Scan 79
Chats to violin students on how to study the violin, 1895
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 65. See the scan on archive.org.
1CHAPTER IX.
3Violin Makers—The German and English Schools.
5NOW I have to speak of the German and English makers of violins, which will close this portion of my chats. The Germans seem to have been very much later in the field as makers than the Italians and as a whole not so important as either the French or Italians. From all old books we hear they were so very successful in the make of viols, lutes, etc., that one cannot help wondering why they did not take the lead with violins also. I fancy the first maker was Fichtold who lived early in the seventeenth century—but he is spoken of as a maker of lutes and possibly did not attempt violins. The early German specimens all seem very imperfect in outline and there is an incompleteness in the model, such being conspicuous in the work of Albani, the father of the celebrated maker of that name. He was born in Botzen about 1620. His wood is always very carefully chosen, and his varnish is specially good: his model is somewhat like that of Stainer. His son, born also at Botzen thirty years later, having studied in Cremona, produced altogether
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