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Scan 130
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
6 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 116. See the scan on archive.org.
1worked at Absom, but nothing more is known about him; and during the first half of the eighteenth century there was at Innsbruck a maker by whom there is a viole d'amour in a museum in Bologna bearing a ticket, "Matthias Griesser Lauten und Geigenmacher in Innsbrugg, ann. 1727."
3Among the best German imitators of the Amati and Stainer schools are the following: Carl Ludwig Bachmann, born in Berlin in 1716, and died there in 1800. He was one of the court musicians to the King of Prussia, and was celebrated in his time as a great connoisseur. He enjoyed also a high reputation throughout Germany as a violin maker, his instruments being very correctly made, and displaying considerable skill on his part in the choice of wood. One fault has been ascribed to his manufacture—viz., that of leaving the wood for the belly rather thick. Time may, however, prove him to be in this respect more accurate in his calculations than his judges give him credit for. At any rate, it was an error on the safe side, and one that a skilled artist would have no difficulty in rectifying. He sent out all his work in his own name, and he employed amber varnish. He is also reported to have worked after the model of Stradivari, and to have been the inventor of the system of screw pegs for double basses, which developed into machine heads.
5Buchstädter, of Ratisbon, was another maker who copied somewhat faithfully the Italian school, and succeeded in producing well-made violins. He, however, employed inferior wood for the breast, and a brown varnish. His instruments are rather flat.
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