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Scan 103
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians, 1916
16 lines. Read by computer on 7 September 2026. Printed page 75. See the scan on archive.org.
1violins, and is said to have worked between 1568 and 1635.
33. ANTONIO (1550-1638), and 4. GERONIMO (1551-1635), sons of Andrea, improved greatly on their father's style; Geronimo appears to have afterwards made violins of a larger pattern and superior quality, independently of his brother.
55. NICOLO, born Sept. 3, 1596, died Aug. 12, 1684, son of Geronimo, was the most eminent of the family. Although he did not materially alter the Amati model he improved it in many respects. His outline is still more graceful, his varnish of deeper and richer colour, and the proportions, as regards thickness of wood and elevation of back and belly, are better calculated by him than by his predecessors. His instruments have in consequence, besides the clearness and transparency of the older Amatis, greater power and intensity of tone. As a rule he too worked after a small pattern, but he also made some large violins,—the so-called 'Grand Amatis,' which are particularly high-priced—and a great number of beautiful tenors and violoncellos. His instruments enjoyed even during his lifetime a great reputation. Andrea Guarnieri and the still greater Antonio Stradivari were his pupils.
76. GERONIMO, his son (1649-1740), was but an indifferent maker. The violins of the Amati are the link between the Brescia school and those masters who brought the art of violin-making to its greatest perfection, Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarnieri. The tone of Gaspar da Salo's and Maggini's violins is great and powerful, but has a peculiarly veiled character, reminding one of the viol da gamba. In Nicolo Amati's instruments the tone is clearer and more transparent, but comparatively small. It was left to another generation of makers to combine these qualities and to fix upon a model, which after the lapse of nearly a century and a half has proved itself incapable of even the most trifling improvement. P. D.
9The celebrity of Stradivari and other makers of a later generation has somewhat overcast the fame of the Amati family; a result partly due to the fact that the beautiful instruments made by the Amati have not so stubbornly endured the wear and tear of centuries, and for this and other reasons are less in request for playing purposes. It would, however, be scarcely possible to exaggerate their services, especially those of the brothers Antonio and Geronimo, in the artistic development of the violin. Whatever the violin possesses of methodic geometrical design and flowing curvature, both linear and superficial, is mainly due to them. Evidently they were mathematicians as well as craftsmen, and consciously strove to unite freedom and harmony of outline, on the one hand, with tone-producing qualities, and facility of handling, on the other. In so doing they doubtless lost something of the power and depth of tone possessed by the stiffer and more antique-looking fiddles of their predecessors. But it was they—and notably Geronimo, whose work is distinguishable from his brother's—who made the instrument, so far as mere design is concerned, a thing of beauty; and in this respect what they left for their successors to do appears less and less the more it is considered. The Nicolo Amati is only a slightly improved Geronimo, and the Stradivari only a slightly improved Nicolo; and the improvements mainly consisted in restoring the force and gravity of tone which the Brescian makers obtained, but the instrument had lost, while conspicuously bettered in general aspect in the hands of the brothers Antonio and Geronimo. E. J. P.
11AMBER WITCH, THE, a romantic opera in four acts, by W. V. Wallace; libretto by H. F. Chorley; first produced at Her Majesty's Theatre, Feb. 28, 1861.
13AMBROGETTI, GIUSEPPE, an excellent buffo, who appeared in 1807, and at Paris in 1815 in 'Don Giovanni'; and at the opera in London in 1817, where he was very successful. His voice was a bass of no great power, but he was an excellent actor, with a natural vein of humour, though often put into characters unsuited to him as a singer; yet he acted extremely well, and in a manner too horribly true to nature, the part of the mad father in Paer's beautiful opera, 'Agnese,' while that of the daughter was sung by Camporese. He remained until the end of the season of 1821, in which his salary was £400. He married Teresa Strinasacchi the singer. The date of his death is not known. He was said to have become a monk in France; but in 1838 he was in Ireland, since which nothing has been heard of him. J. M.
15AMBROS, AUGUST WILHELM. Born Nov. 17, 1816, at Mauth in Bohemia. By virtue of his Geschichte der Musik (Breslau, Leuckart), the 4th vol. of which, reaching to MONTEVERDE and FRESCOBALDI, appeared July 1878, he must be considered the greatest German authority on all questions concerning the history of European music from ancient Greece to modern times. In spite of having suffered till past his fiftieth year under that curse of dilettantism, serving two masters—being at the same time a hard-worked employé in the Austrian Civil Service and an enthusiastic musician and littérateur, pianist, composer, critic, and historian—his indomitable pluck and perseverance enabled him to put forward a formidable array of writings on the history and aesthetics of music, all of which bear the stamp of a rich, highly cultured and very versatile mind. They are as remarkable for their many-sided learning and accuracy as for their lucid arrangement and brilliant diction. Ambros's father, postmaster and gentleman farmer, was a good linguist and excellent mathematician, and his mother, a
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