VIOLINS AT CREMONA
Cremona! Amati! two words making melody with their very syllables,
and a deeper harmony still for the lover of music, from the
association of ideas which they excite.
With the assumed immigration of makers from Brescia--the emergence
of the Amati family (the name of Amati is not found in the Brescian
archives), and their final residence at Cremona--begins the classic
period of the violin.
Cremona, ancient city of strife, which, owing to its very situation
(κρι μόνος, “high rock” and “alone”), was the battle-point of the
middle ages from the days of the old Goths and Lombards down to quite
modern times; Cremona, with its stately cathedral so little known
or visited, yet possessing two of the finest red lions couchant,
supporting portico columns of one of the noblest cathedral façades in
Italy; Cremona, with its antiquated back streets, its drowsy quiet
life gliding on apart from the beaten thoroughfares of travel--truly,
Cremona town is a place to set one dreaming!
I have narrated elsewhere my pilgrimage to the place which so
ungratefully forgets almost the very tradition of the Amati,
Stradivari, and Guarnerii, whose fabrics alone have given it a
musical immortality, and whose names are hung up high like the stars,
which no discords of the middle ages, sieges, or brawls can ever
reach.
Let us now try and come face to face with these immortal makers.
Andrea Amati (_père_) settled at Cremona, and made violins from
1520-46. He brought with him his brother Nicolo (not the great
Nicolo, afterwards master of Stradivari, _Italian_, or Stradiuarius,
_Latin_).
Andrea Amati had two sons, Antonio and Geronimo, who made violins
jointly as well as separately. When Antonio married, the fiddles of
neither seemed to improve. The brothers ceased for a time at least
to work together (there being, it is said, a period in which there
are no joint reductions); but as there are much later violins bearing
their joint names, it has been assumed that they again collaborated.
If we trust some of these late labels--the brothers being born about
1555-56, and one of the joint violins being dated 1687--it would
follow that the venerable artificers were still making violins at the
age of 136 years, which beats Stradivari himself, who only worked
till he was ninety-three.
Geronimo, according to one writer’s account of his labels, went even
one better, for there is a Geronimo violin dated 1698; so if this
Geronimo, brother of Antonio, was born about 1556, which is tolerably
certain, he went on working even longer than Moses, with his eye
undimmed and his natural strength unabated, down to the age of 148!
The confusion has arisen from confounding Geronimo, brother of
Antonio, with Geronimo, son of the great Nicolo (born 1649, died
1740). But if there exists a signed Geronimo and Antonio dated 1698,
which seems very doubtful, it would be certainly easier to believe
that, as the demand for Italian instruments by makers of repute had
well set in before 1700, the late Antonio and Geronimo label was
stolen from the old workshops--the last two figures of 16--being
filled in, and the label clapped on to cover the fraud; whilst any
Geronimo violin dated 1698 would be by Geronimo, son of Nicolo; or
at most, one made up by some enterprising pupil out of the débris of
the elder Geronimo’s workshop--perhaps about the time that Nicolo
the Great, son of Geronimo and grandson of Andrea, was working with
his pupils, Stradivari and Andrea, Guarnerii, and his own son, the
younger Geronimo or Girolamo Amati.
But with this Geronimo Amati, son of Nicolo (born 1649), and a
certain Don Nicolo Amati, an Italian priest, we need not trouble
ourselves beyond recording their names.
A good deal has been said about Andrea Amati and his violins. He was
certainly the founder of the family, but not much is known about him
except that he probably, almost certainly, acquired from Brescia the
Maggini type, and that his violins are somewhat smaller, arched in
the belly, with a varnish that runs out of the Brescian brown into
the mellow and brilliant gold and ruddy tints common to the Cremona
varnish; the later Amatis have a tendency to revert to the browner
hue.
That Andrea made some choice violins for Charles IX. of
France--twenty-four violins, twelve large, twelve small pattern,
known as “les petits violons du roi”--there can be no doubt, but they
disappeared from Versailles in the political disturbances about 1790.
The arms of France, we are told, were painted on the backs, and they
are said to have been of beautiful workmanship.
A ’cello, “Andrea Amati Cremonentis faciebat, 1572,” was sold amongst
some others belonging to Sir William Curtis, May 1827. This is known
as the “Bridge’s viollo.” Its history is romantic, it having been
presented by Pope Pius V. to Charles IX. of France, and surnamed the
“King.”
The Amati characteristic, which culminates, along with other
qualities of sonority, in the great Nicolo, 1596-1684, is sweetness
of tone; but a certain want of power is noticeable, especially on the
fourth string. The “A” is beautiful, the “E” soft and delicate, and
the third very full and round--qualities which are also conspicuous
in the brothers Geronimo.
But if Amati tone is of cabinet, not concert quality, its quality is
of a kind unequalled for charm and sensitiveness, and although not
loud, some violins made by the brothers have a considerable carrying
power.
The Amati heads or scrolls retained a certain simplicity and antique
Brescian look even after the finish and form of the body of the
violin had left the Brescian school far behind. The double purfling
of Brescia is also gone, but the brothers purfled very beautifully,
with a bend of perfect regularity and smoothness.
The violins of Antonio are better than his brother’s, but the joint
violins are the best, and have been oftenest forged.
The brothers indeed made excellent violas, but, as the fashion then
was, too large. They have been sometimes cut down. Sir Frederick Gore
Ousely once had a fine specimen, which I remember playing upon many
years ago at Tenby--tone very full and mellow.
Richard Blagrove, a brother of Henry Blagrove, the admirable early
Monday Popular violinist, was a viola player, and used a reputed
Amati, but it was really a Gagliano. Many of us (1897) can remember
how richly it contributed to the triumph of a quartet, of which
Joachim, Riess, and Piatti were often the other members.
Her late Majesty the Queen had a fine painted Amati, unfortunately
cut down; and Miss Seton’s Geronimo Amati is a rare specimen, and
from the MS. of Ascenzio, a priest at Madrid, we learn that it was a
favourite violin of Charles IV. of Spain.
Geronimo, after separating from Antonio, reduced the arching of his
bellies, but, singularly enough, without improving his tone-power.
The over-arching of the early makers and scooped side-curves are
generally supposed to be a vice in acoustics finally overcome by
the gentle natural curve and flatter models of Nicolo, but it is
perhaps possible to ride a theory too hard. I have certainly played
on instruments deeply grooved, with rounded bellies, powerful Dukes
and piercing Stainers, which, according to the orthodox theory, had
no business to sound as loud as they did. It is well known that in
both these Amati makers the late Cremona flat curve is conspicuous by
its absence; and whilst I do not for a moment deny that the flatness
of the Stradivari model is preferable, I think the superiority of
the late Cremona tone may be due to a good many other things beside
that. It will always be a question whether the man who makes possible
the last perfection of an art or the man who actually achieves it is
really the greater genius. Pietro Perugino or Raffaello in painting;
Chaucer or Shakespeare in literature; Handel or Beethoven in music;
Gasparo and Maggini or Stradivari in violin-making; but popular
opinion generally plucks the blossom without troubling itself much
about the roots, and the prices fetched by the finest Strad and the
finest Gasparo, or even Nicolo Amati, practically settle the question
as regards the violin-makers. £400 is an unusual price for a fine
Nicolo (£250 is nearer the mark, 1898); £1000 is not an uncommon
figure for a good Strad, and his finest specimens command £2000
(1898).
Nicolo, the great son of Geronimo, was born in 1596, and died close
upon the seventeen hundreds, in 1684. Nicolo was quite aware that he
resumed in himself the fine qualities of his distinguished family
and improved upon them. It is true he did not trouble himself much
with his grandfather Andrea, whom he probably regarded as a worthy
old gentleman quite out of date. There could have been little in
those small, almost three-quarter size, brown varnished, and sweet
but feeble-sounding violins to attract the aspiring grandson; but
there were qualities in the somewhat larger models of the famous
brothers, Geronimo and Antonio, which set his hand and head agoing,
when as a boy he fell to copying and carving backs and bellies, and
twisting ribs and throwing scrolls, in his father’s little workshop
at Cremona, opposite the west front of the Saint Dominic Church.
Nicolo the Great doubtless followed and imitated his father Geronimo,
but wishing to miss nothing, and perhaps labouring under a sense of
obligation or merely out of genuine affection, his labels embody an
immortal acknowledgment of indebtedness to both masters. They run
thus:--“Nicolaus Amatus Cremonem Hieronymi Fil, _ac Antonij Nepos_
fecit, 1677.” (The italics are mine.)
Nicolo the Great’s smaller patterns made in his father’s workshop are
not unfrequently to be met with, and can be picked up for between £80
and £100, or even less.
But as we watch his dates, the touch of Nicolo very soon becomes
distinctive. On the death of his father and uncle he found himself
in possession of a workshop which inherited a great name, but which
was destined to transmit to future generations the greatest violin
names in the world. Among the pupils of Nicolo in 1653 sat the
brothers Guarneri, Andrea Guarnerius having witnessed the marriage
of his master Nicolo and signed the register; and by the side of
Andrea Guarnerius sat a young man named Antonio Stradivari, or, as we
usually call him, Stradiuarius.
Most of the Nicolo violins before 1645 are of the smaller pattern,
but after this date down to 1684, the year of his death, the eye of a
connoisseur will notice an increase in size, a finish in workmanship,
and a more delicate purfle (never double). The model is still
somewhat high in back and belly, but with an increasing tendency
to get flatter; the side-grooving is less pronounced, whilst the
corners are noticeably drawn out into finer points full of character,
arresting the eye, lightening as it were the model, and giving the
whole physiognomy of the instrument a grace and piquancy hitherto
unattempted.
The sound-holes of Nicolo are pointed and somewhat narrow; the scroll
is cut a little too flat for the later taste, but passes as the
century wanes into a somewhat larger and bolder style. The wood seems
to be chosen almost as much for its mottled or fine-grained beauty as
for its acoustical properties.
The early Nicolo varnish is of brownish Brescian type, but later on
it glows with the rich amber tints of Cremona, and those dragon-blood
stains which give to some Strads and Josephs such warm and generous
tints like the sunlit dashes of mellow red on a ripe nectarine.
Mr Somers Cocks (1898) has a most glorious Amati violoncello, “one
of the finest ever seen or heard,” so said to me a distinguished
connoisseur. Mr Marshall Bulley’s violoncello, a Jerome (the
younger) Amati, is also a rare gem of tone and workmanship.[1]
The grand Amati violin pattern runs some of the Stradivari violins
very hard, and is evidently the model on which the 1700-35 Strads are
“calqué,” as the French say. The side-grooving, generally held to
interfere with the volume of tone, whilst supposed by some to add to
its sweetness, has not disappeared as in the Strad grand model, but
it has become less pronounced. The tone is lovely and sensitive, and
the Nicolo is truly delightful to handle. It is _par excellence_ the
lady’s violin.
The one before me, where the varnish still remains, melts into light
orange with clear golden gleams in it. If Joseph is the strong
male, Nicholas or Nicolo certainly belongs to the softer and more
yielding sex. The tone is most delicate, and of ravishing sweetness.
It seems to leap out almost before the horse-hair has feathered the
strings. It continues to sing on like a vibrating silver bell, as if
intoxicated with itself, long after the bow has ceased its contact.
In the sweet Nicolo the lover finds no bars, no obstacles; it is won
almost before ’tis wooed (Plate V.).
[Illustration]
We are interested to know that in his own time Nicolo’s work was
carefully imitated, if not forged; whilst his supremacy over one
of his best pupils, Francesco Rugereo, Rugieri, or Rugerius, was
clearly acknowledged; for we find that a certain Tomaso Antonio
Vitali, who seems to have bought a violin with a Nicolo label inside,
and paid twelve doubloons (or about £12, 10s.) for it, complained
bitterly that on removing the false label he had discovered the name
of Ruggeri underneath it. The aggrieved Tomaso thereupon applied to
his liege sovereign, the Grand Duke of Modena, for summary redress,
avowing that he had given a higher price because the violin had a
label of Nicolo, “who,” he adds, “was a maker of great repute in his
profession, but now it was proved to be only a violin by Rugerius the
pupil, a maker of less credit.” The violin, he said, was scarce worth
to him more than three doubloons; the petitioner therefore prayed
the Duke for redress. Whether he got it or not was no doubt very
important to him, but of very little consequence to us. The fact that
he made the application is the point.
The GUARNERII family must have made violas or violins as the sand
of the sea in number, if the frequency of their labels may be taken
as any guide; and in truth they were a long-lived and industrious
family, and doubtless made a good many instruments, chiefly violins.
But the reputation of Andrew and Peter, and above all the great
Giuseppe (Joseph) del Gesù, led to the early fabrication of pseudo
Josephs, and labels in numbers far beyond what all the great makers
of Cremona together could have produced.
Andrea Guarneri (Andrew Guarnerius) the apprentice, as we have seen,
was one of the witnesses to the great Nicolo Amati’s marriage in
1641, and Nicolo enters his pupil’s name in the church register as
aged fifteen, which gives us the year of his birth, 1626. He worked
on till 1698; in 1652 he married, and two of his sons, Giuseppe (not
the great Giuseppe, his nephew) and Pietro, worthily sustained and
improved upon their father’s reputation.
Many of the violins of Andrea Guarneri are of the smaller Nicolo
pattern, but somewhat inferior, and not always well finished. The
wood of his rare ’cellos, however, although plain in appearance, can
boast of singularly fine acoustic qualities.
There is a well-known ’cello now (1897) belonging to Miss Theobald,
of his finest workmanship.
Giuseppe, second son of Andrea Gianbattista Giuseppe, born 1666
to 1739, as distinguished from Del Gesù or “Jesus” Giuseppe,
struck out a freer line of work. His narrow-waisted boldly-curved
instruments, with their Brescian-looking sound-holes set low down,
his rich, almost too profusely rich, varnish and fine wood, but not
over-finished workmanship, give his violins quite a characteristic
appearance, and in power of tone they are superior to his father’s.
But next to the great Giuseppe del Gesù, Pietro Guarneri is the
flower of the family, and most sought after by amateurs.
The grain of his bellies is often wide, the distance between the
sound-holes is conspicuous, the sound-holes themselves are rounder
and less Brescian, the scrolls are beautifully cut, and the varnish
is superb, from golden tints to pale red, which has thrown some
writers into rhapsodies about setting suns and the colours of the
rainbow.
Passing over a lesser Pietro, son of the lesser Giuseppe, son of
Andrea, who worked at Mantua, we come to the one man who, with the
exception of the great Nicolo, is worthy to measure swords (or bows)
with Stradivari. He came, singularly enough, from a side branch, and
not in direct descent from Andrea or any violin-maker, being the son
of one John Baptist Guarnerius, and was born at Cremona in 1683.
The father of the great Giuseppe was the son of one Bernardo
Guarnerius, who was a cousin of Andrea, and therefore the great
Joseph was nephew of Andrea Guarnerius, just as the great Nicolo was
the nephew of Andrea Amati; but a distinguished fact separates our
Giuseppe from all his illustrious kinsfolk, and it is this, that his
father, Bernardo, does not seem to have been a violin-maker at all,
so the young Giuseppe owed his teaching most probably to his uncle
and cousins.
Most writers have speculated blindly enough upon his distinctive
appendage “del Gesù” some talking about the Jesuits or a supposed
religious bent. This is one of the many cases where sapient
antiquaries, in seeking for recondite origins, neglect the simplest
facts and ignore the easiest explanations. What can be more
simple than for the great Giuseppe, conscious of his superiority
to Gianbattista, son of Andrea Guarneri, as well as anxious to
distinguish himself from Gianbattista, his father, and coming _after_
both, though _preferred_ before them, should call himself the “del
Gesù” or Jesus, who followed after the John Baptist of the family?
So far from indicating any particular reverence for religion, the
assumption of this bold title seems to me to partake more of a
certain irreverent levity; and if, as tradition says, the great
Giuseppe or Joseph was somewhat of a free liver, and perhaps even a
sceptic, he may have had small scruples in so lightly treating sacred
names and subjects.
The question as to who may have been his master, and the influence
(or otherwise) of Stradivari upon him, has also been involved, as I
think, in needless mystery.
Since Del Gesù worked at Cremona and must have been, as a cousin and
nephew, a good deal with his uncle and cousins, Andrea, Giovanni,
and Pietro, who lived there, it is no great stretch of fancy to
suppose that when he showed the family bent for violin-making,
he should have been apprenticed to study the art with his cousin
Giuseppe, son of Andrea, in which case he must have lived next door
to where Stradivari was working all through his finest period; and
though Giuseppe’s violins are rightly said to be in the style of his
cousin’s Gianbattista, and he may have drawn his early inspirations
from his cousin, it is impossible to suppose that so able a man
could be in daily contact with and yet wholly insensible to the
influence of the greatest maker who ever lived. Why, he not only
worked next door to Strad, but probably met him every afternoon at
the neighbouring café, and was doubtless often about his shop, year
in year out.
Of course the differences in the work of the two great masters are
obvious. The massive, bold, and original lines and less scrupulous
finish of Joseph the Great, the powerful (almost brutally powerful)
scroll, the loud trumpet-like imperious tone, all mark the masculine
as contrasted with the sweeter and more feminine qualities of the
gentler, bell-like Strad. The fact also before alluded to, that
between the back and the belly of the Strad there is usually but
one note, whilst between the back and belly of the Giuseppe del
Gesù there are sometimes more, all prove sterling and distinct
originality, as Rafael was distinct from Perugino or Michael Angelo
from Leonardo da Vinci. But enough; for to draw these comparisons
before describing the master may seem like putting the cart before
the horse.
So let us now, without further ado, locate the great violin shops at
Cremona and peep into workshop No. 6, in the Piazza S. Domenico, now
Piazza Roma.
In about 1540, Andrea Amati had set up his modest establishment,
trained his sons, and taken apprentices, bequeathing to Nicolo his
plant and pupils.
Stradivari and the early Guarnerii then worked together, cheek by
jowl; by-and-by Stradivari migrated to No. 5, next door, and the
Guarnerii with Giuseppe del Gesù, who died in 1745, the latest and
greatest of that family (surviving Stradiuarius, who died in 1737,
eight years), then set up at No. 6.
As I have had occasion to remark elsewhere, these three names, Amati,
the Guarnerii, Stradivari, there be none like them; these three shops
opposite the big Church of S. Domenico, now demolished, there never
were nor will be three such violin shops.
Here were made, in long, quiet years of peaceful labour, between 1560
and 1760, in steady and friendly rivalry, all the greatest violins in
the world.
The Giuseppe del Gesù on which Paganini played, now in the Town Hall
in Genoa, the Stradiuarius on which Ernst, now Lady Hallé (1898),
plays, Canon Percy Hudson’s violoncello, Joachim and Wilhelmj’s
“Strads,” the Alard, the Betts, the Dolphin, the Messie, the Pucelle,
the Tuscan, the Fountaine, the Rode, and the Viotti--these be the
wonders of the violin world.
But in following the development of the Guarnerii family into the
seventeen hundreds, the position of Giuseppe del Gesù, the king of
the Guarneri, must be clearly defined before we describe the rise
and progress of Stradivari, who ran parallel with, and who, in the
estimation of most violinists, seems to combine in himself, the _ne
plus ultra_ of all violin perfection.
Nothing about Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù is more remarkable than
the determined way in which, after examining the Amati types, he
deliberately went back to the Brescian Gasparo and Maggini models
for inspiration. The time had come when powerful tone was wanted.
The Amatis were sensitive, sweet, and weak; in the larger and more
massive Brescians Giuseppe found the suggestion of what he was
destined to make perfect. If only he could add their volume to the
Amati sensitiveness--an hour more or less spent on the cutting of
corners or neater purfling--what did it matter? Strength, power,
was what he wanted, and the sentiment is thrown off in the bulldog
type of his head or scroll, in the thickness of his boards so much
criticised, in the boldness rather than the grace and delicacy of his
curves.
He tried many experiments: flat make, full make, sound-holes
cut almost perpendicularly, shortened, slanting, and sometimes
disproportionately long. He was watching the effect on the volume and
quality of tone, and when he had in his own way conquered that secret
of grand sonority, whether empirically or by calculation, then, and
not till then, his workmanship improves.
He was like a man who had no time to think of the delicate cooking
till he had stayed his main appetite. His frequent habit of cutting
the wood upon the cross, _à contre sens_, as in the case of Mr Alfred
Gibson’s instrument (1897), a superb specimen of Del Gesù, shows up
the coruscations of the grain, and brings out each pore and vein by
the agate-like varnish--not agate-like in the sense of the French
chippy varnish, but in its clear crystalline depth and transparency.
Del Gesù’s varnish is never clotted, but is laid on thoroughly, yet
with a light hand. Mr Ruskin used to say that Sir Joshua Reynolds’
touch was so light that he could paint on a gossamer veil; Del
Gesù’s brush is also as light as a feather. Some of Del Gesù’s later
violins, dating from about 1740, after the death of Stradivarius, are
amongst his finest. The one used by Professor Sauret, and the other
lent to Mr Ludwig by Mr Frazer, are particularly fine, and belong
to this period. Paganini’s Joseph, now in the Town Hall at Genoa,
Alard’s, in the Museum of the Conservatoire of Music, Turin, and
Vieuxtemps’, now in the possession of Maurice Sons, also belong to
this great period.
The life of Joseph Guarnerius is more or less enveloped in mystery.
It seems, for instance, utterly impossible to get at the truth about
the so-called prison fiddles. Whenever a Joseph or a presumed Joseph
which is not up to Joseph’s standard comes into the market, it is
dubbed a Del Gesù prison-fiddle.
The story runs that Giuseppe, being a somewhat reckless person, got
into trouble and was locked up for many years, during which time the
gaoler’s daughter got him any wood she could find, and he made these
inferior pot-boiling fiddles, which she disposed of for such moderate
sums as she was able.
I prefer to put this legend wholly aside. Del Gesù may not have held
sacred things in high estimation, and he may have been somewhat of a
free liver--this rests on the authority of Carlo Bergonzi’s grandson,
who was not even a contemporary of Del Gesù--still he may have got
the gossip from Bergonzi, his own father, who was Stradivari’s pupil,
and doubtless a rival maker; and tongues may wag when interests are
or seem to be opposed, and stories will come forth finely variegated
when there is an extraordinary absence of reliable facts, as there
undoubtedly is in the case of Del Gesù.
[Illustration]
There is, however, no direct evidence whatever that Del Gesù was for
years in prison and that he died there, as says the legend; but Canon
Bazzi of Cremona has lately unearthed one Girolamo Guarneri who _did_
die in prison in 1715, and the names of two very different men, one
illustrious and the other obscure, have before now got mixed up, to
the detriment of the illustrious one.
Something similar is said to have happened to the great Athanasius,
whose name has been confounded with that of the obscure Pope
Anastasius, in whose presence a creed was recited by one Bishop
Victricius, and the confession of faith thus recited by command of
_Anastasius_ now passes as the creed of Saint _Athanasius_, since it
emphasises the Trinitarian doctrine chiefly connected with the name
of that illustrious doctor.
A Giuseppe del Gesù is much more difficult to find than a Strad--his
output, as compared to that of Stradivarius, is as one to six; his
life was shorter, and his working career probably more erratic. But
he is placed on a level with the immortal Antonio by some who know
how to handle him, and the prices of his wares have already reached
four figures.