Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 230
Scan 230
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
18 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 204. See the scan on archive.org.
1his first shop at the corner of West and Tremont Streets. In 1890 he moved to [address hidden] where he stayed for thirty years until he moved to his present location. His sons, Erik and Orin, are with him in the business.
3This firm imports violins from the chief European commercial centres, Markneukirchen and Mittenwald, Germany, Mirecourt, France, and Schonbach, Czechoslovakia, selling at wholesale and retail. They supplied the first fiddles for the Quincy and Winchester schools eighteen years ago when instrumental instruction was started there.
5They also make high-grade violins, violas and violoncellos, largely in Rome, Maine, in the summer, following their own patterns since 1905, as Mr. Gould, who has handled violins made by all the old masters, believes just as good violins are made today. Their pattern has points of resemblance to that of Petrus Guarnerius. In his article, "Facts About Old Violins," John A. Gould brings out that instruments by the same great master varied in quality and tone and that the tone of any of these instruments which have been repaired is in reality due to the work of the modern repairer who strengthens thin places, etc. The standing of their instruments is shown by the following statements: "Gould's instruments are well spoken of by those qualified to judge them." 5 "His reputation as a maker and repairer extends through the whole of Northern America." 6
7Bows, strings, polishes, rosin and varnish are also made by them under the name, "Orthotonic Specialties."
9At the present time this is the only Boston firm doing a jobbing business in wound strings.
11The largest part of their business is restoration. They have had such customers as Bessie Bell Collier, Maud MacCarthy, the Kneisels, Fritz Kreisler and Mischa Elman. Most famous concert violinists known in Boston have had their instruments adjusted at some time by Mr. Gould.
13"What is said to have been the largest single repair job in the history of the fiddle" 7 was done by them shortly after the war when the Lindsey Memorial Collection of musical instruments was stored next to the ship's boiler in transit across the Atlantic to the Boston
155 Bachmann, Alberto. An Encyclopedia of the Violin p. 54.
166 Poidras, Henri. Critical and Documentary Dictionary of Violin Makers Old and Modern p. 189.
177 Boston Herald, January 3, 1931 p. 12—"Boston Personalities" column.
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