Scan 287
The violin: its famous makers and their imitators, 1909
4 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 229. See the scan on archive.org.
1Gaillard, and Miremont, all copyists of more or less note, who may be said to complete the modern French school. These makers are or were the chief manufacturers of Violins in France of a better class. Those made by thousands yearly at Mirecourt are not Violins in the eyes of the connoisseur. They are made, as common cabinet work is produced in England, by several workmen, each taking a portion, one making the backs, another the sides, another the bellies, and so on with the other parts of the instrument, the whole being finally arranged by a finisher. Such work must necessarily be void of any artistic nature; they are like instruments made in a mould, not on a mould, so painfully are they alike. This Manchester of Fiddle-making has doubtless been called into being by the great demand for cheap instruments, and has answered thus far its purpose, but it has certainly helped to destroy the gallant little bands of makers who were once common in France, Germany, and England, among whom were men who were guided by reverential feelings for the art, irrespective of the gains they reaped by their labours. The number of instruments yearly made in Mirecourt and Saxony¹ amounts to many thou-
3¹ Germany's yearly output of such instruments is enormous, the principal seats of manufacture being Mark-Neukirchen (Saxony) and Mittenwald (Bavaria).
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