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Scan 127
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 113. See the scan on archive.org.
1Customs-house officer with whom he dwelt; and the only reference which I have found to anything approaching the nature of a trade in musical instruments in the place is one to a small manufacture of guitars which employed three persons. The instruments produced from their workshops were neat-looking and well toned, cost about 35s. each, and were all sent to Munich, where they were, no doubt, sold as Spanish guitars, which they exactly resembled in shape. The writer says: "This little manufacture has given a musical turn to Mittenwald. My entertainer possessed a guitar which he played upon indifferently; I saw another in the inn parlour, and I heard the sound of a third as I was leaving the town." I find no allusion to violins or violin making; and if there had been any indication of such a trade in the latter as Dr. Abele claims for it, I feel sure the acute and observant traveller from whom I quote, and who ransacked every corner of the Tyrol, would not have missed it. This was about fifty years ago. I imagine, therefore, that the great trade of Mittenwald must have so completely died out at the beginning of the present century as to leave no memory in the place even of its existence. It has apparently been resuscitated; as this town, however, is not in the Tyrol but in Bavaria, it is scarcely fair to the Tyrolese to saddle them with the responsibility of turning out the vast loads of forged Stainers and Amatis which go by the name of Tyrolese instruments. The people of the northern Tyrol were so proud of their nationality, and are characterised in all sources consulted by me as possessed of such high individual honesty and straightforward dealing, that I should say
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