Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Gemunder, George

New York · 1816 to 1899

Historical maker

Named in 5 books.

What the books printed

What stands above is assembled from what is on disk. Howe’s three pages are read from the page images, staged at sources/incoming/hundred-years-1889/ with the full-volume machine text beside them..
Which George is which, in any given attribution: the maker (1816–1899) and his son George (d. 1915) shared the name entire, and no instrument, label or sale on disk is assigned between them. Also unestablished: a death record behind the index’s 1899 — Howe (1889) leaves him alive and working in New York, so the death falls between that press date and the 1916 directory’s “Deceased”; and the identity of the Paris exposition, which Howe, naming only the London prizes, does nothing to supply. Of the six works the WPA index keys his entry to, Hubbard and now Howe (pp. 347–49, with the portrait) are on disk and read; Grove’s American Supplement, Jones’s Handbook, Pratt’s encyclopedia and the Ayars pages (198, 228) remain unread.
A Hundred Years of Music in America, (Howe, Granville L., ed.); Mathews, W. S. B., assoc. ed.. Chicago: G. L. Howe, 1889. Howe’s sketch, pp. 347–48, read from the page images — published in Gemunder’s lifetime, its detail presumably from the man or his circle, and the only source on disk to give the day. Hubbard (1908) and the WPA index carry the same year; his brother August was born in the same town in 1814. No civil record on disk..
13 April 1816, at Ingelfingen in Württemberg.
A Hundred Years of Music in America, (Howe, Granville L., ed.); Mathews, W. S. B., assoc. ed.. Chicago: G. L. Howe, 1889. Howe, pp. 347–48, published in his lifetime. It conflicts with Hubbard’s account alongside: there the emigration is “it is said upon the advice of Ole Bull” — yet in Howe, Gemunder first calls on Bull in New York in 1852, and Bull is astonished to learn he had left Vuillaume at all. The year 1847 is common ground; the occasion is not..
In 1847 “he received an invitation from his two brothers residing in America to visit this country.” A concert venture with the brothers was “not lucrative,” and “borrowing twenty-five dollars as capital to invest in business, he went to Boston to engage in violin making.”
A Hundred Years of Music in America, (Howe, Granville L., ed.); Mathews, W. S. B., assoc. ed.. Chicago: G. L. Howe, 1889. Howe, pp. 347–48, read from the page images: unfootnoted, in his lifetime, and almost certainly his own telling. The 1916 Guide (“pupil of Vuillaume”) and Hubbard (“a pupil of Baptiste Vuillaume of Paris”) say the same; none of the three shows a document..
Bred to the craft — his father “was a maker of bow instruments”; schooled for teaching instead; after his father died in his nineteenth year he went through Pesth, Presburg, Vienna and Munich, then obtained an engagement with Vuillaume and remained several years in the Paris shop, “making and repairing violins for the distinguished artists and amateurs of the day.”
A Hundred Years of Music in America, (Howe, Granville L., ed.); Mathews, W. S. B., assoc. ed.. Chicago: G. L. Howe, 1889. Howe, p. 348. It gives no street addresses and mentions neither Astoria nor the partnership with August; its dating is narrative order — arrival 1847, the London exposition of 1851 sent from Boston, the Ole Bull call of 1852 in New York..
Boston, from soon after the 1847 arrival until about 1851 — the business there “was not remunerative” — then New York: “Mr. Gemunder has remained in New York ever since,” still at work there when the sketch went to press in 1889.
A Hundred Years of Music in America, (Howe, Granville L., ed.); Mathews, W. S. B., assoc. ed.. Chicago: G. L. Howe, 1889. Howe, p. 348, read from the page image. Hubbard (1908) concurs — “medals at the World’s Fair in London, 1851,” for violins of the Boston years — but both are unfootnoted trade accounts, no exhibition record is on disk, and Howe’s sketch was surely built from the man’s own telling..
First prizes at the London exposition of 1851, for “a quartette of bow instruments in imitation of Stradivarious, also several other violins,” sent while he worked in Boston; the news reached him in New York, “shortly after his arrival.”
A Hundred Years of Music in America, (Howe, Granville L., ed.); Mathews, W. S. B., assoc. ed.. Chicago: G. L. Howe, 1889. Howe, p. 348, read from the page image — told in Gemunder’s lifetime, almost certainly from his side of the story, and Bull, dead in 1880, could not gainsay it. The scene is also the record’s quiet witness against Hubbard’s later claim that Gemunder emigrated on Bull’s advice..
Ole Bull — on whom he called in New York in 1852, and to whom, over a violin Bull “believed Vuilluame had repaired for him,” Gemunder “proved to Mr. Bull that he, himself, and not the master workman, had done the marvelous repairing.”
History of American Music, Hubbard, W. L., ed.. Toledo: Irving Squire, 1908. Hubbard’s account, published a half-century after the events, and its Ole Bull motive — already hedged by Hubbard’s own “it is said” — sits badly against Howe (1889), where Bull and Gemunder first meet in New York in 1852 and Bull does not know he has left Vuillaume; Howe has instead an invitation from two brothers already in America. On the move to New York the two roughly agree: Hubbard says 1852, Howe puts it before the news of the 1851 London awards arrived..
History of American Music, Hubbard, W. L., ed.. Toledo: Irving Squire, 1908. Hubbard’s praise, unfootnoted, and aimed at the man’s own teacher; trade lore rather than a documented method. Nothing of it in Howe (1889), whose sketch credits him only generally with mastery of the recovered Stradivari principles..
History of American Music, Hubbard, W. L., ed.. Toledo: Irving Squire, 1908. Hubbard cites nothing for the story; neither the “Kaiser” nor Vienna appears in Howe (1889), and no exposition record on disk mentions either. Mistaken-for-Cremona is the trade’s favourite compliment — and, for a reference built on attribution, also its warning..
The Violinist's Guide, Chicago: The Violinist Publishing Company, 1916. The Guide, p. 27, read from the page image. Howe (1889) names neither the partnership nor Astoria — its sketch simply keeps him in New York from the early 1850s on..
New York, in business with his brother August; later independent in Astoria.
The Violinist's Guide, Chicago: The Violinist Publishing Company, 1916. The directory’s claim, in a compiled entry; no award record from either exposition is on disk. Howe (1889), listing his honours in his lifetime, names only the London prizes of 1851 and otherwise says “many medals” — it neither mentions the Centennial nor identifies any Paris fair..
“The violins of George Gemunder took highest awards at Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 1876; at Paris Exposition” — the Paris fair unnamed and undated.
The Violinist's Guide, Chicago: The Violinist Publishing Company, 1916. Both entries on p. 27 of the Guide. The WPA index dates the elder August 1814–1895. Howe (1889) names no brother, but has “his two brothers residing in America” by 1847 and a joint concert venture on George’s arrival — two brothers preceding him, where Hubbard has August coming only the year before..
Brother and partner: August Gemunder. The successor firm, August Gemunder & Sons of 141 W. 42nd St., stands in the same 1916 directory, its president — another August — described there as “nephew of George Gemunder.”
The Violinist's Guide, Chicago: The Violinist Publishing Company, 1916. The Guide, p. 27. The son shared the father’s name entire, so any attribution to the name alone may belong to either man..
A son, George, “said to have inherited his father’s genius,” died on Long Island, 1915.
Progress of American Academy of Violin Makers, 1914. The trade paper’s reprint of the roll, read first-hand in machine text..
Bio-Bibliographical Index of Musicians in the United States of America since Colonial Times, District of Columbia Historical Records Survey. Washington, D.C.: Music Section, Pan American Union, 1956. An index line — “(1816-1899)” — whose evidence is uncited. Of the six works the index keys his entry to, Hubbard gives no death date, and Howe (1889) still has him alive: “Mr. Gemunder has remained in New York ever since,” present tense at press. That bounds the death between 1889 and the 1916 directory’s bare “Deceased,” consistent with the index’s 1899 but resting on that one tertiary line. The index OCR also garbles the surname — “GERMUMDER” in his entry, “GERMUNDER” in the family’s others; Howe’s portrait caption and running text, read from the page images, print “Gemunder.”.
  • Entries from 5 books stand under this name, and nobody has judged yet whether they mean the same person.
  • Printed as a firm
  • Quoted text hidden until the book's copyright is settled

Same name

Whether any of these is the same person, the books do not say.

Same town, same time

16 other New York makers have a year in the 1800s. A few of them:

All New York makers