After Stradiuari and Giuseppe Guarnieri, the art seems to have remained at its highest point of excellence, and the Italian makers appear not to have sought to improve, contenting themselves with copying the one or the other of these masters. Lorenzo Guadagnini, a pupil of Stradiuari, copied the small pattern of his master. The first and second string of his Violins possess brilliancy and roundness, but the third is unfortunately muffled. He had a son, who worked at Milan until towards the end of 1770, following the style of his father; but his instruments are less sought after. The Gagliani also copied the Stradiuari, but their instruments are far from equalling those of the master, doubtless from want of care in the selection of material. Ruggieri and Alvani copied the form of Giuseppe Guarnieri; they produced good Violins, which are less valuable, however, than the Stradiuari.
The Tyrol lays claim to some excellent makers of bow instruments, the chief of whom is Jacob Stainer, who was born about 1620, at Absom, a village near Inspruck. This celebrated maker, at three different periods, changed his make. Firstly, while pupil of the Amati of Cremona: the Violins of this period are admirably finished, and are extremely scarce. The belly is more raised than in the Amati, the scrolls longer and wider in the lower part. All the labels of these Violins are written and signed in his own handwriting. One of these magnificent instruments, dated 1644, was the property of Gardel, ballet-master of the Opera at Paris, who performed upon it successfully in the ballet of “La Dansomanie.” Secondly, when established at Absom, after having married, he produced an immense number of instruments carelessly finished, from 1650 to 1667. However, after having led a life of poverty for several years, obliged to hawk his own Violins, which he sold for six florins each, he received orders from some noblemen, which improved his position. His genius from this period took a new flight, and he produced some splendid instruments, which are recognised by scrolls that represent heads of animals, by the close veining of the bellies, by the close and even small ribs, and by the varnish, resembling red mahogany faded by time into a brown colour. Stainer was assisted at this time by his brother Marcus, who later in life entered the order of the Brother Hermits, by the three brothers Klotz (Mathias, George, and Sebastian), and by Albani, all of whom were his pupils. The reproach attached to Stainer’s instruments of possessing a nasal tone applies only to this period, the labels of which are printed; there are, however, some admirable instruments of this time, which were in the possession of the violinist Ropiquet, of the Marquis de las Rosas, a grandee of Spain, of the Count de Marp, a Parisian amateur, and of Frey, an artist of the Opera, and publisher of music. There is an excellent Tenor of this period, formerly the property of M. Matrôt de Préville, governor of the port of L’Orient.
The third period of Stainer’s career commences from his retiring into a convent after the death of his wife. In the tranquillity of the cloister, he determined to close his artistic life by the production of chefs-d’œuvre. Having obtained some wood of the first quality through the medium of his superior, he made sixteen Violins—models, combining every perfection; sent one to each of the twelve chiefs of electorates of the Empire, and presented the remaining four to the Emperor. Since then, these instruments are known under the name of Stainer-électeurs. Their tone is pure, metallic, and aerial, like the beautiful voice of a woman; they are graceful and elegant in form, exquisitely finished in all the details, and have a transparent varnish of a gold colour; such are the qualities which distinguish these productions of the third and last period of Stainer’s talent. The labels are in the hand-writing of this celebrated maker. Three of these rare instruments only are now to be met with; the fate of the others remains unknown. The first was given by the Empress Maria Theresa to Kennis, a Belgian violinist from Liège, after whose death it was taken to England, and became the property of Sir Richard Betenson, Bart. Another Stainer-électeur was purchased in Germany in 1771 by the Duke of Orleans, grandfather of King Louis Philippe, for the sum of 3,500 florins. Afterwards, this prince, having discontinued playing the Violin, gave it to the younger Novoigille, in token of the pleasure he experienced in hearing him accompany Madame de Montesson. This precious Violin became the property of the violinist Cartier in 1817; it was in the hands of this artist when I heard and saw it. The third Violin Elector was in the possession of the King of Prussia, Frederick William II.
After leaving Stainer, the Klotz family copied his models of the second period, and these instruments are not unfrequently mistaken for those of the master; they are, however, readily distinguished by the varnish; that of Klotz, instead of a deep red, has a black ground shaded with yellow; the tone of Mathias Klotz’ instruments is silvery, but of little power. These artists produced many pupils in the Tyrol, who imitated the Cremona models; but these imitations are easily discoverable by the inferior quality of the wood, the varnish, which is very dark, and the tone, which is deficient in every quality.
The ancient manufacture of musical instruments in France, incontestably inferior to that of Italy, is represented, during the reigns of Henry the Fourth and Louis the Thirteenth, by Jacques Bocquay, born at Lyons, who settled in Paris; Pierret, his townsman, who produced more instruments, but of inferior finish; Antoine Despons, and Adrien Véron; these makers generally copied Amati. The Violins of the successor of Bocquay, Guersan, his pupil, are of small pattern, and finely finished. They have become extremely scarce; it is supposed that there are not more than twenty which can be considered as his own make; these are varnished in oil. The others were made in his workshop by his pupils; they are of inferior quality, and varnished in spirits of wine. The contemporaries of Guersan at Paris were Castagnery and Saint-Paul, whose Violins were formerly esteemed for accompaniment. After these came Salomon, whose instruments rivalled those of Guersan. Towards the end of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, Lagetto enjoyed a certain reputation. As regards the ancient manufacture in the provinces of France, there is nothing which rises above mediocrity, with the exception of Médard, a contemporary of Geronimo Amati, whose models he copied. He lived at Nancy at the commencement of the seventeenth century. Lambert, surnamed “Charpentier de la Lutherie,” lived a century later in the same town. He produced nothing of any note. Saunier, his pupil, surpassed his master in finish; but in general Lorraine was the country of industry, not art.
In the modern manufacture of instruments at Paris, Finth is specially distinguished. He was a German, who worked about 1770, and followed the proportions of Stradiuari; all his Violins, varnished in oil, are finished with care. They were greatly sought after in the first instance, but a change of taste followed, and opinion fell into a contrary excess. After Finth came Picte, a pupil of Saunier, whose Violins were given as prizes to the pupils of the Conservatory of Paris, at the beginning of the present century; they have been esteemed of little value. Not so with Lupot, who came from Orleans to settle in Paris in 1794. He studied, with great perseverance, the proportions of Stradiuari, incontestably the best, and selected the finest wood that could be obtained. Lupot made the manufacture of Violins his great study, and their finish a work of love. They are highly esteemed, and stand next in value with artists to good Cremona instruments.
Thus far we have only seen the manufacture of bow instruments cultivated by inspiration or by imitation; science was not brought to bear as an element in the construction of these instruments; but we have arrived at a period of transition in this respect, less perhaps, from the results obtained, than from the foundations which have been laid: and I will first advert to the several essays which have been made with the view of dispensing with certain portions of the instrument, considered as obstacles to the free production of vibration.
The first essay of this kind was made in 1816 by François Chanot, the son of an instrument-maker of Mirecourt, afterwards an engineer in the navy. Convinced that the best means of producing vibration in all the various parts of the Violin was to preserve, as far as it was practicable, the fibres of the wood lengthwise, he concluded that the shoulders of the ordinary Violin, with their angles, were insuperable obstacles to a free and powerful quality of tone; he believed, also, that the hollowing out of the belly to give it the vaulted form was contrary to theoretical principles, and consequently a radical error. He was persuaded, moreover, that short fibres favoured the production of acute tones, and long fibres grave ones. Upon these principles he constructed a Violin, the belly of which was only slightly raised, the sound-holes nearly straight, and, in place of sloping the instrument after the ordinary form, he depressed the sides gradually, similar to the body of a Guitar. With a view of favouring as much as possible the vibration of the belly, he attached the strings to the lower part of it, instead of to the ordinary tail-piece. This done, Chanot submitted his Violin to the Academies of Sciences and Fine Arts of the French Institute, and a favourable report of the essay was published in the “Moniteur Universel” on the 22nd of August, 1817. The judgment pronounced by these institutions has not been confirmed by the opinion of artists.
It is to be remarked, that what Chanot conceived to be a discovery was simply returning to the form of Viols of the middle ages; that the form had been adopted by able makers, and that there is still extant a Bass Viol of Gaspard di Salo, the angles of which are removed, in the possession of M. Frazzini at Milan; that another Bass of the same form, constructed by Pietro Guarnieri, belongs to M. Cappi at Mantua; and that M. de Rovetta of Bergamo, possesses an old Violin of the same form. The artists who made these essays discovered that the results did not answer their expectations.
A retired officer of the Italian army, M. Galbussera, reproduced the pretended invention of Chanot in a Violin which he exhibited in the Palace of Brera at Milan in 1832. M. Antolini, of that city, a distinguished artist, criticised in a small pamphlet the false principle which led to this return to primitive forms.[A]