Strings and Celebrities: Hakkert's “First Dutch Stringmakers”

By Uri M. Kupferschmidt

This book tells the story of Jacques Wolfgang Hakkert (1891-1944) a Dutch violin maker, who was my grandfather. But I never knew him: both Jacques and his younger brother Max perished in Nazi death camps. Their parents Philip and Elizabeth owned a well-known music store in Rotterdam and Jacques received his training in Mirecourt, France. In 1917 the Hakkerts established the “First Dutch Stringmakers,” a factory for gut strings, which flourished under Jacques’ stewardship. With the death of their father in 1925 Max took over management of the Hakkert music store.
But this is much more than a book on family roots. “Hakkert” soon became an internationally known brand of gut strings for musical instruments and then also for tennis rackets and medical suture. Given both the nature of its products and its worldwide success, this was a unique venture for the Netherlands. This book traces the intriguing background story of how this industrial branch emerged and explores its route to international fame.
In the course of the 1920s Jacques Hakkert successfully solicited recommendations for his strings from over 140 celebrities, among them world-famous violinists, violists, cellists and other string instrumentalists, as well as ensembles: From Hubay, Flesch and Casals, to Heifetz, Milstein and Menuhin, many of whom he knew personally. They would write their endorsements on photographed cartes-de-visite which Jacques then had assembled into a trade brochure. The brochure is re-issued here in its 1931 form with biographical annotations given for all the celebrities featured together with an historical introduction.
Finally, this book sheds a unique light on the classical music scene of the interwar years in the Netherlands and abroad. During the dark years of the Nazi occupation, the Hakkert factory was taken over in an opaque deal by the German Pirazzi firm. After Liberation in 1945, the factory reverted to Dutch hands, although under different management, and continued to manufacture a wide assortment of gut strings, in particular medical suture, until 1978 when competition of newer, often synthetic, brands forced it off the market.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pardes Publishing
• Release date: Jul 10, 2019
• ISBN: 9781618384560

Book preview

Strings and Celebrities

Strings and Celebrities

Hakkert’s First Dutch Stringmakers

Uri M. Kupferschmidt

Uri M. Kupferschmidt (born in Montreux, studied in Leiden, London and Jerusalem) is professor emeritus at the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies of the University of Haifa, Israel. His main interest is in the social history of the modern era. Among his publications are Henri Naus Bey: Retrieving the Biography of a Belgian Industrialist in Egypt (Brussels: Royal Academy of Overseas Sciences 1999) and The Orosdi-Back Saga: European Department Stores and Middle Eastern Consumers (Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre 2007) as well as various studies on Mandatory Palestine and on 19th- and 20th-century Egypt, the latter relating to the Muslim Brotherhood as well as to Jews in the economy. With a background in journalism and an interest in family history, this is his first major publication that extends beyond his academic field.

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Copyright © 2019 by Uri M. Kupferschmidt

The right of Uri M. Kupferschmidt to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by an means, without the prior permission in writing of Pardes Publishing, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning the reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Pardes Publishing, at the address above.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe thanks to a great many people who have helped me turning an emotional impulse into a full-fledged book. In the beginning, and above anything else, there was my wife Tamar at the antiquarian bookstore in Paris who prompted me to purchase the Hakkert brochure that I had spotted there and who has wholeheartedly supported the entire project as it moved along.

I have also been extremely fortunate to get Dick Bruggeman help me out as editor, as I had hoped would happen from the moment I began writing. Given his immediate personal involvement this soon became more than mere editing. I knew of his great abilities and linguistic flair from the years we worked together in an academic setting. But I was also aware of his musical erudition, which here has now frequently lent more depth to the contents of my text than I was able to give it. In not a few cases he also helped me sharpen the focus of the individual celebrity profiles I had collected and often saved me from errors. In short, there was a lot I learned from him, so it was not just a privilege but a true pleasure to work with him.

Profound thanks are further due to the Netherlands Music Institute (Nederlands Muziek Instituut, NMI) in The Hague and its director, Fritz Zwart, for their generous contribution towards the publication of this book through the Stichting NMI. I am also grateful to the NMI’s Rik Hendriks, who facilitated my short visits there and provided me with copies of a number of photographs that had not been included in the original Hakkert brochure on which this book is based, but had been part of the collection my mother had donated in 1950 to the Gemeentemuseum (Municipal Museum) of The Hague. Acknowledging the gift at the time, Dirk Balfoort, then deputy-director of the Municipal Department for the Fine Arts (Dienst voor Schone Kunsten), wrote to my mother (24 November 1950): The portraits arrived in good order. I want to express my sincere thanks to you for this beautiful collection [which] moved me very much. These photographs now appear here by courtesy of the NMI.

I gratefully acknowledge the work of Albert Rottier, the last manager of Ph. Hakkert Muziek NV, who has done much to research the Hakkert heritage and preserve it on the internet. Earlier my second cousin Bert Menco had already made some basic family documents accessible. I was fortunate to still have met Dr. Oscar Lutz Zwillenberg, son of the later largest shareholder, who years ago in Berne already told me a few things about the factory from his own experience; his widow Dr. Celia Zwillenberg allowed me to read the relevant passage in his memoirs. Then there was Gerda Kila, one of the Hakkert factory administrators, who late in her life agreed to share some of her reminiscences with me. And recently, Douglas Harff, son of the last director of the string factory, was so kind as to allow me to use some of the material in his possession.

In terms of inspiration and encouragement, profound thanks go to Amnon Weinstein in Tel Aviv for his Violins of Hope project in memory of musicians who perished in the Holocaust. I first met Amnon when he was already working on the restauration of my grandfather’s earliest known violin, which my sister had brought to him and which since then forms part of his collection. It was also the first time I could get a physical sense of a luthier’s atelier. Amnon always answered my questions and provided advice with admirable patience, and so did and does his son Avshi, who follows in his father’s footsteps. This is also how I got in touch with the acclaimed violinist Hagai Shaham whose encouragement and help in identifying a musical quote on one of the recommendations meant a lot to me.

There were more violin makers in the game. It was a great pleasure to meet Otto Blitz, luthier in Rotterdam, whose grandfather had stood at the beginning of the real first Dutch string factory. It proved impossible to reconstruct the social relationship between our grandfathers who had been colleagues and maybe competitors, and who both tragically perished in Auschwitz, but it certainly created a bond between us. Over time I also benefited from generous advice and answers by other contemporary luthiers such as Jacques Didier in Metz (grandson of my grandfather’s tutor), as well from correspondence with Samuel Zygmontowicz in New York (the quintessential violin maker featured in John Marchese’s book), Jan Strick in Brussels and Filip Kuijken in Saitama, Greater Tokyo.

Then there is Mimmo Peruffo in Vicenza, the author of a series of authoritative articles on the history of gut strings, and manufacturer of the Aquila strings, who generously gave me much valuable advice and shared essential insights with me. He also read and kindly commented on part of the manuscript. To my great fortune, I was able to visit him at one point and I am grateful for his time and patience. It enabled me to see a present-day gut factory at work where some of the methods of production had changed little from the period of my grandfather. Earlier I had been able to conduct a useful correspondence with another string expert, Damian Dlugolecki in Oregon, USA.

Among musicologists I was highly fortunate to benefit from the vast knowledge of Albrecht Dümling in Germany whom I wish to thank for essential comments on the larger part of my draft text. We had met at the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert and exhibition of Violins of Hope in January 2015, for which he had written the narrative on Jacques Hakkert’s life and others. Similarly, I owe many thanks to Yuval Shaked of the Music Department at the University of Haifa, whose enthusiasm and invaluable professional advice unmistakably advanced this project. As just one illustration for the way in which this worked, I note with much appreciation how he deciphered and then transcribed for me a near-illegible musical quote on one of the recommendations which Viktória Dolhai of the Budapest Conservatory then was able to trace to Hungarian violin pedagogue and composer Jenő Hubay, with Hagai Shaham finally confirming its exact location in a Hubay composition for violin and piano.

Throughout, due to the internet, it has proven easy and even rewarding to contact people and establish a supportive network. There was, for instance, the cellist Rémy Petit, then still a student at the Conservatoire Supérieure de Musique et de la Dance à Paris who had written a very instructive thesis on cello strings (referring also to Hakkert’s). I have equally been advised on certain points by David Schoenbaum, author of a comprehensive social history of the violin. All along the way, my good friend Jaap van Wesel and musicologists Jay Grymes (author of a book on Violins of Hope) and Margarethe Dorothea Mehl gave incentives which, however subtle, always benefited my writing.

Deciphering certain signatures on the photographs proved a big challenge. Here, I wish to thank in particular Claude Fihman in Paris, another Weinstein contact, owner of a great collection of old gramophone records, who solved some of the first enigmas. Among the staff of the Rotterdam municipal archives, such a query apparently once led to a near-competition, and thanks to Eva Sietsma the handwriting code of another signature was cracked.

Not much different from my preceding research projects, I found librarians and archivists keen to help out. At the Music Department of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF, where I was able to examine their own rare copy of the brochure, albeit under the watchful eyes of the présidente of the reading room and myself wearing latex gloves), I wish to thank especially François-Pierre Goy who later provided me with a few essential references. Equally at the BnF, my dear friend Sara Yontan helped me with a specific source. At the library of the Brussels Conservatory, it was Richard Sutcliffe who went out of his way to assist me in my searches, and at the Royal College of Music in London I wish to mention Peter Linnitt’s advice and Michael Mullen’s help. At the Antwerp Conservatory, Jan Dewilde deserves my thanks. Larry Huffman of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Stokowsky Archives and Gabryel (Gabe) Smith of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra were equally helpful. This also pertains to the librarians of the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. In Paris, Stéphanie Salmon of the Jerôme Seydoux-Pathé Foundation initiated me into their intriguing archives.

Elizabeth Garver at the University of Texas, Kerry Carwile Masteller at the Loeb Music Library at Harvard, Helene van Rossum of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, Patrick Fulton at the Cleveland Institute of Music deserve mention for helpful answers to my queries. The Royal Libraries in both The Hague and Brussels, as well as the University Library of Amsterdam also proved of good use. William Claassen, archivist of the newspaper De Telegraaf, supplied me with references which I would not have been able to locate otherwise.

An unexpected discovery was the Judith Bokor entry from the present brochure on a Japanese website, which led me to Herman Berkhout, owner of the Flesch vintage gramophone store in Amsterdam, and then to Abe Masakazu in Japan.

On a different but related aspect, tennis racket strings, I was able to search the collection of Wimbledon Library, where Robert MacNicol was very helpful. Some people may have felt bothered by my often specific but for me always essential questions, but in fact a surprising majority answered with useful information and often showed keen interest in my project: Sarah Adams, Carine Alders (Leo Smit Stichting), Helena Araújo, Luisa Maria Arvide Cambra, Nardie Blanket, Paul Brill, Oliver Davies, Mary Eggermont-Molenaar, Christopher Fifield, Augustine Ford, Florence Getreau, Johan Giskes, Rhian Gregynog, James Grymes, Dorothée Hitzbleck, Jacqueline Hofland-Poot, Barbara Hunziger, Minny and Harry Mock, Dalya Rotem, Leo Samama, Emilie Savage-Smith, David Shields, Hans Sijpkens, Anne-Catherine Simon, Nancy Spiegel (University of Chicago photographic archives), Tadina Stephan (Thomastik-Infeld), Mooya

Tennies and Ida-Marie Vorre.

Of course regrettably but, given the amount of detail that has gone into this project, inevitably I may have forgotten to mention others who have helped me in various ways, and I kindly ask for their understanding.

Last but not least, it is my great pleasure to thank David Gottesmann, the enterprising owner of Pardes Publishing in Haifa, who came to the rescue with creative suggestions and professional solutions for design, printing and production that for me made the critical final stage of the journey a thoroughly rewarding experience.

Haifa, August 2018

INTRODUCTION

Jacques W. Hakkert’s Life

Jacques (originally Jacob or Jaap) Wolfgang Hakkert was a Dutch violin maker, born in Rotterdam on 29 August 1891 as the elder son of Philip Hakkert (1859- 1925) and Elizabeth Hakkert née Knap (1862-1942). In 1880 the couple had opened a music store in the center of the city (Elizabeth apparently ran a lending library before that) and as great music lovers they chose Wolfgang (after Mozart) as Jacob’s middle name and Richard (after Wagner) for his brother Mozes (Max, born on 31 January 1884). Father Philip occasionally conducted a harmony band and played the oboe and the horn in an amateur orchestra (though reportedly not always in tune).¹

The music store must have been a world of inspiration for the two boys, decisive no doubt also for the choice of their future careers. While famous virtuosi often come from musicians’ families, an anecdotal detail worth recalling here is that the parents of English composer Edward Elgar (1857-1934) also owned a music store as was the case with Spanish violinist and composer Andrès Gaos* (1874-1959).²And although neither of the two Hakkert boys became a professional musician, each created a niche of their own in the world of music.

The Hakkert store was well-known and sold a wide variety of musical instruments and such related items as musical boxes, gramophones and self- playing pianos. Also on offer were accessories such as strings and sheet music some of which published under the firm’s own name. Then there were the usual small sculptures, in plaster or bronze, of the major classical composers and even (more unusually) a selection of fire alarm horns. Gramophones were then a quickly spreading novelty: before long Philip Hakkert developed innovative electrical models without a cumbersome horn which he marketed under the brand names of Cantaphone (1916) and Seraphone (1917) – with a subscription for the delivery of batteries – and the store then also began issuing records under its own label. Last but not least, there was a repair shop for instruments. The firm, and later Jacques’ atelier, carried the predicate of Hofleverancier, Supplier to the Royal Court, a distinction which perhaps was not all that difficult to obtain for well- reputed businesses but which did confer special status and undoubtedly added prestige.

In July 1906, when Jacques was fifteen, his parents launched him on a career of luthier, that is, violin maker or, more exactly, stringed-instrument maker. One of the main options for Jacques to learn the craft would have been Mittenwald, in Germany, or even more so Markneukirchen, the highly reputable craftsmanship center for musical instruments the Hakkert parents had visited in 1901; in the 1870s, though a small town, Markneukirchen had no less than 132 violin makers and 124 bow makers. But for some reason Germany was rejected as a place of training for the young aspiring Dutch luthier. So was Italy, as Cremona, the town of the legendary Stradivarius, at that time did not enjoy much of a reputation as a training center for young violin makers (yet it does later figure on the letterhead of Jacques’ workshop). The choice therefore fell on Mirecourt, the well-known French violin-making center in the Vosges. Philip and Elisabeth themselves accompanied their son to that little township and settled him in a boarding house.³As mother Elizabeth noted in her diary: Jacques – because it is now no longer Jacob… – is learning four things, namely making violins, playing the violin – as he is getting lessons three times a week –, correct French, and respectable French manners.

From mother Elizabeth’s diary (1906)

These targets were achieved successfully, it seems, except maybe for Jacques’ musical talents as a performer. Paradoxically, this shortcoming may be an advantage for a luthier if one accepts veteran luthier Sam Zygmuntowicz’s notion that violin makers are better off not being able to play at all, because if they played the instruments they build, they would only get a distorted sense of the sound based on their own necessarily limited abilities.⁴ At the same time, it was known in the family that Jacques had perfect pitch and commanded excellent musical taste. One lasting impact of his apprenticeship in Mirecourt was undoubtedly Jacques’ life-long Francophile orientation.

Left: An early portrait of Jacques Hakkert.

Right: Jacques W. Hakkert’s first violin, today part of Weinstein’s Violins of Hope collection.

In Mirecourt, as far as we know, Jacques first entered the factory of Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy & Cie, which at the time employed a total of one thousand luthiers and boasted a mass production of 150,000 string instruments annually. Growing demand for violins had led to the establishment of several such large- scale plants in France as well as in Germany.⁵But his apprenticeship Jacques did in the traditional way, under the expert guidance of master luthier Marius Didier in adjoining Mattaincourt. He stayed in France from July 1906 until April 1908. The next two years find him continuing his craftsmanship training under Louis Otto in Düsseldorf and Joseph Lülsdorff in Cologne. Lülsdorff was known for his special wood bending techniques and other innovations, which Jacques eagerly absorbed especially for the cellos he was to build. After some further training in workshops in London and Paris, Jacques Hakkert set himself up as violin maker in Rotterdam in 1910, initially in the store of father Philip.⁶ That same year, at an international exhibition in his hometown he already won a gold medal for one of his instruments (perhaps not coincidentally Lülsdorff was on the jury).

Jacques Hakkert’s very first violin, built while he was still in Mirecourt (and naturally therefore not his best) has survived and is today a memorial object. In 2014, my sister Jacqueline Notowicz-Kupferschmiedt brought it to the Tel Aviv luthier Amnon Weinstein who restored it with loving care, and the instrument now forms part of Weinstein’s Violins of Hope collection.⁷

The Netherlands may not have been a prominent center of string instrument making, but in the seventeenth century, the so-called Golden Age, lute and violin makers (many of foreign descent) could already be found in all main cities. As Johan Giskes put it: Rich merchants were art lovers. Violins they ordered from such violin makers as Cornelis Kleynman, Hendrik Jacobsz, Willem van de Sijden and Peter Rombouts are still in demand today.⁸Since those days the country can point to an unbroken chain of at least very capable luthiers. Like elsewhere, Dutch violin makers had abandoned the Amati for the Stradivari models.⁹ As the Hill Brothers put it: That [Stradivari] had succeeded in surpassing all competitors and achieving something beyond the highest efforts of the Amati is unquestionable.¹⁰So not exceptionally, Hakkert made his violins and cellos after the finest Italian examples of craftsmanship, while for his bows he followed the French tradition which François Tourte (1747-1835) had established by the late eighteenth century. Most of the current encyclopedias and hand lists of violin makers mention Hakkert’s name with appreciation. William Henley, a widely traveled English expert who in his Universal Dictionary included 9,000 violin makers, must have had good reason to praise the quality of the wood and varnish as well as the tone of his violins.¹¹Another expert, Thomas Drescher, estimates that Hakkert built over a hundred violins, as well as cellos. This is a reasonable assessment as we have proof that a Hakkert violin of 1929 carries the number 86. Unfortunately, no list has thus far been found that could be of help in this direction, but from time to time a Hakkert instrument comes up for auction.¹²

Later in 1910 Jacques Hakkert sent out formal announcements that he had now established himself as a string instrument maker on Rotterdam’s prestigious Diergaardelaan. Soon, his atelier could boast a fairly impressive stock of instruments for sale, from Amati, Gagliano to Vuillaume, Stainer, and the Dutch masters Jacobsz, Rombouts and Cuypers.¹³At times even more famous instruments are said to have passed through his atelier and showroom, e.g. the so-called 1715 Lipinski and one of the two Alard Stradivari, and a 1732 Guarneri del Gesù, which Hakkert sold in 1918 to a well-to-do amateur violinist in Rotterdam whose family then sold it in 1958 to the American violin virtuosa Ruth Posselt*.¹⁴In 1919 the Dutch press reported that a valuable Omobono Stradivarius, allegedly worth 2500 guilders at the time, had been stolen from the window but had been recovered by the police almost immediately as the thieves had attracted too much attention by smashing the glass window pane and in their hurry had dropped the violin’s bridge.¹⁵It is not known how many violins Hakkert may have restored; one instrument is now known as the 1713 Cooper-Hakkert Stradivarius, ex Ceci, but we have been unable to connect it in any way to Jacques Hakkert.¹⁶

Early stationery of Hakkert’s atelier referring to Stradivarius in Cremona (n.d.)

Hakkert’s artisan label read: "Luthier du Conservatoire d’Amsterdam, me fecit Rotterdam, Anno..." One of Jacques Hakkert’s pupils was Fritz Reuter, who later established the renowned three- generation violin making firm in Chicago.

When, in May 1940, the Germans bombed the inner city of Rotterdam, the former house and atelier of Jacques Hakkert burnt down. In the preceding decade he had already transferred his main activities to the string factory, and his violin business to the Schiekade, both outside the devastated part of the center, so it remains unknown whether any valuable violins were lost in the conflagration.

The Hakkert family was Jewish. While the violin has arguably come to be viewed as a Jewish instrument given the prevalence of Jews playing it, prominent Jewish luthiers are comparatively rare.¹⁷As for the Netherlands, we will come across Carel Blitz, also working in Rotterdam, while Michel Boutelje was active in The Hague.¹⁸There may have been others.

Jacques W. Hakkert at work in his atelier (1915-1920)

Jacques Hakkert’s fate and that of his family under the German occupation of the Netherlands was tragic in more than one horrifying way. His spouse, my grandmother, Rachel Hakkert-Zwarenstein, and one of his two daughters had been in hiding in the small Dutch location of Driebergen but they were caught there in 1943, betrayed by neighbors and arrested by Dutch members (one assumes) of the German Sicherheitsdienst (SD). Both were deported by the Nazis to their death in Auschwitz. In 1942 or 1943 Jacques managed to escape to Belgium