VIOLINS AT CREMONA--_continued_
There is something inexorable about the concensus of posterity.
Individuals may chafe under it, and writers may try to reverse its
verdict. You even have crazes for the revival of neglected poets,
painters, and musicians, but you will never succeed in pushing from
their pedestals the great gods whom posterity has once decided to bow
down to.
De Beriot may choose to play on a Maggini, and Paganini may prefer
his Joseph, but even Maggini, Nicolo Amati, and Giuseppe Guarnerius,
who stand round as it were saluting one another, leave Stradivari
apart by himself like a Colossus on a mountain, and yet no one, not
the greatest connoisseur, is able to say exactly why. When so many
esteem individual violins above some Strads, and when Joseph del
Gesù is held to run the magic master very hard, still Strad stands
apart upon his mountain for all men to look up to and wonder at. And
why? We can only say it is the way with all the greatest; there is
something of the mystery of heaven about the incommunicable touch;
the true aureole forms about no head to order, and the lonely seats
are kept for the mighty.
Antonio Stradivari or Stradiuarius was born in 1644, and died, in his
ninety-third year, in 1737. We get the date of his death from the
register, and the date of his birth is fixed by a violin label (1736)
in his own handwriting, in which he states that he was ninety-three
years old when he made the instrument.
Stradiuarius married at the age of twenty-three a woman of
twenty-seven, who had been a widow for three years, whose maiden name
was Ferraboschi, and he adopted her one little girl. By her he had
six children, some of whom died before him. His second wife, whom he
married several years later, bore him five children, two of whom died
before him--so that in all Stradivari had eleven children. None of
them seemed to have inherited their father’s genius; only Omobono and
Francesco Stradivari made even decent fiddles, and so far maintained
the great name as to succeed at first in selling their wares at
their father’s prices. The buyers probably hoped that at least the
wood might have been selected by Stradivari _père_, and much of it
probably was; and if there was the chance of getting a spare rib or
back or belly with a touch of the master upon it, it was surely worth
a little speculation.
Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri, as stated before, were young
_garzoni_ or apprentices together in the workshop of the great Nicolo
Amati--sat on the same work bench, used the same tools, and doubtless
discussed the same problems.
In and out of that shop ran, no doubt, the boy Giuseppe Guarneri to
see his uncle Andrea. He must have always found Stradivari there;
and when, later on, Giuseppe imbibed a taste for fiddle-making, and
became himself the great Del Gesù, it is hard, I insist upon it, to
believe that what must have been a lifelong acquaintance with the
mighty Stradivari should have had no influence whatever in forming
his ideas and methods.
There is no mention of the youthful Stradivari having accompanied
Andrea Guarneri to the wedding of his master, Nicolo Amati; Andrea
was doubtless the older pupil, and Antonio Stradivari was taken on
later.
“If thou wouldst teach, learn; if thou wouldst create, first copy.”
It is generally held that for some years, roughly between 1660-70,
Stradiuarius simply made up, blocked out, drew, glued, mixed varnish,
and worked generally, but without signing his own name to any
fiddles. He was _learning_; but in 1660 he begins to sign his name,
not from pride, but because his master made him do so. From before
that date to about 1670, which brings us to within fourteen years of
Nicolo Amati’s death, he made what are sometimes called Amati Strads.
At this time Antonio followed closely the violins of the early Nicolo
rather than the grand Amati pattern, but he appears to have followed
his master’s developments continuously, slowly, but surely.
There exists a Stradivari violin with a label Nicholai Amati (anno
1667), and about that date (when he married) Antonio seems to
have left his master’s workshop, but still continued closely to
copy Nicolo, and many violins of his between 1660 and 1670 pass
as Amatis, whilst others are called Amati Strads, and some are
apparently joint productions.
When Stradiuarius married (about 1667) and left Nicolo Amati, he set
up round the corner in the same street as the brothers Guarnerii, and
almost next door to them, in the square opposite the great Church
of S. Domenico. From about this time connoisseurs notice a great
improvement in Stradivari’s technique; but up to 1672 at least,
remaining a close copyist of Amati, he doubtless kept on terms of the
closest intimacy with Nicolo, now in his decline, and benefited by
the abundance of orders flowing in for Amati violins which the old
master was unable to execute.
From 1660 to 1684 was a period of great activity, perhaps haste;
even some pot-boiling Stradivari violins may then have been made as
the young family increased. Antonio’s wood is often plain about this
time, and not up to the best taste and selection of his master, but
he evidently remained his right-hand man to the end; and when Nicolo
died, at the ripe age of eighty-eight, he left all his tools and his
plant not to his son Girolamo, then about thirty-five, but to Antonio
Stradivari, then just forty years old.
In 1680, four years before the death of Nicolo, Antonio had so far
prospered as to be able to buy his house (which I visited in 1880),
at 1 Piazza Roma, for about £800. Desiderio Arisi, a Cremonese, has
left an interesting MS. in which he speaks of “his intimate friend
Antonio Stradivari.” The MS. is dated 1720, or seventeen years before
the death of Stradivari.
Arisi alludes to a point of great interest which early excited my
attention and curiosity--the many-sidedness of the man. “In Cremona,”
writes Arisi, “is also living my intimate friend Antonio Stradivari,
an excellent maker of _all kinds of musical instruments_.” Indeed,
he could make anything that was in demand, and he did; he could
“fancy-purfle” to order, inlay, make fiddles in odd shapes, or
with a twist in the curve here or there, or longer or shorter for
experiment, or big or small.
The Marquis Carlo dal Negro of Genoa owned a Stradivari harp in 1820.
The master was not above making mandolines and lutes to order. Messrs
Hill own a perfectly plain Stradivari guitar in fine condition. It
is of exquisite close-grained wood. I have often wanted to hear the
sound of that guitar. I noticed a Stradivari cithern in the South
Kensington Loan Collection with an elaborately carved female head of
great beauty. I did not wonder that he who could carve such scrolls
could carve a head or anything else.
There are, or were, within the present century, other gems of
workmanship, some of which it is to be feared have perished,
children’s fiddles, instruments made with small figures, flowers,
arabesques. Everything that comes from his hand is finely accurate
in drawing. Sometimes his decoration is merely painted in black,
sometimes ivory, ebony, or mother-of-pearl is used, but everything
Stradivari did was perfectly done; he qualified himself to the _n_th,
as mathematicians say, for each branch of his art.
In these days one man draws, another blocks out, another inlays,
another finishes. Stradivarius did all, and did all consummately
well. His heads and arabesques are worthy of Cellini, his inlaying
of the finest Florentine marqueterie; his scrolls and curves are of
Pheidian beauty; his varnishing is his own.
On the death of Amati, Stradiuarius and the Guarnerii had the Cremona
market to themselves, and whilst the competition was quite wholesome,
there is no reason to suppose that their rivalry was other than
a friendly one. They had all been brought up together, they had
worked as boys together, they had doubtless lent each other tools,
touched up each other’s backs and bellies, varnished each other’s
ribs, criticised each other’s scrolls from boyhood; and now that the
Cremona violin was in the ascendant, and kings and nobles from Spain,
France, Germany, Saxony, and even England were anxious for Cremona
fiddles, there was a market for them all.
The bitterness of competition is not always due to rival makers,
but often to over-production; and such a thing as over-production
of fiddles in those days was unknown. Nay, the orders that came in
could not be executed fast enough. Music walked faster than the
instruments could follow it. When the King of Poland wanted a Strad
violin he knew his man, and sent his Capelmeister Voleme to Cremona,
with orders to stop there and bring back the twelve violins ordered
for the court orchestra. “So,” says Arisi, “Voleme arrived in 1715
on the 10th June, and remained there three months, and when all the
instruments were ready he took them with him to Poland.”
But at this time Stradivari was at his zenith. “There is not in the
world,” writes Lorenzo Giustiniani, a Venetian nobleman, to the great
artificer in 1715, “a more skilled maker of musical instruments than
yourself, and as I wish to preserve a record of such an illustrious
man and famous artist, I trouble you with this letter to ask whether
you feel disposed to make me a violin of the highest quality and
finish that you can bestow upon it.”
But we must not anticipate.
After the death of the illustrious Nicolo Amati, this patient
pupil, this careful copyist, this accurate and tireless student and
experimentalist, begins to assert his strong individuality. His
scroll departs from the feminine Amati type, and becomes striking
and independent, his sound-holes recline more, his corners are
pronounced, his middle bout curves are prolonged, his varnish is
almost fancifully varied from rich gold to soft velvety red. His wood
is now invariably chosen with the utmost care, and as he made chiefly
for the nobility, royalty, and the higher clerical dignitaries, he
was not only on his mettle, but he could afford to work just as he
chose.
In 1682, Michele Monzi, a rich Venetian banker, sent him an order for
a chest of violins, altos and ’cellos, which were to be presented to
our King James II. They were so much liked that his Majesty ordered a
viol di gamba of Stradiuarius in 1686.
[Illustration:
Rode Strad Spanish Tenor Spanish Strad
Christina Strad
CELO]
In 1685, Cardinal Orsini, afterwards Pope Benedict XIII., had ordered
a violoncello and two violins of him, besides making him “one of his
private attendants,” an honorary title, but equivalent to appointing
Stradiuarius instrument-maker to the Cardinal Archbishop. We commend
this fact to his Holiness Pope Leo XIII. (1897), who has lately
placed the violin on his _index expurgatoritus_ of instruments, as
being too frivolous for the solemnities of divine service! Yet Pius
IX. was a pretty good fiddler.
In 1687 Stradivari makes his famous set of instruments for the
Spanish Court, inlaid with ivory, with a scroll-work running round
the sides. One of these rarities--a violin--found its way into the
hands of Ole Bull, the famous violinist. It has been since sold in
England to Dr Charles Oldham of Brighton. The tenor is, I believe, in
existence. When last in the market, it had lost its ivory purfling,
which has since been exquisitely replaced by Messrs Hill.
There are extant several very small violins made evidently to order
about this period. The fallacy of different sizes for different ages
from childhood upwards is one which will always smile to makers
and those acute persons who teach the violin and buy their pupils’
instruments, which of course have to be changed as the children grow
up, for larger and larger ones. I have always protested against this.
A child of eight had much better play the violin like a violoncello
(at the age of seven, as I did myself) than be given a small one; but
when I was eight I could hold a full-sized violin to my chin--not
quite in the correct position, no doubt, but near enough. Thus from
the very first, when at six or seven years of age, I played the
violin like the violoncello, I never had to _unlearn my intervals_
in stopping the strings. _The brain learns intervals._ An habitual
tenor player never plays the violin quite in tune, and _vice versâ_;
and so every time a larger violin is placed in the pupil’s hands, the
brain is bothered with the narrower stopping learned in the preceding
period. Still, no one can regret the exquisite cabinet, almost toy
specimens, made by the Amati and Guarnerii as well as by Strad.
Artistically they are gems; musically, fallacies. I have never got
anybody to agree with me about not using dwarf fiddles. Joachim, I
believe, contended that for a child to use a large fiddle stiffens
his muscles. I don’t believe it; it certainly did not stiffen mine.
I believe I am also in a minority in my partiality for old bridges.
Neither theory is, in fact, “good for trade.”
In 1690 Stradivari executed a celebrated order for the Prince
of Tuscany, through the Marquis Bartholomeo Aribati. Of these
_chefs-d’œuvre_ the Marquis writes: “I assure you the Prince has
accepted your instruments with more pleasure than I could expect. The
players in the orchestra are unanimous in expressing appreciation.
They declare your instruments to be quite perfect; they all say
they never heard a violoncello with such a tone as yours. My having
brought to the knowledge of such a person as his Highness your great
skill will doubtless procure you many orders from his exalted
house”--and then follow more orders for two tenors. On this occasion,
we learn, from the relics of Stradivari in the possession of the
Marquis della Valle, that the great violin-maker characteristically
enough made the most beautiful cases for the royal instruments,
decorating them profusely with armorial bearings and symbols
appropriate to each instrument.
[Illustration:
Rode Strad Spanish Tenor Spanish Strad
]
The order was given in 1684, but the instruments were not handed in
till 1690. The Grand Duke, it seems, came back for more, as there was
found amongst his instruments a violin of the grand pattern bearing
the later date, 1716.
I cannot forbear to call attention to the exquisite
chromo-lithographs of the Tuscan violin, and the lucid description
and history of this last-named famous masterpiece, in Messrs
Hill’s handsome monograph. He declares it to be in the very finest
preservation still, with an unbroken and authentic record, and to
possess all the noblest qualities of the incomparable master. It is
on the very verge of his great period, bearing the date 1690, and
was bought by Mr David Ker in 1794. The Tuscan viola and violoncello
are still in the Institute at Florence, and I advise all lovers of
Cremona who get the chance to go and inspect them.
The only other point of great general interest before the year 1700,
when Stradivarius enters on his golden period, is the deliberate
manufacture of a certain number of violins on a pattern distinct from
the Amati, and from any patterns adopted by himself before 1686-1694,
or after 1700. These instruments are known as long Strads, and they
seem to be a sort of constructional or experimental link between
the smaller Amati pattern and the grand Strad pattern of 1700-37--a
model evidently suggested by the grand Nicolo, but not adopted by the
cautious Strad till some years after Nicolo’s death.
From 1694 to 1700 Stradivari not only went out of his way to make
long Strads, which not only looked longer because they were narrower
and pinched in, but actually were longer--_i.e._ 14-inch, as compared
to the 1690 13-inch Strad. In other respects also he walked through
his own traditions. Having mastered all violin lore, he was evidently
at last trying a series of daring experiments to settle in his own
mind once and for ever certain problems of tone.
We have known painters trifle with colour in the same way.
Gainsborough would paint his blue boy, and Whistler symphonies in
green, mauve, or anything else unexpected, and Turner would recreate
the light that never was on sea or land; but in reality it was no
trifling, but study in arrangement of colour. So you can have study
in construction, empirical ventures, and a testing of tone problems,
whether in sound or colour.
As Stradivari mused and carved, and glued and varnished, year after
year, his meditations might run thus: “Flatten the belly--thicker
here or there according to wood, density of fibre; air column
restrained by narrow width, as in the long pattern, but same
cubic inches of air allowed for in length or height of ribs, only
differently defined by different shapes of instruments. Enlarge
width, thin planks, but try different thicknesses; see how different
densities of wood go together. Try old seasoned wood for back, newer
for belly, or _vice versâ_; if wood hard, thin it; if soft, thicken
it; try effect of higher ribs on flat curves; lower the ribs on more
bulgy curves and grooved sides. What did Nicolo aim at with his grand
pattern? Adopt his width and size, and flatten his belly. Try and
save his sweetness (did the grooves give that?) with the flatter
back and belly, which gives louder tone, adopting the mathematical
curve of nature, suggested by the vibration of a string; certainly
that gives power. Is a joined back, or a back in one piece, best or
indifferent? That would depend on wood attainable. How would it be
to patch bits of precious wood if inter-congenial? That generally
succeeds. A good secret that, but an open one--wanted always the
patcher!”
This idea of patching was certainly one of the most inspired thoughts
that ever occurred to him. He seems to have kept wood of the finest
acoustic properties for his best orders. He had favourite planks; we
can trace one of these by a stain that runs through the grain, and
the wood crops up again and again in some of his best fiddles.
The plank must have been known to his pupils, for the remains of it
were worked up after his death.
“Now for the sound-bar,” ponders Stradivari; “thick or thin,
according to the density or elasticity of the back and belly. And its
position? A little transverse, of course--slightly diagonal to be in
the line of vibration. Study effect on power of different strings
by placing it a fraction of an inch one way or another; place it
slightly aslant for experiment. And the varnish?” But that will call
for a few separate paragraphs by-and-by.
I have tried to indicate the kind of observation and meditation,
demanding unlimited time, patience, and love, which Stradivari
devoted for the better part of a century to his art, and without
which those Cremona _chefs-d’œuvre_, the Dolphin, the Messie, Tuscan,
Betts, and Pucelle Strads, could never have come forth.
I have alluded to Strad’s taking late to the large Amati pattern for
violins, inclining for some time to the small size. I do not know
that any one has yet noticed that in violoncellos Strad reversed this
order of work, making his early violoncellos large, and diminishing
their size. As he reached his golden period he probably felt that the
demands made by virtuosity and tone-power were quite alike consistent
with a larger type of violin and a smaller and more manageable size
of violoncello.
The violinist is well aware of the value of Strad’s golden period,
which will cost him gold; for, after about 1700, a fine Strad will be
worth to him from £1000 and upwards, according to its condition.
The long apprenticeship was at last over, and in 1700 the master
had reached the ripe age of fifty-six, an age at which so many have
achieved their greatest work. He was at the acme of his power,
experience, and fame; no one could teach him anything now, and
apparently he had nothing to learn. He could at last wield his tools
as a Millais or a Tadema wields his brush, a Flaxman his pencil, a
Canova his chisel, or as a Mozart or Wagner handles his score. He
knew what he wanted, and he could do it, and do it with a spontaneous
ease and joy which seems even now to smile to us from the saucy
corners of his bouts, the free daring curves of his grand pattern,
and the lightly tossed and lifted scrolls.
No one has failed to notice the masterful ease, the emancipation from
all mannerism, the cool defiance of precedent and uniformity, and
even symmetry, which characterises his great period from 1700 to 1730.
The violins are not all alike. Strad knew that the secret was not
merely in the pattern or shape; he could vary his curves, and yet
produce masterpieces, because he knew all about the air column, the
wood densities, and the proportions and quantities which should be
combined for the requisite result, and he could mix them differently
like a master colourist. He no more treated every violin as if it
had the same constitution than does a physician treat every human
body alike; it is not so much nitrogenous or carbonaceous food, and
so much liquid, but it is these and other things used in proportion,
according to your digestion and temperament, which will produce in
that instrument, your body, the harmony of health; and how close is
the analogy between the constitution of a violin and that of a human
body--how varied is the texture, the tissue, quality, fibre, and
density of the component parts of each--I have endeavoured to point
out as succinctly as I could.
So, in the grand period, the grand pattern Strads are all made
with a trained, almost inspired instinct, according to those laws
which govern the tone qualities aimed at; but the fiddles are by no
means alike to look at. They have the charm of imaginative variety,
combined with the unity of supreme excellence.
To this great period belongs the Dolphin Strad, so called, it is
said, from the melting and almost iridescent tints of the varnish.
To me, however, the violin almost suggests the life, freedom, and
elegant poise of that graceful fish whose name it bears. The beauty
and acoustic properties of the Dolphin wood are quite special, and
can easily be compared with other violins of the same period, some of
which are much plainer to look at, and somewhat different in form,
and though very charming, hardly so bell-like in tone.
The last time I had the privilege of touching the Dolphin Strad was
at my lecture on violins before the Royal Institution in 1880. I
shall never forget its ringing notes and its exquisite sensibility.
It seemed anxious to speak before it was spoken to; when touched,
it seemed to do all for itself like magic. Instead of the player
showing it off, it shows off the player; he begins to feel he has
nothing to learn in tone production. It is almost like sitting at
those ingeniously contrived pianos that make elaborate music, and
you merely have to put your hands on a dummy keyboard, press the
keys, and appear to be playing, and then you roll off Chopin and
Mendelssohn perfectly, though you can scarce play your scales! Since
then Vuillaume’s sound-bar has been replaced with a stronger one by
Messrs Hill. It seemed to me quite perfect before, but I suppose one
must bow to experts in such matters.
The best opinion limits the number of instruments which Strad made to
about two thousand, only eight hundred of which at most are known to
be extant. Compared with any other maker except Vuillaume, both as
regards output and survival of work, Strad probably bears the palm.
An elaborate description, a careful portraiture of every known Strad,
together with its history, as far as recoverable, I must leave for
some more gifted and industrious recorder. I believe Messrs Hill are
preparing the most complete monograph on Stradivari which has ever
yet or is ever likely to appear, and I only wish I could dip into
their MS. and steal a few pages. It will certainly, when it appears,
be a monumental work, and there is no time to lose, as many of these
gems are known to have been destroyed, others dismembered, whilst
some are at the bottom of the sea. There are, however, a few more
famous specimens, which are of such unique interest that they cannot
be passed over even in so general a survey as this.
Mr Croall (1897) of Edinburgh is the happy owner of M. Artôt’s Strad,
varnished dark red, quite perfect, and one of the finest known for
tone; it is dated 1716. Lady Hallé still plays on Ernst’s violin,
bought for £500, and presented to her by the Earl of Dudley and
some others. I shall never forget the wonderful effects elicited
from it by the great magician Ernst in his palmy days, nor can I
understand the statement recently made that its tone is difficult to
elicit. I have heard the faintest vanishing whisper of its strings on
the Covent Garden stage when, as a boy, I was seated up in the top
gallery at one of Benedict’s monster season concerts early in the
fifties.
A romantic interest attaches to two Stradivari violins which have
come down to us in absolutely perfect condition: one is called the
Messie, the other the Pucelle or the Virgin.
The Messie was secured by Vuillaume after the death of that
remarkable man Luigi Tarisio, to whom further on I devote a special
section. It bears date 1716.
Tarisio would never let it be seen till Vuillaume possessed it; it
had then never been touched or played upon. He lengthened the neck,
but, without _inserting_ his new neck, he fixed it to a block placed
outside the ribs. Count Cozio de Salabue had bought it in 1760, but
never allowed it to be played upon.
Tarisio bought it after the Count’s death, and at his own death in
1854 it passed to Vuillaume, and was exhibited (No. 91) in the South
Kensington Loan Exhibition of 1872, and for the first time unveiled
beneath glass to the gaze of admiring thousands.
When I first saw the Messie I could not believe my eyes. It was
covered throughout and uniformly with thick rich red-brown varnish,
laid on with a firm brush, level and lavish. It seemed to have
left the workshop only the day before; the anointed glitter of the
fresh varnish was upon it, it looked hardly dry. It is of the grand
pattern, but not heavy and massive like some of the great Del Gesù’s,
but beautiful as a Pheidian carving, full of a certain special grace
and elegance. One “∫” is a shade lower than the other--a practice _so
common_ with Strad, especially in his later period, that it must have
been intentional, his artistic eye not tolerating even the suggestion
of mechanical uniformity. The Greeks worked similarly, no two sides
of their Corinthian capitals ever quite matching.
The “Messiah” back is in two pieces, the corners are absolutely
unrubbed, and completely covered with varnish--of no other specimen
can this be said. The head is light and graceful, “the scroll,” as
I have elsewhere observed, thrown off like a ribbon lightly curled
about the finger, and drawn in, one side of the scroll cut a little
lower than the other; the lines of the scroll are picked out with
thick black paint; only faint traces of this remain in other violin
heads. The black outline was artistically conceived, as it called
full attention to the scroll curve, always so characteristic a part
of violin physiognomy.
As the Messiah recently bought by Mr Crawford of Edinburgh for £2000
has now been played upon, it seems a pity that the world should not
sometimes be allowed to hear its voice; and I venture to say that a
well-advertised concert, in which two of our finest violinists should
be invited to play on the Messiah and the Pucelle--_i.e._, each
player upon each instrument once, thus giving four solos, so that the
audience might hear the same violins under different fingers--would
be an epoch in the musical world. The announcement would doubtless
pack St James’s or any other London hall.
The Pucelle or Virgin is the last Stradivari violin I have space
to notice. The “Virgin” is so called because its interior organism
had, up to the time when it came into M. Vuillaume’s hands, not been
interfered with--_i.e._, the inside bass bar had never been touched.
All the old violins have had these bars strengthened, and their necks
lengthened, to meet the strain of the modern high-pitch tension of
the strings on the belly, and the lengthened finger-board which the
development of advanced virtuosity demands.
These readjustments the Pucelle owes to Vuillaume. She is in fine
preservation otherwise, although her varnish is a good deal rubbed
in places. Her contour, so fanciful are even good judges, is by some
considered more graceful than that of the Messiah, but less graceful
by others. To me there seems to be little to choose between them;
each is a distinct conception.
The Virgin’s varnish is of a rich soft brown and yellow tone, rather
contrasting with the Messiah’s bright red. The head is stronger and
less graceful than that of some Strads (the Dolphin’s, for instance);
the Virgin’s back is in two parts, the belly is a little higher than
that of the Messiah. The only vestige of repair about her is where
the chin has rubbed into the purfling, which has accordingly been
renewed. The corners are somewhat fancifully cut, running straight
out in the top bouts, and hanging away in the lower bouts; there is a
rather marked indentation of the curve beneath them.
The Virgin is labelled 1709, and she reached Paris in 1840 (of course
it is a Tarisio violin); it has been owned by Mons. le Roy, a banker,
and passed to his heir, Mons. Glanday. She is now the property of a
member of the same family, and is very jealously guarded by her owner.
In vain does imagination seek to recover the image of the great maker
as he lived and moved and had his being through ninety-three years of
shower and shine. Undisturbed by petty sieges and local disturbances
and changes of administration, sought for and admired impartially by
the friends and the foes of his country, he wrought out calmly his
own matchless ideal.
Violins have no politics, and the great republic of Art dominates
the ages, and comprehends whilst it survives the rise and fall of
dynasties and empires.
I sometimes seem to see the grand old man standing at the door of
his modest but comfortable house--a tall, thin, perhaps rather gaunt
figure, most likely not a man of many words, carrying on for ever
mental processes connected with his subtle handicraft, seldom seen
without a chisel in his hand.
Behold him just risen from his stool, or come round to superintend or
criticise a carelessly cut scroll of Bergonzi, his best pupil; and
before he goes up into that almost sacred attic, open to the air, at
the top of the house, where hang the varnished fiddles and anointed
strips a-drying, he mutters a rebuke or rectifies a curve.
The old man comes to the door, and stands for a moment looking down
the street. He wears his woollen nightcap and his inevitable leather
apron; he salutes the neighbours as they pass, but they do not stop
to speak to him, they know he has no leisure for that. Only later,
at the café-cabaret, it may be, he will chat with Joseph Guarnerius,
and exhort him to more refinement; or tell his sons they will never
uphold the reputation of the firm if they do not work harder; and
as it is known that the master detests interruptions at home, in
those moments of rare leisure when he emerges with the regularity of
clockwork to sip his _vino_ or _sirop_ or coffee, Capelmeister A. or
Padre B. or Monsignor C. may surprise him for a chat, and inquire
timidly when the violoncello or quartet of violins ordered are likely
to be ready, and get for reply something too enigmatic or oracular to
be of any service; so patrons or patrons’ emissaries had to sit down
at Cremona and wait on the master’s convenience for the masterpieces
that could be got nowhere else.
His prices seem to have been altogether moderate, but we must
remember that the value of money was far greater in those days, a
sovereign going then nearly as far as five go now.
He sold his violins for £10 (= £40); the original price of his
violoncellos and violas does not seem to be known.
Although he had a large family, he must have made, if not inherited,
money, for there seems to have been a proverb current at Cremona, “As
rich as Stradivari.”
Some years ago, fresh from my visit to the house of Stradivari, then
still standing in the Piazza Roma, Cremona, I gave a full description
of the great maker’s _entourage_, which I need not here repeat; but
a single paragraph may serve better than anything that I can now
write, at the distance of over a decade, to place the reader in the
atmosphere in which Antonio Stradivari worked for more than half a
century.
I stood in the open loft at the top of his house where still in
the old beams stuck the rusty old nails upon which he hung up his
violins. And I saw out upon the north the wide blue sky, just
mellowing to rich purple, and flecked here and there with orange
streaks prophetic of sunset. Whenever Stradiuarius looked up from
his work, if he looked north his eye fell on the old towers of S.
Marcellino and S. Antonio, if he looked west the Cathedral with
its tall campanile rose dark against the sky, and what a sky! full
of clear sun in the morning, full of pure heat all day, and bathed
with ineffable tints in the cool of the evening when the light lay
low upon vinery and hanging garden, or spangled with ruddy gold the
eaves--the roofs and frescoed walls of the houses.
Here, up in the high air, with the sun his helper, the light his
minister, the blessed soft airs his journeymen, what time the
work-a-day noise of the city rose and the sound of matins and vespers
was in his ears, through the long warm days worked Antonio Stradivari.
Before the time came for the busy hand to fail, Antonio ceased to
sign all the violins that he made; but, with an old man’s natural
pride, he continued to sign a few down to the year of his death,
registering the number of his years in each case, and it is from one
of the latest of these, dated 1736, that we know his age.
He sank quietly to rest, evidently worn out naturally and nobly, if
not with his eye quite undimmed and his natural strength unabated,
certainly still full of marvellous vigour, unpalsied senses, and
undulled perception.
When the Chapel of the Rosary in the Church of S. Domenico, opposite
to which he had lived all his life, was pulled down, his funeral
tablet was rescued, and it is now in the Town Hall at Cremona; but
where are his ashes? Are they in the present family vault of the
Stradivaris, in the Campo Santo of Cremona, or in the parish of S.
Matthew? I was unable to ascertain. The tablet bears the following
simple inscription:--“Sepolcro di Antonio Stradivari E svoi Eredi,
Anno 1729.”
Many of his family had preceded him to the grave, both of his wives
and six of his eleven children, his last wife dying only nine months
before him, a significant and painful event in a life so regular
and uneventful, and one which may not unnaturally have hastened
his own end. None of the family seem to have been buried in the S.
Domenico vault, but in one belonging to Signor Francesco Vitani, in
the parish of S. Matthew; so it may be Antonio lies there.
[Illustration]
The Church of S. Domenico was pulled down several years ago; the
house of Stradiuarius was destroyed only recently. The Piazza S.
Domenico is now the Piazza Roma, and when an average Cremonese is
asked about Stradivari, he thinks of the fashionable _avocat_ of
that name, who appears to spend his time chiefly at Milan, and may
possibly resent the notion that a man in good society should ever
have had ancestors connected with fiddle-making. _Sic transit._
The achievements in violin-making up to the first quarter of the
eighteenth century are clearly summed up in the names of Antonio
Stradivari and Giuseppe (del Gesù) Guarneri.
It would be an interesting and thorny question to debate whether any
variations of importance or additions in excellence have since been
noticeable, and of course we naturally look to the best Cremonese
makers, who followed these giants of tone-power and sweetness.
The name of Carlo Bergonzi at once stands out as worthy, if not to
be bracketed with that of the two mighty men, at least to receive
their mantle and reflect something of their lustre. Carlo Bergonzi
was Stradivari’s favourite pupil; he lived next door, and afterwards
occupied Stradivari’s own house with his son.
He finished many of his master’s late violins, and issued some
others after his death collected from the débris of the great man’s
workshop; and Stradivari left him all his tools and plant.
He worked at Cremona between 1720-47 or 50, and followed at first
Stradivari’s example; for as Antonio made his early fiddles on the
pattern of Nicolo Amati, so did Bergonzi closely copy the grand Strad
pattern. But later on, and before the death of the old man, Bergonzi
conceived the ambition of attempting to weld the power of Giuseppe
Guarnerius with the round, bright, bell-like sweetness of the
Stradivari. To what extent he succeeded must be left to the judgment
and decision of connoisseurs, but the grand quality for which his
violins are increasingly appreciated is, no doubt, their powerful
sonority; that he clearly saw must be the indispensable quality for
all violins of the future.
The old tinkling days were over; the feeble, scraping, and muffled
viol tone was a thing of the past. The instrument had finally emerged
from the cloister, was no longer to be a mere adjunct to the voice
in dim sacristies and cathedral choirs; its sphere henceforth was to
be out in the wide, wide world, its triumphs were to be won in the
concert room, the opera house, and the grand musical arenas of solo
virtuosity.
And so, undoubtedly, what Bergonzi aimed at was body of tone and
_carrying power_, and he won it. This dominant idea has modified
even his pattern. He looks bold and loud. Yet is the pattern not
Guarneri, but Stradivari modified. Notice the larger breadth of the
top curve, a certain bold angularity about the bouts, and a freer
development of the lower part of the violin as well; the sound-holes
set lower and nearer to the purfling, and the flat model which
Stradivari discovered to be favourable to loudness. The scroll is
also characteristic--flatter in some places than that of his master,
but made to look bold and full of self-assertion by reason of the
strongly-defined and prominent curl of the ear, which stands out and
at once challenges attention.
The whole build is massive. The Bergonzi will outlast the Strad; it
will be the survival, if not of the fittest, of the strongest. The
very varnish is laid on with a lavish hand, to allow for wear and
tear; it is even clotted in places, and is said in some specimens
to have cracked and become scurfy. It is of a red Cremona brown,
velvety, and quite the right sort.
Until within the last few years Bergonzi has not received his dues;
the scarcity of his instruments may in part account for this; but in
France, and especially in England, he is now fully recognised and
much sought after. There are, however, only about sixty authentic
instruments of his known. His working life was but about twenty-five
years. Two notable Bergonzi violins are those in the possession
of Miss Eissler and Signor Simonetti. There is a famous Bergonzi
double-bass of singularly fine quality now in possession of Mr I.
Sears of Boston. In Count Cozio de Salabue’s collection there were
two very fine Bergonzi violins, dated 1731 and 1733.
There were five other Bergonzis--a son and grandsons; they all made
fiddles, but they were of no account, and were far surpassed by some
other makers who themselves belong to the decline period of the
Cremona school.
Although I have called Bergonzi Stradivari’s best pupil, it would be
very unfair to ignore the merit of Lorenzo Guadagnini (1695-1740),
the only one of that name who poses as a pupil of Stradivari. He was
born at Piacenza, but lived at Cremona till about 1740. In about 1795
he removed to Milan after leaving his master at Cremona, but returned
to die in his native town. His make is bold, his model flat, his
varnish not so rich as his master’s, his head original, but without
the grace of Antonio.
His son, Giovanni Battista, born at Piacenza, 1711-1786, made
violins which are almost more highly esteemed than his father’s. He
imitated Stradivari perhaps more closely than his father, but Count
Cozio de Salabue, who thought very highly of him and bought several
instruments from him, is careful to mention that Giovanni Battista
Guadagnini prided himself upon being no mere copyist. In fact, the
Guadagnini in the hands of Mr Willy Hess is quite equal to the best
of Lorenzo’s work. He was always changing his place of residence, and
wandered from Piacenza to Milan, and at last to Turin, where he died.
His own explanation was that the envy of rivals made each town too
hot for him, but his neighbours said that his frequent migrations
were due to his own hot temper. There were seven Guadagninis who made
violins between 1695 and 1881, but of these the first two, father and
son, alone need be taken account of.
It has been the fashion to separate the Italian makers into schools
according to the place at which they happened to live--the Milanese,
the Venetian, the Neapolitan, the Bolognese, etc.; but it is much
more important to notice the influences under which the chief makers
worked than to identify them with special towns.
A Cremonese who works at Venice but carries the Cremonese traditions
with him, is still a Cremonese, and belongs to the Cremona school.
Thus, the “mighty Montagnana,” as the novelist Charles Reade called
him, made Cremona violins and violoncellos at Venice. He worked
between 1700-40 as a pupil of Stradivari, and survived his master
only three years. But he came to him when the Cremona art was
already perfected, and studied the finest models, assisting in all
probability at the very manufacture of the most wonderful instruments
in the world. With such a training, on his arrival at Venice he
easily took the lead and kept it, and to this day his instruments,
especially his matchless violoncellos--alas! too few in number--are
little if at all inferior to the best of Antonio.
Montagnana’s outline is by no means a servile copy, of Stradivari.
It is flattened at top and bottom, and seems to the eye less
graceful; but in his selection of wood, his glorious varnish, the
relative thickness of his slabs, and in the cunning knowledge of
those fibre densities in back and belly which are likely to sound
well together, he is second to none.
Montagnana no doubt embodies and transplants to Venice the Cremona
secrets. As I noticed in the case of Bergonzi, Montagnana, owing to
the paucity of his instruments as well as to the splendour of his
contemporaries, Strad and Giuseppe Guarneri, has not until lately
received the honour which is due to him. He suffers, too, from having
often been labelled Guarnerius or Bergonzi, makers who had the vogue
of the day. These frauds are now being unmasked, and the few great
successors of the Cremona giants, Bergonzi, Montagnana, Guadagnini,
and Balestrieri (very fine in Guadagnini’s style, flat, big build,
powerful tone), and Storioni, have at last a chance of taking their
proper places and fetching their prices.
When we come to Lorenzo Storioni (1769-99) we come to the last maker
of importance who can with any show of plausibility be called even a
second or third rate master of Cremona. Storioni’s model was Joseph
Guarnerius, but he copied him more in his rough work than in his
great qualities. In his varnish we notice the singular change which
came over the Cremona varnish after about 1760. Up till then all the
Cremona violins have the Cremona varnish; after that time it simply
disappears. Why is it? This interesting problem I shall have to
consider in my chapter on Cremona varnish.
Storioni’s instruments are not much esteemed in England as yet, but
are thought a good deal more of in Italy.
I may here fitly mention the Gagliano family, who are associated
with the Neapolitan school, but really derive their importance
from Cremona. Alessandro Gagliano, the first of the name, was
distinguished for his very fine red varnish, 1695-1730. A violin
remarkable for its tone is the Gennaro Gagliano that has been used by
Mr Otto Peiniger for solo purposes during many years.
Alessandro Gagliano was actually in early life a _bonâ fide_ pupil of
Stradivari. Finding himself, no doubt, unmercifully overshadowed by
the prestige of the immortal workshops in the square of S. Domenico
at Cremona, and being a person of native enterprise, Alessandro
Gagliano migrated to the South, carrying with him the Cremona
craft, and founded the so-called Neapolitan school. His model was,
of course, the approved flat one of the golden age, 1700-37, but
his scroll is small and rather mean, the ∫ ∫ are set low down, and
the work is sometimes lacking in finish. It is in the varnish of
Alessandro Gagliano that we see some connection with Stradivari, his
varnish very often being fine in colour and of the right texture.
Attempts have been made to classify the various towns in which
Italian violins were made during the Cremona period into schools,
which is about as profitable an occupation as the attempts to divide
the work of individual makers into distinct periods--one period runs
into another, and one school runs into another.
Roughly speaking, you find but two influences--the Cremona, _i.e._,
the Nicolo, the great Giuseppe and greater Antonio influence with its
flat form, gentle curves, and red and yellow varnish; and the German,
_i.e._, the Stainer model, of which I shall presently speak, with its
elongated form, arched belly, deep side-grooves, and brown-yellow
varnish.
Some fine Venetian and Milanese makers like Montagnana and Serafino
inclined to Stainer, whilst the Roman and Neapolitan adhered more
to the Cremona type; but Stainer himself learnt at Cremona, and all
the best men like Tecchler (Rome) and Gagliano (Naples) who went
South copied either Stradivari or Giuseppe Guarnerius. The Milanese
school, on account of the great importance of the capital, naturally
attracted good makers like Grancino, Testore (pupil of Grancino), and
Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza (1687-1720).
Venice, Florence, and Bologna can also boast of a few respectable
names, but I prefer, for the sake of completeness, to treat them
later more in catalogue style, for the guidance of the student, and
not to mix them up with the great central figures which have formed
the subject, and I hope absorbed the attention, of the reader of this
section.