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Scan 339
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians;, 1904
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1know from Bagatella's singular brochure on the Amati model, that 'trade fiddles' (violini dozzinali), cheap instruments of coarse construction, probably made by German workmen, were sold 'by the dozen' in Italy in the 18th century. Such fiddles were soon produced in far greater numbers in Germany and France. In Germany the manufacture of 'trade fiddles' was first carried on at Mittenwald, in Bavaria, where it originated with the family of Klotz; it afterwards extended to Groslitz; early in the 18th century Mirecourt in French Lorraine became a seat of the trade; and in recent times Markneukirchen in the kingdom of Saxony has risen to importance as a centre of the cheap violin trade. It must, however, be borne in mind that the earliest annals of each of these three towns are rich with the names of first-rate makers. Mirecourt gave us Vuillaume, the Chanots, Lupot, and most of the French makers of the 18th and 19th centuries, and from the books of the Violin-maker's guild Dr. Petong has extracted a history of the art which is perhaps the most vivid account of an early school of makers that is accessible to the student of to-day.1 These towns still supply nine-tenths of the shop-violins that are now made. 'Trade' or common violins can be bought for fabulously low sums. The following was, at the time when this Dictionary was first published (1880–1885), the estimate of M. Thibouville-Lamy, of Mirecourt, Paris, and London, one of the principal fiddle-makers of our time, of the cost of one of his cheapest violins: —
3<table>
4 <tr>
5 <th></th>
6 <th></th>
7 <th>s.</th>
8 <th>d.</th>
9 </tr>
10 <tr>
11 <td>Wood for back</td>
12 <td></td>
13 <td>2</td>
14 <td></td>
15 </tr>
16 <tr>
17 <td>" belly</td>
18 <td></td>
19 <td>2</td>
20 <td></td>
21 </tr>
22 <tr>
23 <td>" neck</td>
24 <td></td>
25 <td>1</td>
26 <td></td>
27 </tr>
28 <tr>
29 <td>Workmanship in neck</td>
30 <td></td>
31 <td>2</td>
32 <td></td>
33 </tr>
34 <tr>
35 <td>Blackened finger-board</td>
36 <td></td>
37 <td>2</td>
38 <td></td>
39 </tr>
40 <tr>
41 <td>Workmanship of back and belly</td>
42 <td></td>
43 <td>3</td>
44 <td></td>
45 </tr>
46 <tr>
47 <td>Cutting out by saw</td>
48 <td></td>
49 <td>1 1/2</td>
50 <td></td>
51 </tr>
52 <tr>
53 <td>Shaping back and belly by machinery</td>
54 <td></td>
55 <td>1 0</td>
56 <td></td>
57 </tr>
58 <tr>
59 <td>Varnish</td>
60 <td></td>
61 <td>10</td>
62 <td></td>
63 </tr>
64 <tr>
65 <td>Fitting-up, strings, bridge, and tailpiece</td>
66 <td></td>
67 <td>9 1/2</td>
68 <td></td>
69 </tr>
70 <tr>
71 <td></td>
72 <td></td>
73 <td>3 7</td>
74 <td></td>
75 </tr>
76 <tr>
77 <td>6 per cent for general expenses</td>
78 <td></td>
79 <td>3</td>
80 <td></td>
81 </tr>
82 <tr>
83 <td></td>
84 <td></td>
85 <td>3 10</td>
86 <td></td>
87 </tr>
88 <tr>
89 <td>15 per cent profit</td>
90 <td></td>
91 <td>8</td>
92 <td></td>
93 </tr>
94 <tr>
95 <td></td>
96 <td></td>
97 <td>4 6</td>
98 <td></td>
99 </tr>
100</table>
102This was, and is still, the specification of the 'five-franc violin' — le violon à cent sous as it was, and is known in the trade, and, ludicrously low as this estimate is, it is certain that one of these fiddles, if carefully set up, can be made to discourse very tolerable music. Vast numbers of instruments of better quality, but still far below the best, costing from £1 to £2 : 10s., are now sold all over the world. Mirecourt, Mittenwald, and Markneukirchen mainly produce them; of late years the latter place has taken the lead in quantity, the German commercial travellers being apparently more pushing than the French; but the Mirecourt fiddles have decidedly the advantage in quality, having regard to the price.
104It is only of comparatively late years that machinery has played any important part in the manufacture of these shop-fiddles. In the early days of the wholesale fiddle-trade the work was done by hand; a good workman could make two fiddles in a week and had to be paid 16 francs or marks for each one. To-day the trade is full of secrets. The writer has visited the workshops in all three towns, and has never succeeded in seeing the whole of the processes by which the cheap fiddles of to-day are made. We have seen backs and bellies pressed into shape under heat, and for the better instruments gouged inside and out by rotary carving tools, ribs bent a dozen at a time by machinery, but excepting in one room in each factory where a man or two sits and works on the old principles, he has never seen a man or a woman (for many women are employed) make more than one part of a fiddle. One will make sides, another backs, another necks, another scrolls, and so on. Not one of them could make a fiddle, and we call to mind a fair Bavarian girl whose business it was, day in and day out, to cut ff holes. She was a 'skilled worker' and highly paid. She received one halfpenny for each f hole.
106But violins of a superior class to the trade fiddle, of good workmanship throughout, and in every way excellent musical instruments, though inferior to the best productions of the classical age, have been and still are made, not only at Mirecourt, but in the principal musical centres of Europe. London, Paris, Vienna, and Munich have had a constant succession of violin-makers for the past two centuries. The English violin manufacture suffered a severe blow by the abolition of duties on foreign instruments, and it can hardly be said that the musical stimulus of the last half century has caused it to revive.
108The shop-fiddles are shipped to this country in ever-increasing numbers, and a most deplorable custom has arisen — it arose indeed many years ago, but has become increasingly and scandalously widespread — among musical instrument dealers, and we regret to say even among those who have had training in the art and have set up as English 'makers,' of importing these fiddles 'in the white' (vide infra), varnishing them and fitting them up, and labelling them as their own manufacture, with their names and a date. An even more dangerous and deleterious practice is that which has obtained of late years, of importing the finished and fitted-up shop-fiddle, and labelling it by a misleading trade-name such as Stradelli, Guarnerini, Guarneri, Amatini, or the like, and putting it on the market as a distinctive make.2
1101 The Arts and Crafts-Book of the Worshipful Guild of Violin-makers at Markneukirchen, from the Year 1677 to the Year 1772, extracted and analysed by Dr. Richard Petong. translated and edited by Edward and Marianna Heron-Allen, London, 1894.
1122 It must be said here that the above fictitious names
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