Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 61
Scan 61
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
10 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1OLD VIOLINS
3by Professor Sauret, and the other lent to Mr. Ludwig by Mr. Frazer, are particularly fine, and belong to this period. Paganini's Joseph, now in the Town-hall at Genoa, Alard's, in the Museum of the Conservatoire of Music, Turin, and Vieuxtemps', now in the possession of Maurice Sons, also belong to this great period.
5The life of Joseph Guarnerius is more or less enveloped in mystery. It seems, for instance, utterly impossible to get at the truth about the so-called prison fiddles. Whenever a Joseph or a presumed Joseph which is not up to Joseph's standard comes into the market, it is dubbed a Del Gesù prison-fiddle.
7The story runs that Giuseppe, being a somewhat reckless person, got into trouble and was locked up for many years, during which time the gaoler's daughter got him any wood she could find, and he made these inferior pot-boiling fiddles, which she disposed of for such moderate sums as she was able.
9I prefer to put this legend wholly aside. Del Gesù may not have held sacred things in high estimation, and he may have been somewhat of a free liver—this rests on the authority of Carlo Bergonzi's grandson, who was not even a contemporary of Del Gesù—still he may have got the gossip from Bergonzi, his own father, who was Stradivari's pupil, and doubtless a rival maker; and tongues may wag when interests are or seem to be opposed, and stories will come forth finely variegated when there is an extraordinary absence of reliable facts, as there undoubtedly is in the case of Del Gesù.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.