Catalogue of Rare Old Violins, Violas and Violoncellos - Also Bows of Rare Makes

By Anon Anon

This vintage book contains a catalogue of the rare and antique violins offered for sale by the Lyon & Healy company of Chicago in 1917. For each piece there is provided an authentic photograph, as well as an expert description and other notable information. This volume will appeal to violin collectors and antique dealers alike, and it would make for a fantastic addition to collections of vintage violin literature. Contents include: “Antonius Stradivarius, Cremona, 1717”, “Franscesco Rugieri (detto il per), Cremona, 1671”, “Sanctus Seraphin, Venice, 1744”, “Joseph Guarnerius, Filius Andreas, Cremona, 1710”, “Giovanni Baptiste Ruggeri, Brescia, 1667”, “Matteo Goffriller, Venice, 1696”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction of the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: Aug 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473351745

Book preview

A History of the Violin

The violin, also known as a fiddle, is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola, the cello and the double bass. The violinist produces sound by drawing a bow across one or more strings (which may be stopped by the fingers of the other hand to produce a full range of pitches), by plucking the strings (with either hand), or by a variety of other techniques. The violin is played by musicians in a wide variety of musical genres, including such diverse styles as baroque, classical, jazz, folk and rock and roll.

The violin, while it has ancient origins, acquired most of its modern characteristics in 16th-century Italy, with some further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries. Violinists and collectors particularly prize the instruments made by the Gasparo da Salò, Giovanni Paolo Maggini, Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati families from the 16th to the 18th century in Brescia and Cremona and by Jacob Stainer in Austria. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a luthier, and will almost always work with wood – utilising gut, perlon or steel to string the instrument.

The history of the violin is long and varied; and the earliest stringed instruments were mostly plucked (e.g. the Greek lyre). Bowed instruments may have originated in the equestrian cultures of Central Asia – for instance the ‘Tanbur’ of Uzbekistan or the ‘Kobyz’; an ancient Turkic string instrument. Such two-string upright fiddles were strung with horsehair and played with horsehair bows; they often features a carved horses head at the end of the neck too. The violins, violas and cellos we play today, and whose bows are still strung with horsehair are a legacy of these nomadic peoples.

It is believed that these instruments eventually spread to China, India, the Byzantine Empire and the Middle East, where they developed into instruments such as the erhu in China, the rebab in the Middle East, the lyra in the Byzantine Empire and the esraj in India. The modern European violin as we know it evolved from the Middle Eastern stringed instruments, and one of the earliest explicit descriptions of this musical device, including its tuning was made in France in the sixteenth century. This was a book entitled Epitome Musical, by Jambe de Fer, published in Lyon in 1556 – and helped popularise the instrument all over Europe. Several further significant changes occurred in violin construction in the eighteenth century – making it closer to our current instrument. These primarily involved a longer neck at a slightly different angle, as well as a heavier bass bar.

The oldest documented violin to have four strings, like the modern variant, is supposed to have been constructed in 1555 by Andrea Amati. However in the 1510s (some fifty years before the flourishing activity of Andrea Amati), there were sevedn ‘lireri’, or makers of bowed instruments, including proto-violins listed in the city. The violin was quickly hailed by nobility and street players alike, illustrated by the fact that the French king Charles IX ordered Amati to construct twenty-four violins for him in 1560. One of these instruments, now called the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin. The finest Renaissance carved and decorated violin in the world is the Gasparo da Salò (c. 1574), owned by Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria and later, from 1841, by the Norweigian virtuoso Ole Bull. Bull used it for forty years, during which he became famed for his powerful and beautiful tone – it is now kept in the Vestlandske Kustindustrimuseum in Begen (Norway). Another famous violin, ‘Le Messie’ (also known as the ‘Salabue’), made in 1716 is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford, England.

To this day, instruments from the so-called Golden Age of violin making, especially those made by Stradivari, Guarneri del Gesù and Montagnana are the most sought-after instruments by both collectors and performers. The current record amount paid for a Stradivari violin is £9.8 million (US$15.9 million), when the instrument known as the Lady Blunt was sold by Tarisio Auctions in an online auction on June 20, 2011. We hope the reader is inspired by this book to find out more about the intriguing and complex history of this wonderful instrument.

FOREWORD

IN THIS, the Twenty-eighth Edition of our Catalog of Rare Old Violins, Violas, Cellos, Bows, etc., we offer a noteworthy collection of instruments by the great violin makers of the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries.

Our Violin Department was inaugurated in 1888, and it was the ambition of the late P. J. Healy (founder of the house), that it should be a leading factor in the musical development of America by supplying violins of