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

Books › Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1928 › scan 158

Scan 158

Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1928

21 lines. Read by computer on 12 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 116. See the scan on archive.org.

1the same thing. Originally the two latter were applied to an instrument consisting of a series of small bells; but steel bars have been found to be more convenient, more easily manipulated, better in tone—being free from the dissonant overtones so particularly prominent in small bells—and capable of the most accurate tuning. Excellent examples of the effective treatment of the instrument will be found in the works of Wagner ('Walküre' and 'Meistersinger'), Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Elgar, Parry, Mackenzie, Cowen, etc.
3(2) An organ stop consisting of a series of steel bars played from the manuals and generally extending from middle C upwards, but rarely exceeding three octaves in compass. w. w. s.
5STAINER, (1) JACOB (b. Absam, near Hall, Austria, July 14, 1621; d. 1683), a celebrated German violin-maker. According to one story, the boy had a love of music, which induced the parish priest to send him to an organ-builder at Innsbruck. This trade, however, he found too laborious. He therefore took to making stringed instruments, serving his apprenticeship to an Innsbruck 'Lautenmacher'; after which he proceeded to travel, working, according to tradition, at Cremona, under Antonio or Nicolo Amati, and visiting other places in Italy, including Venice, where he wrought in the shop of Vimercati. Of all this, however, there is not a particle of evidence. It may be said that violins are in existence, signed by Stainer and dated from Cremona; but these are now believed to be spurious. He began at a very early age, if we may trust an apparently genuine label dated 1641. He married in 1645 Margaret Holzhammer, by whom he had eight daughters, and one son who died in infancy. Henceforward, to his death in 1683, the life of Stainer shows little variety. He made a great number of stringed instruments of all sorts, which he chiefly sold at the markets and fairs of the neighbouring town of Hall. The forests of 'Haselfichte' (see KLOTZ), which clothe the slopes of the Lafatsch and the Gleirsch, supplied him with the finest material in the world for his purpose. In 1648 the Archduke Ferdinand Charles became his patron. Ten years later he received by diploma the title of Hofgeigenmacher to the Archduke. In 1669, having fallen under a suspicion of Lutheranism, he was imprisoned and forced to recant. He was still at work in 1677, in which year he made two fine instruments for the monastery of St. Georgenburg. Soon after this date he ceased from his labours. In his latter years Stainer became of unsound mind, in which condition he died in 1683.
7Stainer's place in the history of German fiddle-making is strongly marked. He was the first to introduce into Germany those Italian principles of construction which are the secret of sonority, but his originality cannot be precisely determined. Some trace his model to the early Tyrolese viol-makers, others say the peculiarities of the Stainer violins are strictly original. As a mere workman Stainer is entitled to the highest rank. He made an immense number of instruments, some more, and others less, finely finished, but all substantially of the same model: the main design of which bears a rough resemblance to that of the Amati. Stainer's best instruments have written labels: some of the common ones have in very small Roman letterpress in the middle of a large slip of paper, 'Jacobus Stainer in Absom prope Oenipontum Anno (1678).' It is not impossible that some of these may have been made by other hands under his direction.
9E. J. P., abridged.
11BIBL.—RÜF, Der Geigenmacher Jacobus Stainer von Absam in Tirol, Innsbruck, 1872; F. OKA, J. Stainer der erste deutsche Meister in Geigenbau published in the Neue Berliner Musikzeitung, Nos. 22, 23, 31, May 7, June 1854; OTTO, A Treatise on the Structure and Preservation of the Violin (first edition, German, 1817; three English editions translated by John Bishop); STOEVING, Von der Violine; WASIELEWSKI, Die Violine; VON LUTGENDORFF, Die Geigen- und Lautenmacher; HAWKINS, History of Music; VIDAL, Les Instruments à archet; GRILLET, Les Ancêtres du violon; PEARCE, Violins and Violin-Making; READE, A Lost Art Revived; RACSTER, Chats on Violins (containing an English translation of Von Gilm's poem); HILL, Violins and their Makers (two pictures of Stainer's house); HERON-ALLEN, A Pilgrimage to the House of Jacob Stainer (Mus. T. Aug. 1900).
13E. H. A. one of two readings
15(no line here) one of two readings
16(2) MARCUS, brother of Jacob, from whom he learned his trade, set up for himself at the village of Laufen. The famous Florentine player Veracini had two violins by this maker, christened 'St. Peter' and 'St. Paul,' and he reckoned them superior to all Italian violins. In sailing from London to Leghorn in 1746 Veracini was shipwrecked and the fiddles were lost. The instruments of this maker are extremely rare. They are made of unusually fine material, of somewhat large size, covered with dark varnish, and are sweet though decidedly feeble in tone. Like those of Jacob Stainer, they usually contain written labels. One of these runs thus: 'Marcus Stainer, Bürger und Geigenmacher in Küfstein, anno 1659.' Occasionally Marcus Stainer yielded to an obvious temptation, and sold his violins under the name of his more famous brother.
18E. J. P.
20STAINER, SIR JOHN, Mus.D. (b. London, June 6, 1840; d. Verona, Mar. 31, 1901), son of a schoolmaster, entered the choir of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1847—by which time he was already a remarkable player and an excellent sight-singer—and remained there till 1856, very often taking the organ on occasion. In 1854 he was appointed organist and choirmaster of St. Benedict and St. Peter, Paul's Wharf, on which the Rev. J. H. Coward, classical master to the choristers, was rector. At the same time he learnt harmony from Bayley, master of the St. Paul's boys, and counterpoint from Dr. Steggall, for whom he sang the soprano part in his Mus.D. exercise at Cambridge in 1852. Through the liberality of Miss Hackett (see CHORISTER) he received a course of lessons on

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