments; extremely + clever at restoring old ones. + + TONONI, Antonio. Bologna, 17th century. + + TONONI, Carlo, son of Felice. First worked, 1698-1739, Bologna; + settled in Venice. His instruments vary; they are generally of + a large pattern, not so highly arched as those of his brother + Giovanni; varnish similar to that of Santo Serafino; yellow-brown + colour. He often branded his monogram near the button of the + tailpiece. + + TONONI, Felice. Bologna, 1670-90. He worked with his son Giovanni; + their violoncellos have a great reputation in Italy. + + TONONI, Giovanni, son of Felice. Worked in Bologna till about 1705; + few instruments of his are to be found. + + TOPPANI, Angelo de. Rome, 1720-40. His instruments are rarely + seen, are similar to those of Techler, but more arched; varnish + golden-yellow; sound-holes are cut large. + + TORELLI. Verona, 1625. + + TORING (Torring). Maker and repairer of violins; London, 1800. + + TORTOBELLO, Francesco. Rome, 1680; Maggini pattern. + + TOULY, Jean. Nancy, 1730-47. Label: “Fait par moy Jean Touly à + Nancy, 1747.” + + TOURTE, François (“le jeune”); b. 1747, Paris; d. there, April + 1835. Was a younger brother of Xaver Tourte. (_See_ p. 163.) + + TOURTE, le Père. Settled in Paris about 1740. + + TOURTE, Xaver (l’aîné), eldest son of Tourte père. + + TRAPANI, Raffaele. Naples, 1810; workmanship is good; violins large + patterns, with prominent edges and heavy purfling; the scroll + Brescian type; varnish thick and of a red-brown colour. + + TRÉVILLOT, Claude. Mirecourt, 1698. + + TRINELLI, Giovanni. Italian. + + TRUNCO. Cremona, 1660. + + TRUSKA, Simon Joseph, 1734-1809, Raudnitz, Bohemia. Entered Strahow + Monastery, Dec. 8, 1758, taking the vows, Jan. 1, 1761. Became + proficient as a musician and composer, and then began to construct + instruments, making violins, altos, violas d’amore, and bass-viols. + + TUBBS, James. A maker of excellent bows, Wardour Street, London. + + TURNER, William. London in 1650; splendid wood. Label: “William + Turner, at ye hand and crown in gravelle lane neere Aldgate, + London, 1650.” + + TYWERSUS. Instruments are similar to those of Andrea Amati. Nicolas + Renault was a pupil of his. (_See_ p. 187.) + + + UGAR, Crescenzio. Rome in 1790; work is German in character; brown + varnish. + + UNGARINI, Antonio. Fabriano, 1762. + + URQUHART, Thomas. A maker in London about 1650-80; he was probably + a Scotchman. His work resembles that of Jacob Rayman, with whom + he may have worked, and shows great merit. His violins are of two + sizes, some on a small, others on a large pattern, very arched, the + corners not very prominent, the purfling narrow and placed close to + the edge; the oil varnish, of a yellowish-brown or sometimes red + colour, is of excellent quality, and is similar to Italian varnish; + the tone is clear and silvery. His violins and violas are rare, and + no violoncello of his has been seen. Urquhart is sure to rise in + value, and some of his work is splendid in finish. + + + VAILLANT (Vaillot or Vaillaut), François. Paris, 1736-83; good + workmanship; varnish poor. + + VALENTINE, William. London, died about 1877; made good + double-basses. + + VALLER. Marseilles, 1683. + + VANDELLI, Giovanni. Modena, 1796-1839; fair work. + + VANDERLIST. Paris, 1788-89. Guadagnini pattern and varnish. He + branded his name on his instruments. Label: “Luthier, rue des + Vieux-Augustins, près de l’égout de la rue Montmartre, Paris.” + + VAROTTI, Giovanni. Bologna, 1813. + + VARQUAIN. Paris, 1742. + + VAUCHEL, Joseph. Damm about 1840. He exhibited two violins at + Munich in 1854, which had a fine tone, and was awarded the medal of + honour. Hörlein was a pupil of his. + + VENZI, Andrea. Florence, 1636. + + VERBRUGGEN, Theodor. Is known as one of the makers in Antwerp in + 1641 by a double-bass which he made for use in the Cathedral. + + VERINI, Andrea. 1884. + + VERLE, Francesco. Padua about 1590. Label: “In Padova Francesco + Verle.” + + VERMESCH, le Père. Beaumont-sur-Oise in 1781. + + VÉRON, Pierre André. Paris about 1720-50; good work; pattern + Italian. + + VETRINI, Battista. Brescia about 1629; small pattern; wood is + excellent; good yellow varnish. + + VETTER, Jeane Christophe. Strasburg in 1744. + + VIARD, Nicolas. Versailles, 1790. + + VIBERT, J. B. Paris, 1775. + + VIBRECHT, Gysbert. Amsterdam, 1700-10. + + VILLAUME ET GIRON. In a violin of fairly good workmanship was the + printed label: “Villaume et Giron, Troyes, 170--.” + + VIMERCATI, Pietro. Do not confound with Gaspar, a lute-maker. A + maker in Brescia in the 17th century; is thought to have been + a pupil of Carlo Tononi in Venice; instruments arched; Maggini + pattern. + + VINACCIA, Antonio. The head of a family of makers; worked in + Naples, 1766-74; pattern of Gagliano. Two sons, Gennaro and + Gaetano, were also makers, but chiefly of mandolines. + + VINACCIA, Pasquale, son of Gaetano, 1806-81. + + VINCENZI, Luigi. Carpi in 1775. + + VIORILLO, Giovanni. Ferrara, 1780; followed Stainer pattern. + + VIR, Hieronimo di. Bresa, Silesia. + + VITOR, de. A maker in Brescia in 1740; instruments similar in + appearance to those of Maggini; large pattern; fine workmanship. + + VITUS DE ANGELIS. Bologna, 1609. + + VIVOLI, Giovanni. Florence, 1642. + + VOEL, E. Mayence, 1840; his instruments follow the Stradivari more + than the German pattern; general workmanship good. + + VOGEL, Wolfgang; d. Feb. 17, 1650, Nuremberg; instruments much + liked. + + VOGLER, Johan Georg. Würzburg in 1749. Label: “Johann Georg Vogler, + Lauten und Geigenmacher in Würzburg, 17--.” His son was the + celebrated Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler. + + VOGT. Good instruments, Vienna, in the Speigel-Gasse. + + VOIGT, Martin. Hamburg, 1726. His work is similar to that of + Tielke. A bass-viol, the back inlaid in ivory, having Apollo, + Venus, Mercury, and Diana represented, was dated Hamburg, 1726, and + was exhibited at the South Kensington Museum, London, 1872. + + VOIRIN, François Nicolas. 1833, at Mirecourt; 1885, Paris. After + working at Mirecourt, he went to Paris in 1855, and for fifteen + years made bows for J. B. Vuillaume; he obtained as “collaborateur” + a “mention honourable” at the 1867 Paris Exhibition; gold and + silver medalist, Paris, 1867 and 1878; followed the Tourte pattern, + but made the head of his bow less square; his workmanship shows + wonderful finish and elegance. He was awarded a silver medal at + the Paris Exhibition in 1878, the only prize given to bow-making; + and some of his bows exhibited after his death at the Antwerp + Exhibition were awarded a gold medal. He branded his bows with “F. + N. Voirin, à Paris”; to this was added, on those bows exhibited at + Paris, 1878, “Exposition, 1878.” + + VUILLAUME, Claude; b. 1772, Mirecourt; d. 1834. He is the first + member known of this family of violin-makers. + + VUILLAUME, Claude François, fourth son of Claude Vuillaume; b. + March 1807, Mirecourt. His son, Sébastien, was also a maker. + + VUILLAUME, Jean; b. 1700; d. 1740. A maker in Mirecourt; is said to + have been a pupil of Stradivari, but his work shows no sign of it. + + VUILLAUME, Jean Baptiste, eldest son of Claude Vuillaume. 1798, + Mirecourt; 1875, at Paris. (_See_ p. 110.) + + VUILLAUME, Nicolas, second son of Claude Vuillaume. 1800-71, + Mirecourt. Worked with Jean Baptiste, his elder brother, for ten + years at Paris. + + VUILLAUME, Nicolas François, third son of Claude Vuillaume. + 1802, Mirecourt; 1876, Brabant. He worked with his brother, Jean + Baptiste, Paris; made fair instruments, and was a fine copyist of + Stradivari. + + VUILLAUME, Sébastien, son of Claude François Vuillaume; b. 1835; d. + 1875, Paris. He was the last maker of this family, and continued to + make bows on the same pattern as Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, having + in his possession the machine for cutting bows which J. B. V. had + invented shortly before his death. Bronze and silver medals: Paris, + 1867; Havre, 1868. + + + WAGNER, Benedict. A maker of lutes and violins in Estwangen in 1769. + + WAGNER, Joseph. Constance, 18th century. + + WALDANER. Fussen, 1770. + + WALTER, Jean. Paris, 1775-1800. + + WAMSLEY, Peter. A maker in London about 1715-51. He had at one time + a great reputation, especially for his violoncellos. He copied the + Stainer pattern very closely, and also made a few imitations of + Stradivari instruments; but in his attempts to obtain an Italian + quality of tone he thinned the wood too much, making the tone sound + hollow. His violoncellos with thicker wood have a fine tone, so + have his double-basses; the latter are rare, and generally have red + varnish. + + WEAVER, Samuel. London; known by his printed label, “All sorts of + musical instruments made and sold by Saml. Weaver on London Bridge.” + + WEICKERT. Halle, 1800. + + WEIGERT, Johann Blasius. Linz, 1721; a viola d’amore known, + labelled: “Joann Blasius Weigert Lauten und Geigenmacher in Linz, + 1721.” + + WEISZ (Weiss), Jacob. Salzburg, 1733-61. + + WENGER, Gregor Ferdinand. Salzburg, 1750-60. + + WENGER. Padua, 1622. + + WETTENENGEL, Gustav Adolph. Neukirchen, Saxony, 1828. He wrote an + excellent practical treatise on violin-making. + + WEYMANN, Cornelius. Amsterdam, 1682. + + WIDHALM (Withalm), Leopold. Nuremberg, about 1750-80; imitated + Stainer; wood carefully chosen, sometimes too thin; the varnish red + colour, good quality. Several of his violins have double purfling, + and are branded with his initials inside. + + WIGHTMAN, George. Only known by his label: “George Wightman, Wood + Street, London, 1761.” + + WILLEMS, Hendrick. Ghent, Belgium, 1650-1700. An alto of large + pattern has remarkably fine wood used for the belly; the corners + are prominent and squared at the end; Brescian model; the neck ends + in a lion’s head; the outline and the beautiful finish could almost + be mistaken for Italian work, but the varnish is too dry. Nearly + all his instruments have beautiful wood for the belly, but walnut, + lime-tree, or plane-tree wood is frequently used for the back and + the sides, especially in the case of the basses. + + WILLEMS, Hendrick. Ghent; some time after the previous Hendrick + already mentioned. He made a violoncello or bass with five strings, + labelled: “Heyndrick Willems tot Ghendt, 1717.” A violin, dated + 1743, had the belly made of carefully selected pine, the back of + walnut, and the sides (very exceptional) of maple. + + WILLEMS, Jooris. Ghent, 1630-65; a cornet-player, 1634-71. The + first mention of him is in August 1634; used lime-wood and + finely-figured maple; Italian style. + + WILLER. Prague, 18th century. + + WISE, Christopher. Transition maker of viols and violins in London, + 1656; small pattern, not much arched; yellow varnish, good quality; + careful work. Label: “Christopher Wise, in Half-Moon Alley, without + Bishops-Gate, London, 1656.” + + WITHERS, Edward. He succeeded to William Davis’s business at 31 + Coventry Street, London, in December 1846. Both Charles Maucotel + and Boullangier worked under him at one time. + + WITHERS, Edward, eldest son of Edward Withers, b. Oct. 22, 1844. + Pupil of his father and John Lott. Commenced business at 31 + Coventry Street, London, in 1856; makes about twelve instruments + per year, on the Stradivari and Guarneri patterns, using good oil + varnish, amber colour. + + WITTING, Johann Georg. Mittenwald, about 1775; his instruments are + well made; dark varnish. + + WORNUM, Robert, 1742-1815. A music-seller in Glasshouse Street, + also a violin and violoncello maker. + + WORTE, Matthias. Augsburg, 1639. + + WRIGHT, Daniel. London, 1745. Label: “Made by Daniel Wright in + Holborn, London.” + + + ZACH. Vienna; makes good instruments. + + ZANFI, Giacomo. Modena, 1756-1822. + + ZANOLI, Giacomo. Padua, 1740. + + ZANOLI, Giambattista. Verona, 1730; rough work; German style. + + ZANOTTI, Antonio. Lodi and Mantua, 1734. + + ZANOTTI, Giuseppe. Piacenza, 18th century. + + ZANTI, Alessandro. Mantua, 1770; Stradivari pattern; poor varnish. + + ZENATTO, Pietro. Treviso, 1634. + + ZIMBELMANN, Filippo. Florence, 1661. + + ZIVERGER (Zwerger), Anton. Mittenwald, 1750; good wood; dark + varnish; fair finish. + + + + + BIBLIOGRAPHY + + +It is very difficult to define my obligations to previous writers +and advisers when I owe almost everything to them; but I am bound +to state specially, that without Messrs Hill & Sons’ assistance and +counsel, and the works of Fétis, Vidal, George Hart, Heron-Allen, and +Mr Fleming, I could not have written this book at all. The preceding +list of makers has been largely adopted from Miss Stainer’s elaborate +Music Primer, “Violin Makers,” published by Novello. + + +ENGLISH. + +HAMILTON, J. A. Hamilton’s “Catechism for the Violin.” London, 1848. R. +Cocks & Co. Fifteenth Edition, 1883, contains Preface by John Bishop. + +FÉTIS, FRANÇOIS JOSEPH. “Biographical Notice of Nicolo Paganini.” +Includes a sketch of the history of the violin. Schott & Co. 8vo. + +JOUSSE, J. “Theory and Practice of the Violin.” London, 1811. + +MACDONALD, JOHN. “Practice and Theory of the Violoncello” (printed for +Author). London, 1811. Appendix, 1815. Also “A Treatise on the Harmonic +System, Divisions of Strings, &c. &c.” London, 1822. + +OTTO, JACOB AUGUSTUS. “Treatise on the Construction, Preservation, and +Repairs of the Violin.” London: Longmans, 1833. + +DUBOURG, GEORGE. “The Violin.” H. Colburn. London, 1836. Small octavo, +fifth edition. Enlarged by John Bishop, of Cheltenham, 1878. R. Cocks. + +MACKINTOSH. “Remarks on the Construction and Materials employed in the +Manufacture of the Violin.” Dublin, 1837. 8vo pamphlet. + +PAINE, JOHN. “A Treatise on the Violin.” Printed for the Author, 1850. + +PURDY, GEORGE. “A Few Words on the Violin.” W. G. Goulburn, 1858. + +SANDYS, WILLIAM, and FORSTER, SIMON ANDREW. “The History of the +Violin.” London, 1864. J. R. Smith, Addison, & Lucas. Large 8vo. + +FÉTIS, FRANÇOIS, JOSEPH. “Notice of Anthony Stradivari.” R. Cocks. +Large 8vo. 1864. + +PEARCE, JOSEPH, jun. “Violins and Violin-makers.” Longmans, 1866. + +ADZE, WILLET. “Musical Notes,” including “Violinists” and “The Violin +and its History.” London, 1869. R. Bentley. + +DAVIDSON, PETER. “The Violin.” Pitman: Edinburgh, Aberdeen, 1871. Small +octavo. Fourth edition, 1881. + +READE, CHARLES. “A Lost Art Revived.” Gloucester, 1873. John Bellowes. +Large 8vo. + +GOFFRIE, CHARLES. “The Violin.” Philadelphia, U.S.A., 1876. G. André & +Co. 8vo pamphlet. + +SMITH, H. P. “The Construction of the Violin.” Syracuse, U.S.A., n.d. +(1877). Roblee & Co. + +SCHEBEK, DR EDMUND. “The Violin Manufacture in Italy and its German +Origin.” London, 1877. W. Reeves. Large 8vo pamphlet. + +BROADHOUSE, JOHN. “Facts about Fiddles.” London, n.d. (1879). W. Reeves. + +PORTER, THOMAS. “How to Choose a Violin.” London, n.d. (1879). F. +Pitman. 8vo. + +NICHOLSON, J. “Designs and Plans for the Construction and New Model of +Violin, and Arrangement of the New Model Violin.” London, 1880. Printed +by H. K. Lewis. Large folio. + +HART, GEORGE. “The Violin, its Famous Makers.” London, 1875, 1884, +1880. Dulan & Schott. Large post 4to and small 8vo. + +HART, GEORGE. “The Violin and its Music.” London, 1881. Dulan & Schott. + +GEMÜNDER, GEORGE. George Gemünder’s “Progress in Violin-making.” +Astoria, New York, 1881. Published by the Author. + +READE, CHARLES. “Jack of All Trades.” London, 1882. Chatto & Windus. + +HERON-ALLEN, EDWARD. “Opuscula Fidicularum.” London, 1882. Mitchell & +Hughes. + +HERON-ALLEN, EDWARD. “De Fidiculis Opusculum” II. London, 1883. +Mitchell & Hughes. + +HERON-ALLEN. “Markneukirchen Arts and Crafts Book” (translated). + +HILL & SONS. (1) “The Messie,” (2) “The Tuscan,” (3) “Gio. Paolo +Maggini.” Novello, Ewer & Co. + +CHANOT, GEORGES. “Hodges _v._ Chanot.” London, 1882. Mitchell & Hughes. +Large 8vo pamphlet. + +ENGEL, CARL. “Researches into the Early History of the Violin Family.” +London, 1883. + + +ITALIAN. + +ZANNETI, GASPARO. “Il Scolaro.” Milan, 1645. + +TARTINI, GIUSEPPE. A Letter from the late Signor Tartini to Signora +Maddalena Lombardini, translated by Dr Burney. London, 1771. R. Bremner. + +BAGATELLA, ANTONIO. “Regole per la Costruzione de’ Violini, Viole, +Violoncelli, et Violoni.” Padova, 1786. A spese dell’ Accademia. + +PANCALDI, CARLO. “Progresso Italiano nella Costruzione del Violino +operato da Antonio Gibertini da Parma.” Palermo, 1845. Tipografia +Maddalena. Small 8vo. + +REGLI, FRANCESCO. “Storia del Violino in Piemonte.” Turin, 1863. Enrico +Dalmazzo. Large 8vo. + +LOMBARDINI, PAOLO. “Cenni sulla celebre scuola Cremonese degli +stromenti ad arco.” Cremona, 1872. Tipografia dalla Noce. Large 8vo. + +RINALDI, BENEDETTO-GIOFFREDO. “Classica Fabbricazione di Violini.” +Turin, 1873. Rinaldi. Large 8vo pamphlet. + +VALDRIGHI, LUIGI FRANCESCO. “Liuteria Modenese antica e moderna.” +Modena, 1878. Toschi. 8vo. + +---- Musurgiana No. 9. “Strumenti ad arco Rinforzati.” Modena, 1881. G. +T. Vincenzi e Nep. Large 8vo pamphlet. + + +FRENCH. + +ROUSSEAU, JEAN. “Traité de la Viole.” Paris, 1687. Ch. Ballard. 8vo. + +LEBLANC, HUBERT. “Défense de la basse de Viole contre les Entreprises +du Violon et les pretensions du Violoncelle.” Amsterdam, 1740. P. +Mortier. 16mo. + +JACQUOT, A. “Music in Lorraine.” + +TERRASSON, A. “Sur la Vielle.” Paris, 1741. + +LECLAIR, JEAN MARIE. “Tablature idéale du Violon.” Paris, 1766. 8vo. + +SIBIRE, L’ABBÉ. “La Chelonomie.” Paris, 1806. Brussels, chez l’Aullur +et Millet. Second Edition, 1823. Weissenbruch. 8vo. + +CHANOT, FRANÇOIS. “Rapport fait à l’Académie des Beaux Arts 3 Avril +1819.” Paris, 1819. 4to. + +CONTANGER (LE DR HENRI). Gaspard Duiffoprugcar et les Luthiers lyonnais +du xvi^e Siecle. Paris, 1893. Fischbacher. + +SAVART, FÉLIX. “Mémoire sur la Construction des Instruments à Cordes et +à Archet.” Paris, n.d. (1819). Roret. 8vo. + +MAUGIN, J. C. “Manuel du Luthier.” Paris, 1834. Roret 12mo. + +MAUGIN, J. C., et MAIGNE, W. “Nouveau Manuel Complet du Luthier.” +Paris, 1869. Roret. + +DESMARAIS, CYPRIEN. “Archéologie du Violon.” Paris, 1836. Dentu et +Sapia. Large 8vo pamphlet. + +FOURGEAUD, ALEXANDRE. “Les Violons de Dalayrac.” Paris, 1856. Leclerc. +Large 8vo pamphlet. + +[YOUSSOUPOW, PRINCE.] “Luthomonographie Historique et Raisonnée.” +Frankfort S/M., 1856. Ch. Fugel. Large 8vo. + +GALLAY, JULES. “Les Instruments à Archet à l’Exposition Universelle de +1867.” Juanst. 8vo. + +GRIVEL, VICTOR. “Vernis des Anciens Luthiers.” Grenoble, 1867. F. +Allier. 8vo. + +GALLAY, JULES. “Les Luthiers Italiens.” Nouvelle édition du Parfait +Luthier de l’Abbé Sibire. Paris, 1869. Académie des Bibliophiles. + +PLASSIARD, J. A. “Des Cordes du Violon.” Lille, 1876. Danet. + +VIDAL, ANTOINE. “Les Instruments à Archet, les Faiseurs, les Joueurs +d’Instruments, leur Histoire sur le Continent Européen.” Suivi d’un +Catalogue générale de la Musique de Chambre. Orné de planches gravées +à l’eau forte par Frédéric Hillemacher. Paris, 1876: J. Claye. 3 vols. +4to. Edition-de-luxe. + +COPPÉE, FRANÇOIS. “Le Luthier de Cremone.” London, 1880. Dulan & Co. +12mo. + +SIMOUTRE, N. E. “Aux Amateurs du Violon.” Bâle, 1883. G. A. Bonfantini. + + +GERMAN. + +REICHARDT, JOHANN FRIEDRICH. “Ueber die Pflichten des +Ripien-Violinisten.” Berlin und Leipzig, 1776. G. J. Decker. + +BAGATELLA, ANTONIO. “Ueber den Bau der Violine.” Leipzig, n.d. (1806). +Kuhnel. 8vo. + +WETTENGEL, GUSTAV ADOLPH. “Neuer Schauplatz der Künste und Handwerke.” +Ilmenda, 1828. B. F. Voigt. + +BACHMANN, OTTO. “Theoretisch-praktisches Handbuch des Geigenbaues.” +Leipzig, 1835. G. Basse. + +BAADER, J. “Chronik des Marktes.” Mittenwald. + +ABELE, HYACINTH. “Die Violine.” Neuberg A/D., 1864. A. Zrechter. Small +8vo. + +SCHUBERT, F. L. “Die Violine.” Leipzig, 1865. Merzeburger. + +DIEHL, NICOLAUS LOUIS. “Die Geigenmacher der Alten Italienischen +Schule.” Hamburg, 1866, 1877. J. F. Richter. + +WETTENGEL, GUSTAV ADOLPH. “G. A. W.’s weil Violin-bogenmachers zu +Markneukirchen.” Weimar, 1869. B. F. Voigt. + +WASIELEWSKI, JOSEPH WILHELM VON. “Die Violine im XVII. Jahrhundert.” +Bonn, 1874. M. Cohen. + +RITTER, HERMANN. “Die Viola Alta.” Heidelberg, 1876. G. Weiss. 4to. + +NIEDERHEITMANN, FRIEDRICH. “Die Meister der Geigenbaukunst in Italien +und Tyrol.” Hamburg, 1876. Aug. Cranz, 1876. + +---- Cremona. “Eine Charakteristik der Italienischen Geigenbauer.” +Leipzig, 1877. Carl Merzeburger. 8vo. + + + + +DESCRIPTION OF PLATES + + +PLATE I (_to face page 18_) + +A Duiffoprugcar viol da Gamba, owned by Mr George Donaldson. This +matchless antique is doubtless one of many, but most of the rest +have perished; it stands almost alone as a poetic specimen of the +phantasy of the old viol makers. It is elaborately decorated on the +back, after the taste of the period, with an excess of ornament, +which the fine instinct of the subsequent makers of violins rejected +as prejudicial to tone. The habit of adopting a creature’s head, +or a face, for a scroll long lingered, and is not unknown in the +work of Stradivarius. In England numerous copies of Duke that have +been palmed off as original have lion heads. These instruments were +usually “made in Germany,” and it appears to have been a favourite +practice there to use such carved scrolls. + + +PLATE II (_to face page 38_) + +A Maggini violin (the “De Beriot”) owned by Mr Antonietti. The +Maggini here given is an admirably preserved specimen of the great +Brescian master, who, next to Stradiuarius, did more than any one +man to inspire and define the ideal shape, from which even the Amati +at first departed, but which Strad had the genius to restore and +perfect. The corners, however, have been rubbed, and not in every +case renewed, otherwise it is in as perfect a condition as can be +expected in so old a fiddle. The scroll is cut with a care and an +advanced finish which reminds us of the bolder Strad period, 1700-30. +Maggini, oddly enough, was little honoured in the first quarter of +this century, but De Beriot had the insight to discern his merits; +and from the time he adopted him for his masterly and full-toned +performances, the Magginis rose, and have been continuing to rise, in +public estimation. + + +PLATE III (_to face page 50_) + +Her late Majesty’s Amati tenor is in beautiful condition; it is +elaborately ornamented, in lieu of the usual purfling. It was, +doubtless, originally made to order for some great prelate; and it +bears on its back a noble coat of arms hardly decipherable, and the +image of John Baptist carrying a lamb (“Behold the Lamb of God!” John +i. 36). The instrument was used in Her late Majesty’s private band +by Mr Hann (1898). Like many old viols it has been somewhat reduced +in size. For the loan of this instrument I am indebted to the good +offices of Sir Walter Parratt, director of the late Queen’s private +band. + + +PLATE IV (_to face page 58_) + +Paganini’s Joseph Guarnerius. This is a fine and very characteristic +specimen of the mighty Del Gesù. It is in his most powerful and +massive style (the head almost brutal in its bull-dog strength), with +full rich colour thickly laid on to match. Seldom, indeed, do we find +so much varnish left on the back of so old a violin. The instrument +has been very carefully dealt with. The story of how it passed into +Paganini’s hands is well known. An Italian amateur, who evidently +knew its value, lent it to the great maestro, and, after hearing its +marvellous qualities, as drawn forth by the Magician of the Violin, +declared that no other hand should henceforth set its chords in +vibration. Paganini left it to his native town of Genoa, and there it +may still be seen in the Town Hall. It was his favourite instrument; +and the giant Joseph Guarnerius was well matched with the giant +Nicolo Paganini. + + +PLATE V (_to face page 66_) + +The Rode and Spanish violins and the Spanish tenor, it will be +observed, are all inlaid. Strad was no bigot, and although we may +confidently assert that he disapproved of all inlaying or decoration +on the bellies or backs, and confined it to its narrowest limits +when resorted to in lieu of the usual strip of purfling, he probably +judged that if it did not encroach upon the vibratory surfaces much +beyond a common purfle, it was comparatively harmless. It is likely +that the Rode Strad, whose history I am unable to record, was made +for Royalty or some great Prince Cardinal of the Church, the extra +decoration being considered due to the high rank of the patron, or +wrought in obedience to a special request. We have many evidences +that Strad was not above pleasing the individual whims of his +clients. He was himself an expert carver, and could inlay with the +best of them when he chose. The Rode Strad was sold to Messrs Hill +by M. Lamoureux, the eminent French conductor, and by them to Dr +Oldham of Brighton. The Strad ’cello is a good specimen of Strad’s +improved bass model. The size is brought down characteristically, and +the comparative smallness of the upper, contrasting with the ample +development of the lower part, gives the instrument an appearance of +lightness and grace; whilst the delicate and somewhat narrow head, +with its sufficiently massive and finely cut out scroll, admirably +balances the whole to the eye with a certain “chic” quite _a la +Strad_. + + +PLATE VI (_to face page 68_) + +This plate contains profiles of the three Strads shown in Plate V., +and is interesting as displaying the variety exhibited in Strad’s +scroll carving. The Spanish Strad has quite an Amatisé scroll, long, +light, and very restrained, and undeveloped at the lower extremity. +Notice the greater freedom of the Rode scroll, quite in Strad’s best +manner. The Rode model is also flatter in the back, but the bellies +are all flat in the approved style, after the earlier Amati groove +had almost entirely disappeared from the Cremona model. + + +PLATE VII (_to face page 82_) + +A Panoramic View of Cremona, taken outside Porto Po from the banks of +the river, and engraved about 1830 by Caporali. Names of buildings, +counting from the right of the print: 1. Church of S. Pietro; 2. +Tower of the old prisons near the Town Hall; 3. Battisterio; 4. +Cathedral; 5. Town Hall Tower; 6. Torrazzo, the Cathedral Tower, +the highest in Italy; 7. Church of S. Marcellino; 8. Church of S. +Domenico; 9. Church of S. Agostino; 10. Church of S. Lucca; 11. +Church of S. Omobono, patron of the town; 12. Church of S. Agata; 13. +Church of S. Ilario; 14. Church of S. Luca. Signor Sacchi, a native +of Cremona, has kindly identified all the above for me. + + +PLATES VIII AND IX (_to face pages 106, 110_) + +These portraits of Tourte, Lupot, Vuillaume, and Ebsworth Hill being +fully dwelt on in the text, need no further comment. + + +PLATE X (_to face page 162_) + +This plate of backs, bellies, and bows, has been fully explained in +the text. + + +PLATE XI (_to face page 182_) + +Portraits of Paganini abound. Landseer sketched a series, which, +however, are slightly of the nature of caricatures. It was difficult +to do otherwise. The Maestro’s features were so marked, his long +hair so weird, the tall forehead, the wide sensitive mouth, the dark +eyes, the ungainly and gaunt, almost dislocated attitudes of the man +lent themselves freely to a lively and not always sympathetic or +respectful pencil. The portrait, a rare one, here produced, hits the +happy mean. The finest representation of him is, however, Danton’s +small bust (admirably reproduced by Mrs Haweis’ pencil in “My Musical +Life,” where see my biographical study of Paganini). + + +PLATE XII (_to face page 238_) + +For a fuller list of labels, the “Collector” had better consult Mr +Vidal’s most valuable book referred to in our Bibliography, from +which our seven specimens are reproduced. I may observe that a +forged fiddle may often have what purports to be a genuine label. A +reference, therefore, to these facsimiles may be useful. + +Buyers should also beware of labels bearing dates _posterior_ to the +death of the alleged makers. I have seen Stainer’s so decorated. +Stainer labels in two different sorts of type, _i.e._, the name in a +running type and the rest in print, are never genuine. Duke copies of +Stainer, often very good ones, sometimes present this peculiarity. +Notice that Gasparo and Gio Paolo Maggini never _dated_ their +instruments. There exist numerous dated copies of Maggini--generally +recent copies--De Beriot having brought the great Gio into notice. +These are all frauds. + +Stradiuarius changed his labels late in life, using a _v_ instead +of _u_, and spelling Stradivari or Stradivarius. This is called the +cursive _v_. Some Stradivarius-labelled violins have all the figures +of the date _printed_, _e.g._, 1712. These are forgeries. The last +two figures in the real labels being always filled up in ink, which +has much faded. It does not, however, follow that all thus filled in +are genuine--indeed, most are frauds. A particularly favourite date +for forged Stradivari labels is 1721. + + + + +INDEX + + + Albani, 102 + + Aldric, Paris dealer, 174 + + Aireton, 124 + + Amateurs, their opinions, 225 + + Amati, the, 43, 44, 47 + + Americans, their wood, 233 + + Artôt’s Strad, 75 + + + Balzar, great violinist, 122 + + Band, Charles II.’s, 121 + + Banks, English maker, 130 + + Barak Norman, English maker, 125 + + Bernadel, French maker, 109, 189 + + Betts, English maker, 133 + + Bisexual violin nature, 22 + + Boquay, French maker, 105 + + Bows, _see_ Chap. XI. + + Buying fiddles, 235 + + + Carlo Bergonzi, 83; + supremacy, 230; + gems, 173; + influence, 94 + + Charles II.’s court, influence on music, 121 + + Charles Reade, 180, 217 + + Children, their fiddles, 68 + + Collecting mania, 12 + + Completeness of violin, 7 + + Control of violin, 9 + + Convalescent fiddles, 200 + + Cracked fiddles, 198 + + Cremona city, 42 + + Cremona gems, discovery of, 173 + + Cremona influence, 94 + + Cross, English maker, 125 + + + Dealers, _see_ Chap. XV. + + Dodd, bow-maker, 133, 166 + + “Dolphin,” a celebrated Strad, 74 + + Duiffoprugcar, old maker, 12; + his viol da Gamba, 19 + + Duke, English maker, 132 + + + Elector fiddles by Stainer, 97 + + English makers, _see_ Chap. VIII. + + + “False” strings, 156 + + Fendt, Bernard, 132 + + Fiddles and umbrellas, 214 + + Fiddle flukes, 220 + + Fiddle frauds, 223 + + Fiddle judges, 224 + + Fiddles, new and old, secret of, 227, 233 + + Fingerboard, 207 + + “Finish” of old makers, 26 + + Foster, the family of, 126-127, &c. + + France, violins in, _see_ Chap. VII. + + François Tourte, bow-maker, 164 + + + Gagliano, 89 + + Gand, French maker, 109, 189 + + Gasparo da Salo, 30 + + Genesis of violin, _see_ Chap. I. + + German strings, 158 + + Germany, fiddle-makers, _see_ Chap. VI. + + Geronimo Amati, 44 + + Gillott’s Mr, collection, 217 + + Giuseppe or Joseph Guarnerius, 53 + + Goding’s, Mr, collection, 178 + + Golden Strad period, 73 + + Guadagnini, 86 + + Guarneri family, 51 + + Guild of Markneukirchen, 194-197. + + + Hart, John, dealer, 180 + + Hill, William Ebsworth, 133 + + Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 226 + + Horses, fiddles and umbrellas, 214 + + + Ignorance and neglect, 215 + + + Jaques, French maker, 105 + + Jay, English maker, 124 + + Jean and Nicolas Medard, 187 + + Joseph or Giuseppe Guarnerius, 53 + + + Kennedys, the English, 1872 and 1885, 218; + makers, 124 + + Klotz family, 101, 191 + + + Landolpho, Italian, 216 + + Lott, John, English, 219 + + Luigi Tarisio, rediscoverer of Cremonas, 179, 181; + _see_ Chap. XIV. + + Lupôt, French maker, 106, 168-188 + + + Maggini, early Brescian maker, 32-40 + + Mantegazza, Venetian maker, 90 + + Manufacture of strings process, 155 + + Markneukirchen, early home of violin manufacture, 186, 193 + + “Master” Reiter, Mittenwald maker, 192 + + Maucotel, French, 188 + + Medard, early Tyrol maker, 187; + _see_ Chap. XIII. + + Menegand, French, 188 + + “Messie,” a great Strad violin, 77 + + Mirecourt, early home of violin manufacture, 189 + + Mittenwald violin manufacture, 186 + + Montagnana, Venetian maker, 87 + + Mutes or sordini to deaden sounds, 159 + + + Neglect of English makers, 118 + + Neglect of violins, 215 + + New fiddles, 227, 233 + + Nicolas Lupôt, _see_ Lupôt. + + Nicolo Amati, the best of the family, 47 + + Norman, _see_ Barak Norman. + + + Oliver Wendell Holmes, a letter, 226 + + Ouri, the violinist, 170 + + Over-restoration, 203 + + + Paduan strings, 158 + + Paganini, 9-56, 182 + + Pamphilon, English maker, 124 + + Panormo, maker of guitars and fiddles, 124 + + Paris, Vuillaume and Tarisio at, 176-178 + + Parker, English maker, 124 + + Peccate, Italian maker, 169 + + Pernambuco wood for bows, 161 + + Personal fascination in violin-playing, secret of it, 11 + + Pieray, 105 + + Pique, French maker, 108 + + Prelude and postlude, 7, 237 + + “Pucelle,” a celebrated Strad, 78 + + + Reade, _see_ Charles Reade. + + Reiter, _see_ “Master.” + + Remenyi, violinist, 170, 224 + + Restoration, 203 + + Revarder, Mirecourt maker, 188 + + Rosin, treatment and use of, 202 + + Rugerius, Italian maker, 50 + + + Salo, early violin centre, 30 + + Savart’s experiments, 25 + + Scale of prices, 236 + + Secret or old violins, 228 + + Sound qualities of old and new violins, 227 + + South Kensington Collections, _see_ Kensington. + + Stainer, _see_ Chap. VI. + + Stainer, Miss, “Violin Manual,” 189 + + Stradivarius, _see_ Chap. V. + + Strange finds, 77 + + String gauge, 154 + + Strings, violin, _see_ Chap. X. + + Story of the Markneukirchen Guild, 194-197 + + Subdivision of labour a cause of decline, 231 + + + Tarisio, _see_ Luigi, 179, and Chap. XIV. + + Techler, German school, 102 + + Thibouville-Lamy, French maker, 189 + + Tourte, bow-maker, 164 + + Treatment of violin, _see_ Chap. XIV. + + Tubbs, bow-maker, 169 + + “Tuscan,” the celebrated Strad, 69 + + + Urquhart, English maker, 124 + + + Varnish, _see_ Chap. IX. + + Violin constitution, _see_ Chap. II. + + Violin dealing and collecting, _see_ Chap. XV. + + Violin progress, _see_ Chap. I. + + Violin rise, _see_ Chap. I. + + Violin treatment, _see_ Chap. XIV. + + Viols, _see_ Chap. I.; + English, 119 + + Vision of Stradivari, 79 + + Vuillaume, 110, 168 + + + Walmesley, English maker, 125 + + + PRINTED BY OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH + + + + + _Uniform with this Volume_ + + Fine Prints + + By Frederick Wedmore + + With 12 Plates. 7s. 6d. net + + Illustrations by Examples after Mantegna, Marc Antonio, Schöngauer, + Dürer, Beham, Lucas van Leyden, Rembrandt, Watteau, + Chardin, Reynolds, and Turner. + +CONTENTS: Introduction--The Task of the Collector--Claude, +Vandyke, Ostade, Hollar--Rembrandt (Illustrations)--French Revival +of Etching (Illustrations)--Whistler and Haden--Later English +Etchers--Dürer: The “Little Masters” (Illustrations)--Italian +Line Engravers (Illustrations)--French Eighteenth Century Prints +(Illustrations)--Turner Prints (Illustrations)--Mezzotints +(Illustrations)--Lithographs--Appendix: Certain +Woodcuts--Postscript--Bibliography--Index. + + “The ‘collector of moderate means,’ for whose special behoof the + volumes of the Collector Series are designed, will take pleasure + and find profit in the admirable guide to Fine Prints which Mr + Frederick Wedmore has written for Mr Redway. It maps out the ground + for him who would go forth on the delightful quest of rare and + beautiful etchings, line engravings, and mezzotints; and at every + turn it gives him valuable hints and directions.”--_Scotsman._ + + “It gives a bird’s-eye view of a large and important subject for + the benefit of the man of taste. Mr Wedmore is a well-known art + critic, and altogether a competent hand for the undertaking. + He discusses the work of the masters of engraving, ancient and + modern, including even the great lithographers.... A capital index + completes a model volume of its kind. The work contains many + beautiful reproductions from the best engravings of some of the + best men, rendered with admirable fidelity in the different styles + of line, mezzotint, and etching.”--_Daily News._ + + _The Magazine of Art_ says:--“Mr Wedmore is one of the few + professional writers in England with a truly refined and + appreciative knowledge of prints--possessing that more eclectic + sense proper for the cult. As a guide he may be confidently + commended to the reader, who will not fail to admire the delicacy + and tact with which Mr Wedmore handles the necessarily commercial + side of the subject. He deals adequately with the great Dutch + and French periods of etching, the recent revival of that art in + England, our great period of mezzotint, and line engraving in + Italy, as well as the prints of Turner, lithographs of the present + day, and famous woodcuts of the past.” + + + + + _Uniform with this Volume_ + + The Coin Collector + + By W. Carew Hazlitt + + _New and Revised Edition_ + + Illustrated with 12 full-page Plates depicting 129 Rare Pieces + + _Pub. 7s. 6d. net_ + + +CONTENTS + +Introductory--Collectors and Collections--Value of Coins--Unique or +Remarkable Coins--Greek Coins--Rome--Continent of Europe--United +Kingdom--The Coin Market--Terminology--Bibliography--Description of +Plates--Index. + + “Mr Hazlitt is an expert in regard to coins; his book from the + practical standpoint is trustworthy.”--_Notes and Queries._ + + “We may say at once that we have a very interesting and instructive + volume before us. The subject is, of course, only lightly + touched upon, and no attempt at dealing with any section of it + in detail is made. This is as it should be in a book on coins in + general.”--_Antiquary._ + + “Perhaps as excellent an introduction to the study of a delightful + pursuit as could have been written.”--_Daily Telegraph._ + + “Abreast of the latest discoveries and theories, and is sure + of a welcome from the general reader as well as from the + collector.”--_Scotsman._ + + “This admirable volume gives a bird’s-eye view of the whole. It is + clear that Mr Hazlitt is not only an enthusiast in the subject of + his book, but also a student whose knowledge is at once singularly + wide and remarkably accurate.”--_Publishers’ Circular._ + + + + + The Book Collector + + By W. Carew Hazlitt + + A General Survey of the Pursuit, and of those who have engaged in + it, from the Earliest Period to the Present Time; with an Account + of Public and Private Libraries, and Anecdotes of their Founders or + Owners, and Remarks on Bookbinding and on Special Copies of Books, + illustrated with a beautiful photogravure of a famous sale of books + at Sotheby’s, square cr 8vo, art canvas, gilt top, fore and under + edges uncut + + _Pub. 7s. 6d. net_ + + +“As Mr Hazlitt shows, his field of choice is wide enough. Ancient +typography fascinates some, but here a long purse is needed. Bibles +and Testaments, Liturgies, Books of Hours, or similar devotional +works appeal to others. The British Museum Library, for instance, +is singularly rich in editions in all languages of the ‘Imitatio +Christi.’ Books of travel, of voyages, and on topography, such as +county and town histories, have all their devotees, and of late +years the search for Alpine literature has become so much keener +that some books, printed barely forty years ago, have quite doubled +their published price. Yet even the systematic collector, as Mr +Hazlitt tells us, often runs risks. Here, as among all things human, +fashions and whims exist, and a particular class of literature may +have ‘booms’ and ‘slumps,’ like certain ‘stocks’ of a questionable +character. The books, for instance, in William Morris’s library were +‘below mediocrity in state,’ and of little intrinsic value, yet +they excited keen competition, and went for sums ‘which were simply +absurd.’”--_Standard._ + +“The subject abounds with stories, for, indeed, in a sense which the +author of the aphorism little imagined, _habent sua fata libelli_. +We might fill columns with curiosities about the buying and selling +of books from these pages. Mr Hazlitt, however, is not of the +non-literary collectors; no man could write such a book as this about +the subject if he were. Readers, therefore, as well as buyers, may +find ‘The Book Collector’ to their taste. Then there is the eleventh +chapter, with its many interesting anecdotes of inscriptions; +often the casual name or note which some purchaser or owner of a +bye-gone time has written will be of more interest than the volume +itself.”--_Spectator._ + +“There is pleasure nevertheless--nay, much intellectual and +sometimes pecuniary profit--in the pursuit, when intelligently +pursued. Mr Hazlitt discourses pleasantly on every side of +book-collecting, and his book will be valued by all interested in the +subject.”--_Chambers’ Journal._ + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] An unique set of instruments by the Amati family worthy of +mention is the quintett, composed of three violins, a viola, and a +violoncello, now (1898) in the possession of Miss Willmott. + +[2] This Fent is no relation, as far as is known, to the family +working in England, whose name is spelt Fendt. + +[3] A popular comedy (1898). + + + + +TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE + +Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been +corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the +text and consultation of external sources. + +Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added, when a +predominant preference was found in the original book. + +Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, +and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. + + p61-> ‘the boy Giuseppe Gaurneri’ amended to ‘the boy Giuseppe Guarneri’ + p105-> ‘Jaques Boquay’ amended to ‘Jacques Boquay’ + p278-> ‘he branded’ amended to ‘He branded’ + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78831 *** |