Bow & Bridge Violin and bow makers, as the old books printed them

Scan 321

The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1884

4 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. Printed page 247. See the scan on archive.org.

1after all Stainer's changes, the German sound-hole and extra arching, &c. Yet it must be readily admitted that the example which Stainer put before his countrymen was of great value, and served to engender an improved style throughout the Violin manufacture of Germany. The exceptional merits of this famous German artist were soon recognised, and his followers were legion. Among them were Sebastian Kloz, George Kloz, Egidius Kloz, and other members of that, perhaps the largest, family of Fiddle makers the world has had (had they been as good as they were numerous, what stores of prized Violins would have been bequeathed to us!); Reiss, of Bamberg; Rauch, of Breslau; and Leopold Widhalm, of Nuremberg, who was one of Stainer's best imitators; and others less known.
3There were several German makers—led, possibly, by the example of Stainer and Albani the younger, who turned their attention to Italy, as furnishing models superior to their own, and thus combined the styles of both countries; while they endeavoured to copy closely the Italian masters, without attempting to be original. Niccolò Amati was the maker whom these men chiefly copied, and most successfully did they perform their task. These copies, however, did not meet with the success to which they were entitled, and the popularity of Stainer's mode was then so great that the instruments made upon other systems than his found no favour in the Fatherland. The makers who were copyists

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