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Scan 134
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
4 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 120. See the scan on archive.org.
1in making violins; but, among others, he made six violins, an alto, and violoncello for the Chapel Royal in Copenhagen, and it is to be presumed these instruments are yet there. He died about 1830, and some of his five sons are probably still alive. They were at one time in Halle, in Saxony, and I think I have seen it stated that afterwards one or other of them removed to Jena. Ernst had other two pupils, Binternagel and Artmann, neither of whom particularly distinguished himself.
3From these selected names—and they are but a few—the reader will be able to draw for himself some conclusion as to the extraordinary influence which the Amatis and Stainer exerted on the art of violin making in Germany. All the above makers honestly endeavoured to do their best to follow the models which had gained, by their time, so much renown, without allowing their individual idiosyncracies to trench too much on principles of construction which had been found to contain the elements of success. Here and there we find a kind of oscillation between a flat and a high model, as if the makers were not quite certain that there was not some further undiscovered excellence lying ahead and as yet untouched, but, in general, the early German imitators remain very faithful to their Amati and Stainer guides. The majority of them probably knew no more than how to copy faithfully, but in violin making self-abnegation of the kind required to do that is where the chief science lies. What in other arts is a sort of vice becomes here the highest of virtues, for it includes imitation in everything—in the choice of the wood, as to condition and quality,
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