Scan 384
The American history and encyclopedia of music .., 1908
6 lines. Read by computer on 10 September 2026. Printed page 332. See the scan on archive.org.
1The making of violins is not an important part of the musical instrument industry of America, at least in the matter of magnitude. For a good many years, in fact, there were no violin-makers of any distinction in America although they long have flourished in Europe. General attention was centered upon the piano, and other instrumental music was greatly neglected. An interest in the violin was aroused by the tours of Ole Bull, Vieuxtemps, and others. Now there are indeed a few violin factories turning out instruments which sell as high as fifty dollars each, but the better grades still are entirely hand-made, and as in the past, the makers are still striving to discover the delicate, elusive secrets of Stradivarius, Amati and Guarnerius.
3Notwithstanding the splendid attainments in piano-making, centuries ago a higher perfection was attained by the violin, against which time makes warfare much less successfully. "A single workman, a cabinet-maker's bench, a few sharp tools, and glue pot over a fire"—thus some one has described the average violin-maker's establishment. Many days, or more truly weeks, are devoted to the making of a single instrument. It is curious to find the methods of violin making practically unchanged from the Sixteenth Century, in an age when the tendency is to reduce everything to a scientific basis. The census of 1900 reports only one thousand five hundred and three violins made that year, one-third of these in the State of New York.
5The most important name connected with American violin making is that of Gemunder. They were two brothers, August and George, born in Ingelfingen, Württemberg, Germany, the former in 1814 and the latter in 1816. August came to the United States in 1846. He resided in Springfield, Massachusetts, for several years, removing to New York in 1865, where he became permanently established. It had been August Gemunder's specialty to copy violins of the famous Italian makers, but two years before he came to America a German musician suggested his making a violin according to his own ideas. The result was so admirable
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