Books › Musical Courier 1926-02-04: Vol 92 Iss 5, 1926 › scan 43
Scan 43
Musical Courier 1926-02-04: Vol 92 Iss 5, 1926
32 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026, twice; the two readings disagreed in places. Printed page 44. See the scan on archive.org.
1MUSICAL COURIER
2GASPARO DA SALO, INVENTOR OF THE VIOLIN
3(Continued from page 6)
4steep lanes of age-old cobbles and sharply rising perpendicular houses, ancient beyond description. It seemed to me the oldest appearing habitable place I had ever seen, composed of forward-slanting, gray, peeling little houses and shops. Bewildering and charming! This was the Salo of Gasparo, where as a boy, in the sixteenth century he had worked in his grandfather's shop, when lute making in Salo was the principal industry, just as violin making is today; and here, when he was but eighteen years of age, Gasparo fashioned the violin.
6THE REPUTED BIRTHPLACE
7To see the house where Gasparo of Salo had been born was my object. I stopped at a small tobacco shop to ask the old woman in charge.
8"Madre di Dio!" she cried, "an American!" The first she had ever seen. I knew by the light in her eyes she was looking for the tomahawk, the blanket, and the feathers. When her astonishment had somewhat subsided, she declared that she had a son, Francesco Christiana, who was himself a musician and a violin maker, as well as a clerk in the town bank, and, if I wished, he would gladly conduct me throughout all Salo and show me the country of Gasparo. He came, and apologized for bringing the baby on his arm, but, it being Sunday, he helped in the home, and if he was to show me Salo, it was necessary to bring along the baby. Forthwith, we started on our way to the birth house of Gasparo, through a narrow way called the Via Duse. One enchanting small street led into another and, though the day was hot, no sun penetrated at noonday into these high-built, narrow ways of ancient Salo where I and my collarless guide and the baby trudged slowly up one steep incline and down another until we reached the flat Via Gasparo da Salo in a section somewhat near the outskirts of the little village, a part called Bel Fiore (Beautiful Flowers).
9Off the Via Gasparo da Salo, narrow and ancient beyond description, a small street opened up, the Street of the Two Violinists, and we paused before a perpendicular house three stories high, of brown matched ancient brick, a tall house for Salo, narrow and forbidding as are all the mediaeval houses of Italy, the blinds shut and iron-barred. I read the tablet affixed to the grim facade:
10Gasparo da Salo
11The great lute maker
12Inventor of the Violin
13Was born in this house
141542.
15So obscure, so humble a birthplace! An old woman, pin-feathering a chicken, sat in the doorway of her shop on the ground floor of the birth house of Gasparo. That the chicken was alive and squawking was nothing to her. The feathers came off more easily that way.
16My guide told me that much was speculative in the story of Gasparo's life: nearly 400 years have passed since he was born, and though authorities have decided upon this house on the Street of the Two Violinists as his birth house, there is still great question as to its authenticity. The history of this birthplace and career of Gasparo rest almost entirely upon the calculations and conclusions of Livi's researches, and though one is ever conscious that Salo is the birth place of the violin, just where, in all its narrow confines, the Master really lived and worked is still an open question.
18A FAMILY OF LUTE MAKERS
19Santino di Bertolotti, the grandfather of Gasparo, was a lute maker, and his two sons, Francesco and Augustino followed their father's trade. Inseparable were these two brothers, living together, and sharing the same workshop. Both were musicians and singers, both lute makers and repairers. By the people they were known as "The Violini" and the street on which they lived was called the "Street of the Two Violini." In the century following the deaths of these two brothers, a church was built in this section of Salo called Bel Fiore, and the street of the Two Violinists was changed officially in name to the "Street of the Disciples." But the name would not work; the street of the Two Violinists clung, remained, and is still there today. Here, Gasparo, son of Francesco, fashioned his early stringed instruments, employing always a pattern like that of the violin as distinguished from that of the viols which his grandfather, father and uncle Augustino made.
20Beyond the house and this street on which it is conceded the young Gasparo was born, I passed to a parapet which overlooked the modern town on the blue water front. Oleanders, palm, orange, and lemon trees bordered the road which led above, further into the hill country; an ancient tower of ages past stood by the roadside. We turned back once more along the Via Gasparo da Salo, leading us through its winding flat ways into the crowded, worn streets of the village below. A clock in a church tower struck two, and a trolley car labelled Brescia stood in the village square, as though waiting for me.
22ANCIENT BRESCIA
23Brescia, the ancient Brixia of the middle ages, even then rich and zealous, is a large picturesque city at the foot of the Italian Alps. Some few broad streets there are, concessions to the march of Time, are occasionally to be seen; but for the most part narrow streets prevail which in many instances are too small to admit even the sea-going vettura.
24The genius of Gasparo met, it seems, with but small encouragement in Salo, so at twenty-three years of age, with his wife, Isabella, and his small son, Francesco, he migrated to near-by Brescia, famous then as the center of the lute making trade, as still today for its violin production. The violin makers of Brescia attribute a great part of the excellence of their production to the fact that the town is not exposed to harsh winds, and here the laurel and olive woods, the pear and sycamore, reach their best perfections. The air is dry and warm and exactly right for violin construction. Gasparo's favorite woods for violin building were the pear and sycamore, and his violins show always the same regularity of grain. Yet it is claimed that the secret of his successful results and exquisite work lay mostly in the character and mode of application of his varnishes, the particular wood and dimensions of the violin being less important than the varnish, which was compounded from oils of the same character as those employed by the great old masters of painting.
26GASPARO IN DEBT
27At twenty-six, Gasparo, in Brescia, had acquired his own modest repair shop with dwelling adjoining, on the quaint, narrow Street of the Coachmen. He owned the property, but must have been in great financial difficulties, both then and later, for on a debt document dated in 1588, which I saw in the archives of the old City Hall in Brescia (what a place of regal antiquity!) it is stated: "I, Gasparo di Bertolotti, son of Francesco, worker of musical instruments, aged forty-five years; with my wife Isabella, aged forty-two years; my sons, Francesco, twenty-five years, and Marco Antonio, four years; my daughters, Livia, Virginia, and Julia, my farm hand, Batista, aged eighteen years, and Agnola, my woman servant, in Brescia. I owe to Signor Franzose, of Venice, 102 pounds; to Padre Gabriele, of St. Peter's, 60 pounds; to Signor Vallirio Bonifidino, who lives in Venice, 50 pounds for woods sent me to be used in my art; to Brother Marco Antonio, of the Order of Saint Oliver, 42 pounds, for strings from Rome for my violins; to diverse personal items, 30 pounds; to my servant girl, Agnola, I pay 12 shillings a year; to my farm hand, Batista, I pay 60 shillings a year. I have a house for my own use, on the Street of the Coachman. (Today, the same old building is occupied by a printing office.) We consume all the oil and wine raised on my own land." Records of Brescia further show that Gasparo bought a house on the Via Palazzo Vecchio and that he owned two other houses, one in the small town of Terzago and one in Calvagese, both near Salo, for all of which he went deeply into debt. one of two readings
28At twenty-six, Gasparo, in Brescia, had acquired his own modest repair shop with dwelling adjoining, on the quaint, narrow Street of the Coachmen. He owned the property, but must have been in great financial difficulties, both then and later, for on a debt document dated in 1588, which I saw in the archives of the old City Hall in Brescia (what a place of regal antiquity!) it is stated: "I, Gasparo di Bertolotti, son of Francesco, worker of musical instruments, aged forty-five years; with my wife Isabella, aged forty-two years; my sons, Francesco, twenty-five years, and Marco Antonio, four years; my daughters, Livia, Virginia, and Julia, my farm hand, Batista, aged eighteen years, and Agnola, my woman servant, in Brescia. I owe to Signor Franzose, of Venice, 102 pounds; to Padre Gabriele, of St. Peter's, 60 pounds; to Signor Vallirio Bonfidino, who lives in Venice, 50 pounds for woods sent me to be used in my art; to Brother Marco Antonio, of the Order of Saint Oliver, 42 pounds, for strings from Rome for my violins; to diverse personal items, 30 pounds; to my servant girl, Agnola, I pay 12 shillings a year; to my farm hand, Batista, I pay 60 shillings a year. I have a house for my own use, on the Street of the Coachman. (Today, the same old building is occupied by a printing office.) We consume all the oil and wine raised on my own land." Records of Brescia further show that Gasparo bought a house on the Via Palazzo Vecchio and that he owned two other houses, one in the small town of Terzago and one in Calvagese, both near Salo, for all of which he went deeply into debt. one of two readings
30GASPARO THOUGHT OF PARIS
31About this time, when past middle age, prosperity seeming to have eluded him, he seriously contemplated abandoning
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