The ancestry of the violin, considering this as the type of stringed
instruments played with a bow, goes back to the earliest antiquity; and
innumerable passages might be quoted from the Oriental and classical
writers illustrating the important part taken by the forefathers of the
modern violin in feast, festival, and religious ceremonial, in the fiery
delights of battle, and the more dulcet enjoyments of peace. But it
was not till the fifteenth century, in Italy, that the art of making
instruments of the viol class began to reach toward that high perfection
which it speedily attained. The long list of honored names connected
with the development of art in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth
centuries is a mighty roll-call, and among these the names of the great
violin-makers, beginning with Gaspard de Salo, of Brescia, who first
raised a rude craft to an art, are worthy of being included. From
Brescia came the masters who established the Cremona school, a name not
only immortal in the history of music, but full of vital significance;
for it was not till the violin was perfected, and a distinct school of
violin-playing founded, that the creation of the symphony, the highest
form of music, became possible.
The violin-makers of Cremona came, as we have said, from Brescia,
beginning with the Ama-tis. Though it does not lie within the province
of this work to discuss in any special or technical sense the history of
violin-making, something concerning the greatest of the Cremona masters
will be found both interesting and valuable as preliminary to the
sketches of the great players which make up the substance of the
volume. The Amatis, who established the violin-making art at Cremona,
successively improved, each member of the class stealing a march on
his predecessor, until the peerless masters of the art, Antonius
Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius del Jesû, advanced far beyond the
rivalry of their contemporaries and successors. The pupils of the
Amatis, Stradiuarius, and Guarnerius settled in Milan, Florence, and
other cities, which also became centers of violin-making, but never to
an extent which lessened the preeminence of the great Cremona makers.
There was one significant peculiarity of all the leading artists of this
violin-making epoch: each one as a pupil never contented himself with
making copies of his master's work, but strove incessantly to strike
out something in his work which should be an outcome of his own genius,
knowledge, and investigation. It was essentially a creative age.
Let us glance briefly at the artistic activity of the times when the
violin-making craft leaped so swiftly and surely to perfection. If we
turn to the days of Gaspard di Salo, Morelli, Magini, and the Amatis, we
find that when they were sending forth their fiddles, Raphael, Leonardo
da Vinci, Titian, and Tintoretto were busily painting their great
canvases. While Antonius Stradiuarius and Joseph Guarnerius were
occupied with the noble instruments which have immortalized their names,
Canaletto was painting his Venetian squares and canals, Giorgio was
superintending the manufacture of his inimitable maiolica, and the
Venetians were blowing glass of marvelous beauty and form. In the
musical world, Corelli was writing his gigues and sarabandes, Geminiani
composing his first instruction book for the violin, and Tartini
dreaming out his "Devil's Trill"; and while Guadognini (a pupil of
Antonius Stradiuarius), with the stars of lesser magnitude, were
exercising their calling, Viotti, the originator of the school of modern
violin-playing, was beginning to write his concertos, and Boccherini
laying the foundation of chamber music.
Such was the flourishing state of Italian art during the great Cremona
period, which opened up a mine of artistic wealth for succeeding
generations. It is a curious fact that not only the violin but violin
music was the creature of the most luxurious period of art; for, in that
golden age of the creative imagination, musicians contemporary with the
great violin-makers were writing music destined to be better understood
and appreciated when the violins then made should have reached their
maturity.
There can be no doubt that the conditions were all highly favorable
to the manufacture of great instruments. There were many composers
of genius and numerous orchestras scattered over Italy, Germany, and
France, and there must have been a demand for bow instruments of a high
order. In the sixteenth century, Palestrina and Zarlino were writing
grand church music, in which violins bore an important part. In the
seventeenth, lived Stradella, Lotti, Buononcini, Lulli, and Corelli. In
the eighteenth, when violin-making Avas at its zenith, there were such
names among the Italians as Scarlatti, Geminiani, Vivaldi, Locatelli,
Boccherini, Tartini, Piccini, Viotti, and Nardini; while in France it
was the epoch of Lecler and Gravinies, composers of violin music of
the highest class. Under the stimulus of such a general art culture the
makers of the violin must have enjoyed large patronage, and the more
eminent artists have received highly remunerative prices for their
labors, and, correlative to this practical success, a powerful stimulus
toward perfecting the design and workmanship of their instruments. These
plain artisans lived quiet and simple lives, but they bent their whole
souls to the work, and belonged to the class of minds of which Carlyle
speaks: "In a word, they willed one thing to which all other things were
made subordinate and subservient, and therefore they accomplished it.
The wedge will rend rocks, but its edge must be sharp and single; if it
be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces and will rend nothing."