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Scan 142
Old Violins And Their Makers, 1883
2 lines. Read by computer on 30 September 2026. Printed page 128. See the scan on archive.org.
1no information that I know of is procurable. Jean Paul Schorn was a maker in Salsburg, who, from tickets which are extant, appears to have been engaged in the manufacture from about 1699 until 1716; his works seem to be very scarce. A viola d'amore, bearing the name of Weigert, of Linz, and the date 1721, exists in Vienna, and there was a Norbert Bedler at Wurzburg, maker to the Bavarian Court, by whom there is a very fine specimen of the viola di bordone in the Paris Conservatoire; it is dated 1723. About the same time Martin Voigt flourished at Hamburg, and was distinguished for the luxurious manner in which he inlaid and otherwise decorated his work; a viola da gamba by this maker is possessed by the South Kensington Museum; it is adorned with figures of Apollo, Venus, Mercury, and Diana, in mother-of-pearl, and is dated 1726. There was a Mattias Griesser at Innsbruck, in 1727; and one Fritsche, at Leipsic, who was a pupil of Hunger, formerly mentioned, was a very good maker about the end of the eighteenth century. He was highly esteemed as a repairer, but has also left fine instruments of his own make. One Durfel, in Altenburg, about 1750, secured a high reputation for his double basses, which are reckoned the best that have ever been made in Germany. Martin Hoffman, in Leipsic, made about the same period violins and violoncellos of a fine tone but of an unfortunate model. He is said to have been the first to construct the viola pomposa from hints given by John Sebastian Bach. Fetis mentions a Joseph Laska, in Prague, about this time, whose instruments were in great request in his day, and, in some places, preferred to Italian violins. Matthäus
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