Scan 358
Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians Vol.5, 1925
16 lines. Read by computer on 12 September 2026. Printed page 304. See the scan on archive.org.
115), shows the sound-holes, bouts, and corners of the most famous maker of the family, Nicholas Amati, the son of Hieronymus (1596–1684). He began by copying most accurately the works of his father and uncle; his early violins are barely distinguishable from theirs. Between 1640 and 1650 his style develops unconsciously into that which is associated with his own name. His violins become larger, the thickness is increased in the middle, the blocks are more massive and prominent, and the sound-holes assume a different character. But these changes are minute, and tell only in the general effect. And the same love of perfectly curved outlines and surfaces rules the general design. During a very long life Nicholas Amati varied from his own standard perhaps less than any maker who ever lived. After his time the Cremona violin was carried to its utmost perfection by his pupil Antonio Stradivari (1649–1737).
3The principal varieties in the design of violins of the classical period will be illustrated by a comparison of Figs. 15, 16, and 17. Fig. 16 is from a violin, by Stainer; Fig. 17, from a Tenor by Joseph Guarnerius. After Cremona, Venice among Italian towns produced the best fiddle-makers; then come Milan and Naples. The pupils and imitators of Stradivari maintained the reputation of the Italian Violins during the first half of the 18th century; but after 1760 the style of Italian violin-making shows a general decline, though by effluxion of time the instruments of some of these later makers are taking to-day the place once held by those of the greatest masters. This is partly attributable to the fact that the musical world was by this time amply provided with instruments of the best class, and that the demand for them declined in consequence. Good instruments, however, were made by some of the second-rate makers of the latter part of the century which, as we have said, are becoming daily more sought after, and esteemed. One of the best of the Italian makers, Pressenda, worked at Turin in the 19th century, and his violins have been compared, not unfavourably, with those of Bergonzi and Seraphin.
5Fig. 15.
7Fig. 16.
9Fig. 17.
11The violin-makers of South Germany form a distinct school, of which some account will be found under Klotz and Stainer. Munich, Vienna, Salzburg, and Nuremberg have produced many fiddle-makers. The makers of France and the Low Countries more or less followed Italian models, and during the past 150 years there have been many excellent French copyists of Stradivari and Guarnieri; two of the best are noticed under Lupot and Vuillaume; besides these there have been Aldric, G. Chanot the elder, Silvestre, Maucotel, Mennegand, Henry, and Rambaux. It is customary in English books upon the Violin to speak of the English School of Violin-Makers, but this is a misnomer. There has never been an English School of the art. England has produced a great many very excellent makers, but they have, without exception, followed a wrong impetus from the earliest days when Urquhart and Pamphilon showed some signs of independent thought. The fundamental error has been that the English makers have taken Stainer as their model, instead of the masters of the Cremona school. The result, which was inevitable, was that as the instruments of the later Italian, and early French Schools, modelled as they were upon the great Perfectionists, became better known and more widely distributed, the instruments of the English makers sank into disuse and oblivion, and are now, excepting in rare instances, rather specimens for the museum, than instruments for the artist. The following notes upon the English makers are necessarily pertinent to an English Dictionary of Music.
13ENGLISH VIOLIN-MAKERS
15London has probably been for centuries the seat of a manufacture of stringed instruments. The popularity of the viol during the 16th and 17th centuries produced many makers of the instrument, among whom are found Jay, Smith, Bolles, Ross, Addison, Shaw, Aldred, etc. Its design admitted of little variety, and the specimens which have been preserved have only an archaeological interest. Of slight construction, and usually made of thin and dry wood, most of the old viols have perished. The violin type, marked (1) by a back curved like the belly, instead of a flat back; by an increased vibration, produced (2) by sound-holes larger in proportion, and with contrary flexures (ff), and (3) by four strings instead of six, with a fixed tuning by fifths, and greater thicknesses of wood, reached England from the continent in the middle of the 17th century. Its marked superiority in all respects soon drove the treble viol from the field: and a native school (if the term 'school' may properly be applied to a body of mere copyists) of violin-makers forthwith arose, who imitated the general characteristics of the new foreign model, though preserving to some extent
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