Books › Old violins and violin lore, 1900 › scan 68
Scan 68
Old violins and violin lore, 1900
8 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1VIOLINS AT CREMONA
3In these days one man draws, another blocks out, another inlays, another finishes. Stradivarius did all, and did all consummately well. His heads and arabesques are worthy of Cellini, his inlaying of the finest Florentine marqueterie; his scrolls and curves are of Pheidian beauty; his varnishing is his own.
5On the death of Amati, Stradiuarius and the Guarnerii had the Cremona market to themselves, and whilst the competition was quite wholesome, there is no reason to suppose that their rivalry was other than a friendly one. They had all been brought up together, they had worked as boys together, they had doubtless lent each other tools, touched up each other's backs and bellies, varnished each other's ribs, criticised each other's scrolls from boyhood; and now that the Cremona violin was in the ascendant, and kings and nobles from Spain, France, Germany, Saxony, and even England were anxious for Cremona fiddles, there was a market for them all.
7The bitterness of competition is not always due to rival makers, but often to over-production; and such a thing as over-production of fiddles in those days was unknown. Nay, the orders that came in could not be executed fast enough. Music walked faster than the instruments could follow it. When the King of Poland wanted a Strad violin he knew his man, and sent his Capelmeister Voleme to Cremona, with orders to stop there and bring back the twelve violins ordered for the court orchestra. "So," says Arisi, "Voleme arrived in 1715 on the 10th June, and
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