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Scan 72
The Hawley Collection of violins, 1904
4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1demand for it gradually increased, he turned his attention to making it. He occupies the proud position of the founder of the violin industry in Cremona. To Andrea, the name Cremona owes its present significance. But for him, it would not be the predominating note in violin literature, the magic word that awakens the fancies of every lover of the violin. His violins are small and arching high, with the result that their tone, while of rare sweetness, has not sufficient robustness of character to fill the requirements of the modern concert room. They were made to accompany the voice in the salon, and for this purpose and for the use of amateurs they are well adapted even to-day. His varnish has a distinct Brescian character, and it is possible that he obtained his supply from that city. It varies from a brownish yellow to golden brown. Certain specimens of it are very much to be admired. He cut his wood (back and sides) on the slab, and many of his violins are finished in an artistic manner, quite worthy of the Amati name.
3The increasing popularity of violin music, though yet but in its primitive form, occasioned a desire for good instruments at home and abroad, and the fame of Andrea as the chief exponent of the art in Cremona, was borne gradually beyond the Italian border. Cremona was at that time an active center in matters of culture. The church, especially, was in a flourishing state and was a liberal patron of music, sculpture and painting, and this influence was potent in fostering the art and in spreading the fame of Cremona's violins. It was not unlikely that through this influence that about the year 1572 Andrea Amati completed a large set of instruments for Charles IX. of France, consisting of twelve large and twelve small violins, six tenors and eight basses. These remained in the chapel at Versailles until about 1790, when they were disbursed or stolen during the riotous events of the Revolution. These instruments were ornamented on the back and sides with the arms of France. Violins by Andrea Amati are exceedingly rare, more so than Brescian work of the same period, indicating that he devoted much of his time to building other instruments. The popularity of his violins was due no doubt to their clearness, brilliancy, and elasticity of tone as compared with the rather somber quality of the Brescian instruments, as well as on account of their neatness of workmanship, and convenient proportions. Roger North, in his "Memoirs of Musick," speaking of the Italian violinist, Nicola Matteis, who created a furore in England in 1672, using an Andrea Amati violin, makes this quaint statement: "The violin is so universally courted and sought after to be had of the best cost, that some say England hath dispeopled Italy of violins." Another account in Evelyn's Diary, under date November 19, 1674, also shows the headway the violin was making in England at that early period: "I heard that stupendous violinist, Signor Nicholao (with other rare musicians), whom I never heard mortal man exceed on that instrument. He had a stroke so sweet and made it speak like the voice of a man, and when he pleased like a concert of several instruments. He did wonders upon a note, and was an excellent composer. Here was that rare lutenist, Dr. Wallgrave, but nothing approached the violin in Nicholao's hands, he played such ravishing things as to astonish us all." Had Andrea only evolved the happy medium between his highly arched form and the broad flat pattern of Brescia, it would have been of inestimable benefit to the violin world. But it was not until the lapse of a century that that result was to be obtained. Andrea had a brother, Nicola, who
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