Episodes
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In this second episode on Giovanni Battista Rogeri we look at his family and children. Living in Brescia also meant that Rogeri was in the heart of an Opera loving people close to Venice and an exciting time musically and instrumentally.
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Giovanni Battista Rogeri has often been confused with other makers such as the Rugeri family, because of his name, and Giovanni Paolo Maggini, because of his working style. Trained in the famous workshop of Nicolo Amati in Cremona, Rogeri set out to make a name for himself in Brescia creating a Cremonese Brescian fusion. Learn all about this often mistaken maker in this first episode on the life of Giovanni Battista Rogeri.
This is the story of Giovanni Battista Rogeri the Cremonese trained violin maker who made it big in Brescia and has since been confused with other makers throughout history. Florian Leonhard talks about the influences Rogeri pulled on and exactly why his instruments have for so long been attributed to Giovanni Paolo Maggini.
Transcript
Far, far away in a place called Silene, in what is now modern day Libya, there was a town that was plagued by an evil venom spewing dragon, who skulked in the nearby lake, wreaking havoc on the local population. To prevent this dragon from inflicting its wrath upon the people of Silene, the leaders of the town offered the beast two sheep every day in an attempt to ward off its reptilian mood swings.
But when this was not enough, they started feeding the scaly creature a sheep and a man. Finally, they would offer the children and the youths of the town to the insatiable beast, the unlucky victims being chosen by lottery. As you can imagine, this was not a long term sustainable option. But then, one day, the dreaded lot fell to the king's daughter. The king was devastated and offered all his gold and silver, if only they would spare his beloved daughter. The people refused, and so the next morning at dawn, the princess approached the dragon's lair by the lake, dressed as a bride to be sacrificed to the hungry animal. It just so happened that a knight who went by the name of St George was passing by at that very moment and happened upon the lovely princess out for a morning stroll. Or so he thought. But when it was explained to him by the girl that she was in fact about to become someone else's breakfast and could he please move on and mind his own business he was outraged on her behalf and refused to leave her side. Either she was slightly unhinged and shouldn't be swanning about lakes so early in the morning all by herself, or at least with only a sheep for protection, or she was in grave danger and definitely needed saving. No sooner had Saint George and the princess had this conversation than they were interrupted by a terrifying roar as the dragon burst forth from the water, heading straight towards the girl. Being the nimble little thing she was, the princess dodged the sharp claws. As she was zigzagging away from danger, George stopped to make the sign of the cross and charged the gigantic lizard, thrusting Ascalon, that was the name of his sword, yep he named it, into the four legged menace and severely wounded the beast. George called to the princess to throw him her girdle, That's a belt type thing, and put it around the dragon's neck. From then on, wherever the young lady walked, the dragon followed like a meek beast. Back to the city of Silene went George, the princess, and the dragon, where the animal proceeded to terrify the people.
George offered to kill the dragon if they consented to becoming Christian. George is sounding a little bit pushy, I know. But the people readily agreed and 15, 000 men were baptized, including the king. St. George killed the dragon, slicing off its head with his trusty sword, Ascalon, and it was carried out of the city on four ox carts. The king built a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. George on the site where the dragon was slain and a spring flowed from its altar with water that it is said would cure all diseases.
This is the story of Saint George and the Princess. It is a classic story of good versus evil, and of disease healing miracles that would have spoken to the inhabitants of 17th century Brescia. The scene depicting Saint George and the Princess is painted in stunning artwork by Antonio Cicognata and was mounted on the wall of the Church of San Giorgio. Giovanni Battista Rogeri gazed up at this painting as family and friends, mainly of his bride Laura Testini, crowded into the church of San Giorgio for his wedding. Giovanni was 22 and his soon to be wife, 21, as they spoke their vows in the new city he called home. He hoped to make his career in this town making instruments for the art loving Brescians, evidence of which could be seen in the wonderful artworks in such places as this small church. Rogeri would live for the next 20 years in the parish of San Giorgio. The very same George astride an impressive white stallion in shining armour, his head surrounded by a golden halo. He is spearing the dragon whilst the princess calmly watches on clad in jewels with long red flowing robes in the latest fashion. In the background is the city of Brescia itself, reminding the viewer to remember that here in their city they too must fight evil and pray for healing from disease ever present in the lives of the 17th century Brescians.
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Luthierie in Mircourt. As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, but here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture. So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love. Artistic genius. Revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning and bravery, that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.
Welcome to this first episode on the life of Giovanni Battista Rogeri. After having spent the last few episodes looking at the life of the Ruggeri family, we will now dive into the life of that guy who almost has the same name, but whose work and contribution to violin making, you will see, is very different. And we will also look at just why, for so many years, his work has been attributed erroneously to another Brescian maker.
The year was 1642, and over the Atlantic, New York was called New Amsterdam. The Dutch and the English were having scuffles over who got what. Was it New England? New Netherlands? In England, things were definitely heating up, and in 1642, a civil war was in the process of breaking out. On one side there were the parliamentarians, including Oliver Cromwell, and on the other side were the Royalists, who were the supporters of King Charles I. This war would rage on for the next 20 years, and not that anyone in England at this time really cared, but the same year that this war broke out, a baby called Giovanni Battista Rogeri was born in Bologna, perhaps, and for the next 20 years he grew up in this city ruled by the Popes of Italy. He too would witness firsthand wars that swept through his hometown. He would avoid dying of the dreaded plague, sidestep any suspicion by the Catholic church in this enthusiastic time of counter reformation by being decidedly non Protestant. And from an early age, he would have been bathed in the works of the Renaissance and now entering churches being constructed in the Baroque style.
Bologna was a city flourishing in the arts, music and culture, with one of the oldest universities in the country. But for the young Giovanni Battista Rogeri, to learn the trade of lutai, or violin maker, the place he needed to be was, in fact, 155. 9 km northwest of where he was right now. And if he took the A1, well, today it's called the A1, and it's an ancient Roman road so I'm assuming it's the same one, he could walk it in a few days. Destination Cremona, and more precisely, the workshop of Niccolo Amati. An instrument maker of such renown, it is said that his grandfather, Andrea Amati, made some of the first violins and had royal orders from the French king himself. To be the apprentice of such a man was a grand thing indeed.
So we are in the mid 1600s and people are embracing the Baroque aesthetic along with supercharged architecture and paintings full of movement, colour and expression. There is fashion, and how the wealthy clients who would buy instruments in Cremona dressed was also influenced by this movement.
Emily Brayshaw.
You've got these ideas of exaggeration of forms and you can exaggerate the human body with, you know, things like high heels and wigs and ribbons and laces. And you've got a little bit of gender bending happening, men wearing makeup and styles in the courts. You know, you've got dress and accessories challenging the concept of what's natural, how art can compete with that and even triumph over the natural perhaps. You've got gloves trimmed with lace as well. Again, we've got a lot of lace coming through so cravats beauty spot as well coming through. You've got the powder face, the, the wig. Yeah. The makeup, the high heels. Okay. That's now. I actually found a lovely source, an Italian tailor from Bergamo during the Baroque era. The Italians like really had incredibly little tailors and tailoring techniques. And during this sort of Baroque era. He grumbles that since the French came to Italy not to cut but to ruin cloth in order to make fashionable clothes, it's neither possible to do our work well nor are our good rules respected anymore. We have completely lost the right to practice our craft. Nowadays though who disgracefully ruin our art and practice it worse than us are considered the most valuable and fashionable tailors.
So we've got like this real sort of shift. You know, from Italian tailoring to sort of French and English tailoring as well.
And they're not happy about it.
No, they are not happy about it. And this idea that I was talking about before, we've got a lovely quote from an Italian fashion commentator sort of around the mid 17th century. His name's Lam Pugnani, and he mentions the two main fashions. meaning French and Spanish, the two powers that were ruling the Italian peninsula and gradually building their global colonial empires. And he says, “the two main fashions that we have just recorded when we mentioned Spanish and French fashion, enable me to notice strangeness, if not a madness residing in Italian brains, that without any reason to fall in love so greatly Or better, naturalize themselves with one of these two nations and forget that they are Italian. I often hear of ladies who come from France, where the beauty spot is in use not only for women, but also for men, especially young ones, so much so that their faces often appear with a strange fiction darkened and disturbed, not by beauty spots, but rather by big and ridiculous ones, or so it seems somebody who is not used to watching similar mode art”.
So, you know, we've got people commentating and grumbling about these influences of Spain and France on Italian fashion and what it means to be Italian. When we sort of think about working people, like there's this trope in movie costuming of like peasant brown, you know, and sort of ordinary, you know, people, perhaps ordinary workers, you know, they weren't necessarily dressed. In brown, there are so many different shades of blue. You know, you get these really lovely palettes of like blues, and shades of blue, and yellows, and burgundies, and reds, as well as of course browns, and creams, and these sorts of palettes. So yeah, they're quite lovely.
And I'm imagining even if you didn't have a lot of money, there's, I know there's a lot of flowers and roots and barks that you can, you can dye yourself. Yeah, definitely. And people did, people did. I can imagine if I was living back there and we, you know, we're like, Oh, I just, I want this blue skirt. And you'd go out and you'd get the blue skirt. The flowers you needed and yeah, definitely. And people would, or, you know, you can sort of, you know, like beetroot dyes and things like that. I mean, and it would fade, but then you can just like, you know, quickly dye it again. Yeah, or you do all sorts of things, you know, and really sort of inject colour and, people were also, you know, people were clean. To, you know, people did the best they could keep themselves clean, keep their homes clean. You know, we were talking about boiling linens to keep things fresh and get rid of things like fleas and lice. And people also used fur a lot in fashion. And you'd often like, you know, of course you'd get the wealthy people using the high end furs, but sometimes people would, you know, use cat fur in Holland, for example, people would trim their fur. Their garments and lined their garments with cat fur. Why not? Because, you know, that's sort of what they could afford. It was there. Yeah, people also would wear numerous layers of clothing as well because the heating wasn't always so great. Yeah. You know, at certain times of the year as well. So the more layers you had, the better. The more, the more warm and snug you could be. As do we in Sydney. Indeed. Indeed. Canadians complain of the biting cold here. I know. And it's like, dude, you've got to lay about us. It's a humid cold. It's awful. It's horrible. It just goes through everything. Anyway. It's awful. Yeah.
So at the age of 19, Giovanni Battista Rogeri finds himself living in the lively and somewhat crowded household of Niccolo Amati. The master is in his early 60s and Giovanni Battista Rogeri also finds himself in the workshop alongside Niccolo Amati's son Girolamo II Amati, who is about 13 or 14 at this time. Cremona is a busy place, a city bursting with artisans and merchants.
The Amati Workshop is definitely the place to be to learn the craft, but it soon becomes clear as Giovanni Battista Rogeri looks around himself in the streets that, thanks to Nicolo Amati, Cremona does indeed have many violin makers, and although he has had a good few years in the Amati Workshop, Learning and taking the young Girolamo II Amati the second under his wing more and more as his father is occupied with other matters. He feels that his best chances of making a go of it would be better if he moved on and left Cremona and her violin makers. There was Girolamo II Amati who would take over his father's business. There were the Guarneri's around the corner. There was that very ambitious Antonio Stradivari who was definitely going to make a name for himself. And then there were the Rugeri family, Francesco Rugeri and Vincenzo Rugeri whose name was so familiar to his, people were often asking if they were related. No, it was time to move on, and he knew the place he was headed.
Emily Brayshaw.
So, you've also got, like, a lot of artisans moving to Brescia as well, following the Venetian ban on foreign Fustian sold in the territory. So Fustian is, like, a blend of various things. Stiff cotton that's used in padding. So if you sort of think of, for example someone like Henry VIII, right? I can't guarantee that his shoulder pads back in the Renaissance were from Venetian Fustian, but they are sort of topped up and lined with this really stiff Fustian to give like these really big sort of, Broad shoulders. That's how stiff this is. So, Venice is banning foreign fustians, which means that Cremona can't be sold in these retail outlets.
So, Ah, so, and was that sort of That's fabric, but did that mirror the economy that Brescia was doing better than Cremona at this point? Do you, do you think? Because of that?
Well, people go where the work is. Yeah. Cause it's interesting because you've got Francesco Ruggeri, this family that lives in Cremona. Yeah. And then you have about 12 to 20 years later, you have another maker, Giovanni Battista Rogeri. Yeah. He is apprenticed to Niccolo Amati. So he learns in Cremona. And then he's in this city full of violin makers, maybe, and there's this economic downturn, and so it was probably a very wise decision. He's like, look, I'm going to Brescia, and he goes to Brescia. He would have definitely been part of this movement of skilled workers and artisans to Brescia at that time, sort of what happening as well. So, you know, there's all sorts of heavy tolls on movements of goods and things like that. And essentially it collapses. And they were, and they were heavily taxed as well. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
It was the fabulous city of Brescia. He had heard stories of the city's wealth, art, music and culture, famous for its musicians and instrument makers. But the plague of 1630 had wiped out almost all the Luthiers and if ever there was a good time and place to set up his workshop, it was then and there. So bidding farewell to the young Girolamo Amati, the older Nicolò Amati and his household, where he had been living for the past few years. The young artisan set out to make a mark in Brescia, a city waiting for a new maker, and this time with the Cremonese touch.
Almost halfway between the old cathedral and the castle of Brescia, you will find the small yet lovely Romanesque church of San Giorgio. Amidst paintings and frescoes of Christ, the Virgin and the Saints, there stands a solemn yet nervous young couple, both in their early twenties. Beneath the domed ceiling of the church, the seven angels of the Apocalypse gaze down upon them, a constant reminder that life is fragile, and that plague, famine and war are ever present reminders of their mortality. But today is a happy one. The young Giovanni Battista Rogeri is marrying Laura Testini. And so it was that Giovanni Battista Rogeri moved to Brescia into the artisanal district and finds himself with a young wife, Laura Testini. She is the daughter of a successful leather worker and the couple most probably lived with Laura's family. Her father owned a house with eight rooms and two workshops. This would have been the perfect setup for the young Giovanni to start his own workshop and get down to business making instruments for the people of Brescia. He could show off his skills acquired in Cremona, and that is just what he did. Since the death of Maggini, there had not been any major instrument making workshops in Brescia.
Florian Leonhard
Here I talk to Florian Leonhard about Giovanni Battista Rogeri's move to Brescia and his style that would soon be influenced by not only his Cremonese training, but the Brescian makers such as Giovanni Paolo Maggini
I mean, I would say in 1732. The Brescian violin making or violin making was dead for a bit, so until the arrival of Giovanni Battista Rogeri, who came with a completely harmonised idea, into town and then adopted features of Giovanni Paolo Maggini and Gasparo da Salo. I cannot say who, probably some Giovanni Paolo Maggini violins that would have been more in numbers available to him, have influenced his design of creating an arching. It's interesting that he instantly picked up on that arching because Giovanni Battista Rogeri always much fuller arched. The arching rises much earlier from the purfling up. Right. So he came from the Cremonese tradition, but he adopted the, like, the Brescian arching idea. He, he came from Niccolo Amati and has learned all the finesse of construction, fine making, discipline, and also series production. He had an inside mould, and he had the linings, and he had the, all the blocks, including top and bottom block. And he nailed in the neck, so he did a complete package of Cremonese violin making and brought that into Brescia, but blended it in certain stylistics and sometimes even in copies with the Brescian style.
For a long time, we have had Before dendrochronology was established, the Giovanni Paolo Magginis were going around and they were actually Giovanni Battista Rogeris.
Brescia at this time was still a centre flourishing in the arts and despite the devastation of the plague almost 30 years ago, it was an important city in Lombardy and was in the process of undergoing much urban development and expansion. When Giovanni Rogeri arrived in the city, There were efforts to improve infrastructure, including the construction of public buildings, fortifications and roads. The rich religious life of the city was evident, and continued to be a centre of religious devotion at this time, with the construction and renovation of churches in the new Baroque style. The elaborate and ornate designs were not only reserved for churches, but any new important building projects underway in the city at this time. If you had yourself the palace in the Mula, you were definitely renovating in the Baroque style. And part of this style would also be to have a collection of lovely instruments to lend to musicians who would come and play in your fancy new pad. Strolling down the colourful streets lined with buildings covered in painted motifs, people were also making a statement in their choice of clothing.
Another thing that the very wealthy women were wearing are these shoes called Chopines, which are like two foot tall. And so you've got like this really exaggerated proportions as well. Very tall. I mean. Very tall, very wide. So taking up a lot of space.
I'm trying to think of the door, the doorways that would have to accommodate you.
Yes.
How do you fit through the door?
So a lot of the time women would have to stoop. You would need to be escorted by either servants. And then you'd just stand around. I did find some discussions of fashion in the time as well. Commentators saying, well, you know, what do we do in northern France? We either, in northern Italy, sorry, we either dress like the French, we dress like the Spanish, why aren't we dressing like Italians? And kind of these ideas of linking national identity through the expression of dress in fashion. So, we're having this
But did you want to, was it fashionable to be to look like the French court or the, to look like the Spanish court.
Well, yeah, it was, it was fashionable. And this is part of what people are commenting about as well. It's like, why are we bowing to France? Why are we bowing to Italy? Sorry. Why are we bowing to Spain? Why don't we have our own national Italian identity? And we do see like little variations in dress regionally as well. You know, people don't always. Dress exactly how the aristocracy are dressing. You'll have your own little twists, you'll have your own little trimmings, you'll have your own little ways and styles. And there are theories in dress about trickle down, you know, like people are trying to emulate the aristocracy, but they're not always. Trying to do that. Well, yeah, it's not practical if you're living, you know, if you're and you financially you can't either like some of these Outfits that we're talking about, you know with one of these hugh like the Garde in Fanta worn by Marie Theresa that outfit alone would have cost in today's money like more than a million dollars You can't copy these styles of dress, right? So what you've got to do is, you know, make adjustments. And also like a lot of women, like you, these huge fashion spectacles worn at court. They're not practical for working women either. So we see adaptations of them. So women might have a pared down silhouette and wear like a bum roll underneath their skirts and petticoats and over the top of the stays.
And that sort of gives you a little nod to these wider silhouettes, but you can still move, you can still get your work done, you can still, you know, do things like that. So that's sort of what's happening there.
Okay, so now we find a young Giovanni Battista Rogeri. He has married a local girl and set up his workshop. Business will be good for this maker, and no doubt thanks to the latest musical craze to sweep the country. I'm talking about opera. In the last episodes on Francesco Ruggeri, I spoke to Stephen Mould, the composer. at the Sydney Conservatorium about the beginnings of opera and the furore in which it swept across Europe. And if you will remember back to the episodes on Gasparo Da Salo at the beginning of the Violin Chronicles, we spoke about how Brescia was part of the Venetian state. This is still the case now with Giovanni Battista Rogeri and this means that the close relationship with Venice is a good thing for his business. Venice equals opera and opera means orchestras and where orchestras are you have musicians and musicians have to have an instrument really, don't they?
Here is Stephen Mould explaining the thing that is opera and why it was so important to the music industry at the time and instrument makers such as our very own Giovanni Battista Rogeri.
Venice as a place was a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk. Everything was there, and it was a very, it was a very modern type of city, a trading city, and it had a huge emerging, or more than emerging, middle class. People from the middle class like entertainment of all sorts, and in Venice they were particularly interested in rather salacious entertainments, which opera absolutely became. So the great thing of this period was the rise of the castrato. Which they, which, I mean, it was, the idea of it is perverse and it was, and they loved it. And it was to see this, this person that was neither man nor, you know, was in a way sexless on the stage singing and, and often singing far more far more virtuosically than a lot of women, that there was this, there was this strange figure. And that was endlessly fascinating. They were the pop stars of their time. And so people would go to the opera just to hear Farinelli or whoever it was to sing really the way. So this is the rise of public opera.
As opposed to the other version.
Well, Orfeo, for example, took place in the court at Mantua, probably in the, in the room of a, of a palace or a castle, which wouldn't have been that big, but would have been sort of specially set up for those performances. If I can give you an idea of how. Opera might have risen as it were, or been birthed in Venice.
Let's say you've got a feast day, you know, a celebratory weekend or few days. You're in the piazza outside San Marco. It's full of people and they're buying things, they're selling things, they're drinking, they're eating, they're having a good time. And all of a sudden this troupe of strolling players comes into the piazza and they start to put on a show, which is probably a kind of comedia dell'arte spoken drama. But the thing is that often those types of traveling players can also sing a bit and somebody can usually play a lute or some instrument. So they start improvising. Probably folk songs. Yeah. And including that you, so you've kind of already there got a little play happening outside with music. It's sort of like a group of buskers in Martin place. It could be very hot. I mean, I've got a picture somewhere of this. They put a kind of canvas awning with four people at either corner, holding up the canvas awning so that there was some sort of shade for the players. Yeah. That's not what you get in a kid's playground these days. You've almost got the sense. Of the space of a stage, if you then knock on the door of one of the palazzi in, in Venice and say to, to the, the local brew of the, of the aristocracy, look, I don't suppose we could borrow one of your rooms, you know, in your, in your lovely palazzo to, to put on a, a, a show. Yeah, sure. And maybe charged, maybe didn't, you know, and, and so they, the, the very first, it was the San Cassiano, I think it was the theatre, the theatre, this, this room in a, in a palace became a theatre. People went in an impresario would often commission somebody to write the libretto, might write it himself. Commissioner, composer, and they put up some kind of a stage, public came in paid, so it's paying to come and see opera. Look, it's, it's not so different to what had been going on in England in the Globe Theatre. And also the, the similar thing to Shakespeare's time, it was this sort of mixing up of the classes, so everything was kind of mixed together. And that's, that's why you get different musical genres mixed together. For example, an early something like Papaya by Monteverdi, we've just done it, and from what, from what I can gather from the vocal lines, some of the comic roles were probably these street players, who just had a limited vocal range, but could do character roles very well, play old women, play old men, play whatever, you know, caricature type roles. Other people were Probably trained singers. Some of them were probably out of Monteverdi's chorus in San Marco, and on the, on when they weren't singing in church, they were over playing in the opera, living this kind of double life. And That’s how opera started to take off. Yeah, so like you were saying, there are different levels.
So you had these classical Greek themes, which would be more like, you're an educated person going, yes, yes, I'm seeing this classical Greek play, but then you're someone who'd never heard of Greek music. The classics. They were there for the, you know, the lively entertainment and the sweet performers.
Yes. So the, the, the Commedia dell'arte had, had all these traditional folk tales. Then you've got all of the, all of the ancient myths and, and, and so forth. Papaya was particularly notable because it was the first opera that was a historical opera. So it wasn't based on any ancient myths or anything.
It was based on the life of Nero and Papaya. And so they were real life a few hundred years before, but they were real. It was a real historical situation that was being enacted on the stage. And it was a craze. That's the thing to remember is. You know, these days people have to get dressed up and they have to figure out how they get inside the opera house and they're not sure whether to clap or not and all of this sort of stuff and there's all these conventions surrounding it. That wasn't what it was about. It was the fact that the public were absolutely thirsty for this kind of entertainment. Yeah. And I was seeing the first, so the first opera house was made in in about 1637, I think it was. And then by the end of Monteverdi's lifetime, they said there were 19 opera houses in Venice. It was, like you were saying, a craze that just really took off. They had a few extra ones because they kept burning down. That's why one of them, the one that, that is, still exists today is called La Fenice. It keeps burning down as well, but rising from the ashes. Oh, wow. Like the, yeah, with the lighting and stuff, I imagine it's So, yeah, because they had candles and they had, you know, Yeah, it must have been a huge fire hazard. Huge fire hazard, and all the set pieces were made out of wood or fabric and all of that. Opera houses burning down is another big theme. Oh yeah, it's a whole thing in itself, yeah. So then you've got These opera troupes, which are maybe a little, something a little bit above these commedia dell'arte strolling players.
So, you've got Italy at that time. Venice was something else. Venice wasn't really like the rest of Italy. You've got this country which is largely agrarian, and you've got this country where people are wanting to travel in order to have experiences or to trade to, to make money and so forth. And so, first of all if an opera was successful, it might be taken down to Rome or to Naples for people to hear it. You would get these operas happening, happening in different versions. And then of course, there was this idea that you could travel further through Europe. And I, I think I have on occasion, laughingly. a couple of years ago said that it was like the, the latest pandemic, you know, it was, but it was this craze that caught on and everybody wanted to experience.
Yeah. So you didn't, you didn't have to live in Venice to see the opera. They, they moved around. It was, it was touring. Probably more than we think. That, that, that whole period, like a lot of these operas were basically unknown for about 400 years. It's only, the last century or so that people have been gradually trying to unearth under which circumstances the pieces were performed. And we're still learning a lot, but the sense is that there was this sort of network of performers and performance that occurred.
And one of the things that Monteverdi did, which was, which was different as well, is that before you would have maybe one or two musicians accompanying, and he came and he went, I'm taking them all.
And he created sort of, sort of the first kind of orchestras, like lots of different instruments. They were the prototypes of, of orchestras. And Look, the bad news for your, the violin side of your project, there was certainly violins in it. It was basically a string contingent. That was the main part of the orchestra. There may have been a couple of trumpets, may have been a couple of oboe like instruments. I would have thought that for Venice, they would have had much more exotic instruments. But the, the, the fact is at this time with the public opera, what became very popular were all of the stage elements. And so you have operas that have got storms or floods or fires. They simulated fires. A huge amount of effort went into painting these very elaborate sets and using, I mean, earlier Leonardo da Vinci had been experimenting with a lot of how you create the effect of a storm or an earthquake or a fire or a flood. There was a whole group of experts who did this kind of stuff.
For the people at the time, it probably looked like, you know, going to the, the, the first big movie, you know, when movies first came out in the 20s, when the talkies came out and seeing all of these effects and creating the effects. When we look at those films today, we often think, well, that's been updated, you know, it's out of date, but they found them very, very, very compelling.
What I'm saying is the money tended to go on the look of the thing on the stage and the orchestra, the sound of the orchestras from what we can gather was a little more monochrome. Of course, the other element of the orchestra is the continuo section. So you've got the so called orchestra, which plays during the aria like parts of the opera, the set musical numbers. And you've got the continuo, which is largely for the rest of the team. And you would have had a theorbo, you would have had maybe a cello, a couple of keyboard instruments, lute. It basically, it was a very flexible, what’s available kind of.
Yeah, so there was they would use violines, which was the ancestor of the double bass. So a three stringed one and violins as well. And that, and what else I find interesting is with the music, they would just, they would give them for these bass instruments, just the chords and they would improvise sort of on those. Chords. So every time it was a little bit different, they were following a Yes. Improvisation. Yeah. So it was kind of original. You could go back again and again.
It wasn't exactly the same. And look, that is the problem with historical recreation. And that is that if you go on IMSLP, you can actually download the earliest manuscript that we have of Papaya. And what you've got is less than chords, you've got a baseline. Just a simple bass line, a little bit of figuration to indicate some of the chords, and you've got a vocal line. That's all we have. We don't actually know, we can surmise a whole lot of things, but we don't actually know anything else about how it was performed.
I imagine all the bass instruments were given that bass line, and like, Do what you want with that.
So yeah, it would, and it would have really varied depending on musicians. Probably different players every night, depending on, you know, look, if you go into 19th century orchestras, highly unreliable, huge incidents of drunkenness and, you know, different people coming and going because they had other gigs to do. Like this is 19th century Italian theatres at a point where, you know, It should have been, in any other country, it would have, Germany had much better organized you know, orchestral resources and the whole thing. So it had that kind of Italian spontaneity and improvised, the whole idea of opera was this thing that came out of improvisation. Singers also, especially the ones that did comic roles, would probably improvise texts, make them a bit saucier than the original if they wanted for a particular performance. All these things were, were open.
And this brings us to an end of this first episode on Giovanni Battista Rogeri. We have seen the young life of this maker setting out to make his fortune in a neighbouring city, alive with culture and its close connections to Venice and the world of opera.
I would like to thank my lovely guests Emily Brayshaw, Stephen Mould and Florian Leonhardt for joining me today.
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Missing episodes?
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Francesco Rugeri had 4 sons, lets take a look at who they were and their contribution to Cremona in its golden period.
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In this episode we will be looking at Francesco’s most productive period of making instruments with a busy workshop and 4 sons helping him out. Jason Price from Tarisio fine violins and bows talks to us about Rugeris distinctive making style and his prolific production at this time in his life but things do not run as smoothly as Rugeri would like as he finds himself in hot water with court cases and grumpy children.
Thankyou to the Australian Chamber Orchestra for permission to play their music.
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Join me as we continue to look at the life of this innovative violin maker who was literally living outside the box. His workshop has been successfully set up, he has a young family and work is pouring in. Francesco now has to take on apprentices but who could they be? Keep listening to find out.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting, violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School some years ago now and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Luthierie in Mirecourt. As well as being a luthier I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with and in particular the lives of those who made them. So often when we look back at history I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect. But here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture.
So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, feminine war, but also of love. Artistic genius. Revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning, and bravery that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.
This week's show is sponsored by Tarizio Fine Instruments and Bows, and I just happen to have bumped into Mr.Jason Price.
Hello, I'm Jason Price. I'm the founder and director of Tarizio, Tarizio was started 25 years ago in New York City, and now we have offices in London and also Berlin. We do auctions, we do private sales, and we also are the maintainers and curators of this thing called the Cozio Archive.
I just wanted to say from personal experience as a violin maker, over the years we've bought instruments from different auction houses and you guys have been very straightforward to work with and
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Welcome back to this series on Francesco Ruggeri. We find ourselves in Cremona, a city in Northern Italy on the Lombard plains. Yet this relatively small centre had a far reaching reputation for the production of fine instruments in many European cities. Over in England, the country just could not keep a monarch on the throne for very long, and this had been going on for quite a while. Whereas France, another superpower, had a lot of stability with their sun king, Louis XIV. Lully was in full force and ballet and opera and ballet operas were all the thing at Versailles.
Well, now it's all about the cello and it's this little guy's time to shine. Rugeri's workshop may have been on the outskirts of Cremona, but it was an industrious hub of activity with instrument after instrument being produced. He was beginning to get a reputation for his fine sounding cellos that he made to a smaller and more manageable size. Their rich sound meant orders kept coming in. His workshop would have been attached to his house where you could find Ippolita and their ever growing brood of children. Francesco's boys were too young to help out in the workshop, so it seems logical, with the quantity of instruments emerging from the Ruggeri workshop, that there were apprentices, or other hands helping him out.
Although Antonio Stradivarius's apprenticeship has often been assumed to have been in the hands of the Amatis. Even though there's no actual proof of this, here we find Antonio Stradivari in his mid teens, and from a biographical point of view, he is the right age to be apprenticed to Ruggeri, given also that some researchers think his work resembles more that of Ruggeri in his early work, stylistically and technically, than Amati's. So there is always a possibility that this young maker was working with Francesco Rugeri in the shop churning out instruments. W. E. Hill and Sons concede that they, quote, “failed to find the hand of Stradivari in any of Niccolò Amati's work, although the unmistakable hands of Andrea Guarneri and Francesco Ruggeri are evident”, end quote.
In the previous episodes, I spoke to Dan Larson about the evolution of gut strings, and now we are at a point where, as Dan will explain, the wound gut string will enable makers such as Francesco Ruggeri to make different sized instruments and how that was possible through new string technologies.
Dan Larson.
What we had was the invention of the concept of changing the mass of the string. Because, as I mentioned before several times, up to that point, there was only one type of material that they had, gut. And if you wanted to lower string, you had to just add more gut. But if you had the technology to combine materials, then you could start putting heavier materials together with the gut and have a thinner string, which meant that you could start to control the weight of the string, as well as control the size of the instrument and the size of, you know, the pitch that you were using and so forth. And I think that the important thing about this concept of the gimped string, whatever it was, the important thing is that it gave instrument makers the ability to control the weight of the string and that opened up a whole new world of, of instrument design for them. It meant that they weren't restricted by the, the fundamental laws that Mersenne talked about. About length and pitch and, and tension and so forth. That they could change the length. And they could make it shorter, for instance, and just make a heavier string. They could make it a little bit longer and use a lighter string. And I think that opened up a tremendous amount of, of possibilities.
So people think that Strad was sort of copied him, his smaller instrument model, his B model cello they think is based off of Francesco Ruggeri's, who was doing this 50 years before. So we often say Stradivari made this, the modern standard cello, but Francesco Ruggeri was doing this. At this time, when the strings were making it possible to make a smaller instrument, and would it also have made, at this point, violins more, more sort of powerful as well, with that, those strings?
Dan Larson.
Not necessarily. I've heard a lot of instruments with all gut strings that are pretty powerful, especially if they're all gut strings is strong and equal tension. They can be, they can be quite powerful indeed. So, no, I don't think that would necessarily mean it would have any more energy in it than it, than it would with a plain gut string.
Yeah, so before was it that they had to also you get a lot of very wide, cellos before? And that would, was that sort of dictated by the strings as well?
It could be. It could be. I know I certainly prefer wide instruments myself because I have a tendency to use primarily gut strings. And I find with gut strings that having that width gives a more fundamental tone then it tends to reduce the upper partials of the note and the tone and sort of reinforces the fundamental of the of the note. So, you know, it could be, but that's just total anecdotal thinking on my part because that's what I like.
As time goes on for the Rugeris in the 1660s, the couple has two more sons, Vincenzo then Carlo. And here is where things will start to get confusing, because it is now that the young Giovanni Battista Rogeri, who will eventually move to Brescia, starts his apprenticeship with Niccolo Amati in town, around the years 1661 to 1663. Matters are not helped by the fact that Francesco's eldest son, who is about 10 years younger than Giovanni Battista Rogeri, is also called Giovanni Battista, which makes him Giovanni Battista Rugeri.
Here is Duane Rosengard, who we spoke to in the previous episode.
In that interval from 1653 to 1666, Francesca Rugeri's four sons are born, and you can probably pretty easily imagine that once they were of a certain age to help, and it could have been 12, it could have been 11, could have been 13, depending on their personalities and physique, they got involved in father's business and they lived out there in the country and had room to roam and, not at all like life in a medieval city. As it were. It's really, that's the first, the first chapter of the book. As I see it, a Francesco is his obscure origins in the province, his connection to Amati, and then starting his own family and having so many children.
Yeah, and his children would have been the same ages as close to Niccolo Amati and Andrea Guarneri's?
Yes, that's a very excellent point, right? The children of Francesco are roughly the same age, even almost the same age spread as Andrea Guarneri's two sons, or three sons. One, Andrea Guarneri had one son who was a priest and two who were violin makers, and of those, Pietro Guarneri, the older son, seems to have been as occupied with music at playing instruments as he was making them. So yeah, they were all in that, let's call it two generations after the Black Death, let's call it.
Life, music, art, and architecture around them is changing. We are firmly in the Baroque period at this point, having left the Renaissance. The way music is played and composed has a direct impact on the violin makers of Cremona, and one of the moving factors for this movement that the Ruggieri's find themselves in comes from the Reformation. If you haven't already, go back and listen to Episode 5 of The Violin Chronicles, where I talk about what the Reformation was and the profound impact it had on the city of Cremona, and the way music was composed. Well, after the Reformation, there was the Counter Reformation, and that was the Catholic Church's response to Protestantism. While the Protestant churches decided to remove statues and artworks that risked looking like something resembling idol worship, to end up with very simply decorated buildings, almost even austere in some places, the Catholic Church's response was to go literally Baroque.
Now, the movement we call Baroque, as I mentioned, emerged from the Reformation and started in Rome with the Catholic Church encouraging this style to really contrast to the simplicity of Protestant architecture, art and music. Baroque anything is pretty full on, but some characteristics to help recognize the style in art, for example, are the use of deep colors, movement, lots of flowing fabric, intense emotions, and contrast. Think of Caravaggio's portraits for contrast and emotion with the clairobscur, and Peter Paul Rubens for movement and flowy fabric. There's a lot of drama, asymmetry, and the use of primary colors and allegory. This meant that there was often a story being told in the image, that would often involve windswept clothing consisting of meters of fabric flowing around them.It was intense.
Take Judas Slaying Holophane by Artemisia Gentileschi. There's emotion, almost spotlight lighting. There's fabric galore and a story to be told. Buildings were characterized by exuberant detail and grandeur. There's a crowded, dense sense of ornamentation. There was always room to stuff in sculptures of baskets, of fruit, of flowers, trophies and weapons into an already loaded structure. The more the merrier. And you couldn't get any further from the Protestant ideal of simplicity. But that was exactly the point.
The Baroque period went from about 1600 to 1750 and our violin maker Francesco Rugeri lived from 1629 or 28 to 1698. That places him slap bang in the middle of the Baroque.
Emily Brayshaw.
I was just thinking, so we've come from the Renaissance where it's this like explosion of colors and textures and, you know, stripes and things, and we're coming into the Baroque era. Is it still very colorful?
Oh, absolutely. And yeah, it absolutely is. For men and women.
Often I have this idea that it's all blacks and greys and browns and regions.
No, no, no. So the thing with blacks of course is you still do have a lot of black and that's coming out of Holland a lot of the time and because it's quite a protestant thing to be wearing black with these Dutch merchant classes. So with the Reformation maybe like just wearing colors you were like I'm definitely not Protestant. You know, with the Spanish Inquisition, maybe you could, it was a bit like hairy there for a bit. You didn't, you really didn't want to be Protestant in Cremona. You were being,
yeah. Okay. So maybe with your clothing, you could say, well, the thing is though, like not all blacks are created equal. And the thing about this Dutch merchant classes is as well, like for a long time black. is associated with wealth. A really good quality black dye is actually very expensive to make, one that's stable and fast, and so not all black clothes are created equal. And so you can still express, you know, like luxury and wealth through black and black materials. And you can also you know, express that, you know, this lack of Protestant sobriety, you can also express, you know, decadence and extravagance through black, not all black textiles are created equal, so you can do that. Yeah, definitely. So we're still seeing these colors. What's happening though, is particularly in the Baroque era, we're moving into an era where. It's more about the primacy of the textile. And so particularly in the UK, you’re seeing more of these one color silks, and it's about the quality of the silk and the cut of the silk, and it's being trimmed like with things like laces. And also in the Baroque too, by, you know, the 1660s, you have the rise of really incredible lace trimmings. And you've also got ribbons, like, because ribbons are incredibly expensive to make, because you've got to set it all up to make these incredibly thin strips of luxury silk textiles. And so if you can, the more ribbons, you know, the richer you are.
Right, so ribbons are a big thing, and of course you can have ribbons in all sorts of different colours, and this is also a nice trimming that kind of can filter down, you know, so perhaps you've got a poorer woman who can afford one beautiful ribbon in her hair, versus again, you know, these Baroque courtly leaders who have, just have ribbons for days. Like they have ribbons, like the men will have ribbons on the bottoms of all their breeches and adorning their coats and, you know, just all over the shop, like it's a ribbon city.
In little women, they're always going, Oh, I'm going to, going to go and buy some ribbons. And they're always off to buy, they're always off to the shop to buy some ribbons.
Yeah, and the great thing about ribbons too is that, and I mean that's part of why little women are talking about it as well, but it's a really cheap well not cheap, but it's a really simple way that you can change up your outfit really quickly.
So this is what people were wearing at this time, when the young Ruggeri was running his workshop with his burgeoning family. Okay, so he wasn't wearing the chains and ribbons and fancy pants. And let's face it, high heels are just not practical in the workshop. Believe me, I tried. But he was definitely making instruments for some of these people and would have come across these fashions in downtown Cremona.
You know, they'll wear chains around their necks. These are men, you know, also men really have extravagant shoes as well. So you've got the rise of the Louis heel, the court in France, for example, you know, in the time of Louis XIV, you've got the red. What we've got though, which is really interesting in Cremona. So something that pops up is this sort of style of men's court called the Juste corps, which comes from France. And it's a really long outer coat, really, really long, with huge pockets.
Because today, the Juste corps is a singlet.
Which doesn't That's hilarious!
Because they're like, why isn't your baby wearing a little juste corps. Yeah, so it's called a juste corps, just to call it, and it's a long men's over jacket, and this sort of like evolves over the Baroque period, and you'll get like the huge cuffs, which are you know, often embellished. It'll be in a very, very fine wool or velvet, depending what you're doing with it. On either side, we'll have incredibly expensive buttons and embroidery. And something that pops up in this period too is, as you probably know, is the pochette or the kit. Yes. Which comes from the, so these juste corps have huge pockets and we see the dance masters wearing them and with the kit that they can carry in their pocket. Yeah. Of the just decor. And this is where this is coming from. And we know, for example, that I think Amati made different styles of kits for the higher quality ones. And what we're seeing is what's really interesting is these dance masters have to dress in the most expensive clothing that they can possibly afford because their clients are nobility. Right? Or they're aspirational wealthy people who are looking to learn how to dance or get their daughters to learn how to dance so that they can marry well. And so you've sort of got like the dancing master dressing the very best he can to kind of try to fit in, even though these classes like they need his services, but they will still mock him because he's a type of dancer.
Yeah, he's another one of those people. I feel like with the instrument makers that are between worlds, they're, they're catering to the very wealthy their working class themselves, but they're kind of on the, on the upper end of these skilled artisans. Yeah. Like the skilled tailors.
This was the age of the pochette, or kit violin, that you could put in the pocket of your French juste de corps jacket, if you were a dance master. The word pochette means pocket, and these kit instruments, as they were called, were in fact tiny violins. They were not proportionally small, they often had a full length neck and scroll on what looks like a tiny little shrunken body of a violin and their purpose was to play music as you practice dancing. A teacher didn't have an orchestra at his disposal at all times. And so he would pull this little thing out to play a tune for his students. There are some really stunning instruments made like this, and they would often come in little boxes or tubes to transport easily. There are pochettes made by Stradivari and Amati, amongst others.
In Venice and parts of Italy and it moves to France, you've got like the lace makers who are making these incredibly labour intensive, beautiful, handmade laces that become part of a garment that just takes off boom in 1660, known as the cravat, which revolutionizes menswear. Okay.
So that was during Ruggieri's lifetime as well. He lived through a really all this stuff was happening. So, from the 1640s to the 1660s, the violin sort of exploded. It became really popular. That's when it became so popular. And before then, it was sort of the viola, and then it sort of, and then, and then the violin starts to take over now. And in the second half of the 1600s, we get over spun strings. So we have wire wrapped around the gut, which means that big bass instruments could be made smaller, more manageable before they so you can play them without them going all you, you didn't need a giant gut string. You could make a thinner gut string. So Ruggeri, he, he made these smaller cellos. They were 10 centimetres smaller than what people were making at the time. And this was like, this was huge for violin makings. He was living in sort of this, this age of, of great change, you know, you've got the cravat.
Yeah. The, cello is, appearing. You've got the violin is taking off. It was, I, it was, yeah, it was exciting they'd gone through this lull with the plague and now they were sort of, you know, revving up to. Trying to boost it up again. And again, you sort of see that in like Cremona trying to rebuild itself, you know, prop itself back up with these making raw silks, textiles, the flaxes, the linens, things like that. A lot of foodstuffs, even agricultural foodstuffs.
So what did this mean for music? Because that is what is going to influence Francesco Rugeri more than flowy robes in paintings and baskets of fruit on facades. Music, as with art and architecture, was creating a heightened sense of emotion. It was heavily instrumental. Composers were starting to use the keyboard and the violin more and more. And the Catholic Church encouraging composers to write music to appeal to the masses. Emotion evoking music. It was, it was to be dynamic and contrasting. Composers used counterpoint, or that that meant the layering of several melodies on top of each other, to create a supercharged piece of music. Into this mix, we see the rise of opera and the development of new genres such as the concerto and the sonata.
I'm Stephen Mould and I'm an associate professor at the Conservatory of Music in Sydney. And I teach mainly in the areas of opera studies and conducting. Yeah, sure. Basically during that century from about 1600. Okay. Where we were, if you'd been alive then, you wouldn't have woken up one morning and said, Oh, opera's been born in any way, shape, or form. Opera like works have existed, well, since the ancient Greeks. Or even in the 16th century, there were lots of works, which if you listen to them today, you'd say, well, that's basically an opera. What happened at around 1600 was a group of noblemen got together and decided that they wanted to revive the ancient Greek notion of opera. So it's quite a self conscious thing. They were all poets. An important aspect of opera is the Gesamtkunstwerk. That's what we call it today, which is this idea, which already comes from the Greeks that, that opera is a collection of different things, text, music, decor, drama, and that all of these, all of these particular areas come together in some mysterious harmony, To create a wonderful operatic work. It's the ultimate art form. Ultimate art form. It's a kind of alchemical sort of, it's an idea. The idea of opera got, if you like, kickstarted around 1600, because these noblemen got together and decided that they were going to revive this form. Now, being poets, they wrote poems. What for the time was, was wonderful poetry. And then they had it set to music. Now already you've got a problem because you've got the poet with their wonderful text. And then you've got maybe a composer who is trying to write the next great tune. And so there's this, this question that runs through the whole history of opera. What comes first, the words or the music, or in fact, what dominates the words or the music? It's pretty clear you can't have, it requires a librettist to write the opera and then a composer to set the text. So the person writing the music wasn't necessarily the person writing the story. Absolutely not. There's always been these two different, the poet plus the, the musician. So you know, today, if we talk about any opera, if I say the marriage of Figaro, you'll probably say Mozart. Yeah. If I say Il Trovatore, you'll say Verdi. Yeah What about the poor old librettist? What's happened there? And, and so the way we talk about opera is extraordinary because a lot of modern opera goers couldn't tell you. Who had written some of their favourite operas. Who had written the text for some of their favourite operas.
Yeah, that's extraordinary. We do just think of the composer and the whole idea of opera was that it was this mixture of dance music, poetry. And what I found interesting is the, the, the mise en scène, the, the, the decor. You don't really think of the person doing the decorations, but for them, it was just as important.
Absolutely. So it is this idea. I mean, today in modern terms, we'd call it an ecosystem that all of these very, very, very different areas find this magical balance. So Wagner created this word, Gesamtkunstwerk. He didn't create it, he kind of brought it back into the language, which means total work of art. Wagner was one of the great plagiarizers or borrowers of all time, depending on what era you live in. So he didn't invent that much, but he appropriated a lot of things to create something original. So he put this term out there basically as his own invention, which it wasn't. So, this group of literati who wrote the Libretti, their idea was that the word was the primary thing. They wanted the person who set the opera to set it with very, very, very plain, syllabic settings so that the words were always clear. Audible. The words were almost always foremost in the audience's mind.
The splendour of the Baroque age. It epitomizes grandeur and elegance. The music is mirroring other baroque works, such as art and architecture in Paris at the court of Louis xiv. Jean Baptiste Lully was in full swing. In Italy, Vivaldi and Corelli were soon to come onto the scene. Corelli was a master of the trio sonata, and that had two violins and a continuo. This was a very popular musical format. May account for the dip in popularity of the viola at this point and the rise of the violin and increased demand for the cello at this time, as the trio sonata would have two violins and a bass, which, which would remove the viola part. Courtly dances were the basis of many Baroque pieces. These came from Renaissance dances from Germany, France, and Italy. The Baroque composers took these dances and developed them into instrumental pieces without the dance. There's the Allemande, or the jig, the Sarabande, and the Carante. The harpsichord became the backbone to most ensembles, and it formed the continuo with the cello. Flutes, oboes, trumpets without valves, and timpani were developing, and became established instruments into orchestras. And as the quality of instruments improved, composers continued exploring the capabilities of the orchestra, being able to use contrast, soft and loud sounds, and that would fit right into the Baroque aesthetic.
You can hear some of these very early operas for around 1600. They're boring by modern standards. Some of them have had historical recreations in under certain settings, but they would never, ever survive a commercial season in a modern opera house. They, they're all, they're very nicely written, but they are like poetry with a bit of music. Yeah. Things. This is very blunt tool, but sometimes the blunt tool is useful. Tunes and divas. If you don't have both of those and, and they're not even part of the Gazant Kunstverband, but that's what keeps opera alive. The thing about Monteverdi was he was a great composer. He wrote. Fabulous music. So when, when certain intensity was happening in the drama, he knew how to turn up the, the harmonies and, and mirror what was going on stage with, with the right harmonic palette. And he also wrote great tunes. He was what I would call a man of the theatre. And we also have to contend with the fact that he was also the Maestro della Musica of San Marco in, in Venice. So this whole idea of secular and, and sacred is an interesting mix as well. There's a fascinating. scene in, in Orfeo, who we always manage playing on it. Imagine playing on his lyre, where Orfeo is literally trying to sing himself or perform himself across the river Styx to get to the underworld to find Euridice. Monteverdi takes a couple of violins to do all these flourishes and runs. And then there's also a harp involved. So it's this idea of using musical virtuosity that that Orfeo is not just, not just a musician, but one.
So Cremona's very own Monteverdi is getting into opera and giving the violin star parts in his operas. These companies coming out of Venice would tour around the country, and perhaps our violin maker Francesco Rugeri even saw one around this time. He would definitely have been in contact with musicians working in the theatre, and in the ever-increasing orchestras now being put together. And as time goes on, we will see in the up and coming episodes, how Francesco's workshop will flourish and grow with his sons coming on board. And with all this manpower, the production of incredible instruments is to come.
I would like to thank my guests, Stephen Mould. Dr. Emily Brayshaw, Dan Larson, and Duane Rosengard.
Thank you also to the Australian Chamber Orchestra for permission to use their recordings of Timo Vekkio Valve playing the cello. And if you've liked this show and would like to hear bonus episodes, go to patreon.com/theviolinchronicles, or another way to support the podcast is to rate and review it on the application on which you're listening.
So stay tuned and I hope you will join me next time for another episode of the Violin Chronicles.
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Part II
Kathleen Parlow was one of the most outstanding violinists at the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1912, she was signed by the Columbia Record Company in New York, and her first records for the U.S. label were brought out alongside those of the legendary Eugene Ysaÿe.
Listen to her fascinating story and how she took the world by storm. From her devastating looks to the intrigue her priceless instrument created. You will hear rare recordings of this prodigious player as we retell her life and try to understand why such an incredible talent has been so forgotten today.
Brought to you by Biddulph recordings
Transcript
Welcome to the Historical String Recordings podcast, a show that gives you a chance to hear rare and early recordings of great masters and their stories. My name is Linda Lespets and my co host is Eric Wan.
This is part two of the story of the remarkably talented violinist Kathleen Parlow. In part one, we met a prodigious talent. She was the first foreigner to study in the Russian Conservatorium in St. Petersburg with the famous teacher Auer, and her most ardent admirer had given her an extraordinary gift of a Guarneri del Gesù violin. But just how far can talent, hard work, and good looks get this young woman in the beginning of the 20th century? Keep listening to find out.
So now it's 1909 and Kathleen has her career taking off. She has her teacher with connections, she has her violins, and the concert that she did in the National Theatre, the one where Einar saw her for the first time, the one with Johan Halvorsen conducting, well Kathleen and Johan hit it off. And now, a year later Johan Halvorsen has finished his violin concerto, and he's been working so long and hard on it, like it's his baby and, he actually dedicates this concerto to Kathleen Parlow, and asks her to premiere it with the Berlin Philharmonic at the Modenspa outside The Hague in the Netherlands in the summer of 1909.
Then Johan Halversen writes this concerto, which is sort of athletic and sort of gymnastic to play. And he finishes it and dedicates it to her to Kathleen Parlow. And she plays this very tricky piece which kind of shows his faith in her virtuosic talents. Well, one of her first recordings was the Moto Perpetuo by Paganini and Auer says it's one of the most difficult pieces in terms of bowing technique ever written, he says in one of his books. The reason why is one has to keep a very controlled bow, crossing strings all over the place, and play it very rapidly. Now Kathleen Parlow's recording of the Paganini Moto Perpetuo, which was made in her first recording session for HMV, is really astounding. It's the fastest version ever made. I think it's even faster than the Jascha Heifetz and Yehudi Menuhin. Clean as a whistle, but she also phrases it so beautifully. So she doesn't just play it technically very fast. She really shapes, you know, it's all regular sixteenth notes or semiquavers, and yet she shapes the line beautifully and really gives a direction. So when you hear this, you realize she's more than just a virtuoso performer. She's somebody with real musicianship. She's an astounding player.
And this concerto, it's quite interesting. It's, it's tricky and it's a piece that really shows off a virtuoso. So it's, it’s quite a good one for Kathleen. And at the same time, he gives it a Norwegian twist. It's cleverly composed and a virtuoso such as Kathleen was perfect for playing this piece. There are references to Norwegian folk music. In the last movement, we can hear pieces that were traditionally played on the Norwegian Hardanger fiddle. So it's a violin that has sympathetic strings that run under the fingerboard, and it gives it quite like a like a haunting sound, a very kind of Scandinavian sound. So there are bits in this concerto that are from traditional music played on that violin. Then there's, there's this fun bit which makes a reference to a traditional Norwegian dance called the Halling Dance. And the Halling Dance is danced, it's danced by men at weddings or parties, and there's really no other way to describe it than breakdancing and it's like the ancestor of breakdancing. So what happens is the men, they show off their prowess to the ladies by doing this really cool sort of these acrobatics and the music for this hailing dance itself is quite tricky and you have to play it with like a rhythm to get the crowd moving and to give the dancer like the impetus to do his tricks and the men, they wear these like traditional costumes of like high waisted breeches and red waistcoats with long puffy sleeves and this little black hat. It's a bit like Mr. Darcy meets Run DMC. You've got this man in this traditional dress doing this breakdancing, basically. And then they do they do backflips. They do that thing where you hold your foot and you jump through it with your other foot. They do like the caterpillar move. Even like spitting around on their heads. And what happens is they'll be, they'll be dancing to this music often played with, you know, the epinette and they'll be spinning around and then intermittently after spinning around, they'll do, you know, the backflip and the headspin or the, the caterpillar. And it's, I don't know how they do it. It's, they must be very dizzy. Anyway, it's incredible. And then sort of the climax of the dance is that there's a woman also, you know, dressed traditionally, and she's got this pole, this long pole. And on the end of the pole is a hat. And the idea is you have to kick the hat off, but the pole is three meters high. So she's standing on like a ladder with the pole. And so the dancer, he'll do this kind of flying kick in the air. Either you can, you kick it off or you miss it. So in Johan Halvorsen’s concerto at the end, there's this high harmonic and that you either have to hit on the G string. And like in the dance, you know, you're hitting that hat off. And so you're always there. You're always wondering if the soloist can pull it off. Can they, can they hit that high harmonic? And it's, it's the same sort of the equivalent of the spinning high kick from the dance. So, and if you were Norwegian, You would get this, I think, from the, from the music and you'd hear it. You hear that you do hear it in the music.
So Kathleen Parlow, she plays this Halversen concerto and she plays it three times that year, and when she plays the piece in the National Theatre in September, there's sort of, there are mixed reviews with the critics saying that the piece was too unconventional. It's a little bit different and here's where Halvorsen, he like, he kicks up a stink a bit. This, because this concerto is like his baby and he's really protective and he's like, you know, he's quite fragile. He's, he's worked so much on this thing and people are just saying, you know, nasty things. They don't understand the work that went into it. Yeah, you write a concerto. So people, they flocked to hear Kathleen play Johan Halversen's concerto at the theatre. And it was full to bursting on several nights in a row. And if you consider on the same night in Oslo in another hall, Fritz Kreisler was playing and here you have Kathleen Parlow and people are just like cramming in to see her and Halvorsen's concerto. She was a huge name in her time. Only after a few performances and the negative critiques, Johan Halvorsen, he cancelled all the future performances of the work and, and when he retired, he burnt the manuscripts and asked for all the copies to be destroyed as well, it really, he was really hurt. Well, it was to be lost forever, except So a hundred years later, a copy of the concerto was serendipitously found in the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music, when one of the employees was looking through, not music, but personal documents of Kathleen's and it had been filed in there by mistake. And because it was with her personal files, it hadn't really, like her letters and things, it had been overlooked. So they found it and they resurrected it and they've re performed this concerto that had been lost for a hundred years. And that's another role as a musician. You're also not managing, but you also have to deal with composers that could have quite be quite touchy and everything like a musician has to have, have on their plate.
Well, I think being a musician, not only do you have to have an incredible skill level, you have to have an engaging personality. You have to be able to transmit a personality through the music itself. And you have to have incredible social grace to navigate charming not only your audience, but charming the people who create the concerts, the sponsors, the people who bankroll them. I think it's an incredibly difficult task. Because the skill level playing the violin is so difficult. That in itself would take up most people's energy. But on top of that, also have to be ingratiating and charming. I think it's an incredibly difficult life. Yeah, must be exhausting. And she does get exhausted. She'll have Breakdowns through, like her first one is when she's about 22. She has like almost like a nervous breakdown. And so it's kind of, she runs hot for a long time and then crashes. And it might be like, you're saying like all these different things they have to, all the balls that they have in the air that they're juggling to keep it going. Kathleen Parlow, she's still in her teens. She's still a teenager. She has incredible success. She's performing in Germany and the Netherlands. And later that same year, she returns to Canada where she makes an extensive tour. She makes her debut in New York and Philadelphia. I mean, she's just like, she's just all over. I mean, America's a big place and she's just all over the place. And then in 1909, at the age of 19, she gets a recording contract with the gramophone company known as his master's voice. And that's the one with the dog listening into a recording trumpet. And she was offered a 10 percent artist's royalty figure.
So is that good? Getting 10 percent royalties?
Yes. A 10 percent royalty at that time. is really quite unheard of. I believe the gramophone company gave that to their superstars. Louisa Tetrazzini, for example, was the great coloratura soprano of the day, and she received 10 percent of the sales royalty. So for Kathleen Parlow to be receiving that percentage really attests to her status.
Yeah. And like you were saying before, it was, it's like amazing that we've forgotten about her.
Oh, it's kind of astounding. She was an absolute star.
The concert halls and one newspaper wrote an article and I quote one of the articles, the young woman could not mistake the furor she created. She was, so she was described as the greatest woman violinist in the world and the girl of the golden bow and Of course the obsession with her willowy figure and pale complexion and feminine wilds continues Which is sort of I mean even the case today I suppose will people will go into describing a woman and what she's wearing what she looks like a bit more than a guy, this thing that's just pervaded and then there was Einar Bjornsson, always there in the background. The communications between them, himself and Kathleen, was sort of constant. He was always visiting and in her diary she was, you know, just abbreviating his name because it was so his feelings for the young woman were extreme and the money he borrowed from his father, he would never be able to repay. So he was sort of indebted his whole life because of this.
It must have been a little bit awkward explaining to his wife as well where the money has gone. Yeah, it's a big chunk of her dowry. I mean, even if he did tell her, maybe, you know, I don't know, maybe he didn't tell her. Maybe she, it was possible for him to do that. I'm not sure how the laws in Norway work. If, you know, sometimes in some countries, once you marry, your, your money becomes your husband's.
Basically, after the successful gramophone company recordings, she was really launched her career. She travelled all over. She travelled to, back to the United States, even though she's from Canada. She was regarded as a British artist, primarily because Canada was part of Britain, but then she made her success in the United States. And she was a very big success, so much so that the Columbia Record Company decided to offer her a recording contract. Now, there were two main companies in the United States. One of them was the Victor talking machine, which is essentially, that later became RCA Victor when it was bought by the Radio Corporation of America. But it originally started as the Victor talking machine. They had many, many big artists. They had people like Fritz Kreisler and Mischa Elman, and they also engaged a female violinist by the name of Maude Powell, who was an American born violinist. And so the Columbia Record Company decided that they should have their own roster of great instrumentalists, particularly violinists.
And so they signed up Eugene Ysaie, the great Belgian violinist, but at the same time they also signed up And I think, in a sense, that was to somehow put themselves in competition with the Victor Company. These two major record companies in the United States. So you had the Victor Company with Mischa Elman and Fritz Kreisler and their female star, Maude Powell. And then you have Columbia answering back with Eugenie Ysaie and their female star, Kathleen Parlow.
Yeah. So you have like we were saying, like all the relationships that you have to keep juggling as a musician. And I think what Kathleen Parlow had on top of that was this. This complicated relationship with Einar, her, her patron, who was, who it was, it's all a bit ambiguous what was going on there, but she also had that in the equation.
So it's not surprising that she had multiple breakdowns like she would just go for it and then, and crash. And she plays, I think Kreisler's tambourine chinois. And was that because there was sort of this, like this kind of fascination with the Orient at that time in the, in like the 1910s, 1920s?
Well, the origin of tambourine chinois, apparently according to Kreisler, but Kreisler always spun tall tales. He said that he was in a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco when the idea, the musical ideas of tambourine chinois came to, to being. So, but Kreisler always. You know, invented stories all the time. I mean, the thing is, it's a very playful, it's a very you know, fun piece of music. It's very bustling. So, hence, that's why probably Fritz Kreisler is associated with a busy Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, because it's very, very bustling in its character. But the middle section of Tamborine Chinois It's Act Viennese, so it's funny, because the middle section, when you hear it, it doesn't sound like anything to do with the Orient, or if anything, it sounds like the cafe, coffeehouses of Vienna.
Yeah, it'd probably be cancelled anyway today. Well, if they heard that story, it certainly would.
Then, she actually only does her first tour in America when she's 20. Kathleen, she continues with her endless touring and concert. Her money management was never great, although, you know, she's still, she's still earning quite a lot of money, and her mother and herself had, they had enough to live on, but never enough to be completely hassle free. And not that she wanted it, it seemed like she was sort of addicted to this life of the stage, and she once said when she was older that she thought maybe she had to get a job teaching, but she just couldn't do it. She played more than 375 concerts between 1908 and 1915 and, and you can believe it to get an idea.
So she's 19 year old's touring schedule. Here are the countries she played in in 1909. And you have to remember the concerts are nonstop every night, almost in different cities, but here are just, here are just some of the countries she travelled to in this year, in 1909. Germany, England, Poland, Netherlands, then she goes back to England, Ireland, Germany, England, the Netherlands, Norway, Wales, England again, Ireland again, England, Scotland, Poland. Man, I gave it, it was just, you know, huge. And in her diaries we can see that she’s, like, she's just a young woman, like, about town when she's in London, she takes trips to the theatre, and she talks about going to see Madame Butterfly, and she goes shopping, and she goes to tea with people she has like, appointments at the dressmaker for fittings for new dresses, and, and all of this is in between lessons, and rehearsals, and concerts. And her diary is just jam, she has these day books and they're just jam packed. Then Auer when he comes to London, her diary, it's like she has lessons with him. And you can see she's sort of excited, she's like hours arriving and then she'll see him and then she'll often have lunch with him and lessons and sometimes the lessons are at eight o'clock at night or, or 10am on a Saturday or at the middle of the night on a Monday. And she'll skip from him to rehearsals with her pianist from Carlton Keith. And she's lots of tea. She's going to tea a lot with a lot of different people. She's still only 19 here. So her popularity, it's like, it's far reaching and she's not just playing like classical music. She'll also play just popular pieces of the day. There's Kreisler's Tambourine Chinoise. And then she'll play, there's some of the recordings. They're these Irish, little Irish. Songs. So it was to appeal to the general public as well, her repertoires and her recordings. And then in 1910, she turns 20 and she has her first tour in North America. And then in 1911, the New York Herald declares her as one of the phenomena of the musical world on par with Mischa Elman. That must have been frustrating because for years she's in the same class as him and she knows him. And everyone just keeps comparing her to, she's like, Oh, she's almost as good as this guy.
But no, here they're saying she is as good as this guy. I could just, must've been a little bit frustrating. Then she makes an appearance with the Toronto Symphony in 1911 and she'll go back there many times. And in the next year, in 1912, she moved with her mother, who's still her mentor and manager and chaperone, to England, where they, they rent a house just out of Cambridge, you know, in the peaceful countryside away from the big cities. And in between her touring from here, she went, she goes to China, to the U. S., to Korea and Japan. And in Japan, she records with Nipponophone Company. She recorded quite just in a not much in a short space of time. She could have, she could have recorded more afterwards, because yeah, but she doesn't.
Then the news of the tragic sinking of the Titanic in April had Kathleen jumping on a streamliner herself to play a benefit concert in New York for the survivors of the disaster. And I've seen that booklet, and that you open the booklet, and there's like, life insurance. And then there's actually ads for another streamliner, and you're like, too soon, too soon, people don't want this. And then she plays, so on that same trip, she plays at the Met Opera. She plays Tchaikovsky's Serenade, Melancholique. And in New York, she signed up by Columbia Record, by the Columbia Record Company. And her first records for the US label are brought out alongside those of Eugene Ysaye. So she's alongside these, they all, they must've all known each other.
She was a contemporary and she just kind of slips off the radar. And as with all the recordings of the great violinists of the day, most of Paolow’s recordings on American Columbia were of popular songs and that, that would attract the general public. But the fact that most of these recordings were accompanied by an orchestra and not just piano highlights her status as a star.
So they had the, they got together an orchestra for her, so she's worthy of an orchestra. Still in 1912, Kathleen, she's 22 now and she's been traveling so much, she's, now it's happening, it's hitting her, she's exhausted and she has a kind of breakdown it'd probably be like a burnout and, which, it's amazing she's lasted this long, since, you know, age 5, 6, up to 22.
So she's both mentally and physically exhausted and her mother, acting as her agent, realizes that she needs to reduce some of her tours. She retreats to Meldreth, that's that house just outside of Cambridge that they have, that they've been renting. It's quite close to London, that little cottage that they have. They have easy access to London by train. And not only could they go easily to London, but traveling, traveling businessmen! From Norway! Could come to them! Easily. She continues with the concerts, one at Queen's Hall in London. So she has her little burnout, but then she's back again. Plays Schubert's Moment Musical around this time.
After they've rented this home for four years, they end up buying it. So she does have enough money to buy a house, so she is you know, not frittering away all her money. So this gives her some sort of stability. And it, even though it's a, it's still a very unusual existence for a young lady of the day.
So she's breaking a lot of stereotypes and this could end up being exhausting after a while. So it was nice for her to have a calm place to kick up her heels or fling off her corset. But no, she didn't, but willowy frame, she doesn't look like she's got a corset. I don't think you can play. Can you? Could you play that much? You know, you can't breathe. But, but, aren't there like old photos of, of lady violinists in corsets? I don't know how they do it. Like, you can't. Well, you had to do everything else in the corset. But you get kind of hot and sweaty and you're under the lights and it must have been exhausting. At least she was like lucky to have that pre Raphaelite fashion where she could be wearing, you know, the flowing sort of we're heading into the, the sort of the looser clothes in this era. But I think some people are still hanging on to corsets, but it's like the end of corsets and you're getting more loose clothing thankfully for her.
And according to letters Kathleen wrote to friends her and her mother, and they fell in love with the village life in Mildreth. Kathleen was able to relax and lead a normal life in between tours. And then in 1915, you have World War I hits, and her tours are less frequent. Her, her patron Einar, must have been having some lively fun. Dinner conversations with his family on opposing sides. So you've got, you know, with his, you know, fascist party, enthusiastic brother and his ex-prime minister brother in law and his theatre operating lefty brother and his Jewish wife and his Left wing satirical journalist sister, and her German husband, and then, and then his patriot father.
So Einar probably just wanted to run away to willowy Kathleen, and her stunning violin. But she remains in England for much of the war, and she does a few concerts locally. And her diary is quite blank until about 1916. And she uses, like, so she uses this time to relax. So ironically, she needed a war. To have a rest. That was the only thing slowing her down. She could, because she couldn't travel and tour. Now she's 26, but I feel like she's just, she’s lived so much already. It's incredible. So Meldreth was the happy place where she enjoyed their lovely garden and their croquet lawn and Miss Chamberlain from the Gables next door would come and play croquet and she could escape to another world, almost.
She'll go through periods of having these sort of breakdowns. I think she just pushes, there are some people like that. They'll push themselves; they just keep pushing themselves until they collapse. And I feel like she was one of, she looks like she didn't really pace herself. She just went, just hurtling into it. She just catapults herself into life and concerts and playing. In 1916, she returned to the US. She toured Norway and the Netherlands. For playing she was said to possess a sweet legato sound that made her seem to be playing with a nine foot and was admired for her effortless playing, hence her nickname, the girl with the nine foot bow.
So yeah, so she must have had this really kind of, it's hard to tell, you want to be there in the concert hall to hear her. I feel like the recordings don't do her justice.
A lot of Experiencing music and these pieces is actually going to a concert and it's the same today listening on a you know, at home, it's not the same as being in a concert hall and having that energy of the musician and the energy of the orchestra and the and the audience, it's very different dynamic. She recorded a few small pieces for Columbia records. And then that was, that was it. And we have no more recordings of her. And between 1917 and 1919, she wasn't able to tour outside England due to the war that was going on. And for the last 12 years, Einar Bjornsson had. He'd been this presence in her life, but now in the summer of 1920, he visited her one last time in London before sailing home for good.
So that. So it finishes at this time, so he was, he was married, he had children, he was also broke. Buying a horrendously expensive violin and giving it to a girl can do that to you. And Kathleen writes, Kathleen writes in her diary simply, E. B. Sailing home. Einar had to return to his family as soon as possible because he couldn't afford to divorce his wife. Elspeth Langdon, she was, she wasn't going to let him off that easily. And if he left, he would have had to repay the, the dowry, I imagine. Thank you. Thank you very much. As I said, there are just no letters of her correspondence. There's correspondence between her and everyone else, but not with them. So that still remains. But you can sort of see by circumstance what was kind of going on. And after the Great War, Kathleen Parlow, she resumed her career in full force. She gave several world tours traveling to the Middle East, to India, to China, to Korea and Japan. And she toured the States, Canada, Indonesia and the Philippines in that year and she played concerts in 56 different cities.
It was just non stop and in, and when I say 56 different cities, that's not 56, you know, concerts. That's like multiple concerts in each. City, night after night. And then in 1926, Kathleen and her mother, they leave England and they move to San Francisco. She takes a year off due to her mental health. So again, she's like, she's overdone it. The stress and basically, you know, a nervous breakdown and she's now in her mid thirties. But after having this year off, she's back onto it. She's back touring again. It's like this addiction, like you were saying, this is what, it's kind of like her, what makes her run. It's what, You know, keeps her going. But at this point she begins to slow down slightly and she starts teaching a bit. Starts teaching more and in 1929 she tours Mexico and she travels without her mother for the first time. Because her mother, Minnie, she would have been getting quite old and then Kathleen she's 39 now. So despite playing many concerts and receiving very high praise financially, she's barely kind of breaking even and she later told an interviewer that when things were very hard she and her mother had talked about her getting a job to ensure their security for the future but she just couldn't do it. And then, but then she did end up teaching at Mills College, Oakland, California. For from 1929 to 1936, but then her world tours continued and this is like, this is how she thrived, even though she would, you know, she'd crash and burn and from the exhaustion and, but then, you know, then she would go back.
She realized she had to teach to earn some money. And then she returned to Canada in 1941, where she remained until she remains there until she dies in 1963. She's offered a job at the Toronto College of Music and she begins making appearances with orchestras. She has a pianist, she has the, she creates the Parlow String Quartet, which was active for 15 years.
Even though this time was difficult financially for her, she would, she would never give up her violin. You know, she was struggling, just scraping by, but she, she would never give up her violin and so, I mean, it was a tricky situation. It was, it was a gift. Yeah. I mean, could you imagine? Like, she must've realized what Einar went through to give this to her and she can't, you know, she can't just be like, I'm going to sell it. So there's this sort of, it's like she's holding on to a bit of him really, like, by keeping it, if she, she gives that up. So she taught at the University of Toronto and on her wall was a large portrait of her teacher, Leopold Auer, whom she would always refer to as Papa Auer.
Now that she'd given up her career as a soloist, but she still remains very active in chamber music, concerto appearance. October of 1959, she was made head of the string department at the London College of Music in West Ontario, Canada. She never marries, and she dies in Oakville, Ontario, in 1963 at the age of 72.
She kept her Guarneri del Gesu until her dying day, and the instrument was sold with her estate. The Kathleen Parlow scholarship was set up with the proceeds from the sale of her violin and the money from her estate. So Kathleen Parlow was a somewhat extraordinary woman, ahead of her times in many ways, and her relationship with Einar, must have been pretty intense. And it was, there was obviously strong feelings there. And even though it's a very grey area, we don't know her love life contrasts with her, her brilliant career and her phenomenal touring and the, the energy that she had to do, it was. Exceptional she just does these brief recordings and then she does no more. And maybe, maybe that's why we've forgotten her.
Have the other, did the others go on to keep recording?
Well, they did. They certainly did. I think I'm surprised that Kathleen Parlow didn’t make more recordings. I really am. And I don't know what that's about. I can only speculate, but I think she also kind of retreated from concertizing, didn't she, in her twenties? So, I mean, you know, she did play as far afield as the, you know, she went to China, she went to Japan. She even made recordings for the Niponophone Company in the early twenties. So she was obviously still a great celebrity. But it's sort of puzzling how somebody who had all their ducks in place to make a superstar career.
You know, she had talent, she had beauty, she had interest. You know, from the public, so support from her teacher, all those elements would guarantee a superstar career. But it's so mysterious that she kind of fell off the radar. So much so that her name is completely forgotten today. Yeah, it's one of the big mysteries, but it's really quite remarkable that she was such a terrific violinist, even at the end. It wasn't that she lost her nerve or lost her playing ability. She obviously had it. So there are definitely other factors. that made her withdraw from public concertizing. And just her touring schedule is just exhausting. Like just the traveling.
Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I mean, this is truly an example of burnout. Yeah. But, but then she would, she would have the crisis and then she'd be back on, she'd be back touring. Well, you know, she was pretty resilient. But I think just the sheer number of years, I think, must have taken its toll. I think she loved being in England, in Cambridgeshire.
I think those were some really happy years for her, to have a home and in a beautiful setting. But it really, it's a very complicated life and a life that really, one would want to try to understand in a deeper way. Yeah, and it seems a little nothing was ever very simple. Yeah, and she never, she never marries, she never has a family.
It's Yes. Her life is really And you'd imagine she'd have suitors, you know, send them off because, you know, she was a talented, beautiful woman. So she's got Misha Elman. He could, like, if you were a man, you could easily get married and then your wife would have children. But at that time, if you married, like, she had to choose between getting married and her career. You couldn't work if, like and it often, like, you weren't allowed to work.
Absolutely. Terrible. No, it's true. So she had this like, this threat, and that's all she could do. That was her life playing. And then if she married, that would be taken away from her. So she had to decide between, you know, a career and this.
It's kind of, it's a bit sad, but yeah, it's a huge choice that she made and she was married to life. Yeah. The sacrifice. One way or the other. Well, I think it's wonderful that she is being remembered through this Buddulph recordings release. And it's the first time there's ever been a recording completely devoted to her. So I'm really glad that. will be able to somehow restore her memory, just a little bit even.
Well, thank you for listening to this podcast. And I hope you enjoyed this story about the incredible Kathleen Parlow. If you liked the podcast, please rate it and review it wherever you listen to it. And I would really encourage you to keep listening to Kathleen Parlow's work. What you heard today were just excerpts from her songs.
So if you would like to listen to. The whole piece, Biddulph Recordings have released two CDs that you can listen to on Apple Music, Spotify or any other major streaming service. You can also buy the double CD of her recordings if you prefer the uncompressed version. Goodbye.
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Kathleen Parlow was one of the most outstanding violinists at the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1912, she was signed by the Columbia Record Company in New York, and her first records for the U.S. label were brought out alongside those of the legendary Eugene Ysaÿe.
Listen to her fascinating story and how she took the world by storm. From her devastating looks to the intrigue her priceless instrument created. You will hear rare recordings of this prodigious player as we retell her life and try to understand why such an incredible talent has been so forgotten today.
Brought to you by Biddulph recordings
TRANSCRIPT
Kathleen Parlow Part 1
Welcome to this very first episode of the Historical Strings Recording Podcast. A show that gives you a chance to hear rare and early recordings of great masters and their stories. Hello, my name is Linda Lespets. I'm a violin maker and restorer in Sydney, Australia, and I'm also the host of another podcast called ‘The Violin Chronicles’, a show about the lives of historically important violin makers and their instruments.
But today we have a different podcast and telling this incredible story with me is my co-host Eric Wen.
Hello, my name is Eric Wen, and I'm the producer at Biddulph Recordings, which is a label that focuses upon reissuing historic recordings, particularly those by famous string players of the past. I also teach at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where I've been for the past 24 years.
In this first episode, we will be looking at an incredibly talented violinist called Kathleen Parlow, who, in her time, took Europe and the world by storm, giving even Fritz Kreisler a run for his money in the popularity department.
She was described in the media as being ‘One of the phenomena of the musical world’ on par with Mischa Elman, or the ‘greatest lady violinist in the world’, and ‘the girl with the golden bow’. She was treated with superstar status wherever she went, which begs the question as to why she is so little known today?
Well, join us to discover her incredible story, the events of her career and her violin. A violin which would eventually financially ruin one man and divide his family. We will take a closer look at high hat kicking breakdancers, militant fascists, scandalous theatre directors, impossible love, a score ripping composer, and all this revolving around one of the world's most expensive violins and the incredible means one man went to get it into his hot little hands and then give it away.
This is the story of Kathleen Parlow.
And all of the pieces you will be hearing in this podcast are of Kathleen Parlow playing her violin.
Kathleen Parlow was born into a modest family in Calgary on the Canadian prairies in 1890. Her mother, Minnie, was a violinist. So, at a young age at four, she gave her daughter a violin and started teaching her. When she was six years old, the family, Kathleen, Minnie, and her father, Charlie, they moved to San Francisco where her talent was immediately recognized. And well, this is probably because of the, the mom. And she was having lessons with her cousin called Conrad Coward in San Francisco. Very soon, still aged six, she gave her first recital in San Francisco.
So is six, is six a reasonable age for a child to give a recital? What do you think? It's extremely young. In fact, that is truly prodigious. I mean, people don't even begin the violin till six and that's an early beginning of an instrument. Most people start around seven or eight, but to begin much earlier and to even be playing a concert at the age of six. That's really quite phenomenal.
So with her burgeoning talent, she now started having lessons with Henry Holmes, who was a pupil of Louis Spohr, the well-known German composer and violinist. And he's a conductor and who he's the man who apparently invented the chin rest. So where would we be without the chin rest, really? He's attributed with inventing it.
Well, Spohr was a fine violinist, German violinist. He was also a quite prominent composer. He was quite a conservative composer. So, I believe he wasn't that fond of the music of Beethoven. In other words, there were people like Spohr, Von Weber, and they represented a much more conservative branch of the sort of German composition. of the German composers. And basically, they looked upon Beethoven as such a wild revolutionary in his music, so daring that I think they were almost a little offended by it. So Spohr, if you could say, is primarily a kind of conservative, very well-schooled, excellent composer. He wrote many, many violin concertos, the most famous of which is No. 8 in A minor, which is written in the form of an operatic scene. Full of violin solo recitatives and arias for the violin.
Oh, wow. Yeah, that's interesting. So they were, there was like very shocked by Beethoven. They were, apparently. Was he a contemporary of Beethoven? Because I, because sometimes you go back pretty quickly, don't you? Like the teacher of the teacher of and all of a sudden you're in like the
Well, Spohr was born 14, he's 14 years younger than Beethoven.
Oh, okay. So, he was born in 1784, but he lived a lot longer. He lived over 20 years longer than Beethoven.
Oh, wow. And that's fascinating. So, Henry Holmes, Kathleen Parlow's teacher, was taught by this guy who would have known Beethoven?
Yes, absolutely.
And objected to Beethoven. Was shocked by his music.
Well, I mean, I think sort of the, you might say the more mature Beethoven or the more daring Beethoven. But I think, you know, I'm sure maybe some of Beethoven's early works were much more acceptable. They were more normative, so to speak.
Oh, okay. So Kathleen's in San Francisco and her parents’ marriage is breaking down. Her father, Charlie, moves back to Calgary where he dies of tuberculosis the year after. But Kathleen, she rockets on and is becoming more and more well known. Her new teacher sees real talent in the girl, and this teacher, Henry Holmes, he has contacts to make things happen. And he helps arrange a tour for her and playing engagements in England. So for this to happen, Kathleen's mum, she's, she's I'm getting stage mum vibes.
Yes.
Because she's still very, still very young.
Oh, yeah. I mean, I can't believe she wasn't playing with dolls.
And this would have been a conversation between Minnie, Kathleen's mum, and the teacher. It probably wouldn't have been a conversation with her as a child.
No, probably not.
You don't really choose much when you're six, seven.
No, that's true.
So the problem they have is that they have no money. So, so what do you do, Eric? You have no money, you have a prodigy.
You exploit the prodigy by having them play and make an income for you, which is something that happens unfortunately to many, many talented musicians coming from, you might say, less well-off families. They end up becoming the breadwinner. All their focus gets put upon these, these kids. And so not only do they have the added burden of playing and making sure they keep up They're playing well, but they also have the burden of making sure that they play well enough to make an income so that their families can survive. I mean, that's a very familiar story, and it's a story that has more failures than winners, I'm afraid, because you do hear about the winners. You do hear about the Misha Elmans or the Yasha. Well, Heifetz is a little different because he had a more middle-class family, but you do hear of Oskar Shumsky, for example, who I know I knew personally, he says, don't believe that these violence that you hear about having normal childhood behind every great violence, there's always a mama or a papa. And I think he himself endured that kind of pressure, the pressure to somehow become. The breadwinner, or let's say the some, the pressure to become a great violinist, primarily because he would serve as the breadwinner for the family. Well, if you think about it, you could say that. Violin playing in the early 20th century was very dominated by Russians, particularly Russian Jews. And one of the reasons for that was that in Russia, all the Jews were confined to an area known as the Pale of Settlement. In other words, a designated area that they could live in, but they could not leave that particular area. And basically, some very gifted young students could get into university or could go into a conservatory, and one of the big examples was Misha Elman, and Misha Elman, you might say left the Pale of Settlement to go study with Leopold Auer in St Petersburg. And they had to get all sorts of permission to do that. Well, the success of Misha Elman, the global success, the international success, I think resonated so well. with the people in the ghetto that they sort of saw, wow, this is one of our boys and look what he's done. He's now playing for the crowned heads of Europe. So I think for them, they felt this was a way out. And if you think about it, the film, Fiddler on the Roof, which is a famous musical and it was adapted as a famous film. And basically, that film, just the very title, talks about the Fiddler on the Roof. And the setting is in the Pale of Settlement, the Jewish ghetto in Russia. They're often subjected to random attacks by the Cossacks and all sorts of difficulties. But here, despite all that, you know they manage to survive. And of course the image of the Fiddler on the Roof. The violinist is exemplified, you might say, by Misha Elman, who literally grew up in the Russian ghetto.
Yeah, and Misha Elman, he'll, he'll become, he He'll become important in our story, yeah.
The money. This is not a problem. There is a wealthy admirer called Harriet Pullman, Carolan, in San Francisco. And she pays for Kathleen and her mother to take the trip to England. And in 1904, at the age of 14, Kathleen plays for King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace. And then in the next year in 1905, she and her mother, they come back to England. This tour marks the beginning of a life that she would lead for years to come of performing and playing. And so by the time she was 15, she was touring and playing with the London Symphony. And it was in a concert at the Wigmore Hall in London that she really shoots to fame. So is the Wigmore Hall, is that, is that still today an important place to play?
Oh, extremely so. It's funny because the Wigmore Hall was originally called the Bechstein Hall, and obviously during the wars, it became a much more the name was more neutralized to become less dramatic, and it became named after the street it's on, which is Wigmore Street. It was always a very important venue, but around the sort of 60s In the 70s it had declined a bit in its status because the South Bank had been built and so the Wigmore Hall was a little bit relegated to a sort of a little second class status. But in the past 20 years or so the Wigmore Hall has catapulted to fame again and it's today one of the most distinguished halls. In London.
All right. Okay. And this is, this is pre war. So it's, it would have been called?
Bechstein.
Okay. So it would have been called the Bechstein Hall when she played?
Probably. Oh yeah, definitely. So the Bechstein Hall was, I think first opened in 1901 and it was built by the piano manufacturers, the German manufacturers Bechstein, hence the name. And after the First World War, I believe it was changed to a more neutral sounding, less Germanic name, and it adopted the name of the street that it's currently on, which is Wigmore Street. Incidentally, the first concert at Wigmore Hall was actually performed, was a violin and piano recital, performed by Eugene Ysaye and Federico Busoni.
And then one night in London, Kathleen and her mother went to another concert of another child prodigy called Mischa Elman. And he was, so he's the fiddler on the roof guy, and he was almost exactly the same age as Kathleen. He was just a few months there's just a few months difference between them. And she, she hears him playing this concert and she's, she's just blown away. Blown away, and after the concert, she and her mother decide that Kathleen, she just has to go and have lessons from the same teacher as this, as this, as Mischa. So the only thing, only little thing about Mischa Elman's teacher is that he is in Russia. And as far as anyone knows, no foreigners study in the St. Petersburg Conservatorium, but that is about to change. Definitely no ladies. So, Kathleen and her mother had arrived in England with 300 raised by their church in San Francisco and this was, it just wasn't enough to get them to Russia and to the conservatorium where the famed Leopold Auer was a professor, but get there they would because Kathleen's mum, Minnie, still had a few tricks up her sleeve. She went and petitioned the Canadian High Commissioner. So she must have been, I feel like Minnie, she must have been very persuasive. Like there was nothing was getting in between, you know, her daughter and this career.
Forceful, a task to be reckoned with, certainly.
Yeah. She's like we'll get to England, we have no money. Not a problem. We're gonna, we're gonna get this teacher. He's in Russia. Not a problem. No foreigners. It, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't seem to be a problem for her, no girls. Not a problem. No foreigner has ever studied in this St. Petersburg conservatorium. Not daunted. They're off. They go. So to pay the cost travel, Minnie managed to get a loan from Lord Strathconia, the Canadian high commissioner. And from there, mother and daughter travelled to Russia. And in October of 1906, Kathleen becomes the first foreigner to attend the St. Petersburg Conservatorium. And in her class are 45 Students and she's the only girl. And we have to remember this is pre-revolutionary Russia. So there's still the Tsar Nicholas the second at this point. Yeah. She's mixing in, in that set. So it's an interesting place to be as a musician. Cause you're frequenting the sort of the upper classes but you can come from, from nothing and arrive there. Her professor was the famed teacher, Leopold Auer, who had a knack of discovering talent.
Leopold Auer was actually a Hungarian violinist, and he was trained in Vienna, and he also studied with Joachim. And what happened was Russia has always had a sort of love for the violin, and they employed many people to teach at the conservatory, because they really embraced Western culture. They had A number of important French violinists come, but their big, you might say, catch was to get Vieuxtemps, Henri Vieuxtemps, to teach for a number of years at, in St. Petersburg. And after Henry Vieuxtemps, they actually got Henry Wieniawski to teach at the conservatory. And when Wieniawski decided to go back to Europe, they employed Leopold Auer to take his place at St Petersburg.
Right. So he's up there with the big names.
Well, they were a little bit let down. I mean, that's what they were, I think, a little bit disappointed to replace Wieniawski with Leopold Auer because Wieniawski was such a major violinist. So he had initially a little rough time, but he was adored by Tchaikovsky and Tchaikovsky loved Auer's playing, dedicated a number of works for him, including the famous serenade melancholic, and wrote a lot number of ballet scores, which Leopold Auer played the solos for. But of course, they had a big rift when Tchaikovsky wrote his violin concerto for Auer, because Auer said it was unplayable. And that really hurt Tchaikovsky's feelings. And it laid dormant for several years before another Russian violinist. Brodsky took it up, learned it, and. Premiered it in Europe first, and only after its success in Europe did he bring it back to Russia, where it became a big success, and Auer felt very bad about that, and in fact, just before Tchaikovsky died, a few months before Tchaikovsky died, story has it that Auer went to Tchaikovsky and apologized to Tchaikovsky for his initial mistrust of the concerto. In fact, by that time, Auer himself had actually performed the concerto, championed it, and taught it to many of his students.
Yeah, and we'll see in this story how sensitive composers are, and how easy it is to hurt their feelings and really create. Like a lot of emotional turmoil. That's coming up. So Auer, like he might not have been their first choice for replacing, but he did have a knack of finding star pupils. That is something that we see, that I see in the conservatorium. Every now and then you have a teacher who's very talented at finding talent.
Absolutely. And I know in Australia you have one very distinguished teacher who I think now has been poached by the Menuhin School in, in England.
Yes. And we're not going to talk about that.
Yes, we won't. Because it's Must be a sore point. But we do see, we do see him every now and then when he comes back. So along with Elman and Efren Zimbalist, Parlow becomes one of Auer's star pupils and Auer was so taken with her playing that he often called her Elman in a skirt, which I think is supposed to be a compliment. And in Auer's biography, he writes, he says, “It was during this year that my first London pupil came to me, Kathleen Parlow, who has since become one of the first, if not the first, of women violinists”. And that, he says that in his biography, My Long Life in Music. So, Every year, Auer had a summer school in Kristiana, which is Oslo today. And Parlow spent her summers there and became a great favourite in Norway, which leads us to the next and perhaps one of the most marking events in her career and life.
At 17, having spent a year at the conservatory in Russia, Kathleen begins to put on public performances she gives solo performances in both St. Petersburg and Helsinki. So these are two places she knows quite well by now. And these concerts were, they were very important as Kathleen's mother really had no money to support them. And so, with but you know, Minnie doesn't bother her, she just ploughs on. And so with the money from these concerts this would have to tide her over. From letters that I've read, they were living in like this small apartment and then another friend writes, you know this other person, they've been saying you live in a tiny little place, but I'm not going to spread that rumor. And, and so it was a, it was a thing on the radar that they didn't have much money and they were scraping by and they were like frequenting people of much more wealthier than they were, so they were sort of on the fringes of society, but with her talent that was sort of pushing, people wanted to know her.
So she makes her professional debut in Berlin and then began, she begins a tour of Germany and the Netherlands and Norway. And in Norway, she performs for the King Hakon and Queen Maud. Of whom she'll become a favorite. And, and her touring schedule was phenomenal. It was just like nonstop. So, yeah. For a 17-year-old that's, you know, she's going all over the world. And you were saying that Auer knew . Do Tchaikovsky do you think Auer, was he was giving her these pieces that did, that influenced him? Yes. I mean, Tchaikovsky wrote a number of violin, solo violin works before the concerto, the most famous of which is, of course, the Waltz Scherzo and the Serenade Melancholique. One is a fast, virtuoso piece, the other is a slow, soulful piece. And I know that Auer was the dedicatee of certainly the Serenade Melancholique, which she did play.
So, so Auer's giving her stuff from, you know, his friend Tchaikovsky to play. Now she's 17 and she's touring to support herself and her mother and she has an amazing teacher who probably understands her circumstances all too well because Auer growing up also found himself in her position, supporting his father in his youth with his playing. So she's studying in St. Petersburg, which is an incredible feat in itself. So she must have had quite a strong character and her mother, Minnie, also appears to be very ambitious for her daughter. We're talking about her mother being ambitious, but for Kathleen to, you know, she's her daughter, she, she must've had quite a strong wheel as well.
Yes. Well, she certainly did. I wish we knew more about her because maybe she was very subservient, you know, we have no idea. Maybe she didn't have, I mean, it's a speculation, of course.
Yeah. We do have like hundreds of letters from Kathleen and there's a lot between her and Auer, and there's a real sort of paternal, he really sort of cared for her like a daughter almost and she looked up to him like a father and he was always very correct about it, you know, he would always write the letter to her. To Minnie, her mother the correspondents, it was, and it was always very, everything was very above board, but a very, they were very close.
Kathleen later says that after expenses, her Berlin debut netted her exactly 10 pounds. She didn't know it at the time, but this was an indication of what her future would be like, and she would be sort of financially in a precarious state most of her life, and she would so her routine was she studies with Auer every summer in order to prepare, like they were preparing her repertoire for the next season of touring.
So now she has a tour in 1908, so she's still 17, almost 18. It's in Norway, and to understand just a little bit of the political climate in the country, We can see that Norway, only three years earlier, had become independent of Sweden and had basically become its own country. So there's this this great sense of nationalism and pride in being Norwegian. And they have a newly minted king, King Hakon, who she's played for, and his queen, who was, He was in fact a Danish prince. And then when Norway, the Norwegian parliament asked him if he would like to become the king of Norway when they had their independence. And he said, why not? As part of this great sense of nationalism Norwegian musicians, composers, writers, and poets, they were celebrated and became superstars.
And, oh gosh, yes,
We can sort of understand. Poets have sort of dropped off the list, but back then poets, they were a big deal. So you add to this a young, fresh faced, talented Canadian girl who knows and understands their country. She arrives in Oslo to play in the National Theatre, where Norway's very own Johan Halvorsen who's conductor and composer and violinist, he's conducting the country's largest professional orchestra. And that night for Kathleen's concert, she plays Brahms and some of Halvorsen's compositions and the two, Kathleen Parloe and Halvorsen, they would go on to become quite good friends and Halvorsen regarded her very highly in saying, he said that her playing was superior almost to all the other famous soloists who made guest appearances in the city. So, I mean, a lot of people went through Oslo, so that was, you know, high praise. And Kathleen quickly Becomes a admirer of his and she would become a driving factor in him finishing his violin concerto that he'd been dithering over for a very long time. And this is Kathleen playing one of Halvorsen's compositions.
It's not his concerto, it's Mosaic No. 4.
So back to the theatre. And it was a magical night with the romantic music of Brahms to make you fall in love. And everyone did, just some more than others. And to finish off, there's music from their very own Johan Halvorsen to celebrate you know, a Norwegian talent. So Kathleen plays her heart out and when the concert ended, the crowd goes wild and the 17 year old soaks up the thunderous applause. She's holding on tight to her violin as she bows to adoring fans. Tonight she is the darling of Oslo. In the uproarious crowd stands a man unable to take his eyes off this young woman. Her playing has moved him and her talent is unbelievable. This man makes a decision that will change both their lives forever.
So, Einar Bjornsson had fallen head over heels for the 17 year old Canadian there and then. She would turn 18 in a few months. And in that moment, he decided to give her the most beautiful gift she would ever receive. So, who is Einar Bjornsson? So what we were saying, poets, poets are less of a, you know, a hot shot today, but Einar was the son of a very, very famous poet. A Norwegian businessman and son of one of the most prominent public figures of the day, Bjørnstan Bjørnsson. He was a poet, a dramatist, a novelist, a journalist, an editor, a public speaker, and a theatre director. Five years earlier, in 1903, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and one of his poems, called ‘Yes, We Love This Land’, was put to music and is the Norwegian national anthem up to this day. So, you could say he was kind of famous in these parts, and his personality alone would have easily filled. A concert hall, that one in Oslo. Einar's father here, we're talking about Einar's father, he's the poet. Einar himself doesn't appear to have written any poetry. And this, so this situation could have been just fine the whole infatuation, love at first sight thing, except for a few things that put a spanner in the works.
To begin with, Einar Björnsson is somewhat older than the youthful Kathleen he's 26 years older. Then her, in fact, and for a 17 year old, that is a big age gap. So he's 45, but that aside, there is a problem that he's also married and has two children. His daughter is actually almost the same age as Kathleen she's 16, but he doesn't really seem to see that. All he can see is this violinist and her talent. And he's been just, he's besotted and he's going to make a grand gesture. So obviously, one way to support the arts is to, what patrons do is they will buy, a lovely instrument and lend it to someone. So that's your normal affair. Obviously, one way to show his devotion to her is to find her a better violin. Hers is absolutely not good enough for someone of her talent. And he has to find her something amazing because she is amazing. He's determined to give her the most wonderful gift she has ever received. So he goes out and he's a businessman. And so he goes to his businessman contacts. And Kathleen would have spoken to her entourage. I imagine, and I now finally finds a violin worthy of Kathleen's virtuosity, and it happens to be one of the most expensive violins on the market in 1908, and it's a 1735 Giuseppe Guarneri Del Gesu violin.
It had previously belonged to great violinists such as Giovanni Battista Viotti and Pierre Baillot. So just to clarify in the violin making world Antonio Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesù are the two top makers. If you're comparing two instruments, if one was owned by no one not anyone that you know. And then another one was owned by Viotti and Pierre Baillot . The one that's owned by Viotti and Pierre Baillot is probably going to be worth more. Yeah. So Viotti, he was just huge. He had a lot of instruments. I think he did a little bit of teaching and dealing on the side, Viotti. Like with the number of instruments named after him, or he just went through a lot of instruments. So she buys this violin, and it's not all smooth sailing to get the violin. Because she, there's this, there's a big correspondence between her and Auer, and we see that actually there's this letter where it says from Auer saying, I saw Hamming very cross. He says that the violin is compromised if he takes it back. So at one point, I think she may have changed her mind about this violin, but Hamming the dealer was not okay with this. All the I'm just trying to read his writing, it's not that easy. All the papers brought the news That Kathleen bought it so the newspapers have already, so the, you've got Hamming, that's annoyed, the papers have already said they've bought this violin and he could not, it says he could not sell it soon and repeat the sale, waiting till he finds something equal to the Guarneri.
He showed me a Strad, indeed wonderful, asking 60, 000 livres, which must be pounds, right? A nice fellow, isn't he? And now, goodbye, write to me. Love, Auer. They do end up getting the violin. They, they don't get the 60, 000 Strad that Hamming Gets all upset about and offers, which I think he might have been exaggerating the price just to make him calm down about and to keep the del Gesu.
Then Einar gives this to Kathleen. So this is a very kind of strange situation because normally you don't, you don't actually give, the patrons don't actually give their instrument to the
No, absolutely. That's a remarkable gift. Just in terms of, I mean, the gesture is very magnanimous, but in terms of financial, there's just a financial cost or value of the gift is quite enormous.
And so really after only knowing her for a month, Einar transfers this money into her account and she travels, Kathleen travels to Germany to the Hamming workshop and purchases her del Gesu violin for two thousand pounds and in today's money according to an inflation calculator, that is three hundred thousand pounds. Almost four hundred thousand US dollars. More than half a million Australian dollars, which at the time was a lot for a violin as well. So we're not I mean, I, today you'd be kind of happy to buy a Del Gesu for half a million, but then it was, it'd be a bargain. So, it's interesting this, like, he buys this, this young violinist this very expensive present and it's a, and it's a grey area and it's fraught with debate ethically, really. And I feel like today musicians find themselves sometimes in this position where they're sort of indebted to the, to a benefactor. It's almost feudal. I I feel cause at the same time you're very happy that they're lending it to you, but got to keep an eye on if it's a healthy relationship to. To get the money he had to get, you know, half a million pounds pretty quickly. If you remember, Ina's father was a very famous poet who'd won a Nobel Prize in literature and part of the prize is that you win a large sum of money. And so, what does Einar do? He goes and asks Dad. So he asks, he borrows, he borrows most of the money actually. Goodness knows how he convinced him, but you know, he's a businessman. And also for the remaining, he's married, remember, and he's married to, actually, to an heiress, and he takes a bunch of her, her dowry money and transfers this to essentially a teenager he met a month ago. The purchase of this incredibly expensive violin attracted, it attracted the attention of the press internationally, but journalists It's never really questioned the fact that this, this gift was given to a young woman by a, by an established family man. So everyone was just like, Oh, isn't it amazing? Because normally in this circumstance, people don't often give the instrument. You buy it as an investment and you'll lend it to someone. I think I've heard of like very few, very few cases of things being gifted, but actually normally your standard practice is to, to lend it to people. And most people playing on strads, that's, that's what it is, someone's lent it to them.
How would you feel about someone giving a 300, 000 instrument to your daughter, who's a teenager?
Well, I'd be, I mean, I'd just hate the sort of obligation that would involve, because On one hand, it is a very wonderful gift if it is a gift, but you almost expect that there is some expectation in return, don't you?
Yeah. It's like he's bought her almost.
Kind of.
So, Einar, as, as I mentioned, he's, he's from a well known Norwegian family. They're very patriotic. His father's writings really established a sense of pride and meaning to what it was to be Norwegian. And he was. Like his father was this beloved figure in the country and he was quite frankly a hard act to follow. But his children gave it a good shot. You have Einar was one of five children. His father Bjornstein Bjornsson was the poet and public figure. He worked in a theatre. His mother was an actress when he'd met her. Which is a little bit risque also for the time. So they're a bit more of sort of an acting bohemian theatre family. His older brother Bjorn Bjornsson, just to be complicated here, his brother's called Bjorn Bjornsson. And not to be confused with Bjornstein Bjornsson, his father. So he was a stage actor and a theatre director. Like his dad. He was a playwright and he was the first theatre director of the National Theatre. And that was the big theatre in Oslo where Kathleen played. He was also quite busy in his personal life, because his first wife was Jenny Bjornsson. I mean, another Bjornsson. Boarding house owner. So he married her for four years. So this is Einars older brother. He married her for four years, then he divorced her, then he married an opera singer.
Called Gina Oselio for 16 years, but then he, they, they got divorced, and then he married in 1909 Aileen Bendix, who was actually Jewish, and that's an important point, that she was Jewish, because at this time, things are kind of soon things will start heating up in Europe. And then he was, then there was Einar's younger brother called Erling Bjørnson, and he was a farmer and a politician for the Norwegian Far Right Party. So he was extreme right. Bit of a fascist. The other brother. So he was elected to the parliament of Norway and he was very active during World War II. So his two brothers have very, like, polarized opinions. Einar himself, he was a passive member of the far right party, but during the war years at that time that was the only party that people were allowed to be part of, so you can't, it's hard to tell his political leanings from that. Then he has a younger sister. Bergliot Bjornson, and she was a singer and a mezzo soprano, and she was married to a left wing politician Sigurd Ibsen, who was, he was the son of a playwright, and he becomes the Norwegian Prime Minister, so he plays a central role in Norway getting its independence. He met Einar's sister because he's a big patriot. Einar's father is a big patriot and that's how they were kind of family friends. It's not bad, you know, having your husband as the prime minister. Then he has another little sister called Dagny Bjornson and she was 19 when she marries a German publisher called Albert Langdon and so they're sort of like leftish as well. So Einar, he marries the sister of Albert Langdon. So they have this joint brother sister wedding. On the same day, the Bjornson brothers sisters marry the Langdon brothers sisters. But, the important thing to know is that the Langdons are very, very wealthy. They're orphans and they, they've inherited a lot of money. And so, but then Dagny, she ends up leaving her husband. Goes to Paris and works at another newspaper. And this is all in the, you know, the early 1900s. So she had this amazing life and then and then she marries another man, a French literate called Georges Sartreau well he comes also from a very wealthy family. Then you have Einar, who's a businessman, and he marries Elizabeth and they have two children, and his life is like not that remarkable. I think the most exciting thing he does is fall in love with Kathleen, I suppose, and sort of runs after her and her violin. From Kathleen's diaries, we can see the day after this concert in Oslo on the 10th of January, it's written 10th January, Mr Bjornson, 11;30am She meets with him the day after skiing and tobogganing with the Bjornsons. She has a concert the next day, but the day after that it's dinner with the Bjornsons, then another concert. And then she plays for the King. Then she goes to dinner with the Bjornsons. So this is just an excerpt from her diary for those weeks. And the next day, it's just Mr. Bjornson. That's just her meeting him not with the family. And maybe this is where he says, you know, I'll get you a violin. Maybe that was that meeting. And then on the 28th of February, she's in Germany and, and he's there. Einar is there. He goes to see her. Then on the 6th of March, she's in Amsterdam and in her diaries, you know, Mr Bjornson, he's there. He's kind of like, I don't know if this is creepy. He's following her around and then, and it's around about this time that he buys the violin for her. So she finishes her tour and she goes back to England and a month later in her diary, who rocks up? I know, he's there. In England, and she's still only 17 there. It's like he's kind of shadowing her a bit. Yes, it's that next level patronage.
And then there's the, the aesthetic at the time, the, the pre-Raphaelite willowy type woman, which she fits perfectly into. And Kathleen, if you, if you see Kathleen, it's kind of like. John William Waterhouse, his paintings. There's women in these long flowy robes with flowers in their hair and long willowy postures and, they're often like, you know, they're flopping about on something like a chair or there's this one holding this pot of basil. And there's that famous painting, The Lady of Shalott, where you've got this woman float, is she, is she dead? She's floating in the water with her hair and, and all this fabric and flowers and. In a promotional article, there was this quote from a review in the Evening Sun.
“Kathleen Parlow, tall, straight, slim, and swaying as the white birch sapling of her native Canada, but a spring vision, but a spring vision all in pink from her French heels to her fiddle chin rest and crowned with parted chestnut hair of a deeper auburn than any Stradivarius violin made an astonishing impression of masterful ease”.
I don't know if men were described like this, but they loved her. She's like a white birch.
Well she's very slender, she had beautiful long hair she was very thin, very fragile, and I think she sort of exemplified this pre Raphaelite beauty basically and that was so enchanting to have someone who was almost from another world playing the violin divinely. I think she must have cut an incredibly attractive image for the day. Absolutely. Yeah. And then she would have been like playing these like incredible romantic pieces.
It would be juxtaposed with her playing. Yeah. And yeah. Yes. So she was this real William Waterhouse figure with her violin. So she's lithe and willowy, and she has her touring schedule, which was phenomenal. She, so she tours England, Finland, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway. Just to name a few. It just kind of stopped after that. It was just never ending. And you have to remember it's the beginning of the 20th century, and traveling, it's not like it is today. It was much more. Uncomfortable. I mean, it's incredible. You see one day she's in one country, the next day in another country. So this must have been quite fatiguing. And she's just playing night after night. Her mother, Minnie, she's her, she's, they're quite close. She's, and often like with these, with prodigies, often their parents. They're best friends, like they're the only constant in their life. So in the summers, she returns to Oslo every year for the summer school hour that's helping her for the next concerts. She spends quite a lot of time with Halverson, going to lunches and teas and rehearsals with him. You can see this in her diaries. But is this, is this kind of the life of a musician as well? Like you have to, you have to go to a lot of teas and lunches with people to please patrons and so on.
Yes, I think you do because musicians don't normally have much money and so to ingratiate themselves to patrons and sponsors they really had to coax them into help
Yeah, because she's living this life sort of beyond her means, going to the theater, going to concerts and things, and sort of a balancing act.
Back in Norway, and a week after she turns 18, there's an entry in her diary, play for Mr. Bjornson, and the next month her entries, they change slightly, and she'll now just call him E. B. For Einar Bjornson and the entries will say things like E. B. arriving and then often like a week later It's E. B. leaving and in her diaries, it's intermittently always though he'll be there for a week wherever she is often in England or and every few months He'll just pop up, you know in London in Germany in the Netherlands And he just always happens to be happens to be there and what's interesting is she has these hundreds of letters archived Of her writing to friends, to family, to her pianist. And it's really interesting that there's zero letters to Einar. There's no correspondence between them, which I think is maybe on purpose, they may be, they have to have been removed because she just writes letters to everyone, but we don't have these, any letters from them, so it just leaves things up to speculation.
This brings us to the end of part one in the story of Kathleen Parlow. I would encourage you to keep listening to the music of Kathleen. To do this, Biddulph Recordings have released two CDs that you can listen to on Apple Music, Spotify, or any other major streaming service. You can also buy the double CD of her recordings if you prefer the uncompressed version.
I hope you have enjoyed her story so far, but stick around for part two to find out what will happen with her career, the violin, the man who gave it to her, and the mystery behind a missing concerto that Kathleen would, in part, help solve after her death. Goodbye for now.
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Come and discover in this episode why your cello is the size it is!
We continue looking at the life of Francesco Rugeri and how his career intersected with other well known masters such as Guarneri and Stradivari.
The advent of wound strings will also play a part in piecing together the puzzle of how Francesco Rugeri was able to make smaller cellos 50 years before Stradivari even tried.
Transcript
Okay, so I'm here with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker. Hello and , this little segment is we're gonna give you a, the secret how to remember the difference between Francesco Rugeri and Giovanni Baptista Rogeri
Antoine Lespets
can you talk about your memo technique? I fun for remembering the difference between Rogeri and Rugeri
Yeah. I say memo technique, technique? or just a memo technique?
Oh, I thought, no, it's a memo technique because it's for memory, right? It's to remember. So memo technique.
Yeah. All right. So my memo technique to remember the difference between Rugeri and Rogeri. It's a very simple one. Um, I just think Rugeri with the U is rude because he stays in Cremona.
So he's, that's his, um, Rugeri is in Cremona and Rogeri, goes rogue with a O to, so he goes to Brescia, he leaves Cremona and he goes to Breescia. So Rogeri in Bresecia because he goes rogue and Rugeri in Cremona because, because he's, he's so rude. He never wants to leave Cremona. Yes.
Yeah. So it's not necessarily true, but the whole idea of a memo technique is just to remember.
Yeah. Don't worry if you're in Cremona, I've got nothing against you and you don't have to write there. And you can stay in Cremona like all you like. You might not be rude. Yeah. You don't have to. It's just a technique to remember. Rugeri or Rogeri. Thank you Antoine. You're welcome. Rogeri in Brescia, Rugeri in Cremona.
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles. A podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting, violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French violin making school some years ago now and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Lutherie in Mirecourt.
As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often, when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, but here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture.
So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love, artistic genius, Revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning, and bravery that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.
Welcome to this episode on the life of Francesco Ruggeri. In previous episodes, we have looked at various families living in Cremona, in particular, the Amati family and their incredible craftsmanship, innovation, and influence on all things violin.
So many of the great makers were influenced by this family, and Ruggeri included. In this show, we will be looking at the life of this maker, Francesco Ruggeri, where he learnt to make instruments, how he fits into the story, and I will talk about something quite innovative Francesco did that today almost everyone will give the credit to Antonio Stradivari for.
Francesco returned to his workshop in San Bernardo after his wedding, and over the years, with his wife, they would have a large family. The very next year, 1653, their first son, Giovanni Battista, was born. The couple would go on to have at least six more children. In these same years, Nicola Amati, newly married, would also have children, and the two families would have known each other well, along with the Guarneri kids and the Gennaro children, all living in the same neighbourhood.
Niccolo Amati was even the godfather to one of Francesco's son, Giacinto. But in the following years after the weddings of Francesco Ruggeri and Andrea Guarneri, the Amati household has no record of any apprentices living with them, and yet the workshop was producing many instruments. Could Niccolo have had other makers such as Ruggeri and Guarneri working for him still during these years, even though they were no longer living with him?
E. Hill and Sons note. And I quote, “The unmistakable handiwork of Francesco Ruggeri can be found in certain of Niccolo Amati's works”. End quote. Francesco Ruggeri, working in his place in San Bernardo, could have been working for Niccolo, but also was building up his own clientele. His instruments definitely went at a cheaper rate to those of the Amatis, and his workmanship was less precise than that of his competitor. But he was able to run a successful business and he found himself experimenting with models and in particular bass instruments. And here is where Ruggeri was doing something a little bit different.Jason Price. That's probably his most lasting contribution is, uh, are the really excellent cellos that he made, which are of modern usable size.
Linda Lespets
Yes. Because often when people talk about the modern cello, they'll say it's Stradivari. They'll say, oh, he's, he's B model, but, um, but actually he was inspired by Ruggieri.
Jason Price
You're totally right. You're totally right. I mean, it was all, I'm sure it was all happening sort of organically and without exact, you know, influence and stuff. But, uh, You know, monster basettos that people are making and they work and so he made a lot of them that yeah, Ruggieri figured it out sooner. And a lot of this, you know, has to do, had to do with, um, obviously what clients wanted, that there's a reason why he was making them small because people wanted them. But it also has to do with string technology. And, you know, this is the end of the 17th century is when people first started wrapping strings in metal, the lower strings, and that, that lets you have a, an instrument which is functional at a much smaller body size, and I'm sure that's one of the factors that was going on here that, that led to his making smaller cellos. You could have that lowest string not be, you know, the width of a pencil. Because, and not super floppy, because you could reinforce it with metal.
Linda Lespets
Now you see, musicians playing on a bass instrument often had to manoeuvre around large bulky basses with wide gut strings. The instrument's response was, Often slow, and so it was difficult to play fast paced compositions and were mostly relegated to simpler bass parts. But in the last few years, a new technology had changed things. Large gut strings were beginning to be wound with metals which gave them more tension, and this meant that the instrument did not have to be so long and wide. to accommodate the strings that would play the same note. This new string technology is really pivotal in the story of the cello and one of the reasons for its success as an instrument and Ruggeri's renown, and perhaps even his motivation in making this instrument.
I asked Dan Larson from Gamut Strings about the history of strings and why they are so important in determining the size and playability of an instrument.
My name is Dan Larson and I run a business called Gamut Music Incorporated. And I'm a trained violin maker. I also make Baroque guitars and lutes of the Baroque and the Renaissance variety, and I have a workshop in Duluth, Minnesota that makes musical strings, or gut strings, for musical instruments.
The 17th century actually is a very exciting time for many, many things. There was a burgeoning market for everything at that time. There was a lot of technology being brought to the world in many ways, and there was a lot of people beginning to experiment with things. And that was back in the day when a guy could get an idea, and he could make something, he could invent something, and he could, uh, recognize a new, law of nature, and that's just what educated people did back in those days in the 17th century.
Up until the mid 17th century, when you had strings, You had only one choice of string material, and that was gut. There was, sheep gut was used, there was beef gut that was used, there were some other, allegedly, some different animals that were used for gut. But primarily it was sheep gut, and secondarily it was beef gut. Those were the two primary materials that were used. Largely because that was the material that was available. People at that time ate a lot of sheep. And not so many cattle, but they had a certain number of cattle that they had with slaughter for various reasons. So, the only choice that they had for strings was gut. String making in itself was a whole industry and in 1656, just a few years after Ruggeri married, Paris had its first guild of Boyadieu. That's the French word for gut string makers. Their workshops were near the slaughterhouse in the Faubourg Saint Martin.
Dan Larson.
What were the main, uh, places that strings came from?
Were, there sort of string making centres or did people make strings everywhere? Would musicians make their own strings?
No, they wouldn't. It was too complicated a system and the material was very carefully controlled by the people that made strings. Strings tended to be made in centres. And they were geographical areas were, were primarily designated as certain areas where strings were made. And, and it was usually in large population areas where a lot of animals were killed because the, the animals would be the source of the material to make the strings. So, he ended up with a lot of string making in Paris, for instance, uh, Lyon. There was an enormous and tremendous development of string making in Markneukirchen in Germany, in the Saxon region there. And they, had an international industry where they would gather gut from all over the eastern Europe and bring it into the city to be processed into gut. The gut string making was an international business. It was an international concern. The transporting of the material was very specialized, so it wouldn't, uh, it wouldn't go bad in transit. And preserving it was a very specific thing that had, they had to develop different ways of carrying it to preserve it, so it wouldn't go bad.
And how, sorry, how did they do, how did they do it? How did they carry it without it going off? Uh, they made these special boxes. And, uh, they were just big thick boxes that would protect the, the strings from not, not only the cull, but from animals because the, the little critters like to get into it. I think the biggest, the biggest threat to transporting gut was the, was the critters that would want to get into it. A lot more than the cold and thing, but it was usually, they were usually transmitted dry. Right. Okay. So they were transported dry. So they would, in the source where they were taken, the gut would have been dried out and then put in these containers and the containers were, I don't know if they were just particularly heavy or they were reinforced with metal or something, but they would, they would be very heavy.
Okay. uh, specifically made to resist the influence of the, of the animals that wanted to get in and eat the gut. Right, right. There's also different traditions. The German tradition is very different than the, the Italian tradition, which is very different than the French tradition. And the French and the, and the Italians tended to use more fresh gut, where they would take the, the gut from the animal and turn it into a string pretty much immediately. The Germans had this process of drying the gut so they could transport the gut over great distances, and then they could also make the gut into strings at their leisure, which was, uh, just suited them better. Right. It was, uh, an international industry. It was a very sophisticated industry, as it continues to be even today. And it varied from one country to another. Every, each country had their own particular ways of going about it and, and therefore the result of the different strings had, uh, different reputations. You know, the, strings from Italy had a reputation. for really good top strings, and the French had a really good reputation for lower strings, and the Germans had a really good reputation for inexpensive strings, and you know, just everybody had their own little niche that they worked into the market.
If you were a string maker, where did that put you in, uh, was that a sort of a sort of a lower class thing or were you a proud craftsman? Do you know what their position in society would have been?
Oh, the, the string makers were the richest men in town. They were quite prosperous in Markneukirchen and literally the richest people in town were the people that owned the string making factories.
Emily Brayshaw
It's really interesting that you talk about this idea of the wire wrapped around the gut to make strings because that has long been, by this time, a technique that is used Um, in textile production, in that you would have like a thread and literally wind gold or silver wire around it. And that's how you get gold and silver embroidery thread.
And um, depending on the thickness of that, you can get like Super fine for embroidery or you, and, and weaving, or you can perhaps get thicker for fringing and things like that. Part of me wonders, and maybe somebody out there will have the answer, whether, you know, these textile techniques influenced this technique of string making.
Was that everywhere that we're using this around? Everywhere. Everywhere.
Yeah. Yeah. So you had this mixing of technologies and Cremona is a city, you know, bursting with textiles. Yeah, it could well be. I mean, it, there's so much overlap and, you know, we remember, remember as well, like it's a small place. It's by the end of the plague, it's 17, 000 people. Everybody has to know everybody else. You know, everybody knows everybody else. Mm right. That's kind of how these places work. So you do get these kind of pots of ideas too, you know, that that are happening. And I think this is really sort of a fascinating thing,
Dan Larsen
So the only choice that they had for strings was gut. That works well if you have an instrument that has only one string. It works really, really well. When you have an instrument that has more than one string, you have to start playing around with the design of the string, because you have strings that have to have different pitches. So, you have to figure out how to get the different pitches. And more importantly, you have to figure out what size the instrument needs to be to get the pitches of the playing gut strings to work as efficiently as possible. And they developed some science around that. There were various people that were instrumental.
Mersenne, for instance, developed a series of laws about gut strings and how it should work and how the strings should be calculated so they would have this the same amount of tension based on a given length. You could have a six stringed instrument and all the strings would have the same amount of tension, but they would be at the different pitches that they were supposed to be. So he developed a whole A whole system of laws and rules, uh, to govern those things. Uh, Galileo's father was very much into figuring out strings, and in fact, Galileo's, one of his first experiences in science was to help his dad make strings. tests the strings. He had this sort of setup where they would hang a hook on a string and then hang a weight on it and then change the lengths and they would figure out what the pitch of the string would be given different weights on it and different masses and different, uh, tensions and so forth. So there was a lot of that going on. They were trying to figure out how strings worked and how they could bring the design into it. That works all right. It works fine. But it does mean that you end up with some, with some very thick strings on the bottom, because the instrument has to be, it has to be scaled such that you can get the first string up to the pitch that you want the first string to be. So it's really the first string of the instrument that dictates the size of the instrument, and that's why we get You know, that's why the violin is the size of a violin, isn't it, the size of a cello is the size of a cello is, and so on and so forth.
It is also around this time that the first references to The gut strings were generally wrapped in silver, but also in copper and brass. Thanks to these strings, makers such as Rugeri could make smaller cellos for musicians, and that was just what he did. Not only could you buy yourself a more manoeuvrable instrument, but composers, especially such places as Bologna and Naples, had composers writing music for the cello.
Jason Price.
I made a, a nickel harper once, which is like a Swedish violin. Cool. Often people will put cello strings on them. And that's when you see that it's not ideal. Like really the, uh, Savarez, you could say, I want this length and I want this note for this length and they make the perfect string and it sounded so much better.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It is funny to think of what this. You know, string industry looked like in the, in the 17th century. I mean, obviously you didn't just go on Amazon and get some strings delivered to your house. You know, you probably, I'm sure it was butchers out the front door and then fishing line and violin strings out the back.
Yeah. It's kind of funny. And in your, an article you wrote that's in the, I was, I'm going to say Cossio Archive, but that's not right. It's the Tarizio. You were talking about, uh, composers in the second half of the 1600s. There were people actually writing specifically for cello. Yeah. That's really when the cello became, uh, considered as a solo instrument at the end of that 17th century and early 18th century. And that's when you see Gabrielli start writing for these really, like, complicated, uh, lines for solo cello, and then obviously Boccherini did it. 30, 40 years later. And, um, yeah, that's obviously the makers had to, had to step up their game and make instruments that could handle that for sure. Yeah. It's like, I feel like it's a chicken or the egg.
I'm like, Oh, they're writing for solo cello. And yes. And is that because then they did, they make smaller violin cellos or they discovered that they have these smaller good sound like cellos that were responsive. Cause they have to be. Quite responsive to write more virtuously music for. Yeah, absolutely. A chicken and egg, but like a four part chicken and egg with like musician, composer, instruments, string. Um, I imagine there were a lot of factors that were sort of, yeah, all coming together and, and, uh, it didn't all happen at once, but that's, that's the period in which. In which cellos became smaller because musicians wanted them to be smaller.
Dan Larsen.
The instrument has to be, it has to be scaled such that you can get the first string up to the pitch that you want the first string to be. So it's really the first string of the instrument that dictates the size of the instrument. You know, that's why the violin is the size of the violin, as in the size of the cello is, and so on and so forth. And then when you have the, when you have established the string length based on the pitch of the top string, then you have to figure out what the other strings are going to be, because theoretically you should change the length of those, like on a harpsichord. You can use, you could use the same diameter of string, the same type of string, just make it longer, and you would get the different pitches, and it would It would sound good and it would work well, but on a fixed length instrument like a violin or a cello, you can't do that. You can't have multiple lengths of strings. So they had to develop a system that became known as foreshortening. So they would change the mass of the string. Which would allow them to put, make the string shorter, and maintain the tension that the instrument needed to be, the string needed to have on it to sound properly. Because they had only one material, the only thing they could do was to add more gut and make the strings thicker. to add mass to the string for the lower strings to get the tension that they required on it. And that, that works fine. They, there were different types of strings that they developed with, with different twisting technologies that would, uh, the string would be flexible enough to, to play at those relatively low tensions at the, the thicknesses that they were, that they needed and so forth. But, the end result wasn't 100 percent satisfactory for them.
Sorry, are you saying that, um, so for Andrea Amati, for example, when he made his violin, which is sort of what we go on today, he, he had to already have had the strings were already like developed and he made it, he had to make it so that it could accommodate those strings.
Exactly. Yeah. Ah, so the strings come before the violin. Oh, the strings come before the violin, yeah. The strings come before everything. Do you think he would have, um, used, they would have used, say, lute strings? Would they have been the best strings then? Like, if you were a maker in the 16th century, what would you have taken?
I think the string makers at the time were making strings for everything. The violin was a very popular instrument. Okay. And there were string makers that made strings specifically for the violin, and I think that most of the string shops probably made strings for lutes and strings for violins. Some, some of the string gauges would double over and be useful on, on, on both, but not so many because the violin had tended to have a lot more tension than the lute does.
Yeah. And would he have gone and said, I'm making an instrument this size, can you make me a string to fit it? And the string makers would have gone, okay, yeah, all right.
Sure, sure. And they would have had standard sizes that they were using. Okay. You know, he would just say, I need, I need, uh, you know, five violin E strings and six A strings and two D strings and, and 18 G strings.
And that's, they would have said, okay, but that's what we'll get for you. So anyway, the, concept of the fact that there was only one string material is really important in understanding the development of the instruments and the size, especially the sizing of the instruments. Uh, that's, really important to understand that they were limited by this material. And on the other hand, they were sort of fortunate enough to have only one material. It made things a little simpler in many ways. You know, there weren't that many options for sizing. If they were sticking to that one principle of the, well, in the lute world, when they talked about tuning an instrument, they would say, tune the top string to the point where just before it breaks, which is always a fun thing to know. If it breaks, okay, you went a little bit too far. You shouldn't have gone that far. It's like trying to prove a negative. You can't always do that so easily. The violin strings tended to be bigger and heavier anyway, so they probably didn't have so much of a problem with that. But in the 17th century, in the mid 1600s, something happened, and we don't know exactly where. I suspect it happened in France. There was a popular book written by John Playford. It came out in 1664 with the addition that has this article that specifies a new type of string that was available for violins. It says specifically that it has silver wire and the wire was twisted or gimped onto silk or gut to make this string and this string was specifically used for the violin G string. And of course, this string is, has marvellous properties and is the most wonderful string ever invented by man and so forth, as, as most salesmen would say. And, uh. The best string in the world. In a good unregulated market, you know.
I love how, um, a lot of some string brands will like have these claims for it being the best, you know, the best E string in the world. Oh, sure. That one's actually made in Australia. I have the packet. I have the best E string in the world. Yes. From about, it's about 100 years old.
Yeah, they're, they're, well, I guess if you stop and think about it, if you, if you're not going to make something the best in the world, why do you even bother?
What's the point?
You never, no one ever says, this is the best. Third, but maybe, maybe fourth, the third or fourth best thing in the world. You know, it never happens that way. There was this new type of string that came available that was advertised in 1664. So that indicates to me that this technology had been developing for quite some time before that. Nothing ever comes out. Nobody ever invents something and then advertises it the next day. That's just not the way things work. So probably by the 1630s or 1640s there was this experimentation of combining the wire With and with the string material.
This brings us to the end of this second episode of Francesco Rugeri, a man who lived with the times embracing new technologies and innovating his instrument. Cello players everywhere can be a little bit thankful to him and his influence on other makers in perfecting this instrument. That incredible cello playing you've heard throughout the episode is by Timo Viekko Valve from the Australian Chamber Orchestra, playing on his wonderful Amati Brothers cello made in 1616.
If you would like to hear the fascinating sound Story of his cello and the man who made it. You can go back and listen to episodes nine and 10 about the Ammar Brothers and this cello in particular, but the story of Ruggeri is not over for now. I'll say goodbye and I hope you will join me for the next episode of the Violin Chronicles.
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Francesco Rugeri; this Cremonese violin maker often mistaken for Giovanni Battista Rogeri, another Cremonese trained violin maker living at the same time, made many fine instruments and is especially well known for his cellos and his innovation of the instrument. Join me as I delve into the life of violin makers in Cremona after the Amati's and before the Guarneri families, this is the age of the Rugeris'.
This is the story of Giovanni Battista Rogeri the Cremonese trained violin maker who made it big in Brescia and has since been confused with other makers throughout history. Florian Leonhard talks about the influences Rogeri pulled on and exactly why his instruments have for so long been attributed to Giovanni Paolo Maggini.
Transcript
Far, far away in a place called Silene, in what is now modern-day Libya, there was a town that was plagued by an evil venom spewing dragon, who skulked in the nearby lake, wreaking havoc on the local population. To prevent this dragon from inflicting its wrath upon the people of Silene, the leaders of the town offered the beast two sheep every day in an attempt to ward off its reptilian mood swings.
But when this was not enough, they started feeding the scaly creature a sheep and a man. Finally, they would offer the children and the youths of the town to the insatiable beast, the unlucky victims being chosen by lottery. As you can imagine, this was not a long term sustainable option. But then, one day, the dreaded lot fell to the king's daughter. The king was devastated and offered all his gold and silver, if only they would spare his beloved daughter. The people refused, and so the next morning at dawn, the princess approached the dragon's lair by the lake, dressed as a bride to be sacrificed to the hungry animal. It just so happened that a knight who went by the name of St George was passing by at that very moment and happened upon the lovely princess out for a morning stroll. Or so he thought. But when it was explained to him by the girl that she was in fact about to become someone else's breakfast and could he please move on and mind his own business he was outraged on her behalf and refused to leave her side. Either she was slightly unhinged and shouldn't be swanning about lakes so early in the morning all by herself, or at least with only a sheep for protection, or she was in grave danger and definitely needed saving. No sooner had Saint George and the princess had this conversation than they were interrupted by a terrifying roar as the dragon burst forth from the water, heading straight towards the girl. Being the nimble little thing she was, the princess dodged the sharp claws. As she was zigzagging away from danger, George stopped to make the sign of the cross and charged the gigantic lizard, thrusting Ascalon, that was the name of his sword, yep he named it, into the four legged menace and severely wounded the beast. George called to the princess to throw him her girdle, That's a belt type thing, and put it around the dragon's neck. From then on, wherever the young lady walked, the dragon followed like a meek beast. Back to the city of Silene went George, the princess, and the dragon, where the animal proceeded to terrify the people.
George offered to kill the dragon if they consented to becoming Christian. George is sounding a little bit pushy, I know. But the people readily agreed and 15, 000 men were baptized, including the king. St. George killed the dragon, slicing off its head with his trusty sword, Ascalon, and it was carried out of the city on four ox carts. The king built a church to the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. George on the site where the dragon was slain and a spring flowed from its altar with water that it is said would cure all diseases.
This is the story of Saint George and the Princess. It is a classic story of good versus evil, and of disease healing miracles that would have spoken to the inhabitants of 17th century Brescia. The scene depicting Saint George and the Princess is painted in stunning artwork by Antonio Cicognata and was mounted on the wall of the Church of San Giorgio. Giovanni Battista Rogeri gazed up at this painting as family and friends, mainly of his bride Laura Testini, crowded into the church of San Giorgio for his wedding. Giovanni was 22 and his soon to be wife, 21, as they spoke their vows in the new city he called home. He hoped to make his career in this town making instruments for the art loving Brescians, evidence of which could be seen in the wonderful artworks in such places as this small church. Rogeri would live for the next 20 years in the parish of San Giorgio. The very same George astride an impressive white stallion in shining armour, his head surrounded by a golden halo. He is spearing the dragon whilst the princess calmly watches on clad in jewels with long red flowing robes in the latest fashion. In the background is the city of Brescia itself, reminding the viewer to remember that here in their city they too must fight evil and pray for healing from disease ever present in the lives of the 17th century Brescians.
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Luthierie in Mircourt. As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, but here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture. So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love. Artistic genius. Revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning and bravery, that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.
Welcome to this first episode on the life of Giovanni Battista Rogeri. After having spent the last few episodes looking at the life of the Ruggeri family, we will now dive into the life of that guy who almost has the same name, but whose work and contribution to violin making, you will see, is very different. And we will also look at just why, for so many years, his work has been attributed erroneously to another Brescian maker.
The year was 1642, and over the Atlantic, New York was called New Amsterdam. The Dutch and the English were having scuffles over who got what. Was it New England? New Netherlands? In England, things were definitely heating up, and in 1642, a civil war was in the process of breaking out. On one side there were the parliamentarians, including Oliver Cromwell, and on the other side were the Royalists, who were the supporters of King Charles I. This war would rage on for the next 20 years, and not that anyone in England at this time really cared, but the same year that this war broke out, a baby called Giovanni Battista Rogeri was born in Bologna, perhaps, and for the next 20 years he grew up in this city ruled by the Popes of Italy. He too would witness firsthand wars that swept through his hometown. He would avoid dying of the dreaded plague, sidestep any suspicion by the Catholic church in this enthusiastic time of counter reformation by being decidedly non Protestant. And from an early age, he would have been bathed in the works of the Renaissance and now entering churches being constructed in the Baroque style.
Bologna was a city flourishing in the arts, music and culture, with one of the oldest universities in the country. But for the young Giovanni Battista Rogeri, to learn the trade of lutai, or violin maker, the place he needed to be was, in fact, 155. 9 km northwest of where he was right now. And if he took the A1, well, today it's called the A1, and it's an ancient Roman road so I'm assuming it's the same one, he could walk it in a few days. Destination Cremona, and more precisely, the workshop of Niccolo Amati. An instrument maker of such renown, it is said that his grandfather, Andrea Amati, made some of the first violins and had royal orders from the French king himself. To be the apprentice of such a man was a grand thing indeed.
So we are in the mid 1600s and people are embracing the Baroque aesthetic along with supercharged architecture and paintings full of movement, colour and expression. There is fashion, and how the wealthy clients who would buy instruments in Cremona dressed was also influenced by this movement.
Emily Brayshaw.
You've got these ideas of exaggeration of forms and you can exaggerate the human body with, you know, things like high heels and wigs and ribbons and laces. And you've got a little bit of gender bending happening, men wearing makeup and styles in the courts. You know, you've got dress and accessories challenging the concept of what's natural, how art can compete with that and even triumph over the natural perhaps. You've got gloves trimmed with lace as well. Again, we've got a lot of lace coming through so cravats beauty spot as well coming through. You've got the powder face, the, the wig. Yeah. The makeup, the high heels. Okay. That's now. I actually found a lovely source, an Italian tailor from Bergamo during the Baroque era. The Italians like really had incredibly little tailors and tailoring techniques. And during this sort of Baroque era. He grumbles that since the French came to Italy not to cut but to ruin cloth in order to make fashionable clothes, it's neither possible to do our work well nor are our good rules respected anymore. We have completely lost the right to practice our craft. Nowadays though who disgracefully ruin our art and practice it worse than us are considered the most valuable and fashionable tailors.
So we've got like this real sort of shift. You know, from Italian tailoring to sort of French and English tailoring as well.
And they're not happy about it.
No, they are not happy about it. And this idea that I was talking about before, we've got a lovely quote from an Italian fashion commentator sort of around the mid 17th century. His name's Lam Pugnani, and he mentions the two main fashions. meaning French and Spanish, the two powers that were ruling the Italian peninsula and gradually building their global colonial empires. And he says, “the two main fashions that we have just recorded when we mentioned Spanish and French fashion, enable me to notice strangeness, if not a madness residing in Italian brains, that without any reason to fall in love so greatly Or better, naturalize themselves with one of these two nations and forget that they are Italian. I often hear of ladies who come from France, where the beauty spot is in use not only for women, but also for men, especially young ones, so much so that their faces often appear with a strange fiction darkened and disturbed, not by beauty spots, but rather by big and ridiculous ones, or so it seems somebody who is not used to watching similar mode art”.
So, you know, we've got people commentating and grumbling about these influences of Spain and France on Italian fashion and what it means to be Italian. When we sort of think about working people, like there's this trope in movie costuming of like peasant brown, you know, and sort of ordinary, you know, people, perhaps ordinary workers, you know, they weren't necessarily dressed. In brown, there are so many different shades of blue. You know, you get these really lovely palettes of like blues, and shades of blue, and yellows, and burgundies, and reds, as well as of course browns, and creams, and these sorts of palettes. So yeah, they're quite lovely.
And I'm imagining even if you didn't have a lot of money, there's, I know there's a lot of flowers and roots and barks that you can, you can dye yourself. Yeah, definitely. And people did, people did. I can imagine if I was living back there and we, you know, we're like, Oh, I just, I want this blue skirt. And you'd go out and you'd get the blue skirt. The flowers you needed and yeah, definitely. And people would, or, you know, you can sort of, you know, like beetroot dyes and things like that. I mean, and it would fade, but then you can just like, you know, quickly dye it again. Yeah, or you do all sorts of things, you know, and really sort of inject colour and, people were also, you know, people were clean. To, you know, people did the best they could keep themselves clean, keep their homes clean. You know, we were talking about boiling linens to keep things fresh and get rid of things like fleas and lice. And people also used fur a lot in fashion. And you'd often like, you know, of course you'd get the wealthy people using the high end furs, but sometimes people would, you know, use cat fur in Holland, for example, people would trim their fur. Their garments and lined their garments with cat fur. Why not? Because, you know, that's sort of what they could afford. It was there. Yeah, people also would wear numerous layers of clothing as well because the heating wasn't always so great. Yeah. You know, at certain times of the year as well. So the more layers you had, the better. The more, the more warm and snug you could be. As do we in Sydney. Indeed. Indeed. Canadians complain of the biting cold here. I know. And it's like, dude, you've got to lay about us. It's a humid cold. It's awful. It's horrible. It just goes through everything. Anyway. It's awful. Yeah.
So at the age of 19, Giovanni Battista Rogeri finds himself living in the lively and somewhat crowded household of Niccolo Amati. The master is in his early 60s and Giovanni Battista Rogeri also finds himself in the workshop alongside Niccolo Amati's son Girolamo II Amati, who is about 13 or 14 at this time. Cremona is a busy place, a city bursting with artisans and merchants.
The Amati Workshop is definitely the place to be to learn the craft, but it soon becomes clear as Giovanni Battista Rogeri looks around himself in the streets that, thanks to Nicolo Amati, Cremona does indeed have many violin makers, and although he has had a good few years in the Amati Workshop, Learning and taking the young Girolamo II Amati the second under his wing more and more as his father is occupied with other matters. He feels that his best chances of making a go of it would be better if he moved on and left Cremona and her violin makers. There was Girolamo II Amati who would take over his father's business. There were the Guarneri's around the corner. There was that very ambitious Antonio Stradivari who was definitely going to make a name for himself. And then there were the Rugeri family, Francesco Rugeri and Vincenzo Rugeri whose name was so familiar to his, people were often asking if they were related. No, it was time to move on, and he knew the place he was headed.
Emily Brayshaw.
So, you've also got, like, a lot of artisans moving to Brescia as well, following the Venetian ban on foreign Fustian sold in the territory. So Fustian is, like, a blend of various things. Stiff cotton that's used in padding. So if you sort of think of, for example someone like Henry VIII, right? I can't guarantee that his shoulder pads back in the Renaissance were from Venetian Fustian, but they are sort of topped up and lined with this really stiff Fustian to give like these really big sort of, Broad shoulders. That's how stiff this is. So, Venice is banning foreign fustians, which means that Cremona can't be sold in these retail outlets.
So, Ah, so, and was that sort of That's fabric, but did that mirror the economy that Brescia was doing better than Cremona at this point? Do you, do you think? Because of that?
Well, people go where the work is. Yeah. Cause it's interesting because you've got Francesco Ruggeri, this family that lives in Cremona. Yeah. And then you have about 12 to 20 years later, you have another maker, Giovanni Battista Rogeri. Yeah. He is apprenticed to Niccolo Amati. So he learns in Cremona. And then he's in this city full of violin makers, maybe, and there's this economic downturn, and so it was probably a very wise decision. He's like, look, I'm going to Brescia, and he goes to Brescia. He would have definitely been part of this movement of skilled workers and artisans to Brescia at that time, sort of what happening as well. So, you know, there's all sorts of heavy tolls on movements of goods and things like that. And essentially it collapses. And they were, and they were heavily taxed as well. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
It was the fabulous city of Brescia. He had heard stories of the city's wealth, art, music and culture, famous for its musicians and instrument makers. But the plague of 1630 had wiped out almost all the Luthiers and if ever there was a good time and place to set up his workshop, it was then and there. So bidding farewell to the young Girolamo Amati, the older Nicolò Amati and his household, where he had been living for the past few years. The young artisan set out to make a mark in Brescia, a city waiting for a new maker, and this time with the Cremonese touch.
Almost halfway between the old cathedral and the castle of Brescia, you will find the small yet lovely Romanesque church of San Giorgio. Amidst paintings and frescoes of Christ, the Virgin and the Saints, there stands a solemn yet nervous young couple, both in their early twenties. Beneath the domed ceiling of the church, the seven angels of the Apocalypse gaze down upon them, a constant reminder that life is fragile, and that plague, famine and war are ever present reminders of their mortality. But today is a happy one. The young Giovanni Battista Rogeri is marrying Laura Testini. And so it was that Giovanni Battista Rogeri moved to Brescia into the artisanal district and finds himself with a young wife, Laura Testini. She is the daughter of a successful leather worker and the couple most probably lived with Laura's family. Her father owned a house with eight rooms and two workshops. This would have been the perfect setup for the young Giovanni to start his own workshop and get down to business making instruments for the people of Brescia. He could show off his skills acquired in Cremona, and that is just what he did. Since the death of Maggini, there had not been any major instrument making workshops in Brescia.
Florian Leonhard
Here I talk to Florian Leonhard about Giovanni Battista Rogeri's move to Brescia and his style that would soon be influenced by not only his Cremonese training, but the Brescian makers such as Giovanni Paolo Maggini
I mean, I would say in 1732. The Brescian violin making or violin making was dead for a bit, so until the arrival of Giovanni Battista Rogeri, who came with a completely harmonised idea, into town and then adopted features of Giovanni Paolo Maggini and Gasparo da Salo. I cannot say who, probably some Giovanni Paolo Maggini violins that would have been more in numbers available to him, have influenced his design of creating an arching. It's interesting that he instantly picked up on that arching because Giovanni Battista Rogeri always much fuller arched. The arching rises much earlier from the purfling up. Right. So he came from the Cremonese tradition, but he adopted the, like, the Brescian arching idea. He, he came from Niccolo Amati and has learned all the finesse of construction, fine making, discipline, and also series production. He had an inside mould, and he had the linings, and he had the, all the blocks, including top and bottom block. And he nailed in the neck, so he did a complete package of Cremonese violin making and brought that into Brescia, but blended it in certain stylistics and sometimes even in copies with the Brescian style.
For a long time, we have had Before dendrochronology was established, the Giovanni Paolo Magginis were going around and they were actually Giovanni Battista Rogeris.
Brescia at this time was still a centre flourishing in the arts and despite the devastation of the plague almost 30 years ago, it was an important city in Lombardy and was in the process of undergoing much urban development and expansion. When Giovanni Rogeri arrived in the city, There were efforts to improve infrastructure, including the construction of public buildings, fortifications and roads. The rich religious life of the city was evident, and continued to be a centre of religious devotion at this time, with the construction and renovation of churches in the new Baroque style. The elaborate and ornate designs were not only reserved for churches, but any new important building projects underway in the city at this time. If you had yourself the palace in the Mula, you were definitely renovating in the Baroque style. And part of this style would also be to have a collection of lovely instruments to lend to musicians who would come and play in your fancy new pad. Strolling down the colourful streets lined with buildings covered in painted motifs, people were also making a statement in their choice of clothing.
Another thing that the very wealthy women were wearing are these shoes called Chopines, which are like two foot tall. And so you've got like this really exaggerated proportions as well. Very tall. I mean. Very tall, very wide. So taking up a lot of space.
I'm trying to think of the door, the doorways that would have to accommodate you.
Yes.
How do you fit through the door?
So a lot of the time women would have to stoop. You would need to be escorted by either servants. And then you'd just stand around. I did find some discussions of fashion in the time as well. Commentators saying, well, you know, what do we do in northern France? We either, in northern Italy, sorry, we either dress like the French, we dress like the Spanish, why aren't we dressing like Italians? And kind of these ideas of linking national identity through the expression of dress in fashion. So, we're having this
But did you want to, was it fashionable to be to look like the French court or the, to look like the Spanish court.
Well, yeah, it was, it was fashionable. And this is part of what people are commenting about as well. It's like, why are we bowing to France? Why are we bowing to Italy? Sorry. Why are we bowing to Spain? Why don't we have our own national Italian identity? And we do see like little variations in dress regionally as well. You know, people don't always. Dress exactly how the aristocracy are dressing. You'll have your own little twists, you'll have your own little trimmings, you'll have your own little ways and styles. And there are theories in dress about trickle down, you know, like people are trying to emulate the aristocracy, but they're not always. Trying to do that. Well, yeah, it's not practical if you're living, you know, if you're and you financially you can't either like some of these Outfits that we're talking about, you know with one of these hugh like the Garde in Fanta worn by Marie Theresa that outfit alone would have cost in today's money like more than a million dollars You can't copy these styles of dress, right? So what you've got to do is, you know, make adjustments. And also like a lot of women, like you, these huge fashion spectacles worn at court. They're not practical for working women either. So we see adaptations of them. So women might have a pared down silhouette and wear like a bum roll underneath their skirts and petticoats and over the top of the stays.
And that sort of gives you a little nod to these wider silhouettes, but you can still move, you can still get your work done, you can still, you know, do things like that. So that's sort of what's happening there.
Okay, so now we find a young Giovanni Battista Rogeri. He has married a local girl and set up his workshop. Business will be good for this maker, and no doubt thanks to the latest musical craze to sweep the country. I'm talking about opera. In the last episodes on Francesco Ruggeri, I spoke to Stephen Mould, the composer. at the Sydney Conservatorium about the beginnings of opera and the furore in which it swept across Europe. And if you will remember back to the episodes on Gasparo Da Salo at the beginning of the Violin Chronicles, we spoke about how Brescia was part of the Venetian state. This is still the case now with Giovanni Battista Rogeri and this means that the close relationship with Venice is a good thing for his business. Venice equals opera and opera means orchestras and where orchestras are you have musicians and musicians have to have an instrument really, don't they?
Here is Stephen Mould explaining the thing that is opera and why it was so important to the music industry at the time and instrument makers such as our very own Giovanni Battista Rogeri.
Venice as a place was a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk. Everything was there, and it was a very, it was a very modern type of city, a trading city, and it had a huge emerging, or more than emerging, middle class. People from the middle class like entertainment of all sorts, and in Venice they were particularly interested in rather salacious entertainments, which opera absolutely became. So the great thing of this period was the rise of the castrato. Which they, which, I mean, it was, the idea of it is perverse and it was, and they loved it. And it was to see this, this person that was neither man nor, you know, was in a way sexless on the stage singing and, and often singing far more far more virtuosically than a lot of women, that there was this, there was this strange figure. And that was endlessly fascinating. They were the pop stars of their time. And so people would go to the opera just to hear Farinelli or whoever it was to sing really the way. So this is the rise of public opera.
As opposed to the other version.
Well, Orfeo, for example, took place in the court at Mantua, probably in the, in the room of a, of a palace or a castle, which wouldn't have been that big, but would have been sort of specially set up for those performances. If I can give you an idea of how. Opera might have risen as it were, or been birthed in Venice.
Let's say you've got a feast day, you know, a celebratory weekend or few days. You're in the piazza outside San Marco. It's full of people and they're buying things, they're selling things, they're drinking, they're eating, they're having a good time. And all of a sudden this troupe of strolling players comes into the piazza and they start to put on a show, which is probably a kind of comedia dell'arte spoken drama. But the thing is that often those types of traveling players can also sing a bit and somebody can usually play a lute or some instrument. So they start improvising. Probably folk songs. Yeah. And including that you, so you've kind of already there got a little play happening outside with music. It's sort of like a group of buskers in Martin place. It could be very hot. I mean, I've got a picture somewhere of this. They put a kind of canvas awning with four people at either corner, holding up the canvas awning so that there was some sort of shade for the players. Yeah. That's not what you get in a kid's playground these days. You've almost got the sense. Of the space of a stage, if you then knock on the door of one of the palazzi in, in Venice and say to, to the, the local brew of the, of the aristocracy, look, I don't suppose we could borrow one of your rooms, you know, in your, in your lovely palazzo to, to put on a, a, a show. Yeah, sure. And maybe charged, maybe didn't, you know, and, and so they, the, the very first, it was the San Cassiano, I think it was the theatre, the theatre, this, this room in a, in a palace became a theatre. People went in an impresario would often commission somebody to write the libretto, might write it himself. Commissioner, composer, and they put up some kind of a stage, public came in paid, so it's paying to come and see opera. Look, it's, it's not so different to what had been going on in England in the Globe Theatre. And also the, the similar thing to Shakespeare's time, it was this sort of mixing up of the classes, so everything was kind of mixed together. And that's, that's why you get different musical genres mixed together. For example, an early something like Papaya by Monteverdi, we've just done it, and from what, from what I can gather from the vocal lines, some of the comic roles were probably these street players, who just had a limited vocal range, but could do character roles very well, play old women, play old men, play whatever, you know, caricature type roles. Other people were Probably trained singers. Some of them were probably out of Monteverdi's chorus in San Marco, and on the, on when they weren't singing in church, they were over playing in the opera, living this kind of double life. And That’s how opera started to take off. Yeah, so like you were saying, there are different levels.
So you had these classical Greek themes, which would be more like, you're an educated person going, yes, yes, I'm seeing this classical Greek play, but then you're someone who'd never heard of Greek music. The classics. They were there for the, you know, the lively entertainment and the sweet performers.
Yes. So the, the, the Commedia dell'arte had, had all these traditional folk tales. Then you've got all of the, all of the ancient myths and, and, and so forth. Papaya was particularly notable because it was the first opera that was a historical opera. So it wasn't based on any ancient myths or anything.
It was based on the life of Nero and Papaya. And so they were real life a few hundred years before, but they were real. It was a real historical situation that was being enacted on the stage. And it was a craze. That's the thing to remember is. You know, these days people have to get dressed up and they have to figure out how they get inside the opera house and they're not sure whether to clap or not and all of this sort of stuff and there's all these conventions surrounding it. That wasn't what it was about. It was the fact that the public were absolutely thirsty for this kind of entertainment. Yeah. And I was seeing the first, so the first opera house was made in in about 1637, I think it was. And then by the end of Monteverdi's lifetime, they said there were 19 opera houses in Venice. It was, like you were saying, a craze that just really took off. They had a few extra ones because they kept burning down. That's why one of them, the one that, that is, still exists today is called La Fenice. It keeps burning down as well, but rising from the ashes. Oh, wow. Like the, yeah, with the lighting and stuff, I imagine it's So, yeah, because they had candles and they had, you know, Yeah, it must have been a huge fire hazard. Huge fire hazard, and all the set pieces were made out of wood or fabric and all of that. Opera houses burning down is another big theme. Oh yeah, it's a whole thing in itself, yeah. So then you've got These opera troupes, which are maybe a little, something a little bit above these commedia dell'arte strolling players.
So, you've got Italy at that time. Venice was something else. Venice wasn't really like the rest of Italy. You've got this country which is largely agrarian, and you've got this country where people are wanting to travel in order to have experiences or to trade to, to make money and so forth. And so, first of all if an opera was successful, it might be taken down to Rome or to Naples for people to hear it. You would get these operas happening, happening in different versions. And then of course, there was this idea that you could travel further through Europe. And I, I think I have on occasion, laughingly. a couple of years ago said that it was like the, the latest pandemic, you know, it was, but it was this craze that caught on and everybody wanted to experience.
Yeah. So you didn't, you didn't have to live in Venice to see the opera. They, they moved around. It was, it was touring. Probably more than we think. That, that, that whole period, like a lot of these operas were basically unknown for about 400 years. It's only, the last century or so that people have been gradually trying to unearth under which circumstances the pieces were performed. And we're still learning a lot, but the sense is that there was this sort of network of performers and performance that occurred.
And one of the things that Monteverdi did, which was, which was different as well, is that before you would have maybe one or two musicians accompanying, and he came and he went, I'm taking them all.
And he created sort of, sort of the first kind of orchestras, like lots of different instruments. They were the prototypes of, of orchestras. And Look, the bad news for your, the violin side of your project, there was certainly violins in it. It was basically a string contingent. That was the main part of the orchestra. There may have been a couple of trumpets, may have been a couple of oboe like instruments. I would have thought that for Venice, they would have had much more exotic instruments. But the, the, the fact is at this time with the public opera, what became very popular were all of the stage elements. And so you have operas that have got storms or floods or fires. They simulated fires. A huge amount of effort went into painting these very elaborate sets and using, I mean, earlier Leonardo da Vinci had been experimenting with a lot of how you create the effect of a storm or an earthquake or a fire or a flood. There was a whole group of experts who did this kind of stuff.
For the people at the time, it probably looked like, you know, going to the, the, the first big movie, you know, when movies first came out in the 20s, when the talkies came out and seeing all of these effects and creating the effects. When we look at those films today, we often think, well, that's been updated, you know, it's out of date, but they found them very, very, very compelling.
What I'm saying is the money tended to go on the look of the thing on the stage and the orchestra, the sound of the orchestras from what we can gather was a little more monochrome. Of course, the other element of the orchestra is the continuo section. So you've got the so called orchestra, which plays during the aria like parts of the opera, the set musical numbers. And you've got the continuo, which is largely for the rest of the team. And you would have had a theorbo, you would have had maybe a cello, a couple of keyboard instruments, lute. It basically, it was a very flexible, what’s available kind of.
Yeah, so there was they would use violines, which was the ancestor of the double bass. So a three stringed one and violins as well. And that, and what else I find interesting is with the music, they would just, they would give them for these bass instruments, just the chords and they would improvise sort of on those. Chords. So every time it was a little bit different, they were following a Yes. Improvisation. Yeah. So it was kind of original. You could go back again and again.
It wasn't exactly the same. And look, that is the problem with historical recreation. And that is that if you go on IMSLP, you can actually download the earliest manuscript that we have of Poppea. And what you've got is less than chords, you've got a baseline. Just a simple bass line, a little bit of figuration to indicate some of the chords, and you've got a vocal line. That's all we have. We don't actually know, we can surmise a whole lot of things, but we don't actually know anything else about how it was performed.
I imagine all the bass instruments were given that bass line, and like, Do what you want with that.
So yeah, it would, and it would have really varied depending on musicians. Probably different players every night, depending on, you know, look, if you go into 19th century orchestras, highly unreliable, huge incidents of drunkenness and, you know, different people coming and going because they had other gigs to do. Like this is 19th century Italian theatres at a point where, you know, It should have been, in any other country, it would have, Germany had much better organized you know, orchestral resources and the whole thing. So it had that kind of Italian spontaneity and improvised, the whole idea of opera was this thing that came out of improvisation. Singers also, especially the ones that did comic roles, would probably improvise texts, make them a bit saucier than the original if they wanted for a particular performance. All these things were, were open.
And this brings us to an end of this first episode on Giovanni Battista Rogeri. We have seen the young life of this maker setting out to make his fortune in a neighbouring city, alive with culture and its close connections to Venice and the world of opera.
I would like to thank my lovely guests Emily Brayshaw, Stephen Mould and Florian Leonhardt for joining me today.
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Want to hear about the worlds most expensive ballet performance, murderous royals and Cremonese violins? Well listen on to see what happened to Andrea Amati's instruments once they arrived in the French court.
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Girolamo II Amati was the last of the Amati family of violin makers in Cremona. He worked along side Antonio Stradivari and the Guarneri family in an intense moment of violin making and musical discovery at the time. Listen to how he fits into the story of the violin and turns out to be more that what he is (or not) remembered for.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Luthierie in Mircourt. As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with. And in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, but here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture. So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love. Artistic genius, revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning, and bravery that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.
Welcome to the Amati workshop where over the last 150 years generations of instrument makers have lived and worked and the fourth generation is about to start his apprenticeship with his father who is perhaps the most famous of the family due to his beautiful craftsmanship and innovation of design. I'm talking about Niccolo Amati. In 1660, a young 11 year old Girolamo, Nicolo's son, Amati is taken into the workshop. Up until now, he would have been going to the local parish school, learning to read and write. At home, he would be doing odd jobs in the workshop, helping out his father. But now he was going to start working with him and the other apprentices and workers in the shop for real.
Who would not have been proud to work in the famous Amati workshop that attracted the attention of nobles, royals, and also some of the other local boys in town. Especially one who was five years older than Giolamo Amati, named Antonio Stradivari. Nicolo Amatis son would be spending his days with his father and his assistants. At the moment, his father's employees included Bartolomeo Pasta and Giovanni Battista Rogeri. Around the corner lived and worked close family friends, the Guarneri's. Already they had five children and it looked like more were on the way. Girolamo II, as he is known, would have spent a lot of time with his father's senior assistant, Giovanni Battista Rogeri, whose style was bolder than Nicolo's and his influence can be seen in the work of Girolamo Amati II, who would become the last violin maker of the Amati family.
As far as business went, the demands for violins were still strong from home and abroad. Whilst Nicolo Amati’s career was in full swing. North of Italy, a Dutch scientist had just invented the first pendulum clock, and this would forever have an impact on music, as it would lead to equal temperament. Simplified, that really just means that everyone agreed on the speed of the music being played, more or less. Music was being written about and innovations were being adapted to help musicians and the musical environment. There was the printing press that was making it possible for music to travel, opening up exciting new horizons for musicians. And in the eye of this musical storm, slowly but surely, our violin makers, cutting, scraping, plaining and gouging away, were making instruments for this new market. Music was on the road to becoming standardized. Equal temperament and a printed score. You could play a piece of music in London, Paris or Florence and it would be more or less the same, hopefully. While Italy and France were often at odds, the dance and music loving King Louis XIV could only have helped the industry of instrument making with his famed 24 violins in his royal court.
Benjamin Hebert, expert and dealer in Oxford.
1661 is when Lully comes to the French court, and he creates the Petit Band, where he gathers around for the first time since the Valois dynasty, Italian musicians playing, playing French music informed by the new Italian ways of thinking, and there is one of these French court Amatis, where we can absolutely say that the new front, the restoration, is right on the nail for Lully taking these things out of the cupboard and saying, hey, we've already got some great instruments to do this with. By which time, you know, the smoke has cleared. It's history that these have got Valois connections, and it's not as offensive as it would have been to the Huguenot king and his court of people who'd been, you know, routinely assassinated and murdered and genocidal maniac by, uh, Catherine de Medici's henchmen.
Yeah, I was, I was reading that about three million people died in the wars of religion. And I sort of did the equivalence for today for the French population, and that would be like today, nine million people dying in France. Like it's,
it's huge. It's pretty, it's pretty huge. Um, sorry, the corners. talking about that it softened. It's because like they were in a line and you didn't want to get poked by the violin next to you.
Is that it?
I did a project years ago where some people in France produced 24 violins and they didn't do any bows. And what we ended up with was a bow, which is about a foot long. Maybe, you know. Maybe 14 inches or so. Really diddy bow. And actually what we decided, we then subsequently found that Pochette, so French dancing master's fiddles in the Victorian Albert Museum, there's one in a beautiful red leather case with its bow which we actually took as a kind of prototype for everything and then it suddenly hit us, the reason why a Pochette is the size that it is so that it's the same size as the bow. And the bow is the same bow that you'd play on a proper violin if you're doing dance stuff. And the way that you've got to imagine it is that everybody in France in the court has got these incredibly tight costumes. The rudest thing that I could do to you if we're French is, instead of sticking two fingers up at you or whatever, is to actually raise my elbow sharply in your direction. Because it means, it means eff you so much that I'm actually willing to rip my, my costume in order to, in order to show my anger towards you. So that's how the courtiers dress, the musicians dress the same way. It's like, like, in like those Shakespeare things where they rip their shirts off, like, Like that.
Pretty much, yeah, exactly. So, I mean, you know, all stuff is so expensive, but you're absolutely corseted into these things. If you, if you think about, you know, kind of having your elbows down against your rib cage and trying to play a violin that way. on both, on both sides. And then here's the thing. If you, if you let your, your wrists go upwards so that your thumb sits nicely on the hair, then actually get this very staccatoish playing position where you've got short notes, you've got a lot of tension. Rather like playing a viola da gamba, in the way that the bow is twisted onto the string. And it just, each note is explosive and short. And you look at this early French stuff, and it's often got a drum, and you've got the same staccato that the drum is able to give you. Just, you know, short, tight notes. And so everything came together. And then the icing on the cake was the very few images that we saw, had people so close together that you couldn't stick your, you just couldn't stick your elbow in somebody else's face because, because there's not the room to do it. So it all, it all sort of magically came together that, you know, there's a really specific idea. And even an idea to, to the point that, you know, We know that the French had a unique sound and that, you know, this was something which was highly revered. But we also know, I mean, the Talbot manuscript in England in the 1690s, 1710s, it actually gives two measurements for a dance bow and a dance flute. Sonata bow. And, you know, I can bet you that Lully and his mates, after an exhausting night doing, doing, uh, you know, French court music, probably just loosened off their blouses, went down to the pub, picked up their sonata bows, and really let rip the way that they wanted to, because this was the difference.
But this is what I think emerges out of You know, right out of that start.
Emily Brayshaw, fashion historian.
Yeah, so the, the, the King's 24 violins, they would have, um, livery. They had that paid for them. Yes. Um, I don't, maybe they had wigs. Yeah, they would have. They would have definitely had wigs, um, their shoes, everything. So what's interesting with livery too is that, um, in a lot of these eras, It was, uh, super expensive, so if you could afford to dress all your servants in livery, you would often do it in these luxury fabrics. But what, uh, we, we have examples that, uh, extend in museums. What would happen though is they would deliberately cut them and make them. Um, so by cut, I mean like pattern and construction and stuff to be outside what was fashionable. And that meant that the servants, uh, Couldn't wear them on their days off. So you had to wear your livery because, you know, otherwise you'd be there in the tavern or whatever. And it's like, oh, you're going out in your work clothes.
Yeah. It was like a uniform.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, you're paying for these specific garments as well. Closer to home, opera was taking off like a frog in a sock. Forget the French and their ballet, the Italians had opera and all the trimmings that came with it. And so, work was plentiful. Girolamo was happily working away in the knowledge that one day this prestigious workshop would be his. Cremona had by this time been under Habsburg Spanish occupation for three generations. Foreign taxes were high and the town's once prosperous and internationally renowned textile industry was in decline. Nicolo Amati continued to be the sought after maestro and workshop assistants came and went. Some spoke the Cremonese dialect, others Paduan, and a few even came from Germanic countries. Antonio Stradivari and Giovanni Battista Rogeri were never recorded as apprentices in the census, living in the Amati household, but if they were locals, they would not have needed to be lodged with the master. They may have learnt under Nicolo in the Amati workshop, and that would be a logical explanation for their making style. In all, Nicolo Amati had about 18 apprentices over a 40 year period and mostly from other instrument making cities such as Padua, Bologna, Milan, and Venice. Those who could would return to their homes and continue making in the Amati style, transforming it into a standard or school of making.
Girolamo Amati II assisted his aging father until about 1670, when Nicolo Amati was in his mid seventies Leaving his son to continue working without him, but still using the Nicolo Amati label. He would do this over the next 14 years until his father's death. in 1684. Niccolo Amati's instruments around this time are most likely the work of Girolamo Amati II, but to know for sure, you would need an expert.
When Nicolo Amati was 79 years old, he was still a wealthy man. His daughter Teresa married and he provided her with a 5, 000 lira dowry. To compare with his colleague Andrea Guarneri, when his daughter married, he was only able to give a 1, 300 lira for her dowry. So there. In 1677, Girolamo II was now 28 years old. He married the 14 year old Angela Caritoni, and in the following years, they would have two daughters and a son. Some historians think she could have been older, which would make it a little less creepy. But in any case, Girolamo's story is a bit of a sad one. When Nicolo Amati died in 1684 at the age of 87, things started falling apart. Instruments with Girolamo Amati II label after his father's death are rare. The following year. His wife, Angela, died, and then two years later, his three year old son, also called Nicolo Amati, tragically passes away. His wife and son are buried close by, in the monastery of Corpus Christi, where his eldest daughter will soon begin her novitiate. He seems to have lost his enthusiasm for work. His family were dying, the market for violins was not great, well, not for him anyway. Antonio Stradivari, who had bought a house just around the corner from theirs a few years before his father died, looked like he was doing just fine. And then there were the Guarneri's, also taking whatever business that was left over, leaving him with practically nothing.
Carlo Chiesa, expert and violin maker in Milan.
We know that, uh, Girolamo Amati II was a very good maker, I like as a maker, but, uh, He had, uh, you know
rivalry.
Yeah, rivalry. He had some people working next door to him in the same, the same block, not just the same neighborhood, but in the same block. And their names were Giuseppe Guarneri and Antonio Stradivari.I'm not sure I would be happy to have Antonio Stradivari working close to me. And that was the situation.
Before that, the Amatis were the only workshop in Cremona. So their economic success was, of course. Also from the fact that they were the only workshop in the year 1690, if you were to take a walk in the parish of San Fustino down one particular street, you would pass the well known Amati house and workshop. Keep going, and you would be at the casa Guarneri a little further on Lived and Antonio Stradivari, who was still working in the Amati style, but really starting to make a name for himself, all open for business. What a street. In a relatively small city, that is a lot of competition. And Girolamo Amati II just seemed to sink. He quickly spiralled into debt. He had a brilliant plan with one of his brothers to try and sell some of the family's property and goods to pay off said debt. But another brother, Dom Nicolo Amati, obviously appalled that they were running the family business into the ground and then trying to save the sinking ship by selling off the family silver was incensed enough to take them to court and commence bankruptcy proceedings against them. Girolamo and his brother even owed money to one of the Stradivari boys. The family's fortunes had definitely turned. Benjamin Hebbert. So I think the story there is, it's almost a story more of Stradivari. And I've, I found a wonderful quote by a guy called Edward Chamberlain in 1683, which is just the year before Nicola Amati dies. And he says, uh, that Cremona violins have not been fetching the prices that they did previously. And it's not a very big quote, but it's like, you know, unfortunately, you know, we've been claiming that Cremonese violins have never, never lost value since they were made. And in 1683, there's an Englishman who's complaining that he can't get the price for them. There's a guy a few years later in about 17 Around 1710, William Corbett, who travels to Cremona, does a deal with Stradivari, brings a load of instruments for the London market, and has to return them all because no one's prepared to pay the prices. And I think there's a lot of economic stuff that's going on. You know, you've got the problem that your biggest competition is your own second hand residual market. By 1684, when Nicolò Amati dies, there's a heck of a lot of second hand instruments on the market. And you've got to kind of ask why, why bother make another violin at that point. And so Girolamo kind of limps through, but I think limps through because, I mean, I'm sure that the Amatis ran a guild in every sense of the word, because anything that you do, in Italy at that time, is run by a guild. So although there's no formality about any guilds existing, let's be clear about that. You know, here's the head honcho, and he's able to sort of control what everybody else does. And there's this, there's this guy called Stradivari, who is precocious. He makes these decorated instruments, even when, when Nicolo Amati is alive, which are taking the decorative aspect of an instrument to a far greater level. And I think he's probably able to do that because maybe Girolamo Amati II isn't very interested. Niccolo Amati, knows he's getting old and it's like, look, you know, the market's done. It's over. If you think you can make a difference, make a difference. You know, well done you. You know, you see Rooker's harpsichords with been and done by the 1660s. Bolognese lutes were been and done by the 1580s. You know, it keeps on going, you know, things have a cycle. And I think Stradivari is already there to say, I'm going to beat the cycle.
Yeah. So, okay. So you had that lull in the market before. Exactly. And then Stradivari kind of. He's already sort of going, well, I think he's seeing the lull in the market, he's seeing an opportunity for himself, and he's creating things which are more decorative than anything else before because he thinks that there is a market, he can pick up new buyers, he can put himself at that, you know, at the front position of the Cremonese market, and he can largely do that because Girolamo Amati II isn't interested, it doesn't really matter what Nicolo Amati says because Nicolo's already very old. When he passes, Stradivari will be able to do his thing. Maybe things don't whittle off as badly as we think they do, because actually, Girolamo Amati II has the biggest, you know, he's got the biggest access to the second hand market. So, quite what he does. I feel, you know, I tend to feel that my colleagues who research this are very, very reluctant to speculate about what the second hand market might be, and we just think of people purely as craftsmen. But instruments from the 1630s wouldn't exist till now unless someone in the 1680s was taking care of them, let alone at any other time. And to me that, you know, that's got to be a very clear part of, part of, uh, the history. And that gives him a new market. So Girolamo Amati disappears off into the wilderness and then, you know, we don't know what he did. He probably had a super successful career. Violin de la Correa, but you know, that's not sexy or romantic. And then he, once he's sort of sold too many of them or whatever, he comes back and starts being a maker again, as far as I see it.
Aged nearly 50, Girolamo Amati II, drowning in debt, left Cremona. The year was 1700, and Stradivari was about to enter his golden period of production. It would be another 20 years before Girolamo Amati II returned to Cremona. His motives for leaving were probably varied, and no one knows for sure why he left town. What we do know is that he appears to have left his family, the workshop and the network of instrument makers who undoubtedly benefited from knowing his father, one of the most important teachers in the history of violin making. Where he went was Piacenza, around 40km west of Cremona, a small town near Parma where The local count commissioned various instruments from him between 1700 and 1715. During Girolamo's absence, the city saw many changes, which included Antonio Stradivari's workshop becoming the most dominant and financially successful force in Cremona. In 1707, the Habsburg Spanish occupation lost its power to the Austrian Empire, so Austrian soldiers soon occupied the town. Again. Over the last 150 years, the city's population had halved from 40, 000 to 20, 000 people. In 1705 and the next year in 1706, the Poe flooded multiple times and the crops were ruined. There was disease and armies were back in town. Things were pretty miserable. Girolamo Amati does eventually make his way back to Cremona around 1717. The family home was now in the hands of one of Nicolo Amati’s daughters, Then was handed down to Girolamo's second daughter. Notice that the Amati ladies are not trusting the Amati men with the house.
Emily Brayshaw.
Yeah. And then there's, this is this kind of handover, Nicolo Amati ends up having another son called Girolamo Amati II, who is the last in the Amati dynasty. And it's sort of, his life is a little bit sad and it's a bit of a, he fizzles out really with Girolamo. But at the same time, you have this, you have Andrea Amati and Uh, Antonio Stradivari is five years older than Girolamo Amati. They're sort of the same, they're the same generation and they probably went to the same school because these children did go to a local school to learn to read and write. They would have known each other really. So you have this, it's sort of across that you can see the curve of the Amatis going down and then you have this other curve of all this, this group of Cremonese makers taking off, sort of thanks to Nicolo Amati, you've got The Guarneri family, the Ruggeri family, uh, Stradivari, uh, and it's sort of an explosion of instrument making in Cremona at this time.
Yeah, okay. And that is in, so Strad was, wasn't he 1644, I think? To 1737. Sorry, he would be 40, 50, 60, in like the 1660s, 1670s. You could imagine that's where he was, um, you know, a young man about town. Yeah. And he'd be wearing You know, he'd be wearing the same thing that Girolamo Amati would be wearing. Yeah, definitely.
So. Um, so it's the fashion from the second half of the 15th century of tradesmen. Was it, and that would have been quite different to nobles as well. Well, again, again, they did follow the same cut. And they did follow the same silhouette as the nobility. But without the spangles. They didn't, well, they just didn't have as much bling, you know, like, um, and they didn't have all the money, all the time to be able to spend. So, you know, their dress is a little bit more sober, a little bit more professional. Um, you know, we've talked about black, for example. But they, so, but they want, when they would go to the opera as well, they would be this kind of class that's kind of in between ish. Nicolo's mother was actually, um, his father's second wife and she was from sort of the lower gentry. Her, she was called, um, Laura Medici Lazzarini. And so. She's thought to be a distant cousin of the banking Medici's and she was the niece of a prominent nobleman. So you have, I find that interesting. You have this, the social position of the Amati family was such that it was possible for him to marry into. Sort of these wealthier families. Yeah, there's another strata. Yeah, look, and certainly, you know, we do sort of have, um, different classes as well. It's not just the super wealthy and the super poor, you know, we've got increasing merchant classes and, um, maker classes and master craftsmen and again sort of with dress, you know, they are going to be dressing very well. They'll, they'll, have servants themselves and they'll be dressing better than the servants again and they'll certainly be keeping an eye on the latest fashions and trends and because they are moving in these worlds with the super wealthy. By the token to the super wealthy don't expect that these people will be as well dressed as they are either. As long as you're dressing well, you're not expected to be like dripping with pearls like the queen or some of these mind bogglingly wealthy royal dukes and these sorts of people. Yeah, but and I'm thinking maybe in, um, in society they would overlap. So, so maybe there was also this, uh, like a way of speaking and a way, the way of, um, interacting they would.
They're in this sort of middle area where they're dealing with. Yeah, I feel like there is. You certainly have to show difference. That goes without saying, I think though that technical discussions, like people like, um, you know, the Duke Gonzaga, for example, he's, he's a cultured man, right? These are really cultured people and they want to be talking and having these discussions about art and music. And so there will be seeking out the experts to converse with, to have these discussions as well as. Running state, making diplomatic connections. Girolamo Amati II. He comes home an old man and at the age of 70 in 1719 and makes his last surviving violin. In the years following, the city of Cremona is once again affected by yet another war involving the French.
In 1733, 12, 000 French troops were garrisoned in Cremona who had a population of 30, 000. This weighed hugely on local resources and sent prices soaring. The city looked fondly back at the relative law and order provided by the Spanish compared with this new French army. Cremona's economy plodded on nevertheless. Music was still highly regarded into the mix of dance teachers, instrument makers, textile merchants, junk dealers, moneylenders, printers, booksellers, and jewelers, fur merchants, and of course, shoemakers. The French did eventually leave town, and a few years after this, Girolamo Amati II died in relative poverty in February of 1740 at the age of 90, nonetheless.
We don't know of any instruments from this later period. It is thought that he was suffering from mental illness and with no male heirs to carry on the trade, the story of the Amatis ends. Although this is the end of one violin making family, great though they were, this is in fact only the beginning of another exciting chapter in the violin. While Girolamo Amati lay dying, a golden period is about to burst forth in Cremona, and the end of the Amati story is really the beginning of one of Cremona's most industrious and golden periods of violin making ever in its history. It's the story of Stradivari, of Guarneri. When we talk about great Cremonese masters, it starts now. This is the period people are talking about, and the story will get a whole lot more complex because there are a lot of people to keep up with. Are you ready? Well, I hope you are because now we're going to be looking at many, many masters, and I hope you'll stay with me for the next episodes of the Violin Chronicles.
I'd like to say a big thank you to my guests, Dr. Emily Brayshaw, Benjamin Hebbert, and Carlo Chiesa. And if you have liked the show, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. That would really help out with the making of the podcast so I can continue to bring you more episodes. Be sure also to head over to Patreon forward slash The Violin Chronicles. If you would like to support the podcast and become a Patreon, there are extra episodes, and I would particularly like to point out a new series called My Encyclopedia of Luthiers. That little podcast I do with my husband, Antoine. In it, we summarize each maker in under an hour and describe all the little details to look out for so you can recognize that particular maker's work.
And maybe you can become an expert yourself one day. I hope to catch you next time on the Violin Chronicles. Goodbye for now.
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For a quick revision of your makers with tips and clues to look out for so you too can recognise their work.
If you would like to hear more so that you too can become more confident in your knowledge of instruments and sound like a pro go to
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Nicolo finds love, the workshop is full steam ahead and this violin maker has to find creative ways to get family members out of his house so his future bride doesn’t freak out! This is one busy luthier. Follow Nicolo Amati as his family grows and his influence as a violin maker branches throughout Italy and Europe.
In this episode you will also meet a very important family in the story of the violin, the Guarneris, see how their lives overlap with the Amatis as we start to see the beginning of the end of the “house of Amati”
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Lutherie, in Mirecourt.
Welcome back to the story of Nicolò Amati, the third in this generation of violin makers. We now find him in his mid 40s. He has survived the bubonic plague in which he lost many of his family members. He lives in the house his grandfather, Andrea Amati, bought and passed on to his sons. And now Nicolo finds himself with an odd crew of orphaned cousins, nephews, nieces, and siblings to look after post pandemic.
The world in which Nicolo lived was changing dramatically. These were the years that Europeans were arriving in the Americas. There were the Spanish and Portuguese in the south. Up north were the English, Dutch, French, and the Swedes. In 1644, when Nicolo Amati was entering his late 40s, the young Antonio Stradivari was born.
Most likely in Cremona and not far from the Amati home. The question, looking at Nicolo Amati this week is, was he just an artisan at the beck and call of musicians and wealthy patrons, looking to have a collection of instruments for musicians coming to their house or court? Socially speaking, where did Nicolo Amati sit in the greater scheme of things?
And why was it that Luthiers from Cremona had this reputation of producing excellent instruments? Why were they better than any other city in that part of Italy at the time? Rome, Naples and Venice were all important cultural centres then, so what made this relatively small city stand out? Well, in the last episode of the Violin Chronicles, we saw Nicolo Amati surviving the plague and getting on with his life.
He gives up depending on family members to help him in the workshop and starts to employ apprentices who come and live and work with him, notably two teenagers. Andrea Guarneri and Giacomo Gennaro. He also starts to make his grand pattern violin. It is surprising that by making something a few millimetres bigger and slightly changing the outline and archings of the violin, he really does change the potential of this instrument and lay the groundwork for the very well known violin makers to come after him.
Niccolò Amati's clients were often noble families and the church, much like his father and grandfather had. And he would even sell instruments that were not his, such as a local priest and musician, Don Alessandro Lodi, whose family turned to him when he died to sell his collection. Here we see Nicolò Amati’s instruments fetching a good price, where others were selling their instruments for 5 ducati Nicolò's violins were going for 15 ducati and 22 for a viola. The double bass he sold from the priest's collection that was not his. It could have been a Brescian instrument, was only 13 Ducati. From the high prices Nicolo Amati demanded for his instruments, we can clearly see that he was not a lowly craftsman, but was an educated and literate member of his community, having gone to school before learning his trade with his father. It would have been important for him, in dealing with his noble clientele, to have a certain level of learning and a knowledge of business, mathematics, and accounting, as would many of his artisan colleagues. At this time in Cremona, schools were attended mainly by children of merchants and nobles, but not only. At school, they would learn. In addition to the traditional subjects of Geometry, Arithmetic, and even Astrology, subjects such as Geography, Architecture, Algebra, and Mechanics, both theoretical and applied.
Carlo Chiesa, violin maker, expert, researcher, and author from Milan.
It is also worth noting that the Amatis at that point, they were wealthy enough people. This is very important because It means they, the kids had an education. They were able to go to school, to be trained properly, not just in the workshop. And they were artisans of a high level anyway. So the daughters of Andrea who got married, they usually got married with good doweries with the people who were from the same social status, and that is also worth noting important because they were not. It means that they were not working for low class musicians, but usually their commission went. to noblemen or high-class customers, which they were able to deal with. That is also another of the reasons for the success of cremonese making, because the artisans were able to deal with the high class.
Nicolo Amati was a product of the Cremonese system. He was not only a talented artisan, but also had a level of education that enabled him access to the upper echelons of society. And this appears to have always been where violin makers sit. Never being part of the nobility as they were in trade and part of the merchant class, yet their product interested and sometimes fascinated the noble classes, somehow giving them a form of access or small door into their world being almost acceptable. As for Nicolo's workmanship, he had always shown a spirit of innovation and thought. He was experimenting in different sizes of instrument in an effort to improve his product and this reflects the time and place he lived. It was, don't forget, the renaissance, and as their world was a relatively small place, he would certainly have known fellow artisans in town, such as the very interesting Alessandro Capra and his sons. Cremona was renowned for its engineers, both civil and military, who published books on their work. They were, after all, on a military highway. What better place to have your shop window? Alessandro Capra, architect and plumber, had opened his workshop in town where he would display his inventions and offer his services as either a military or civil engineer. He also carried out teaching activities for apprentices interested in learning science, art, maths and geometry. From his workshop, he would obtain commissions from various parts of Italy for machines and inventions. In his domestic artisans workshop, he displayed his machines and various models. Lining the walls were precious books filled with information on land surveying, perspective, applied geometry, arithmetic, and merchant accounting.
These were handbooks written expressly for craftsmen, artisans, artists, and technicians. They were not for a specific trade but information for people involved in these activities. and were practical guides on how to go about business. The printed works of Capras were like professional development manuals. They were presented as a collection of craft and commercial problems useful for the training of future generations of craftsmen and traders, land and real estate owners. It also advised landowners on how to earn more money and lower income earners on how to manage better their real estate. It was a 17th century version of how to make friends and influence people. Alessandro Capra also mentions the benefits of following military campaigns, scientific skills linked to the solution of problems, fortifications, ballistics, engineering, mechanical and hydraulic, management and organization of people. Cremona was a great place to be for this as it was continually in the midst of military campaigns and would have facilitated this scientific environment.
But back to the Casa Amati. Nicolo had two assistants living with him that I mentioned earlier and they are actually quite important to our story. They made a team in the workshop and Nicolo trusted them not only with the work on it, instruments but also in his business dealings and everyday life. They were legal witnesses on legal documents and even civic occasions such as his wedding. These two assistants were of course Giacomo Genaro and Andrea Guarneri. Andrea Guarneri is the first in the great family of the Guarneri makers of Cremona and here we see his close relationship with his master.
Carlo Chiesa explains.
And, and then did Andrea Guarneri did he go on to, his instruments, were they based on the Nicolo's Grand Patten?
Sometimes and sometimes also on the other side, Andrea was was a good maker, intelligent maker. And he also, and I'm sure he went on working for Amati also after he moved to his own workshop because their workshops were very close to each other in the same block. And there was a back alley in which they both had a door. So that through the back alley, the two workshops were very, very close to each other.
They could pass a violin.
There's a customer here. I have not a violin finished. You've got one. Yeah, I'm finishing that one. Take it. Take this one. Put your label in.
In 1640, Nicolo Amati stops using the brothers Amati label. It is now almost as if he is truly affirming himself, starting a new chapter in his life. By using the brothers Amati label, his father's, he was in no way trying to deceive people who knew very well that his father was dead, but rather that he had built this instrument in his father's style. Even though he had made the instrument, it was in essence an Amati Brothers instrument. After his father's death, he did indeed create a different model, his grand pattern, and started putting in his own label. This design he owned in his own right a name.
In 1642, the year after engaging his assistants, Niccolò employs a maid, Catarina, along with his two apprentices living in the house, there was his sister and niece and also an 18 year old cousin, Marilina Urbana, who comes to live with them as her parents have died in the plague. Two years on, business is good for Nicolo. He is comfortably well off and the decision to take on a second servant to help out was necessary because now there were two more of the Urbana cousins, Marilina’s little brother and sister Benedetto, who is 12 and his little sister Valeria is only four years old. Along with the assistance that makes nine people living in the house. As time went on, Giacomo Gennaro left the Amati workshop to go off on his own, but Andrea stayed and was particularly close to Nicolò. He was his right-hand man, and Nicolò was now almost 50. He had no children, and perhaps Andrea would inherit the workshop one day. Nicolò is looking more and more like a confirmed bachelor, and then, boom, it happens. Nicolò falls in love. In 1645, he meets the lovely Lucrezia and thinks maybe it's not such a bad idea to get married after all. But here is the catch. At this moment, in Nicolò's household, there are no less than 10 people. That's right, 10 people. There is his 66 year old sister and her daughter, Elisabetta and Angela. There are his two assistants, Giacomo and Andrea, who are 21 and 19, much closer in age to Lucrencia than Nicolo himself. Three orphaned cousins in his care, who really are children, they are 12, 6 and 3 years old, and two servants to help look after them all. Lucrencia would be a brave woman indeed to marry this man, but Nicolo had a plan. One week before the wedding, he gifts his niece a small property with a house in the parish of San Nicolo. In doing this, he discreetly removes his niece and his sister, who will have to go and live with her daughter because she can't live alone. And this move makes way for his new bride, Lucrezia. In the spring of 1645, on the 23rd of May, the 48 year old Nicolo married the somewhat younger 26 year old Lucrenzia Pagliari. Andrea Guarneri was the witness, and her uncle the priest who married them. Their first child, Giolamo, was born the next year on the 6th of February. Just under nine months later. No scandal there. And if Guarneri thought that Nicolo was not going to have anyone to inherit the workshop, he was wrong. Because over the next 15 years, Lucrencia would have three more sons and four daughters. That is a child every two years for 15 years. A year after their first child, Lucrencia has a little girl they named Teresa. Now at this point, something quite dramatic happens to the city of Cremona. There was a siege, and it was because of a war called the 30 Years War. It was such a vast and complicated thing. thing that they probably just ended up calling it the 30 years war because it went on for, well, 30 years. It involved most of the major European powers and during this war Cremona, which was located in the Lombard region of Italy, was a strategic city and was occupied by the Spanish army, as we know. In 1648, the French army, under the command of Maréchal Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, laid siege to the city in order to expel the Spanish. The siege lasted for several weeks and resulted in its eventual capture by the French army. Sadly, Nicolo and Lucanza's first child, Girolamo, died at the age of three, just after the siege in September, so this really was a bad year for them. But the next year, on a freezing February morning in 1649, their third child was born, and they named him, wait for it, Girolamo, like the first son. Their little girl Teresa also died around this time, and a year after the second Girolamo was born, the Amatis have another little girl, whom they name Teresa. Around the time Niccolò married Lucrezia, he made a cello that would end up in the collection of the Grand Prince Ferdinand de Medici, son of Cosimo III. From this we see that the calibre of his instruments are such that nobles would desire them in their collections. This instrument is described in an inventory of 1700, along with 100 other instruments for his private use and that of his chamber musicians. In this list are a number of instruments made by Niccolò and also by the Amati brothers. He must have truly appreciated their instruments and regarded them as items of value. They have come down to us today because they have Throughout their existence, being thought of as such and being looked after carefully. After Niccolo and Lucrenzia's first child was born, Andrea Guarneri, who had been living with them for years, moved out. Maybe noticing that he was the third wheel here. But a few years later, just after Girolamo died, The second was born. Andrea Guarneri was obviously having some problems with his housing situation and moved back in with the Amatis. Ciao! I can imagine Nicolo's wife maybe hinting to her husband to find Andrea a wife. 1650 is also a time when Nicolò starts to use his grand pattern violin more and more. His instruments now show all the classic characteristics of his work, the use of the grand pattern model, his golden yellow varnish, and his archings, which are less scooped than the Amati brothers models.
Andrea Guarneri was one of Niccolò's favourites and thought maybe it was time he got married as well. Nicolò happened to know that one of their clients, the talented musician Giovanni Pietro Orcelli, had a young orphaned cousin from a well to do family. She would be perfect for Andrea. Anna Maria Orcelli had grown up just around the corner from the Amati household. She had lost her family, most probably in the recent plague, and so, in 1652, the 29 year old Andrea Guarneri married Anna Maria. They stayed living with the Amatis for a few more months. But by this time, Ana Maria was pregnant, and they were in the process of moving into a house she had inherited just a few doors down from Nicolo Amati and his family. Anna Maria, as part of her dowry, had a house that was so close to the Amatis that their back entrances were almost next to each other. The relatives living there were proving difficult to move on. Finally, the Relos moved out and Andrea and his pregnant wife could move in. Here, Andrea was able to set up his own business with his new family living upstairs, starting a new chapter in his life.
The number of instrument makers in Cremona was on the rise. Niccolo's instruments from this period are only getting better acoustically and it was the instruments Nicolo made in this era that Antonio Stradivari would go on to copy in what we call his Amatis period. In 1653. The workshop is a busy place and many instruments are being produced. Nicolo, who is 57 at this point, has at least four apprentices working for him and living in the family home. In this busy household lived 12 people, and in the summer, Lucrenzia and Niccolo have their fifth child, Giovanni Battista. Sadly, the Amati's youngest child, Giovanni Battista, would die in infancy when he was two years old. Now living with them were their two children, Servants. Apprentices. There were also three boys who would work for the shop and lived with them. They were called the Malagamba brothers. Giuseppe was 20, his younger brother Giovanni Battista, 17, and Giacomo, the youngest, only 10 years old. They most likely made accessories for Nicolo and will work with him for years to come. In 1655, things were looking up in the Casa Amati. In July, Lucrenzia has a daughter, they name her Anna Maria, and Giovanni Battista, one of the Malagamba brothers, who make accessories for Nicolo Amati, marries a local girl, Apollina. The young couple are both 18 years old and they continue to live with Niccolo and Lucrenzia.
Fun fact about the Amati workshop at this point is that there is an apprentice. In the shop at this time, he will go on to have an interesting career after leaving Cremona. His name was Bartolomeo Cristofiori and he would invent the pianoforte when he was working for the Medici family in Florence.
In 1657, Nicolò Amati has his Seventh child. It is a boy, so they call him Girolamo. This youngest child of the his would have been born into a lively, close knit community. The parish they lived in was a small one where everyone knew their neighbors and their business. The Guarneris are just around the corner and four houses down the road live the Ferraboschi family, including their daughter. who would, in a few years time, marry Antonio Stradivari. And across the road are the Capras, whose nephew would be Francesca's first husband, before Antonio. In 1661, the Amatis last child, a daughter, was born, when Nicolo was almost 65. Her name was Euphrosia Scholastica. His many children shared a busy household with extended family members, cousins, aunts and uncles, workshop staff and servants. At one point there were 11 people living in the home.
Nicolo's wonderfully crafted instruments were in high demand and some would consider them to be some of the most elegant violins ever made. In the workshop, they had apprentices and two or three servants, or hired hands, who would be making accessories such as pegs, fingerboards, bridges, bassbars, and even scrolls. Going to mass on a Sunday, or the town market, the Amati children would have bumped into any number of aunts, uncles, cousins, or neighbours. Around the family lived their friends, enemies, godparents, in laws, landlords, tenants, witnesses at weddings, and legal documents. So from the 1660s, Nicolò's instruments create a standard for the Cremonese makers to aspire to. They are tonally powerful and, from a craftsmanship point of view, masterpieces.
But even before this period, Nicolò Amati had changed his instruments to adapt to the musical demands of the day. The Baroque period in which he lived was producing composers and music that demanded more sound volume from its instruments. This movement was particularly strong in Rome, where compositions needed instruments able to compete with whole choirs to be heard. Monteverdi didn't just double up the violins, giving them the same notes as the singers. The violins were now being written specific musical parts for themselves. To shine and to shine. You had to be heard and to be heard, you had to be more powerful. It is also from the 1660s that over spun gut strength started to be made and used by musicians increasing the tension and power of instruments. Nicolo Amati made two sized violins, big ones, and small ones. The larger ones measure between 354 to 358 millimetres. That is regarded as a standard today, and the smaller ones back length are 352mm, which makes them on the smaller side, but that's not the end of the world.
The smaller ones were often, if you dare, referred to as ladies violins, but really not because women were 5mm smaller than men, apparently, but they were referring to the rooms in which they were to be heard. So a smaller violin would be played indoors. It didn't need to be so powerful and Heaven forbid a lady would play outside, preposterous. And this reminds me, and I know I'm getting off track here, but women's clothing at the time didn't have integrated pockets in them because they thought, when I say they, this is presumably men, they thought that women would fill the above mentioned practical storage spaces with charms and poisons to befuddle the menfolk. And to be fair, that was my first thought when discovering pockets in my clothing, so I'll give them that.
In 1680, the Amati home is still a busy place to be. The children have grown up, and Girolamo, whom we call Girolamo II, not to be confused with his grandfather, Girolamo Amati, who was one of the Amati brothers. Gerolamo II is married and living in the family home with his wife, Angela, and their first child, Vittoria. At the moment, she is pregnant with their second child, and most of Nicolo's apprentices over the years were not from Cremona and have moved home. Some of them have set up workshops in town and some like the Malagamba Brothers have moved just a few doors down the street. And then on April the 12th, 1684, the 88-year-old Nicola Amati died. He would've been greatly missed by his family, friends, and the many pupils he had taught over the years. His legacy was vast, and he definitely changed the landscape of violin making in Cremona, leaving it a city of instrument makers. If it had not been for his willingness to take on apprentices outside his family, the history of violin making and the city of Cremona would have looked vastly different. The week after Nicolo's death, Girolamo II Amati baptized his son Nicolo, and a few months later, Anna Maria, that's one of Nicolo's daughters, and Girolamo's sister, who was already married it seems, finally moved out to live with her husband in the house next door. Who knows what was going on there. Anyway, although Niccolo is probably the most well known of the Amatis, it would have to be his son Girolamo II, the least recognized, and yet as we will see, his work and life is indeed significant in the story of the violin.
But what happened to Girolamo
and why was he the last of the illustrious Amati family? This, we will see in the next episode of the Violin Chronicles. And if you have liked the show, please rate and review it on Apple podcasts or Spotify. That would really help out with the making of the podcast so I can continue to bring you more episodes.
Be sure also to head over to Patreon forward slash the Violin Chronicles. If you would like to support the podcast and become a Patreon, there are extra episodes, and I would particularly like to point out a new series called My Encyclopedia of Luthiers. That little podcast I do with my husband, Antoine.
In it, we summarize each maker in under an hour and describe all the little details to look out for. So you can recognize that particular maker's work. And maybe you can become an expert yourself one day. I hope to catch you next time on the Violin Chronicles. Goodbye for now.
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Welcome to another episode of “The Violin Chronicles” podcast that delves into the lives and legacies of the world's most renowned artisans and craftsmen. In today's episode, we journey back in time to explore the extraordinary craftsmanship of Nicolo Amati, a name synonymous with the art of violin making.
In this Episode we look at a major turning point in this history of Cremonese violin making that you simply cannot miss.
After the great plague of 1630 Nicolo is picking up the pieces of his life and moving on. Tracing the footsteps of this master luthier we will uncover the secrets behind Nicolo Amati's enduring legacy, a legacy marked by precision, passion, and innovation. From his early years in Cremona, Italy, to the workshop where he meticulously crafted some of the most exquisite violins in history.
We'll also explore his influence on subsequent generations of violin makers, including the revered Stradivari and Guarneri families and how they were so greatly influenced by this master luthier.
Through interviews with experts in the field and insights from contemporary violin makers inspired by Amati's genius, this episode offers a deep dive into the world of stringed instrument craftsmanship. Whether you're a seasoned musician, a lover of fine arts, or simply curious about the magic behind the music, Nicolo Amati's story is sure to captivate your imagination.
So, tune in as we unravel the enchanting tale of Nicolo Amati, the craftsman who transformed wood and strings into timeless works of art that continue to resonate with the world's most discerning musicians and collectors. Get ready for an enriching and harmonious journey through the life and work of this true master of the craft.
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In this episode of “the Violin Chronicles”, we delve into the life and legacy of Nicolo Amati, a name synonymous with the exquisite craftsmanship of violins. Beyond his unparalleled contributions to the world of music, Nicolo Amati's life was marked by profound tragedy during the devastating 1630 bubonic plague that swept through Europe. Join us as we unravel the remarkable tale of a man who not only mastered the art of violin-making but also found strength in the face of unbearable loss.
Nicolo Amati hailed from a renowned family of luthiers, and his violins are celebrated for their delicate craftsmanship and unparalleled tonal quality. Yet, amidst the acclaim and admiration, lies a harrowing chapter of his life that shaped his artistry and resilience.
In this episode, we explore the remarkable transformation of Nicolo Amati, who channeled his grief into creating some of the most exquisite violins the world has ever seen. We delve into the technical brilliance that characterized his work, as well as the emotional depth and resonance of the instruments he crafted during this tumultuous period.
Through the lens of history and musicology, we uncover how Nicolo Amati's journey through tragedy not only preserved the art of violin-making but also enriched it, leaving behind a legacy that continues to inspire musicians and craftsmen to this day.
Join us as we pay tribute to the indomitable spirit of Nicolo Amati, a master craftsman who found hope and redemption amidst the shadows of a devastating pandemic, leaving us with a priceless musical inheritance that transcends time and tragedy.
Tune in to “The Violin Chronicles” for an insightful exploration of Nicolo Amati's life, artistry, and resilience during the 1630 bubonic plague, a story of triumph over adversity that resonates through the ages.
Transcript
Have you ever heard someone say, this is an Amati Violin? And you've thought, Ooh, wow, that must be old. And then they say, it's a Girolamo Amati or a Nicolo Amati or an Andrea Amati. But by this time, if you're anything like me, you're lost and your mind is wondering, and you can't remember which one of those Amatis it's supposed to be. Is it the grandfather or one of the brothers? Is this the Amati that's supposed to be worth more than the others? And if so, is it the right period in his making? And it is. In the end, you just settle for, it's an Amati and the rest will stay in the murky swamp of information you can't quite remember.
Well, no more, because hopefully by now, if you've been following these episodes in order, because they are in chronological order, you will know that we are now at Nicolo Amati, Andreas grandchild, Girolamo's son, the golden boy. So stick around and we'll see together how a devastating pandemic pushed one to transform the world of violin making.
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French violin making school some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Luthierie in Mircourt. As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, but here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture. So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love. Artistic genius, revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning, and bravery that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.
Welcome back to another episode in which we will be looking at perhaps the most famous maker of the Amati family, Nicolo. So far I have spoken about the grandfather, Andrea, and his father and uncle, Girolamo Amati and Antonio Amati, the brothers. And now Nicolo Amati continues on with the family tradition by making fine instruments and waiting for middle age to get married and have a family. Except in Nicolo's case, things are quite a bit more dramatic for himself and his family, as you will see in this episode.
They were at it again, the Spanish, the French, the Germans, and the Piedmontese, fighting over who got what in yet another war, except this time, soldiers managed to spread the Black Death, and in 1628, Cremona was badly hit. Troops passing through, as they always did. to cross the Po River, were carrying and all too willing to spread the disease. This time it was the French and German troops that brought the illness with them and the effects were devastating. The plague was so deadly in this part of Italy in the years surrounding 1630 that it would have very nearly killed every violin maker in the city. This was indeed the case in Brescia where Maggini was working, bringing an end to the instrument makers there. And the history of the violin could have been very different if it were not for the genetically robust and freakishly lucky Nicolo Amati. Well, maybe not so lucky, as most of his friends and family died. But at least lucky not to die, and lucky for us, because thanks to Nicolo Amati’s survival, we have the violin that we do today. So what happened? Well, there was a war. The War of the Mantuan Succession. This was the war James Beck was talking about in a previous episode where everyone decided to invade Mantua after their Duke died, and there was a bit of a hoo ha about who it belonged to now. It was basically a war between the French and the Spanish about a highway. News from Milan was that people were falling ill with the bubonic plague and the city was quarantined. But over the carnival season, as you do, they loosened the restrictions and the disease took off again, spreading like wildfire. 60, 000 people would die in Milan, a city with a population of 130, 000. Things weren't much better in Cremona. In the autumn of 1630, Nicolo Amati’s father, Girolamo Amati, died, and soon after his mother followed by two of his sisters and other members of the family.
Benjamin Hebert, expert and dealer in Oxford, talks about how the plague spread and made its way to Cremona.
And one of the things that we learn about with the Amatis is the plague, which wipes out the brothers Amati. It's Girolamo Amati who survives until 1613, dies in the plague. All of the Brescian makers die in the plague. And actually, we talk about the plague as if it's one thing, like COVID has been over the last few years, but actually that plague was a result of Wars in Europe, where the Austrians Who are the Habsburgs, so Naples at the bottom of Italy, and they wanted to get their troops up through Cremona into Italy itself so that they could then go over to Austria to support, because actually more than troops, food to supply the troops from Naples is really important. So the French invade northern Italy. Northern Italy, in order to stop this supply line from the, from the south, and it's that huge change in population, which creates plague after plague, and also suffering, and a scarcity of resources because the army is there and Cremona is just the middle of a war zone. It's, it's one of the most important crossings connecting the two parts of the Habsburg Empire.
So the plague comes to town in 1630 and Discretion is not its middle name. But the city it hit was not the thriving Cremona that Andrea Amati and the brothers Amati had grown up in. By now, it was a city that was in a vulnerable and weakened state. It just wasn't going so well. We find Nicolo in his late 20s, working with his aging father in their family workshop. I spoke to John Gagne about the curious circumstances leading up to the devastating plague, and to understand what was going on, we have to zoom out and take a look at the big picture.
I'm John Gagné. I'm a senior lecturer in history at the University of Sydney, and I work mostly on European history from the 13th to the 18th centuries. The big context to put this all in is what scholars call the Little Ice Age, which starts in the 1550s. And this is in one way the catalyst for all of these events. The plague, the famine, the war, is that it's temperatures began dropping from the 1550s forward probably caused by a variety of environmental factors. It could have been, you know, the explosion of South Pacific volcanoes, which changed the global environmental pattern. It could have been, you know, changes to the jet stream. Whatever it was, it meant that Europe from the 1550s forward became colder than it had been in a thousand years. And this was, I think, the context against which all of these things were set, was that Europe was becoming colder and all the knowledge that had been built up for agriculture and disease prevention was now faced with a new problem, which was that things were collapsing. So in many ways, it does echo the world we inhabit today, where we're encountering more bushfires and more floods. They were encountering a similar, although different, different phenomenon in reality, but it was leading to grain failures, to, you know, crop failures, to animals giving, you know, less milk or producing offspring at different paces. And so the Little Ice Age just lasts until the 19th century, is part of the the big context of the sort of crisis that emerges around 1600, which is how do you support life in Europe when the environment is changing around you?
So we have climate change, pandemics, famine, it's starting to sound familiar, but ultimately things were not looking good for the citizens of Cremona at this point. How did the plague affect the lives of Cremonese people in the early 17th century?
So I guess the first thing to say is that the plague had been around, you know, for hundreds of years already and recurred frequently. So the, in northern Italy in particular, there had been a rise in plague from the 1570s. So there's the the so called Plague of San Carlo. In Milan, which is 1577- 78. The next big one was, you know, 60 years later in the 1630 plague. And that was even more catastrophic in terms of loss of life. Many of the, you know, Milan in particular lost a huge, a large portion of its population. And much of the rest of Northern Italy was, was badly affected too. I think there was a lot of death in Turin, in Venice, so across the sort of flatlands at the foothills of the Alps. It was, it was really traumatic. And that comes on top of a number of other factors. Famine that had started in the 1590s. So I think in a way the plague, Was attacking an already vulnerable population that had been suffering from a food crisis in the, in the 50, for several decades already.
So how did the plague affect, you know, Cremona was just what they didn't need because everyone was already sort of teetering on the edge of a, of a demographic crisis.
The plague of 1630 was a dark chapter in the history of Cremona. The city was one of many in Europe that was decimated by the outbreak, and its residents suffered greatly as a result. The streets of the city were deserted, grass was even starting to grow on people's doorsteps. No one dared to wander out unnecessarily, and when a family member fell ill, they knew that they might very well be next. At the height of the outbreak, the streets of Cremona were eerily quiet, as many of its residents had either fled or fallen ill. Those who remained behind were forced to confront the horrors of the disease, watching helplessly as friends, family and neighbours fell victim to the deadly illness. When Niccolo's brother in law started feeling unwell, the illness hit him so fast they had to send for the solicitor during the night to dictate his will. He died a few hours later. So also did two of his sons, Nicolo's nephews. When Elizabeth, his eldest sister, wanted to make her will, the solicitor refused to enter the house, so they had to dictate to him standing in the street for fear of the disease. She would eventually survive and recover, but her husband would not. The city's economy was brought to a standstill as trade and commerce came to a halt and many businesses closed their doors. The people of Cremona faced severe shortages of food and medicinal supplies, and many struggled to find the resources they needed to survive. And yet, despite the tragedy, in his family, Nicolo continued to make lovely instruments during this period. The likelihood of him selling them straight away would have been slim, but this was of little importance, he could always sell them in the future.
That's a bit like us, we were just making violins during the pandemic.
Unfortunately for the people of Northern Italy, the plague was not something new to them, to the point that they had systems in place for just this kind of event. But even the authorities could not have anticipated the power of this particular pathogen. Just to have an idea, Yersinia pestis, the bubonic plague, has a mortality rate 200 times higher than that of COVID.
John Gagney.
This part of Italy was a, you know, economic hub of Europe. There's a lot of movement between, you know, Tradespeople pilgrims, that sort of thing. And interestingly, Northern Italy was in fact a European leader in terms of plague prevention. So there were strong measures in place for sanitary passes, for access to, you know, getting in and out of cities, for transit, all the kinds of things that we've had during COVID. It was, a lot of those things were generated in. this part of Europe between the 14th century and the 17th century.
Yeah, because the word quarantine is a Venetian word for the 40 days that the ships had to wait before coming into the port. Yes. To see that they had, didn't have a, was it the plague? Yes. And in fact, that's, that's one of the first measures just as we went into lockdown in March, 2020. In 1630, when the plague was discovered, much of northern Italy went into a form of lockdown, all the way from Florence up to the foothills of the Alps. Successively, obviously not at the same time, but as it was discovered, many of the cities went into 40 day quarantine. But as we know from our own experiences, that doesn't always, that's not a fail safe. And so it was only partially successful. So we're talking about something that Europeans were familiar with. Plague was never out of people's minds. In fact, if, you know, if you look through any of the centuries, the 15th century, the 16th century, the 17th century, and you look at any city in Europe, you're going to see recurrent patterns of plague over the course of, you know, could be two to three years.
It could be 15 to 30 years, but it's there. It's always percolating in the background. Okay, and so, in this particular bout of plague, a lot of people associate it with the, the Mantuan War of Succession, which brought soldiers from France and Germany, I believe. Yes. So in Spain, I suppose the, the, the broader context here is the 30 years war and maybe even the bigger, broader context in which the 30 years war fits is this ongoing European struggle between France and Spain, which had been going on since, you know, at least the 14th century had lasted through the 16th century in the Italian wars. We've talked, you and I have talked about before. And. Yeah. through transformations into the, into the 70th century was still lasting. The French and the Spaniards were still battling over control of Italy, and it was inflected in addition by Protestant Catholic conflicts. And that's, you know, the story of the Thirty Years War is a mixture of this political battle for dominance in Europe with a Protestant Catholic contest.
In 1618, the Thirty Years War is launched by a dispute between the Holy Roman Emperor, who was a Habsburg, and the Kingdom of Bohemia, which were Czech Protestant people. That led to conflict, and that conflict kept going for 30 years. Hence the creatively named Thirty Years War. So, but within those 30 years, of course, there are all kinds of subsidiary The story of the War of Mantua and Succession is interesting. Mantua was a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, so it belonged in theory to the Habsburgs, but had been an ally of France. at least since the 15th century. So this always put the Mantuan rulers at an unusual position because they were technically they owed their allegiance to the empire, but they had also married into the French aristocracy. So from the 15th century, the Mantuan rulers There are Gonzaga elites. That's the ruling house of Mantua, the Gonzaga family. Many of the Gonzagas married into French aristocratic families, including the Bourbon family, which, as we know, became the sort of, the dynasty from Henry IV in the 16, early 1600s forward. So that put the Mantuans kind of at the crossroads between these two warring kingdoms of France and Spain. And so what happens in the War of Mantuan succession in the late 1620s, Is that the last of the Gonzaga heirs dies, and both France and Spain claim to want to have the next So there is a kind of subsidiary Gonzaga who puts himself forward. There are, you know, there are all kinds of lower branches of that family. And so one of the lower branches says, I should go, I should inherit the the duchy. Whereas the Habsburg emperor has a candidate of his own who he And so the War of Mantua Succession breaks out because this can't be agreed in the, by the diplomats. And so they go to war over who will be installed as the next Duke of Mantua. This, of course, brings, brings soldiers from all over Europe, from the south of France, from Germany. up from other parts of Italy. It doesn't last that long. It's sort of like an 18 month, two year struggle. But it does, especially at a moment when the plague is, this is 1629 1630, right? So it's right at this moment when the when the plague is afoot. It's, you know, exacerbates the transmission of plague, most likely. That seems to be the theory of many scholars that this, you know, the conflict leads to further transmission. Yeah, because of all the, like, the to ing and fro ing and coming from different areas. Yeah. So Cremona is minding its own business. They are already stretched for resources. Next door everyone appears to be fighting for Mantua, but to get there they all seem to pass through Cremona. This would have been fine for the Amatis if the soldiers were picking up violins on their way to war, but instead they just brought gems.
The other thing to say about the War of Mantuan Succession is that the toing and froing was also very much a part of what's going on in Milan as a hub of commerce. So sort of Mantua belongs to Lombardy, which is part of the Duchy of Milan. All the Duchy of Milan belongs to the Habsburgs. So Mantua, you know, it's all subsidiary to the Spanish crown, basically the Spanish Austrian crown. And this part of Europe. Mantua, Milan, Genoa is part of what's called the Spanish Road, which is the hub of transit for soldier movement and money movement to fund the war effort. You know, already it's part of this kind of axis. It's a very strategic location. So, you know, the War of Mantuan Secession in a way takes place in the, at the crossroads of an already very busy part of Europe. And, you know, throw into this an increasing, you know, sort of demographic Challenge from a famine in the 1590s, the plague that's circulating in the 1630s, and the war that then breaks out. It becomes a kind of perfect recipe for demographic, yeah, perfect storm for demographic collapse.
Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's a very important city for the Spanish, but then I can imagine, I mean, I was imagining being French and you're feeling a bit of a squeeze because you've got the Spanish, they're down the south, they've taken that bit of Italy, they tried to get England with with Philip, Mary, Mary, but that was before.
They've gone over to the Netherlands, they've almost completely, encircled France, haven't they? The Spanish. So they're probably feeling quite threatened. Like in there, there's that one, that door in Mantua that they don't, that was traditionally allied with France.
Yes. I think this was the concern of the French and many other European states. I mean, what you described is exactly correct. Spain. The Hapsburg Spain was on the rise in the 16th century in a spectacular way. I mean, there had been a Spanish presence in Europe before, but this was immense, largely due to the success of Emperor Charles V in the first half of the 16th century, who was one of those rare emperors who inherits kind of everything in Europe. He was both king of the Spanish kingdoms and Holy Roman Emperor, was also the emperor who was seated when The Americas were brought into the Spanish crown. So, you know, his was the empire, the original empire in which the sun never set. And I think that concerned a lot of Europeans. So France felt itself being encircled, but also other parts of Europe were watching the Habsburg rise with trepidation because they knew that, you know, it was going to be possibly a complete domination of Europe by, by Spain. In fact, I would say by the, by the late 16th century, it effectively was a complete European domination by Spain.
And there was just this like, I can imagine from the Spanish point of view, there was this annoying France just in the middle of it. Like, it's like literally this big blob in the middle of there, what they'd conquered all around.
Now, amidst the stress of death and disease, something quite extraordinary happens. Nicolo Amati makes a violin and places an Amati Brothers label in it. It's a different model to the ones he has been previously making. He conceived a slightly wider soundboard than what they had been making before, the corners being a tad longer and turning just a little bit more. In his experiment to improve on sound and design, he created his grand pattern violin. Whether Nicola realised it or not, this was a turning point in the design of the violin and its future.
I speak to Carlo Chiesa, violin maker in Milan and prolific writer and researcher on many different violin makers. If you look in the front of a lot of books on different violin makers, there is a high chance you will see his name in the historical section, writing about their lives. One of the points is that because instruments, there are many.
By Nicolo, but there are not many instruments, many violence by the brothers. There are more violas by the brothers than by nicolo, probably for historical reason. There was a search for Violas until about the twenties of the 17th century. So about but after 30, the viola was not so important as a musical instrument as it had been before.
And from that point on, Makers went on making mainly violins, and Niccolo made many violins. So that's the first point. If there are many instruments around, you can are a more important maker than other makers who has not, have not so many instruments around. And then he was of course more modern than the brothers.
So his instruments are usually better sounding, in my opinion, for modern ideas than the brothers. And the other point is that he anyway worked a lot developing a new model, and he slightly enlarged, en longed the variant. He made the grand pattern which is the grand new pattern slightly bigger than before, and that gives you a better acoustic results than the brothers.
As a, as a rule, usually I would prefer. The quality of workmanship in the Brothers work, Nicolò's, but I must admit that as musical instruments usually Nicolò violins are better instruments than those by the Brothers for sounding properties. In a modern setup. In a modern setup. I have no idea about ancient setup because We have no idea how they were set up originally.
We have no original neck in an Amati instrument. So we have no idea what it was. And of course there was also a development of different way for necks and bridges and so on in a story of 150 years. So it would be also wrong to say there was a Baroque setup or a Cremonese setup because 150 years And I was wondering when Niccolo made the, developed the grand pattern was Andrea Guarneri working for him at that time?
It was possibly slightly before then then Andrea Guarneri arrived in his workshop. I'm not sure about that. We don't know when. Exactly, Andrea started working for Ola, but yes, it is around the same time, but at first we must consider that Andrea, together with Giacomo Janero, they were just pupils.
So they were probably making just the boys work of rough work in the workshop. And I'm sure that at time. The finishing of the instruments was in the hands of the master, as it was later always in the Amati, in the Stradivari workshop. So you see actually the hand of the master in all his production because he followed the making of every instrument and finished them direct.
And, and then did Andrea Guarneri,
Did he go on to his instruments? Were they based on the Nicola's Grand Patton? Sometimes and sometimes also on the other side. Yeah, that size? Okay. Andrea was a good maker, intelligent maker, and he also, and I'm sure he went on working for Amati also after. He moved it to his own workshop.
So here we see the violin taking over in importance from the viola and Niccolo making lots of instruments. He's also using his grand pattern that leads to good acoustics in a modern setting and these may be some of the factors that lead to his success as a maker we still know today.
There is also something to be said about the sheer number of violins Niccolo made as Carlo Chiesa pointed out. But also Niccolo's instruments were adapted to what musicians wanted now. And that was power. In this episode, we saw just how close we came to losing the Cremonese violin making tradition forever.
But be sure to join me in the next episode where we will see what Niccolo does to make sure this instrument he is making becomes a superstar. And we'll never run the risk of dying out like it almost did. I'd like to thank my lovely guests, John Gagneux, Benjamin Hebert and Carlo Chiesa for joining me today.
If you have enjoyed this podcast, I would like to take this opportunity to ask you to rate and review it on whatever podcasting platform you're using. This is in fact, a great way of supporting the show so that I can continue to make more episodes for you. And if you feel like being an absolute legend, you can become a Patreon over at Patreon forward slash The Violin Chronicle.
I hope you'll join me next time on the next episode of The Violin Chronicle.
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In the history of violin making Maggini is a must. I speak to two violin experts Florian Leonhard and Benjamin Hebbert about Giovannin Paolo Maggini. Maggini's Brescian style of making violins was very distinctive and an incredible amount of copies of this luthiers work has been copied in the intervening 400 years, the two violin makers I am talking to will shed light on why and how this came about and we will give you some tips on how to recognise a Maggini instrument and make one yourself....perhaps.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Luthierie, Mircourt. As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often, when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect. But here, my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture. So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love. Artistic genius. Revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning and bravery that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.
Welcome back to the story of Giovanni Paolo Maggini. In the first episode about this maker, I have briefly covered his life story. We don't know all that much about this maker during his lifetime, but his influence and style is definitely long lived. And the sheer number of copies of his instruments that have been made in the intervening 400 years is simply staggering. And so in this episode, I will be talking to two experts about why and how Maggini instruments were and are such hot stuff.
To begin with, In these conversations, the mention of the Hills book comes up quite a lot. Let me quickly explain why. W. E. Hills and Sons, if you don't know, was one of the great English violin workshops in London, only to be rivalled by J& A Beares. A bit like what Batman is to Superman. Big players. Did you, did you know, by the way, that Bruce Wayne, Batman's alter ego, is actually the owner of the Daily Planet newspaper, who employs Clark Kent, making Batman technically Superman's boss. I find this fascinating because this is kind of what happens in the story of the Beares and Hills companies, but I digress.
The Hills Workshop was founded by William Ebsworth Hill, 1871 to 1895. He was the son, grandson, and great grandson of violin makers. But when he founded W. E. Hills and Sons, he really took things to the next level. The man's energy was boundless. Under William's direction was the company's workshop, of course, that was producing new instruments and bow makers making bows. They would also deal in older instruments and were well known for their quality restorations. They had a line of accessories as the workshop continued to be run by his sons, and these included rosins, cleaning polish, chin rests, shoulder rests, bridges, instrument cases, strings, little tuning pipes, peg paste, if your pegs got stuck, the pegs themselves, music stands, and the list goes on.
Whatever product pertaining to the violin you could possibly think of, the Hills made sure there was a Hills version of it. If this sounds like a handful, then hold on to your seats, because not only was W. E. Hill a violin maker and musician, he was also interested in photography and astronomy. And let's not forget his family, because it is Hill and Sons, so he obviously had children. Nine, in fact, somewhere along the line. But to really prove oneself as an authority in the field, what better way to do it than to write a book? And to make a splash, the first one was on the wonderful Brescian maker, Gio Paolo Maggini, published in 1892. And this is the book that we often refer to as the Hill's book in our discussions about Maggini.
To make this book, research was made from archives and really to date, this book still stands as one of the only works documenting exclusively the life and work of this maker. Even though research has continued over the years, this is still a book makers keep coming back to. And so now you know a bit about the Hill's book, or more precisely, it's called The Life and Work of Giovanni Paolo Maggini, the author of which is a woman named Margaret Higgins, who is fascinating in her own right.
I spoke to Florian Leonhardt, who is a London based violin maker, dealer, restorer, expert, and owner of Florian Leonhardt Fine Violins. We spoke about Brescia, the city Maggini lived and worked in. Brescia was a, was a city that, had a very rich musical life. It was completely devastated by the invasion of, was it the French?
The French? Yeah, the French sorry about the French so they invaded, and ransack the city completely. And then the venitians took it back, took control over it and then there was another battle. It was ransacked again. And, you know, it was really, really destroyed. But Brescia didn't benefit from a big rich duke that, that would kind of, control the cultural life of the city. Unlike most other big cities, like Milan and Florence and Rome. But even Venice had a lot of wealthy people who kind of had demands on their cultural life. And Brescia, interestingly, had a big, probably middle class, intellectually interested, that furthered music making in a big way. And particularly, instrumental music making, or opera, that is not just singers and so on, but had lots of different musical instruments. And these Brescian makers during Gasparo Da Salo's time, particularly in his earlier time, were cittern makers, they made the plucked instruments, as well.
So they were busy doing those things as well, but actually you had in Brescia, you had already the word Violin for Violin Maker. And Gasparo Da Salo's time before it's a Pellegrino. Zanetto's, Micheli's, family time. You already had the, term violino or violini maker, but we don't know exactly what that thing looked like, whether that was actually the violin. Because, you know, something that looked a bit, uh, better than a Rebek and different to a, to a viol, maybe it was called that.
It's kind of on the way. It's on the way, yeah.
I'm Ben Hebbert, I've got a workshop in Oxford. Occasionally I sell violins. I do a lot of writing about them and a lot of research and a little bit of expertise as well.
Okay. And where, where can we find your, um, where can we find your writings?
My writings? I've got, uh, violinsandviolinists. com is my blog.
And, uh, it sort of everywhere else, occasionally in the Strad magazine and things like that. Chapters of books. Things.
Nuggets of wisdom.
Something like that. Um. Page fillers.
All right. So today I wanted to talk about, uh, Maggini. Actually, I did have a, I did have a thought, about, the difference between Cremonies and Brescian instruments. And that was, we looked at, you, you said how, was it Virgil that went to school? In Cremona. And Cremona was well known for its schools and it had a very, educated, merchant class.
And I was wondering if it wasn't for the education level in Cremona and the fact that an artisan like amati could have a Renaissance education, would, the violin have the shape that it does today if it wasn't for school?
Oh, yes and no. Uh, I think it's the answer. When we look at, when we look at Amati, we're looking at something which is architecturally wonderful, and it works. But if you go backwards in time, so there's some amazing frescoes in Ferrara by a guy called Cordenzio of Ferrara, and, they show musical instruments, bowed instruments of every single, you know, imaginable shape, and including some things which may actually be purposefully wrong, because they're being held by angels, but, within those there's one or two instruments which are violin like, and at the end of the day, what, you know, what is a violin shape?
Well, it's, it's the biggest, it's the biggest amount of surface area and volume in order to make a good sound. And yet, at the point where the bow crosses the strings, it's got to be narrow enough that the bow can touch each of the strings individually without you know, having a bit of a road crash.
So, the violin as we know it, you know, might have appeared around 1500. There could well be instruments which are even older than that, which are quite like the violin. In fact, 14th, uh, 13th century, uh, precursor of the violin tend to have a sort of jellybean kind of shape to them, again with this narrowing at that point.
So, the shape is in the ether one way or another, but just the shape in terms of you know, what an instrument has to be. But I think, you know, one of the things that an architect can do, whether we're talking about a violin or a shed, is, you know, there's a whole difference between sort of sticking some sticks in the ground and sticking a roof on it and architecturally designing a shed. And I think that's kind of where someone like Amati comes in. He says, with all of this Renaissance knowledge that I've got, this thing is already working. It's already a perfectly good thing for doing what it does. But I'm going to, understanding the necessities of it, the string length to get pitch the, site, the, volume of it. In order to get the sort of sound, the narrowness and all of this, I’m going to make a beautiful architectural version of what already exists. I mean, I'm thinking of the difference between the Bressian violins and the Cremonese violin.
Yeah. I think, uh, I mean, Bresians aren't without a geometry of their own and that's very clear. But I think, I think they're using sort of slightly sophisticated, you know, further thoughts. And, you know, rather than just, you know, again, we can take this analogy and, you know, the Brescians have got a number of geometrical rules which will work in order to render the thing workable. But the Cremonese They're taking it to this further level of perfection. And we see that, you know, by the 1630s, we've got Galileo, who's writing to, Father Micanzio Fulgnensis, or whatever his name is, who's writing to Monteverdi, who's writing to his unknown Cremonese makers, who must be Amati. And we're hearing about Amati's being worth about four times what a Brescian instrument is worth. And obviously, you know, they're having to do something to justify the, premiums that they're able to charge.
Florian Leonhardt.
You know, like anything you do in life, everything's quite complex. And the deeper you look, the less simple you can just, make the story. So Andrea Amati for me, of course, is a giant. Because he has, unlike the Bresian makers, created a design that could be replicated for centuries, more or less unchanged, incredibly well conceived with Renaissance principles and in a Baroque shape. If you want. So, construction method, golden section. He has, also construction sequence that was maybe derived from the lute makers from Fusen who came, in droves, to Italy because Italy had a great big market, of interest in music making. But to cut away from now, the Amati and Cremona, coming to the Brescian, which is your topic about Gasparo Da Salo, if I understood right that of course is for me the hero of the city, Brescia, because he has created Maggini, if you want. Coming to your question, why, you feel that Maggini in some ways might overshadow in fame even Andrea Amati. And Gasparo Da Salo might be due to the fact that, one, he made many more violins than Gasparo Da Salo, and the violas always a little bit the suffering, joked about instrument in the orchestras in our classic music world. So the violas were less important in some ways, and less, less easy to, talk about in big numbers. So, Maggini made many more violins than violas. While Gasparo Da Salo made very few violins and many more violas. But Maggini continued in the footsteps of Gasparo Da Salo, and he seamlessly continued the tradition working and the method.
But coming back to the fame, why you feel he's more known, there's another fact. So already in the early 1600s, early 17th century in Brescia. Was immediately written about as the great maestro violin maker when he died, round about 17 30, 31, 32, during the plague, he had already achieved considerable fame and people started shortly after, already even naming themselves as pupil of Maggini, even if it wasn't necessarily true.
Right. Okay. Who wrote about the music? Uh, culture at the time. And that is actually also an interesting thing, which made, Brescia so famous and because, you know, when I was a child, I grew up also with thinking, Oh, Maggini is the inventor of the violin which is obviously, I wouldn't say I wouldn't agree with that because obviously we know that Andrea Amati is before, and Gasparo Da Salo in some ways before, even though maybe, yes, arguably, Gasparo Da Salo came more from the violin making, viola making, bass instrument kind of making, and you had a more sonorous, warm, earthy kind of sound idea at the time, but also maybe possibly because instruments didn't sound much differently because it maybe didn't in those archaic instruments, sound posts, etc.
That was one thing that he was already written about. So people could read now about Maggini and the importance of the maestro violin maker. And Maggini was also prolific in the production of the instruments and had La Franchini as well, who, who already worked for Gasparo Da Salo as his assistant.
Then we had the 19th century, eventually, a couple of hundred years later. And that's, I think, is probably the biggest source of why we create, where we created a lot of romantic things, because the 19th century was the romantic era in the art history, in music making, in, painting and in sculptures and architecture. So it was the time where, where castles were rebuilt, but wrongly rebuilt.
The, follies.
Yes, because they created some romantic middle, aged like looking castle, which didn't actually look like that when it was first built. So they, had this romanticized idea and you know, Maggini. Unlike Amati and everything that followed, because everybody admired Stradivari and Amati and Guarneri and Ruggieri, etc. So, Maggini and Gasparo Da Salo were a bit forgotten, because they looked so archaic, they looked ancient, they looked primitive and simple in their making. And so In that romantic time, I think, I mean, this is only my interpretation, but I look at people like Vuillaume, who now created Magginis and he made lots of Magginis and he had this interesting idea about that extra turn on the scroll, in the volute of the scroll, to create this as a Maggini thing, which differs to all other violins that, were kind of produced by.
Was Vuillaume, oh sorry, was Vuillaume the one to add the extra?
No, there are some, there are a few. Magginis that have that extra turn because that, but maybe we talk later about stylistics.
But that must have been his model that he picked up on that model.
Yeah. He must have seen one scroll that, that exists by Maggini and maybe it wasn't Maggini who made it.
It wasn't Maggini. So we see later makers working in Paris, such as Vuillaume, who lived in the 19th century, copying Maggini in a romantic style, perhaps drawn in by this unusual looking model that really didn't resemble anything like the classical Cremonese instruments people were used to. Benjamin Hebbett.
There were people like Di Berio, one of the great early 19th century players who had a Maggini, Ole Bull had a Maggini, and those, those start to get copied. Actually it's Gand et Bernadelle in Paris, Nicolas Francois Vuillaume. Brussels really sort of start the way in copying, and then you get the German cheap, cheaper copies, which always seem to come from those Forms and those Bernadelles. Now we see things orbiting around Parisian musicians and violin makers, who at this time were the influencers of the 19th century on these things.
Florian Leonhardt.
But I have still haven't, um, finished your, your The original question because there's another aspect to Maggini. So once Vuillaume created, picked up on this archaic looking instrument to make another romantic looking thing, because here you also he also had a, Tiefenbroecker, you know, so he, they liked those sudden ancient looking instruments with heads and different heads and different F holes.
But of course, Vuillaume didn't understand Maggini at all because he built it with an outside mould, built it very square and in you know, more what, what they learned in violin making at the time. And also like all violin makers in the 19th century, they no longer constructed with that form within, they drew around things and copied them and kind of idealized it, but didn't really build.
What, was the, the real, intention of the maker at the time? And so he now created the Maggini model next to his Guarneri model, next to the Amati model, next to a Guarneri del Gesù model. So it became one of the five models. So the whole world now knows Maggini, Amati, Stradivari, Guarneri. But, uh, so people had now those models and Maggini became one of them.
And therefore, from the Brescian makers, he became the archaic, the oldest and most ancient looking one. So it became interesting. And then the hills in 1892. wrote their famous book on Maggini, which again is also the Hills did an enormous job in doing research, quite good research. And they found also in that book, you find lots of beautiful evidence and, people who ordered instruments from them in.
Have you in the Hills book where it has sort of a, a guide to faking a Maggini almost it tells you how to make a fake Maggini well, it talks about Magginifying instruments.
I've got my, copyright here. Fifty-seven or so. Fifty-six, fifty seven. There's a whole load of, uh, pointers for connoisseurs.
A very successful Maggini copy was made by Bernard Fendt, Jr. Naturally, the first necessity for the Maggini forger was to obtain suitable violins on which to operate and consequently all violins of large dimensions and antique appearance were sought out and their fitness for adaptation thoughtfully considered. Two lines of purfling were needed and as but few violins possessed this feature. It had to be added. French violins of the Bouquet Pierret, period. 1700, 1740 and German violins of all periods were easily Magginified as regards purfling and the elongation of the sound hole. When the violin to be adapted was sufficiently large and of suitable model, the inner line of purfling was inserted. When of smaller size or unsuitable in form, the original ledge and purfling were removed, and a new rim of wood, about three quarters of an inch, three quarters? Three eighths of an inch in width, added all around, which was joined to the old part by an underlapping joint. This new edge was then slightly hollowed and purfled. The groove for the inner line of purfling being made over the joining of the old and new wood effectually hid it. Clover leaves were inserted in the top and bottom of the back, and the central device of Maggini at the middle of the back. The scroll was also worked on, but here the peculiarities of Maggini were not mastered.And the scroll was invariably turned too far.
Yes, it tells you how you can forge. I like how they give you like, uh, just the tips. Just, just a bit too much, isn't it? And like, and how they say like, in every German violin, because you know how those German trade instruments are often big, so yeah, okay.
Yeah, I mean, the Maggini book's written at exactly the same time that people are sort of getting into their Sherlock Holmes and stuff like that, so. There is an element of it of, sort of giving, giving the Hills. the voice of the expert. Yeah. It's, it's, it's quite a good point to, you know, give, away all, of the secrets because actually you don't often see Magginis or Maggini fakes. So they, they can say everything about expertise and it won't, it won't really affect their bottom line.
But returning to Brescia and the Brescian style. Florian Leonard talks about Maggini's assistant, La Francini, and the style of Maggini's scrolls compared to the work that was being done at the same time in Cremona, and the different construction techniques that the two schools of violin making used. Because La Francini in particular he was as far as I remember he was a Carver and, furniture maker, who also, supplied the, or restored the local church furniture or, you know, whatever it is.
And if you look at the scroll, the scroll is made like this furniture. So it has a kind of leaf, structure that goes around. When you look at the scroll from the front, it's wide. And it's all tapered back, the peg box as well, and everything. There's a completely different idea to the Cremonese idea.
There's not a chamfer structure on the scroll. It's a kind of like a leaf with a fine edge that kind of rounded off over the past 400 years into something like a but it was kind of not thought to be like Amati, very clearly from day one, he constructed a spiral out of mathematical proportions and then had to solve the problem how to end with the volute carving out in the eye.
So you have a channel, which is the carved out channel part of the volute, but you have to end somewhere in the spiral. And so that end is quite a complicated thing for young violin makers. They don't know how to do that. Do you have a gouge that kind of fits into there and meets the other gouge in the point?
Or how do you construct the point? Maybe with a knife cut? But you need to kind of arrive in a parallel. Buy the perfect gouge with the perfect curve.
I remember, um, I went to Mircourt and everyone's like, I found it. I found the gouge.
You see, there we go. You understand. But other people are there with a knife. Yeah. So you understand. So, so the, the Brescian didn't bother about this. So they just had a piece of paper that spiralled up into something and then you had an eye. And it's all undercut because the undercut gives a certain lightness to the design of that paper flow that's like, like, you know, the scroll or something. And the eye, because you didn't have much of a chamfer, could just end sometime whenever the gouge finished in their turn. And that is each time different, but the principle is similar, but they were not trying to replicate like industry. The Cremonese created a system that is absolutely, until today, there to be replicated.
Of course, in the 19th century, it was no longer constructed like in the 17th century or 16th, 16th and 17th century in Cremona was clearly only constructed with dividers, callipers, proportions. And therefore you had the inside mould, you build everything around it and so on. The Brescians didn't have that idea.
They had a free, architecture. They had the back, they stuck the corner blocks on it and they put very thick ribs around it, starting with the cc bouts, then meeting with mitres. Relatively blunt mitres on the corners, open C bouts. C bouts are quite, open C's, because that's much easier to, bend, because these very thick ribs, when you see an original that hasn't been re graduated, and hasn't had, uh, linings fitted. Later by people in the 19th century who want to do better those instruments. Then you actually see that you had those thick ribs and, you know, to make these middle, very small red radiuses on a violin or viola is quite tough to bend without breaking it. And so that they kept it quite blunt. And therefore the corners are not very long, unlike Zanetto di Pellegrino, before it's long corners, but also in Amati's time, of course, they had long corners. And that was a feature of the instrument, the corner, while in Brescia it was kind of an archaic thing that came from the viol.
Yeah, and the Hill's book on Maggini I like it I feel like it's really, it's very well done. It's like, you've got the, the biography and then you have these, like these tips on how to make your own Maggini. Then it has a few anecdotes that are a little bit. Indiscreet as she like they name the clients, uh, involved.
And yes, the, the Fendt copy, which was made as an honest, honest copy, but it was bought by someone whose widow was then hard up and tried to sell it. And in the end you have in the, at the end you have, the body, the measurements, the table of measurements that has, which is sort of a little bit confounding because the violins, it, it does like pre strad. It compares like a, pre 90, pre 1690 Strad, a long Strad and a Maggini. And then for violas, they totally changed to, a Da Salo and then an Amati and an, a Maggini they're comparing. And then they go back to Strad for the cello, which is like, it's confusing. And then they have all the little, the little notes and the explanation. I find it's quite, you know, it's all in there. And then it even has a thing on how to find Maggini’s house at the end.
We were talking about the woman who wrote it, Margaret Huggins, and she’s interesting cause she's like, she's a real fan. You can tell as you're reading it, it's like, she's a real fan of the Hills. And I find it interesting that they, they asked her to write. So, yes, she marries a guy called William Huggins, and he's an astronomer. And, but the fascinating thing is that she really seems to be the person who's into photography. So in terms of being able to record what he sees, it's her. And she becomes a pioneer in the 1870s of spectral astrophotography.
Spectropi I can't say it Spectropi Spectropsy? She becomes really good at pronouncing it. Anyway, whichever one it is. That's taking is that was she actually taking photos of light? Like, sort of rainbows type thing? Like, you know, when you see a rainbow with the light. Was that? I suspect so. Okay, I'll have to check that out. I think there's a whole load of stuff which is going on about with, before, colour photography, actually, there's a lot of understanding of which light waves the camera works best at or, sorry, not the camera, but the process, so you can say actually, if we look at a lot of photographs of the time and compare them to ultraviolet or infrared photography, we actually see, you know, violin photographs, they're all opaque, because, you know, what's a perfectly good spectrum for a black and white photograph of a person is actually a little bit on the ultraviolet spectrum.
So we're not able to see the wood underneath the varnish. Oh yeah, and then in this, in this book, there's amazing Yeah, well not, you say the paintings are amazing and you're welcome to. You're absolutely right.
It is so hard to draw a violin. I am just really, you know, uh, admirable of anyone who can do a painting of a violin.
But to me, it's the, it's the photographs, which are absolutely, you know. Before I knew who Margaret Huggins was, seeing these photographs, which are absolutely to scale, really done with precision, and then comparing them to other early, early violin photographs, and, and they're just astonishing. And I think that we might be seeing, you know, the same, the same eye and the same photographic skill on those as, you know, the inventor of Spekof, of stuff that we can't pronounce.
Spek Spektro Spektrop Spektroposi? Spek Spek Spek That one. Which is really, really important.
Margaret Huggins was a pretty amazing woman. Born in Dublin in 1848, she was an accomplished astronomer and spectroscopist who made significant contributions to the fields of astrophysics. She was also a very talented photographer, artist, and musician. In 1873, when she was 25 years old, She attended a lecture by a Mr. William Huggins, a prominent astronomer and spectroscopist on his research on stellar spectra. Oof, that's a tongue twister. Margaret, who was already captivated by astronomy and spectroscopy, was deeply impressed by William's lecture and sought an introduction to him. After the lecture, her uncle, who was acquainted with William Huggins, organized a meeting between the two, and the spectral sparks were ignited. In 1875, two years later, They married, and together they conducted groundbreaking research in spectroscopy, which is the study of the interaction between light and matter. It was a marriage of intellect and the heart. I find it really hard to say spectroscopy, spectroscopy. Anyway, in addition to her scientific contributions, Margaret actively participated in astronomical societies and institutions, which is kind of extraordinary for a woman at the time. She was a member of the Royal Astronomical Society and the British Astronomical Association. She was also involved in promoting women's involvement in science and was a member of the British Federation of University Women. Margaret received recognition for her work throughout her career, and she was the first woman to receive the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1903, which was a remarkable achievement at the time.
She also received honorary degrees from the University of Dublin and the University of St Andrews, when this was still a tricky time for a woman to attend university. As to how she came to write the Maggini book for the Hills, apart from being one smart cookie. Her husband, William Huggins, was an avid amateur violinist and was friends with the inventive and nimble minded William Ebsworth Hill. William Huggins also possessed a golden period Stradivari, so this could have helped the connection. This violin is now called the Huggins Strad. Today, it's lent to the winner of the Belgian Queen Elizabeth's violin competition. Because Margaret was also a very talented photographer, she helped in the production of the images of not only the Maggini book, but also others the Hill Workshop produced.
Today she's only really remembered for her scientific endeavours, but here I'd like to give a little shout out to her and her work on Maggini. You go girl.
So the Hill book was another book that put him on the map, Maggini. And the Hills also idealized him a little bit by, by saying he was the kind of establisher of the violin.
Do you think the Hills book is still, uh, The reference book for Maggini? Yeah.
Today, is it still what they say, valid? Um, the, the facts, the facts of the book are still valid because they, they did proper research in Brescia. And so they, looked at sources, they, found. This lady, um, Oh, are you talking about Isabella D'Este? Isabella D'Este, thank you. Ah, okay, so I thought you were talking about, like, modern, okay, the Gonzaga court. Yes, that's the one. And so she was, of course, a patron of the arts, in that sense, yeah? And so people like her furthered this, and her demands were fulfilled by Brescia. And that's another interesting thing. Why did Brescia live so confidently next to Cremona, where Amati, of course, made instruments also for a big society throughout Europe. He became also famous, but they lived side by side, not influencing each other not that I can see that. And you can see that not, not rethinking, Oh, maybe they are doing something better than us. Let's change a little bit the style. No, Maggini confidently continued the style of Brescia Only at the very end of Maggini's life and career, you can see a little bit of proportioning, the scroll getting a little bit, more carefully made, et cetera, not quite so large and heavy.
Whether that is influenced from, and also linings are used suddenly, whether that's influenced from Cremona or whether that's demand for musicians that have seen a Cremonese instrument or whether That is an evolutionary thing that just happened because those instruments had a relatively fast evolution in, in Brescia. Because from the very primitive, instruments, suddenly, the Micheli family and your other makers, and then Gasparo Da Salo was the big genius in many ways because he, transformed a lot and established things and you became very successful that he became wealthy as an instrument maker and he could afford to have several employees and different premises to own.
So that's, that's quite an achievement as an instrument maker of the day. Yeah. So I think the Book of Hills helped Maggini's name as well and then the mystery of the earliest violin maker was of course In the ears of all the laymen about the topic, particularly if Hills also kind of supported this, uh, model of, that Maggini is the earliest, violin maker or creator of the violin.
Well, it's interesting because they don't actually say that. And in the Maggini book, in the front. You might have like one of the first editions, there's a paper that says, you know, we've got all this information about Gasparo Da Salo. So then they knew that about Gasparo Da Salo, but they brought out the Maggini book first and the damage was done.
I think the damage was done and then they didn't want to peddle back too much. But I, but they did say in that book, I remember that they said that he is the person who established the violin, the modern violin. Oh yeah, so you have Gasparo. They don't say it's the inventor directly, but they said, I think they said established.
But I think out of that established probably interpretations came and the people then made out of it, he invented. Yeah, because you jump quickly from established to invent.
Yeah, you can imagine someone reading it and then telling a friend, Oh, you know, I read this book about the guy who invented the violin.
Yeah, I mean, I would say in 1732, the Brescian violin making or violin making was dead for a bit. So until the arrival of G. B. Rogeri, who came with a completely Cremonese idea into town and then adopted. Features of Maggini and Gasparo Da Salo, I cannot say who, probably some Maggini violins that would have been more in numbers available to him, have influenced his design of creating an arching.
It's, it's interesting that he instantly picked up on that arching, because Rogeris are always and, Much fuller arched. The arching rises much earlier from the purfling, right? So he came from the Cremonese tradition, but he adopted the, like the Brescian arching idea. He, came from Nicola Amati and has learned all the finesse of, construction, fine, making discipline, and also series production. Get an inside mould and have the linings, and have all the blocks including top and bottom block, and nailed in the neck. So he did a complete, package of Cremonese Violin making, and brought that into Brescia, but blended it in certain stylistics and sometimes even in copies, with the Brescian style for a long time. We have had, before dendrochronology was established, the Magginis, going around, and they were actually, G. B. Rogeris.
Right, yeah, we did a condition report on a, Maggini, and, it had an old certificate, and, And then we did the dendrochronology, and so I had to change the title to attributed to.
Yeah, and it might have been, you know, I mean, I have, I've seen about three, three Rogeris that used to be Magginis. Okay. Yeah, very nicely made. But you can see that the construction behind it doesn't have that more loose idea of creating that shape, but it was a constructed shape.
Okay, so how, how is Maggini different to and why do you think, Maggini is so much, better known than Da Salo, or am I just making assumptions? I feel like a lot of people know, if you say a Brescian instrument, they'll be like, Oh yeah, Maggini.
Benjamin Hebbett.
Well, I think Gaspar much rarer than we sort of take credit for and actually, you know, they're also, I think when we look at Magginis, well, there's actually two problems with Magginis because there are the spectacular Magginis. And throughout his, throughout history until dendocrinology, that's, uh, tree ring dating came along. We, you know, we, saw these instruments, which were really quite one, you know, really quite wonderful, almost cremonese quality, which we kind of thought of as, you know, the, the, the best Maggini’s, but then what we discovered, and there's quite a lot of those, and quite a lot of those have become the very famous Magginis, but actually, then Dendrochronology comes along, and given that Maggini died in 1630, when these were coming up with Dendros of 1670, 1680, 1700, we, you know, suddenly, began to realize that these aren't by Maggini at all, but they're by somebody 60, 70 years on.
And, you know, stuff like the Prince Doria, So painted for Prince Doria in the 19th century, but, uh, but they're actually, you know, they're not, they're not even meas at all.
So you've got all of this stuff by Giovanni Batista, Rogeri. He's a contemporary of Stradivari, making Maggini fakes, which we still, you know, are associating with Maggini. Then you've got the real Magginis, which are a little less refined. Then you've got the period where Maggini are working together. Maggini and Da Salo's workshop.
And those are a little less refined again. And then you've got the true Gaspar Da Salos, which are, you know, a small number and actually quite rough. And then the problem is, is that, you know, I think so much stuff, you know, it's more likely that a Maggini will get reappraised into a Maggini Gasparo Da Salo collaboration than a Gasparo Da Salo coming into that. So essentially there's three different kinds of Magginis. And very little, unless you're into double basses, from Gasparo Da Salo.
So, uh, so one of my questions was, in the, was actually in the Hills book, uh, I don't know if it's her, it's a bit ambiguous when you're reading it, I'm like, is it, is it the Hills talking, or is it her talking about she actually has a funny story where she talks about clients and she actually names the client.
Um, it's, I love these old books where they're just like, you know, Mrs. So and so. Politically incorrect. Actually, when you read the Hill book. It's kind of escorting everyone, you know, they give their own opinion.
And she'll be like, yeah, Mrs. So and so came in and it was clearly a fake and then she sold it as a real one. And then that guy came back and I had to tell him it was a fake and, but she says, so she talks about, well, no, or the Hills, who knows about, Maggini, Stradivari, the idea that Stradivari was influenced in his long period of making by Maggini. What, what are your, do you think that's a relevant observation?
Florian Leonhardt. What do you think I would answer to that? I say very clearly 100%. 100%, no doubt. So, you know, the Brescia was plodding along with their style on their own and creating something that, yeah, they just were confident because the musicians wanted to have those instruments. They were busy. They got rich from it, you know, nobody was poor making those instruments. And they, which we can see in the archives today. So you can, you can see that they were successful. They had constantly musicians from all over the country to consult them because the musicians were the ones driving. what was in demand. You know, in parallel, in the parallel universe, Cremona supplied some other chords with their instruments, and they were successful within that, and that system worked very well. But I don't see much cross pollination there going on between those cities. So Cremona will have noticed that musicians like sometimes to have these kind of Maggini like instruments.
And Rogeri was already making such instruments as well, maybe visible for Cremonese violin makers, because they, the musicians would travel, because Brescia and Cremona is not that far apart. But obviously the, the link wasn't so established culturally, as you can tell from the violin making history. So, but Stradivari, who totally deserves his name as the genius of, of our he was constantly, from day one, from the earliest instruments, when we analysed him, you can see from the earliest instruments his strong character and drive to find out how to make it better. So I think from day one, he tried to see how can I improve this thing. And by 1690, he arrived by saying, let's radically change the design of the arching because, because the musicians talking about the sonority and warmth and depth of, uh, Maggini instruments and so he, he felt that's lacking. Let's try to find this out. And then he saw something and he said, let's try it. And he did it and it created some effect and he continued this. And so he did it for just under a decade, building those long pattern instruments because long Magginis were longer and they were fuller arched. And you see that in, in Stradivari's design.
But Stradivari still was bound by the very strong, incredible principles that the Amati have created in Cremona. So he had the discipline to build it beautifully with long, slender corners, with choice of wood that looks beautiful. Magnificent. And it's very, it's aristocratic in the way. So the Maggini model by Stradivari doesn't look like a Maggini, you know, so it’s a much more graceful, in design in my view.
He combined in the golden period, the two things. So his arching became fuller, which is the major change in Stradivari's. Design for the sound.
Yeah, there's less of that. Um, the, the scooped like towards the edges, it's less, the less, although, yes, I mean the, Amati brothers. I, I don't, yeah.
The brothers Amati were really quite full there's a view. It's, yeah. It's hard to tell. Since you mentioned the Amati brothers, the Amati brothers were more advanced in the arching from our modern perspective of, of ideal arching than Niccolo, because Niccolo exaggerated that deep, long, wide, wide channel, and therefore has nearly a slightly pinched arching, which you see in some Rugeris as well. And that influence you can clearly see also in Stradivari's idea. So there was something going on, but, but Stradivari was the most consistent to bring that forward.
So he took, uh, yeah, so it's a little bit of Maggini that made Stradivari.
Yes. You could say that. It's probably Maggini, um, that influenced that.
And, of course, the other big guys, Guarneri del Gesù was the other big guy and successful violin makers of all time. He also got influenced by that because you can see he made a wide breast, uh, Stradivari didn't adopt that, you know, he, he still saw an advantage in the arching, but he didn't want to deviate too far away from the established idea in Cremona.
While Guarneri del Gesù, he, he did that already 30 years later, you know, 30 years later, he started, he was in an, at a different time where the sons were already all rebels, you know, I mean, look at Stradivari's sons, I mean. What a disgrace. I'm telling you, dissapointment they must have been for him because how can the father achieve this level of workmanship and then you have those sons who just Don't give a damn about precision.
Well, it's the, you know, it's the father who makes the fortune and then the children who spend it. They were that generation. And so, Del Gesu grew up in that generation, but he grew up in a family that was already much rougher in making, you know, the Guarneri's, Filius Andrea, his father. Pretty rough, you know, so he didn't build like a Niccolo Amati in a sweet, beautiful, perfectly mannered and disciplined way. He left the tool marks, he didn't always bother about exact precision.
Thank you so much for listening to this final episode on Gio Paolo Maggini, but stay with me for the next episode as I return to Cremona. And I continue with the story of Niccolo Amati and his revolutionary practices in the workshop that would change the violin landscape forever. I'd like to thank my guests, Benjamin Hebbert and Florian Leonhardt for talking to me today.
Please do leave a comment and rating. And if you would like to financially support the podcast, that would be amazing. You can go to patreon.com forward slash the violin chronicles to do that. On social media, I have Instagram with the handle at The Violin Chronicles, and Facebook is The Violin Chronicles Podcast.
Thank you for joining me. And I hope you will tune in to the next episode of The Violin Chronicles.
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This is the captivating journey through the life and craftsmanship of Gio Paolo Maggini, a renowned violin maker hailing from Brescia, Italy. Join us as we unravel the legacy of this extraordinary luthier whose instruments continue to mesmerize musicians and collectors worldwide.
Delving into the fascinating world of Gio Paolo Maggini, exploring his innovative techniques, distinctive designs, and the enduring influence he had on the art of violin making. Not much is known about this enigmatic maker but the tragedies and hardships of his life have not deterred from the allure of his violins, celebrated for their robust tonal quality, remarkable projection, and distinctive stylistic workmanship.
Christopher Moore principal Viola of the Melbourn Symphony Orchestra talks to us about his relationship with his Maggini Viola made in Brescia, and the journey he has been on with his four stringed friend.
TRANSCRIPT
Long, long ago in the realm of ancient Italy, a great strapping hero strode upon the earth. His name was Hercules, a mighty warrior favoured by the gods. One day, after crushing grapes in his rock-hard biceps and shaving his chiselled jawline, Hercules embarked for his legendary quest for the Golden Fleece. His path led him eventually to a region near the powerful Po River. In this land, a proud and formidable king named Eurytus ruled with an iron fist. His beautiful daughter, Calliho, possessed a grace and radiance that could rival the sun. When Hercules laid his eyes upon her, his heart was captivated, and he yearned to make her his bride. Yet King Eurytus, blinded by his own ambition, refused the hero's request. He scorned Hercules and cast him away, denying him the hand of his beloved daughter. This act of defiance set in motion a clash of titanic proportions. Determined to prove his worthiness, Hercules faced King Eurytus in a series of gruelling challenges.
With each feat, the hero showcased his immense strength remember the grape crushing biceps and indomitable spirit. But it was a test of unparalleled magnitude that would forever mark the destiny of Brescia. Hercules set his sights on the Mela River. A waterway that flowed through the land. Its currents were wild and untamed, often causing havoc and destruction. Undeterred, the hero summoned his god given might and diverted the course of the river. With Herculean force, Hercules carved a new path for the Mela River, leading it through a marshy and forsaken terrain. The once desolate and waterlogged land now bloomed with life and fertility. It was a transformation of remarkable proportions.
King Eurytus witnessed this incredible feat. Finally understood the true strength and valour of Hercules, and he saw the hero's unwavering determination and boundless love for Calliho. Overwhelmed by the hero's prowess and the sincerity of his heart, the king relented. Being able to challenge the course of a river and chiselled features were obviously great husband material, it seems. But moving on. In a great celebration of their union, Hercules laid the foundations of a magnificent city. He named it Brixia. The Latin form for Brescia. It was a testament to his strength and the indelible mark he left upon the land. The city grew and flourished, becoming a beacon of culture, art, and prosperity.
And this is the legend of how the city of Brescia was founded.
The mighty Maggini In this episode, we will be looking at the oh so influential Gio Paolo Maggini. If you haven't already listened to the first episodes on Brescian makers, stop and do that now because to truly understand this maker, you'll need to know where he and his city came from. Episodes 1, are about his master Gasparo Da Salo and the Brescian school.
In the previous episodes of the Violin Chronicles, I have been looking at the Amati family, but it would be greatly remiss of me to bypass this Brescian maker. Living and working at the same time as the Amati brothers and Niccolo Amati, a mere 60 kilometers away. Now, remember the city of Cremona was still under Spanish rule and Brescia was part of the Venetian state, which made them quite different. And this is also seen in the production of their instruments, as we will soon see. So I'm taking a break from Cremona just now to travel up the highway to the land of guns and violins.
Hello, and welcome to the Violin Chronicles. A podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French violin making school some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine Lespets, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de lutherie, Mirecourt.
As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, but here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture. So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love. Artistic genius, revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning and bravery that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.
In the small village of Botticino situated in the hills an hour from Brescia lived the Maggini family. Zovan and Giulia lived with Zovan's father Bartolomeo Maggini and their two small children. Zorvan, somewhat like the Amatis, had taken his time in marrying and was in his forties when he eventually did find a wife and started a family of his own. As time passed, so did his elderly father, and it was all too evident that there was no future for their family in this small rural village. His children were getting older, and there were more possibilities and prospects for employment in Brescia. When Zolvan was 57, his wife, Julia, had just given birth to another child whom they named Gio Paolo, the star of our story.
He was born in the autumn of 1580. Zolvan's eldest son was eager to work as a shoemaker and so the family moved to the large city of Brescia to start a new life. Over the years, the Maggini family settled into life in the vibrant city of Brescia. The youngest son, Gio Paolo, does not seem to have had an extensive education, like his Cremonese counterparts, and when Gio Paolo Maggini was still very young, his father passed away.
When they had arrived in Brescia, Zoran, his father, had set out to make a shoemaking business and failed, and then went on to promptly die. Perhaps his death was not a surprise, but to make ends meet after his death, Maggini's mother sold land to keep them afloat. And it is around this time, in 1595, that the young Maggini becomes an apprentice of the well-known instrument maker, Gasparo Da Salo.
It would have been a big change for Gio Paolo Maggini to begin with, but his apprenticeship in the well-established workshop was a success. Despite his lack of education, he may have also been a musician or singer, as many of the early Luthiers were both. Life was looking good for Gio Paolo Maggini. He had a close relationship with his boss, Gasparo Da Salo. He trusted him in the signing of legal documents. His life revolved around the musical district of Brescia and his friends and acquaintances, including musicians, well known instrument makers, and other assistants who worked for Da Salo.
In 1602, he became friends with Paolo Virichi, who had returned from exile. Paolo's father was a close friend of Gasparo Da Salo, whom we spoke about in the Da Salo episodes. Still very young, in his early 20s, Gio Paolo Maggini, after 8 years of working with Gasparo Da Salo, was ready to head out on his own. He appears to still have had amicable dealings with Gasparo Bertolotti and his family, even though he did leave and set up a new workshop with La Franchini, Gasparo's other assistant, who came along with him. In 1606, when Maggini was 26 years old, he bought a workshop and house near Gasparo's. He paid slightly higher than its real value, and the noble Ludovico Seria feared for its payment. Maggini is able to pay with his mother's credit for her lands in Bottino. Thanks to the good old bank of mom and dad, this new workshop is very visible in front of the Piazza del Podesta, near Gasparo da Salo, and Annis. He's the organ builder. They're workshops, and it was in the prime instrument maker's quarters. In 1615, he is in his mid thirties with a well established workshop that has been running for nine years.
Gio Paolo Maggini married the young Anna Foresti, a furrier's daughter, in January of 1615. She most probably knew Da Salo's younger sister, Ludovica, who was also married to a furrier in Brescia. They undoubtedly lived in the artisanal district of the city, and Maggini was 34 and Anna 19 years old when they were married. The couple lived in the house in Contrada del Palazzo Vecchio de Podesta, opposite the old palace, and eight days after the wedding, Maggini's wife signed in the kitchen a receipt for her dowry given by her father. The witnesses included a carpenter and a bootmaker, and her husband's assistant, Giacomo Della Franchini, maestro di Violini, living in the house with them.
We can see that when he married, Maggini was in a comfortable position with a house, a workshop, a maid, and an assistant, running a thriving business. He had a good trade stock and paid his employees well.
Here I'm speaking to Christopher Moore, Principal Viola of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, who plays on a lovely Gio Paolo Maggini.
My name is Christopher Moore. I'm a viola operator. I I'm currently the Principal Viola of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and before that I was the Principal Viola of the Australian Chamber Orchestra for 10 years.
Yeah. And owner of a puppy that we can hear sometimes.
Sorry. That was actually my child. Both. One of them has a, has a pupil free day and the other is. Just not going to school.
Yeah. The teachers I know, they're like, why don't we have a teacher free day?
Well, yeah, they seem to have a lot down in Victoria.
So your principal viola and what viola do you play, Christopher?
I'm very lucky to be the, what would you call it? The, not the, I'm not the owner. I play a wonderful Giovanni Paolo Maggini. Viola from around 1610.
Custodian.
Custodian. There we go. It was made about around 1610. Of course, I was listening to some of your podcast earlier. And as we know, some of these, these Brescian makers didn't really date their instruments until. Later on. Yeah. It's tricky. Yeah. So they just have to go on the dendro. Dendrochronology. Dendrochronology? Yeah. The dating of tree rings? Mm hmm. And what, what's your dendrochronology? I've got it here actually.
So the report said that the youngest tree ring on the front is dated around 1591. So that puts the, yeah, puts the, the making of the instrument 10, 20 years after that. Mm. Yeah.
Cause that, yeah, it's, it's kind of complicated to understand, but the youngest tree ring would be on the outside of the tree and then it's not necessarily the one on the most outside, depending on what piece of wood they used.
Yes. So, so it's a guide, but you know, it can't be earlier than that or, yep. So, yeah and how long, how long have you been playing this viola? When did we get it? It was like 2014, I think, when I was Well, that was when it was procured, but I was sort of searching for a viola in the, in the Australian Chamber Orchestra for me to play around 2012, 2013. And we're comparing it to my wonderful instrument. It's a, it's a Arthur E. Smith from 1937.
Great Australian maker.
And we're comparing all these wonderful instruments to the Smith and nothing really stacked up until we found this Maggini, which had that sort of similar fruity viola tone that to, you know, to compete with the Smith. So then we'd, we'd actually sort of given up the search and this one sort of fell in our lap, the Giovanni Paolo Maggini. And we just tried it and we, we all fell in love with it. And so the anonymous benefactor who may or may not be the, enigmatic alter ego of Batman. You just don't know. Oh yeah.
I think of, I do think of Batman.
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so he's, he, he or she has purchased this viola for the ACO ostensibly. But anyway, then I left the ACO and viola stayed there for a bit. And it was sort of passed around a few hands, but then eventually the owner decided to give it back to me to play. So I'm, so now it's on loan to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. And I get to play it.
Excellent. Actually fun fact about, I do remember when you were trying, you were trying two Magginis actually, at one point. Yeah. Yeah. You tried both? Because I remember they were both in the workshop at one point and I think that was before we had this one. I can't remember. Because there was your, that one. I remember that one. And another one. Yeah. And I remember that time because the anonymous benefactor was in the workshop and I, I was actually very pregnant and I had gone into labor and I had run into the garden and I'd run up to see our child and the anonymous benefactor was there and he said, You still haven't had this baby?
Yeah.
And I just went, yep, I'm working on it. And then I ran back downstairs.
Gosh.
So I, I remember that time and then just a few hours later, had the baby.
Well, there you go. And then we had ours. We got ours. Anyway. Yeah, no, it was, it was a one interesting time. Wonderful.
Like when you, you could. When you play another instrument, and then you come back to your Maggini what, what's sort of the thing that stands out to you about your instrument?
Yeah. The thing that I think about these, feel about, about a lot of these Italian, old Italian instruments is this, it’s just got this sheen about the sound. It's not something necessarily that you'd, that you'd want to hear under your ear, close up. You it’s kind of got this penetrating tone that's not necessarily pleasant under the ear. But what you've got to be relying on is if you, you know, if you give it to somebody else and walk a couple meters away even, and then even further out into the hall, you then hear that what, what's coming, coming out to the audience, you know, and sometimes is lacking in, in other instruments. And it's sort of, when it's nice under the year, you go, Oh, this is great to play, but it doesn't translate to something beautiful in the hall. Whereas this thing, I know that it can, that it it's, it's sounding absolutely warm and rich and fruity out, you know, further you go back purely as a playing experience.
What I love about this one, I mean, it's just really easy to play as well. It's been doing,
shush, shush.
That's his little puppy making noise in the background.
It's been doing what it's been doing for, you know, 400 years now. So it's just like all of the, all of the bits, all of the atoms are aligned. I don't, I really just don't know. I can't, it just works incredibly well. It just does what you want it to do. without having to work too hard. And also, it's got a very thin neck, which makes it very easy to play. So, the last owner was Erwin Schiffer, who was a teacher and player, like the Haydn String Quartets and the Ducati and Tahoe String Quartets. So that was 47 years. So that, that was, that was owned by him for 47 years until 2011. Before that it was Louis Boday from about 1920 to 1964, who was a Parisian player. So we don't know anything before that, but I just sort of assumed that it was someone with a small hand. To make it easier to play, but I appreciate that. I don't have small hands, but just makes it easier to play, which is wonderful. Yeah. Well, that's good. Yeah. No, it's interesting having to, like you were saying, it sounds good in a concert hall setting and that's another consideration people have to take when. Choosing an instrument, like where they're going to play it and how it sounds.
Yeah, for sure. And is it a big viola? What are the dimensions?
It’s, I can tell you exactly. It's 43. 8 centimeters. Well, 17 and a quarter inches. Okay. So obviously that was cut down. Like all these instruments, they weren't sort of a, you know, standard size. When we talk about a standard sized viola, what we mean is an instrument with a body length, this does not include the neck, of about 41 centimetres or 16 inches to 16 and a half inches, which makes this one quite a large viola.
But anyway, so this has been cut down up at the c bouts. Seem to be original. That's about it. And it's got an original scroll, which is interesting as well. Which is sometimes, sometimes they don't. And it's quite rough, the scroll. It's funny. When you, when you hold it up to look at it both sides don't really match up.
Not symmetrical. No. Yeah. Not like, it's not like Stradivarius scrolls were something to behold, but this one's just a bit rough. It's tricky with Maggini. Like, Giovanni Paolo Maggini, we don't know much about him. His instruments aren't dated. But the 1610, that's like he in his life, he was pretty well established.
He was actually quite wealthy. And he was living in a he had a workshop. He'd left Gasparo Da Salo by this point. And he was in his own workshop with his own family making instruments and it was just him and his assistant. Yeah, right. So there weren't huge amounts of instruments but that's when he would have made this particular one.
Two years later, in 1617, Maggini now defines himself on a legal document as Master of Violins and owner of violins, wood and strings. Maggini's workshop was on the ground floor and the family would be living upstairs in the living quarters. Giovanni Paolo Maggini made various instruments like his master, Da Salo, but in this era, the violin was gaining popularity and he appears to have made lots of them.
He also made cittars, tenors and violoncellos. Musically we are moving into the Baroque period and the musical expression was emphasizing feelings and emotions. The violin was a good instrument for this.
In this earlier period of Magginis, we see the backs and scrolls and sides of the instrument mostly cut on the slab. The corners are quite short and his earlier works resemble quite closely those of Da Salo's. In the beginning of the 1620s, Maggini's family is growing. He has been married for five years and already has four children. One boy, Giovanni Pietro, and three girls, Giulia Barbera, Domenica and Cecilia Elana. Giovanni Paolo Maggini decides to move his family and workshop to a bigger premises, and they sell the old house and have now moved into a new house with his four children and assistants. Maggini's business was successful, even though his family life would become somewhat tragic.
The salaries and wages of his assistants and servants were increased over this time, and his trade stock was larger. In 1626, their new house was in the Contrada della Barca. Sadly, his first son and daughter died in infancy, but his wife had also had three more children, Giulia, Veronica and Carlo Francesco. So there were now five children. He also had a property on the hill surrounding Brescia of 10 acres with both a farmhouse and a residential house, and another property on the plains of about seven acres and even a third one closer to the estate of the heirs of the Giovanni Paolo Maggini at Botticino. He most likely inherited property and also had the dowry of his wife. All his wealth probably did not come from his instrument making as he only had one assistant. The properties of seven and ten acres were most likely came from his wife's dowry as they border on her father's properties. As his career continues his craftsmanship improves. Very slight hollowing from the edges and higher archings than his earlier work, and later work. Neater purfling and more graceful sound holes. The heads are more symmetrical and better cut. The bellies are never on the slab and the backs are very rarely so. These instruments could be comparable to Cremonese makers in craftsmanship but would be less fine. The Dumas Tenor is a good example of this second period.
Maggini continued making beautiful instruments, even as the hints of plague and famine were knocking at the door. In 1628, two years before he died, and at the age of 48, they had another son who would die the same year, and then in the same year that Maggini himself died, Giulia, his wife, had twins, Forstino and Caterina. Faustino would die after two months, but Caterina would live on. The characteristics of Giovanni Paolo Maggini's making in the years before he died were, according to the Hills, Maggini's third period. He had an even greater quality of workmanship. He may have seen and been inspired by the Amati brothers work, or done so on his own.
His arching is significantly lower with higher edges. Giovanni Paolo Maggini was one of the first in Brescia to use side linings and corner blocks. His earlier instruments had a browner varnish like Da Salo's, but his later instruments have a more brilliant golden orange yellow colour. His characteristic double purfling. And the sound holes are undercut like viols, not perpendicular like the Amatis and Cremonese school.
In 1630, Giovanni Paolo Maggini appears to have died. He was most probably buried in the common pit in the eastern part of town. During outbreaks of the plague, towns and cities acted differently. In Cremona, people were quarantined in their houses, and as we saw with Nicolo Amati, and in Brescia, the sick were taken to plague houses organized by the city.
This would explain the lack of information about his death, if he died in one of these places and was buried in a communal grave. In Brescia, during the plague of 1632, the city provided these houses that I spoke of to receive the sick and then throw the dead bodies into the streets. Giovanni Paolo Maggini may have died in a pest house, and this was why there is no record of his death.
He would have been about 51 years old. Gio Paolo Maggini’s wife and children survived him. Anna survived him and died in November 1651 at about the age of 58. Of Giovanni Paolo Maggini's sons, Gio Paolo II became a merchant, Carlo Francesco became a silk merchant, and his youngest son, Marco Antonio, became a priest. None of his children took up the trade of violin making.
In this episode, I have gone through the life of Giovanni Paolo Maggini fairly quickly, because it is Strangely now, after his death, that the biggest story of Maggini's career begins to unfold. And for this, I will be talking to two experts who will explain this fascinating story, Florian Leonhardt and Benjamin Hebert.
So join me for the next episode on Giovannin Paolo Maggini, one of the most influential Brescian violin makers, as we unravel the mystery to his posthumous bounding success. I'd like to thank my lovely guest, Chris Moore, for talking to me today. Thank you for listening to this episode. Please do leave a comment and rating.
And if you would like to financially support the podcast, that would be amazing. You can go to Patreon forward slash the Violin Chronicles to do that. On social media, I have Instagram with the handle at the Violin Chronicles and Facebook is the Violin Chronicles podcast. Thank you for joining me. And I hope you will tune in to the next episode of the Violin Chronicles.
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In which we look into the young life of Nicolo Amati.
I talk to Timo-Veikko Valve principal cellist in the Australian Chamber Orchestra who plays on an Amati Cello with a fascinating past.
Tracing the extraordinary life and career of Nicolo Amati, one of the most influential violin makers in history. Join us as we delve into the early years of this legendary craftsman, uncovering the formative experiences and remarkable craftsmanship that laid the foundation for his illustrious career.
Looking into Nicolo Amati's life, exploring the influences, techniques, and artistic vision that shaped his path as a violin maker. From his apprenticeship under his father, Girolamo Amati, to his explorations of innovative designs and meticulous craftsmanship, we unravel the milestones that propelled Nicolo Amati to prominence.
Join us as we uncover the triumphs and challenges Nicolo Amati faced throughout his career, the collaborations with renowned musicians of his time, and the legacy he left for generations of violin makers to come. Explore the craftsmanship, precision, and artistic finesse that made Nicolo Amati a true master of his craft.
Transcript
The man known by many in the streets of Cremona, or the poor houses, went by the name of Omobono, or Good Man. As he crossed the Piazza del Commune, he stopped to give a coin to a beggar, huddled in a corner, and continued on to his destination. He was visiting a family that had fallen on hard times and were in dire need of help, help that he could give them.
Omobono Tucenghi was a tailor and fabric merchant who lived in Cremona in the 12th century. His whole life he had felt compassion for those less fortunate, and a need to make a difference in the world in which he found himself. More days than not, you could find Omobono distributing alms from his seemingly bottomless purse to the poor and needy of Cremona, helping all those who crossed his path.
Over time, Omobono's need to help others did not diminish, quite the opposite in fact, and in his 50s, he decided to stop his trade altogether to dedicate himself to good works. The only fly in the ointment appears to have been his family. His wife and children were not too keen on their father and husband giving away the family fortune to apparently random strangers he found on the street. But this did not deter him as he continued on helping those in need, giving money from his purse that was always full of coins and never emptied by divine providence, and attending Mass every evening. One of these evenings, in the church of St. Giles, On a cool November night, he sang Gloria for the last time, crossed his arms over his chest and fell to the ground. At first, no one noticed the devout Omobono, but when the time came for him to read the Gospels and he did not come forward, his fellow churchgoers approached to find him dead. The citizens of Cremona immediately venerated him as a saint and Sicardo, Bishop of Cremona, personally went to Rome to represent the cause and canonization of Omobono. He wrote in his article “At that time, a simple, very faithful and devoted man lived in Cremona, who was called Omobono. In his death, and with his intercession, God performed many miracles”. Pope Innocent III, satisfied with the official investigation into his life and miracles, canonized Omobonos just after two years, in 1199.
That's pretty quick if you were wondering. And this is the story of the life of Sant Omobono, who is not only the patron saint of Cremona, but also the patron saint of merchants, textile workers, tailors, business people, and entrepreneurs. Some might say that the real miracle here is that Omobono was an honest businessman. But he is also remarkable in that he was the first person canonized despite being both a layman, not in religious orders, and a father of a family. He was neither a martyr nor a king. And speaking of Omobono, there is a podcast for violin makers or violin enthusiasts, if you would like to discover it, called simply Omo. You really should check it out. That podcast is named after one of Antonio Stradivari's sons, Omobono, who was probably named after this Omobono. But now on with the podcast.
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School of Mirecourt some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de lutherie in Mirecourt.
As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often, when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, but here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture. So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love, artistic genius Revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning and bravery that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.
Nicolo Amati was born in 1596 into a country ravaged by famine and disease on one hand, but on the other it existed in the midst of artistic endeavour, exploration and invention. Cremona, the city Niccolo Amati was born into, was not an out of the way sleepy village, it was a crossroads literally for traffic and ideas from across Europe, filled with merchants and artisans. Take, for example, the case of Sofinisba Anguissola, a Cremonese girl who was one of five sisters, all accomplished artists, having been schooled in the Cremonese fashion. She was taken to the Spanish royal court to paint portraits and led a fascinating life. Worthy of an episode in itself. The question to this day remains as to whether she painted the famed Charles IX instruments made by Nicholas's grandfather.
During this time, and in Cremona as well, musically there was instrumental music bursting forth such as the Canzona, the Ricciare, the Fantasia, and dance inspired compositions quite different to vocal music. In France there was ballet, and in Italy, opera. Music was an essential part of civic, religious, and courtly life in the Renaissance, and Cremona was no different. In Casa Amati, Nicolo Amati was a middle child, born into a sea of children, about ten. He was probably number six. His oldest brother, Roberto, joined the army, and his second eldest brother became a priest. He had six sisters, and his youngest brother died presumably as a child, leaving Nicolo Amati the only son to carry on the family business. Nicolo Amati would become the godfather of the modern day violin. He would have attended the local parish school until the age of about 12, and then in 1610 when he was about 14 years old and truly starting his apprenticeship with his father, news came that his uncle Antonio Amati had died. Niccolo Amati’s father and his brother used to have a workshop together that they had inherited from their father. But before Nicolo Amati was born, the brothers had had a disagreement and split the shop, each brother going his own way. They may not have been particularly close, especially if the rift between the two brothers was still a thing, but perhaps 22 years on, Girolamo Amati and his brother may have patched things up. Especially as they were still both living in the same street. Moving on four years, a sad event affected the Amati household once again. The 18 year old Nicolo Amati and his family received the news of an accident on the Po River near Vigivano. Roberto, his older brother, was killed in an exercise during his military service. Nicolo Amati would have felt the responsibility to continue helping his father even more now that there was one less brother to help out. In 1616, the Amati workshop, with Girolamo Amati and Nicolo Amati working, produced two five stringed cellos. Nicolo Amati was About 20 at this time, so we can easily imagine him helping his father with these instruments.
353 years after they were made, in 1969, they were acquired by the Fleming family in England. And today, one of these cellos is played in the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
I spoke to Timo Veikko Valve, Principal Cellist in the Australian Chamber Orchestra, about this instrument and what it's like for him playing on it.
My name is Timo Veikko Valve, and I'm the Principal Cello of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. I've been in that role for the past 16 years, and I come from Finland originally, but I guess, Sydney and Australia is now my home. So at the moment I'm playing a 1616 Brothers Amati cello, which I have had the privilege of playing for the past Five or six years. I'm a very lucky owner of this quite, quite special cello, in many ways. I used to play a Joseph Fillius Guarneri cello before that. Which I thought was the ideal cello. And in some ways still, It's a very, I guess, softly spoken and chamber music kind of has a character of chamber music in, in its kind of personality. Whereas the Amati is a more robust and more, assertive and actually can be quite loud. So when I joined the orchestra in 2007, one of the first things that I was asked to do is to go cello shopping. So I found the Guarneri for myself, and uh, so it was my Not bad. No, it was, it was really amazing experience actually to kind of go into that world, which I obviously hadn't visited before, you know, going instrument shopping of that level in London and yeah, funnily enough, the first instrument that I saw on that trip was the Guarneri. It was a bit of love at first sight, but I mean there were a lot of, a lot of other instruments that we tried on that trip, you know, um, Stradivarius, uh, Montagnana, so like Really top end cellos, um, worth much more than what the Guarneri is actually worth, but, uh, but still somehow it's just, it sounded like me.
So anyway, that was my first relationship for 10 years. And now I'm enjoying life with the Amati. Originally, it was built as a five string cello. It was modified into a normal conventional four string cello in the mid-1900s. It was previously owned by a British rather famous cellist called Amaryllis Fleming. Well, she was I guess a superstar of the, of the time. So she owned, a Guarneri, and two Brothers Amati. And both of those Brothers Amati were actually five string cellos. I've met the other one, which still today remains as a five string cello in its original uncut form, which is amazing. So it's a, type of cello that was more common during that time. Nowadays it doesn't really have a, it doesn't get played often. I mean, there's a very limited kind of Baroque repertoire that utilizes the five string cello, but, unfortunately. That's why a lot of those five string cellos have been converted into conventional four string cellos.
Easier to sell.
Easier to sell, yeah. So that's what happened with this one. But what I think is also quite amazing about this particular, my cello is that, and perhaps this is because it was a five-string cello, so it wasn't played so often after it was built. It was, I don't know, perhaps it has sat in a collection somewhere for a long time, but I think in the, certificate, they describe it as a unprecedented amount of original varnish. So if you look at the cello, it looks actually, it has a bit of wear and tear, but it looks relatively healthy and new, you know, given that it's been built around 1616. To have so much of original varnish, especially in the back, um, is quite amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's. It's quite rare.
I remember the first time in the workshop, it was just the instrument and I walked in and I just said, Ooh, what's that?
Antoine was like, Oh, that' Tipi’s. Like, it's quite striking. Like you kind of stop and look at it.
There's another element, I mean, I guess, so like a lot of, a lot of instruments, they would have been cut down, and this one was cut down as well at some point. I guess there's no concrete date for this particular instrument, but the dendrochronology says that, um, that the latest are from 1612, but they can also say. Based on that research that same, same word from the same tree was used in other Brothers Amati instruments, another viola and another cello. So there's, there's, um, kind of a concrete link, which is quite fascinating that they can do that.
Yes. Yeah, it's cool. And it has, it has double purfling, doesn't it?
Yes. Yeah. Which, which I guess is, as far as I know, is not normal for an Amati instrument. But that would have been added when it was re edged. Someone, someone said that it's probably been done to kind of give a visual kind of distraction of the, I mean, the edging work is fine. Perfect. Like you, you can't really see anything. It's, you know, you really have to look in, you can see a couple of spots where you can see seams, but it's done so well that, yeah, I don't know. It's probably just a trick of an eye. When the instrument was introduced to us about six years ago, I wasn't particularly looking for another instrument because I was, you know, I was in a very happy relationship with the old one.
Then the orchestra decided, oh, it's, you It's a great opportunity let's just go for it. Purchased it without a clear view who would play it and but it came quite obvious relatively kind of naturally that it's a cello that kind of needs to sit in the principal cello role or the principal cello seat kind of has the ability to well as a soloist or as a leader to kind of rise above just in kind of power rise above the orchestra if needed.
I really enjoyed the collaboration with the Guarneri, it kind of, it taught me so much about what's possible, what's actually possible on a cello, but on the other hand, that particular cello was very moody. It was very fickle at times,
It, would come unglued a lot. Yeah. I remember that. It would, it would, yeah, it would, it would react to the environment a lot.
It's quite sensitive. Yeah. So for traveling, it would, it would have a lot of bad days and, and then it would have good days as well. Once I met the Amati, things are really easy with this, like, and I can just trust it and kind of let it go. It's kind of almost doing all the hard work for me. So that was also, that was obviously, um, an aspect that was, was, um, kind of appealing. It's a colleague that kind of is making my life very easy at the moment, you know, it's just allowing me to do, I guess, even more things because certain things are just, just easier. And it might be just that physically I have to do less because the power of the instrument, the natural power of the instrument is so generous.
Just play it lightly. Let it happen.
Yeah, it's interesting you've got, like you were saying, there's your personality, your role in the orchestra, the instrument's personality, and then how your instrument fits in with the other instruments. That's right. There’re all these relationships.
Exactly.
Happening. And the bow as well, that's another.
Absolutely, yeah. You know, it definitely, there has to be a, like, it's so obvious if there's no link between the player and the instrument, regardless of what it is, if it's, you know, the best instrument in the world. If there's no chemistry. You can't force them to be friends.
So it's almost instant. Like you can sometimes when we try instruments, you just know directly that, you know, this particular violin that Hayley picks up, it just wouldn't fit her at all and then it would be fine, you know, played by Richard or someone else, but yeah, so it's definitely. I think it's very important that the instruments are, that you forge a relationship with the instrument yourself and find a kind of a comfortable place with the instrument and 'cause it's your, it really is your partner in crime.
So, yeah, I think we, you know, we're obviously very lucky to have all these instruments and kind of being able to go about it in that way that we, we are not, someone just buys a instrument X and then gives it to the orchestra and say, Hey, you have to play this. Sometimes it happens like that, but often it's us looking for the perfect instrument for the player, for the organisation, for the, you know, with the sound of the group in mind and the sort of values that we want to emphasise.
You're auditioning a new housemate.
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. Oh, and, and it's not like this is an orchestra where there's like one amazing instrument. We're not anymore. No. And it's like, you've got all these. Yeah, it happened. It happened actually relatively quickly. I mean, it used to kind of be like that.
It's it's obviously has to start from somewhere. The first instrument was a Guadagnini violin and that just opened the gates. And relatively soon after that, it became this thing in Australia that, you know, just people wanted to support arts in this particular way and buying instruments. So going from one instrument to what I think at the moment we're sitting at about 10 instruments all happened in relatively small time span, which is amazing.
Yeah, it's exciting. And you've got the new Strad as well.
There's a new violin in the family as well. Yeah, which is just good.
So I was wondering this, so this instrument, what's it like playing, um, music that if Say you're playing on a modern instrument, Bach, for example, or then you're playing Bach on an instrument that's written, like the time that it was made, do you think it adds something to how you play?
It's an interesting question, especially because, you know, in its original form, this cello, when it had five strings, one of the most prolific, The thing that the five string cello was meant for, or what it had in its repertoire, was the Sixth Suite by Bach. That would have been probably the biggest single work that that five-string cello would play.
It's interesting to kind of think that, you know, That's probably the music that's been most played on that cello. And also that when Bach wrote the cello suites, this cello would have already been 120 years old. It would have been an instrument that inspired Bach to write the music. Maybe it even met him at some point, who knows.
And do you set it up with gut strings? I do sometimes, yeah.
How does that go?
Well, yeah, I think all cellos love gut strings. Love to have gut on. At least I've kind of felt that every time I've been with different cellos, if I put gut on, I can kind of feel that they, they feel, the instrument feels happy. Like they, they're relaxed and often I feel that they just open up. Much more than what they would be in a kind of a more modern, tight setup. What I've found that even if you do it occasionally, It kind of, it just, it just gives the cello a bit of a holiday. And then when you go back to the modern setup, It's still kind of, the cello still feels refreshed. I encourage people to do that, Even if you don't want to play gut strings all the time, Or repertoire that you would play on gut strings all the time. It's really interesting to just try it and give your instrument a holiday for a couple of weeks.
A spa.
Yeah. A gut spa. Yeah. It's a weird thought, but it's really, especially with the Guarneri, I felt like the first time I did it, I learned so much more about the instrument. Even though, you know, neck angles and that sort of thing would have been changed from how they were. Originally, it's still kind of, it still feels like that just with changing the strings you're kind of, you know, time traveling with the cello into a place where it was previously like, you know, just jumping back two or three hundred years and meeting that same cello, again. So it's, yeah, it's interesting.
So you're going on a time travelling spa retreat with your cello.
Yes, yes, this is perfect. I should write a book. A time travelling cellist. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think actually another, another interesting aspect of the cello is that, of this particular cello, is that, so Amaryllis Fleming was half-sister of Ian Fleming, the famous James Bond author.
So, so there's um, I guess literature and that sort of stories are kind of linked to this, this instrument. And I guess, you know, potentially, well, not even potentially, I think, you know, because she was a cellist.
And a secret agent.
Well, that inspired him, Ian, to write, uh, I think it was, I don't remember what the movie is now, but, but there's a, there's a couple of scenes where Cello is, uh, is in a main role and I think even her name is mentioned and, anyway.
Yeah, there's always those play on words. Yeah. Girolamo Amati would have made your cello.
I guess I wanted to ask you that question, maybe you know better, because I find it weird that Antonio kind of stopped his affiliation to the business quite early on, but still the label says Brothers for another almost 40 years.
Yeah, so he sort of held back a bit and then when his brother died, he like started using, quite put the label everywhere, but he was still actually using the label before and people think it was more like a brand. Right. Even so, even though the instrument would have been totally made by. Girolamo Amati.
Yeah, it's like when you've got like a company and it'll break up, but they keep that. Yeah. So you keep, you keep the label. And I personally think that maybe he just couldn't be bothered getting more labels printed. Could be. Yeah. So I always thought that, you know, Oh, I mean, uh, that it feels weird that he wouldn't want to then kind of, I guess, advertise himself as the, you know, the prolific main maker.
We don't really know, but I, yeah, the main theory is that it was the brand. It was quite successful. Keep it that way. It would just be confusing. And people were like, actually, I ordered a Brothers Amati instrument, not a, what's this?
Yeah. What's that horrible name that I can't pronounce?
That keeps changing from Girolamo to Heronimous. Exactly. The Ian Fleming thing. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, that's a picture of her. And I think that's, that's the Strad that she's playing. But she, yeah, she had, like I said, she has had Stradivarius, a Guarneri and two Amatis.
So, they were like wealthy to begin with.
I think so. So, she would have been prolific just like the heart of her career would have been like between the worlds, I guess. So, I guess the market would have been a bit more different as well for instruments. And um, I think it says that she gave the German premiere of the Elgar cello Concerto. So very kind of big stuff and, but then was, was in a way shadowed by Jacqueline du Pre kind of stepping onto the scene. And at that point she felt like she needs to then do something else. You know, now Jacqueline is the new cello soloist and you know, I guess there's only room for one. And she started to tour the circuit and so Amaryllis Fleming was getting less, less soloist work than what she had before. One thing that she So what she then decided to do is to look into the, into the performance practice of the Bach suites in their original form.
So that's, that's probably why she actually acquired those two.
Yeah, that's when she bought those two cellos. I believe so. So that she would start performing the suites. I mean, the suites were already obviously being played, but mostly in a kind of a modern sense. And she was one of the first cellists that really looked into the, uh, performance practice and started performing them with instruments that were, yeah, more suited to them, you know, probably using gut strings and then definitely for the sixth suite to use a five-string cello.
That's nice to be able to go, look, I'm the Bach suite. Yeah. I'm going to buy myself two cellos. Two Amatis, please. It's quite, um, it's like, I don't, know if anyone today, like a musician, you know, regardless of, uh, regardless of how wealthy they may be, I don't think anyone today would own a collection of instruments, like a musician.
And she owned them outright. They were hers? I think so, the family, you know, so, so. Because often they're like lent. No, no, I think there's a mention in there that family was wealthy, but yeah, the family did acquire all those instruments for her and now subsequently they've been maintained by this foundation
In the years following the order for these two cellos the inhabitants of Cremona may not have realized the true state of affairs that were surrounding them there was a delayed arrival in the Spanish silver from the Americas to the Spanish court, so Philip II stopped paying his people in Milan.
Cremona made up part of the Duchy of Milan, and mucking up the market, they were in recession now, and then in 1627, the first signs of the dreaded plague started appearing in the countryside and in the larger cities. Nevertheless, as time passed, the Amati's business prospered, and Nicolo Amati enters his mid-twenties. He's living with his parents. His father, Girolamo Amati, is in his late fifties. Some of his brothers and sisters are still at home, and it is life as usual for the time being. Back in the workshop, instruments being produced clearly had Nicolo's hand in style, even though they are labelled with the Amati Brothers label. Their craftsmanship can be seen to differ. Nicolò Amati would make more elongated corners than his father, and his archings were conceptually different, being progressively less scooped inside the edges. He was different to his father also, in that he used maple with a pronounced flame, and the wood was less smooth.
Slab cut on the maple. This type of wood is often seen on the brothers Amati instruments. As Nicolo Amati was the only son helping his father in the busy workshop, they enlisted the help of the two husbands of Nicolo's sisters, his brothers in law, Vincenzo and Domenico. We're not sure what they did exactly in the workshop, but Vincenzo was still working in the shop into the late 1620s, when the lives of the Amatis would be changed forever.
Carlo Chiesa, violin maker, expert and author, living in Milan.
And at some point Girolamo needed, also more people working with him. And since he had only one, male son, but he had daughters he hired, the husbands of his daughters. Vincenzo Tili and Domenico Moneghini. We know their names and we know that they joined because at some point they split.
Nicolò Amati again divided his workshop with his brothers in law. And so since there exists these, notarial documents in which they divide the workshop or one, sells his partnership to the other, we know that before that they were working together. But this gives us an idea of how important the business was. It was a business in which there were three people, three serious, three partners.
So, after he split with his brother's in law, I imagine they stayed in the same street, too.
No, I'm not sure about that, because, they were all in the same street. Yeah, but, this was in the span, I'm, convincing a story that, comes out of a span of 40 years, so it's not exactly.
Okay. But we are speaking of men like we are today, so of course they work together side by side for years, and at some point, possibly, they say, I go, that's it. You want to be the owner, you keep it, but I go. I don't think we know exactly what, the husbands of the daughters, of Amati did, one of them was called the Dei Cornetti, which probably means he was a musician.
From the 1580s, things had begun to strain in Cremona. The cracks in the market could be seen to those who knew where to look. In the 1590s, with famine and economic downturn, it was a slippery slope. A series of setbacks and disasters had accumulated to create a crisis. Individually, they would have been overcome, but the one after the other was devastating to the economy. After the famine, there was a moleskin crisis. That was their textile industry. In the 1600s, there was a collapse of the wool guild. Another of their city's biggest industries. There were more famines in the 1620s, and then boom, in the 1630s, plague killed almost half its inhabitants. This came about with the War of the Mantuan Succession.
This was the war that James Beck was talking about in the Previous episode, where everyone decided to invade Mantua after their Duke died. And there was a bit of a hoo ha about who the Duchy belonged to now. It was basically a war between the French and the Spanish about a highway. This ended up causing the spread of disease and wiping out almost half the population of the country in some areas.
But this is a story for the next episode, where we will see the disappearance of many violin makers, but also the beginning of something big in the history of the violin. Please do go ahead and follow the podcast and leave a comment or rating. I'm always delighted every time I hear from listeners and every rating and comment helps the podcast to happen.
A big thank you to my guests, Carlo Chiesa and Timo Veikko Valve for joining me today. If you would like to support the podcast financially, that would be amazing. And you can head over to patreon. com forward slash the violin chronicles for that. There are bonus episodes I will be putting up on that platform also alongside all the current.
Also, if you would like to contact me, there is the Violin Chronicles at gmail. com. And I have Instagram with the handle, The Violin Chronicles. That's where I put a lot of images from these episodes up. And I'll leave you now with Tipi playing his 1616 Amati Brothers. Cello.
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The Amati Brothers were working and living in a time of musical innovation and discovery. Join me as I discover what influences Monteverdi, music and even fashion had on the instruments the brothers were making.
intertwines the stories of the illustrious Amati brothers, renowned violin makers, with the musical genius of Claudio Monteverdi, one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era. Join us on a captivating journey as we explore the parallel worlds of instrument craftsmanship and musical composition during this remarkable period.
Musicians and Luthiers of the renaissance such as the Amati Brothers had to continue their craft amidst famine, plague and war making these instruments musicians play today objects even more remarkable than we could have previously imagined.
We continue to look at the life of Girolamo Amati the father of the very talented Luthier Nicolo Amati who would in turn change the course of violin making in Italy for ever.
In this episode I speak to Dr Emily Brayshaw fashion historian and Benjamin Hebbert Oxford based Violin expert.
Transcript
Once upon a time on the northern plains of Italy, there roamed a hero who went by the name of Romulus. You may have heard of him as the legendary founder of Rome, perhaps? But what's a strapping god like young man to do once he's founded one of the world's greatest cities? One day, as he was travelling through the Po Valley, Romulus came upon a group of people who were struggling to defend their village from the fierce Gaelic tribes roaming the region. The people were in need of a strong leader, and Romulus knew just the man for the job, himself. He gathered the people together and said, “I will help you defend your village from these invaders, but we must build a great fortress to protect ourselves”. The people thought this was such a great idea that they set to work building a mighty fortress immediately on the banks of the Po River.
The people began to dream of a great city that could rival the power and glory of Rome itself. Romulus, who had been a beloved leader of the people, heard their dreams and knew that he could help them achieve their goal. He said to them, If we are to build a great city, we must first establish a strong foundation. We must build our city upon the principles of justice, wisdom, and strength. And so the people of the village began to build their city. They laid the foundation stones with great care and constructed a wall around the city to protect it from invaders. Romulus oversaw the construction and he ensured that the city was built to the highest standards possible.
As the city grew, Romulus knew that it needed a name. He looked out over the fertile fields of the Po Valley and saw the bright flames of the forges that dotted the landscape. He turned to the people and said, We shall call this city Cremona, which means to burn, for it is the fires of our forges that will light the way to our greatness. And so the city of Cremona was born. It grew to become a powerful centre of trade and culture in northern Italy and was revered by many as a shining example of the principles of justice, wisdom, and strength that Romulus had taught them.
And this is the legend of how Romulus founded the city of Cremona.
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine Lespets, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Luthierie au Mircourt.
As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, But here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture. So join me as I wade through tales not only of fame, famine, and war, but also of love, artistic genius, revolutionary craftsmanship, determination, cunning, and bravery, that all have their part to play in the history of the violin.
Welcome back to the story of Andrea Amati's two boys, the Amati brothers, Girolamo Amati and Antonio Amati. In the last episode, we left them after they split the workshop and Antonio Amati went off to set up on his own, leaving Girolamo Amati with the house and shop to continue alone. The Amati brothers stopped working together in 1588, but if you remember the episodes on Gasparo Da Salo over in Brescia, you would realize that their Brescian competition was still working away, and in 1580, eight years earlier, a future employee of Da Salo's was born. His name was Gio Paolo Maggini, and he would go on to become a roaring success. Girolamo Amati, however, had other things on his mind. As I mentioned earlier, his first wife, Lucrenzia, had died shortly after having their daughter, Elizabeth, and his new wife, Laura, had a full house to look after and a famine looming on the horizon. Girolamo Amati, in this decade, made some beautiful instruments, including the one played by Ilya Izakovich in the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Baron Knoop violin, and a painted violin for the French King Henry IV, to name a few. Girolamo Amati was now in his late 30s, and Laura was pregnant again. The news wasn't good. The Po River was rising and the plains around Cremona were flooding. The crops would be ruined again, like they had last year. The grain yields were a third of the previous years, and outbreaks of typhus were hitting the rural areas, affecting those who grew the grain, and the disease was even worse in the heavily populated cities.
After several years of bad weather, flooding, and storms, the cities were deeply in debt from having to buy grain from abroad. For the next two years, matters only got worse. News was coming from other cities on the Po Plains, Bologna had expelled the so called useless mouths, people without citizenship, beggars, jobless foreigners, and even those who were employed but not highly skilled in a trade. They were saying that it was to reserve the scant food supplies and to prevent overcrowding and outbreaks of epidemics. The governing bodies in the cities were afraid that the poor would revolt and steal the little food that was left in the city's reserves. But the people from rural areas where the crops were spoiled were flocking to the cities where they knew there were grain stores. Four fifths of the population lived in rural areas but would be turned away at the city gates. Bologna was 150km from Cremona. The same could happen here. Already 10, 000 people had died in that city and 30, 000 in the surrounding countryside. In just 10 years, Cremona had gone from a boom to simply struggling to stay afloat.
In 1594 and 1597, there was a famine and an economic downturn in the region. And it was also the year Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet was premiered. Throughout these lean years, Girolamo Amati was still making beautiful instruments, violas, violins, and cellos. His choice of materials were of the finest standard and so was his workmanship. The sound quality of his instruments differed as well from that of his competition in Brescia. But he was keeping afloat and even had a recent order for a set of instruments for the chapel of the new king of France, Henry IV, who had managed to survive the religious wars by converting to Catholicism, saying famously that Paris was worth a mass. Paris vaut bien une messe. This new set of instruments were to be decorated with the coat of arms and in Latin gold leaf red. King Henry IV, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre. I speak to Benjamin Hebbert about the authenticity of the Amati Charles IX instruments and musicians at this time. Which is the end of Catherine de Medici's reign and the beginning of Henry of Navarre's reign.
Well, I think Catherine de Medici is, in France, is just such a huge influence. Charles IX is a child king and really has no power. And then he dies, is sickly. And then his brother who had become king of Poland is brought back and he becomes Henry IV. And then Catherine de Medici dies. I'm going to say 1587, I know I'm wrong, but around about that time there's a wonderful quote about, you know, people would give more regard to a dead goat than they would to Catherine de Medici. There was a point at which her power was over. Henry is assassinated within a year of her death, and Henry of Navarre, who is a Protestant, a Huguenot, comes in and becomes, becomes king. And at that time I think what we have to consider is that, you know, so right up until, right up until the end of the Valois dynasty, you know, it's all Catherine, it's all about Catherine de Medici, it's all about her, it's all about her triumphs and her successes. And then one of the things that happens there's been actually sort of various Musicologists have speculated that the Andrea Amatis aren't, aren't authentic. And one of the reasons is that the earliest French orchestral music is for a completely different orchestration than these Italian instruments offer. And what I think when you look at these things, the propaganda of the painting all over them is very specific to the Valois. The Valois were hated. Uh, they massacred enough Huguenots to be really, really hated. When Henry comes in, he's set, you know, they're played by Italian musicians. They're playing music in every corner of the court. Their eyes and ears, which are open for Catherine de Medici, they're, there's not. A lot of difference between a spy and a musician in the 16th century and there's, you know, right the way through spies and musicians are kind of the same things because they're the people who can pay attention to what other people are doing, they don't have any other agenda. So all of that's expelled. I think these things get, you know, stuck in a cupboard somewhere and from the point that Henry of Navarre comes in. So if we, if we only think of them in, you know, in the perspective of Catherine de Medici, then of course it makes sense.
And then, as things started to look a little better on the famine front, the sun poked its head out from behind the clouds, so to speak. On a cold winter's night in December 1596, Girolamo Amati and Laura had their sixth child, Niccolo Amati. His parents were probably just hoping he would survive the winter and his infancy. But Niccolò Amati would not only survive, he would go on to change the course of violin making history forever. I know that sounds rather dramatic, but he does, he really does.
While Niccolò Amati was busy being a baby, 60 kilometres away, a fellow Cremonese citizen, the talented composer, and accomplished viola da gamba player. Claudio Monteverdi was also about to change the history of music in his own way. Monteverdi was working at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua, and had been for the last six years. He had had the best musical education, being a student of the wonderful Marc Antonio Ingenieri, the choir master, at the cathedral in Cremona, and was amazing people with his madrigals and other compositions. And so when the current maestro di cappella at the Mantuan court named Gesche de Wecht, (he was Flemish), died in 1596, the same year Niccolo Amati was born, Monteverdi just knew he really, really, really, really wanted that job. The new head of the strings department at the Mantuan court was his. It also paid really, really well. But did he get it? No. Who do you think did? It was Benedetto Pallavicino, the other guy from Cremona. That's who. Okay, so he was like 17 years older than Monteverdi, and in cahoots with the now dead Werth, the old head of the music department, but who was better? Well, Claudio obviously thought he was, and now he had to pretend that this totally didn't bother him. But his time would come. In an age when even royalty can drop dead of an ear infection, only five years later, Palavicino died of a fever. Monteverdi lost no time scratching off a letter to the Duke. He wrote to him, sending his CV via a long winded letter that went something like Blah, blah, blah, blah.
“And finally, the world having seen me persevere in the service of your excellency, with my great eagerness and with the goodwill on your part, after the death of the famous Mr. Strigio, and after that, the excellent Mr Geish And again, for a third time after that, the excellent Mr. Franceschi and No, and again lastly, after the death of the nearly adequate Signor Benedetto Palavicino, and I, who have sought not on the basis of merit, but on the grounds of the faithful and outstanding devotion that I have always displayed in my services of your excellency, the post now vacant in this sacred art.” That was one sentence.
This was an important CV, as you will see, because only a few years later, the most excellent Francesco Gonzaga would ask Montiverdi to write what would soon become a smash hit piece of music. An opera. At the same time I would have a good think about this job that appears to have an alarmingly high mortality rate.
Dr. Emily Haw, fashion historian.
so this is in the Mantuan Gonzaga court and what's interesting with this court is that even though they were very heavily aligned with the Habsburgs. And so essentially the Gonzagas of Mantua, they were kind of only minor players in Europe. And so what these, so they were in like Northern Italy and what these minor players had to do was Habsburgs essentially, like, really depend on big allies and relatives and to bolster their reputation and to protect their borders. And so they kind of aligned themselves with the Habsburgs and in turn they had to show loyalty to the Habsburgs but they couldn't really afford big armies. So what they did, they did it with cultural production, and they spent all their money through cultural production, and we see this in November 1598, and this kind of is almost like the forerunner for these operas of Monteverdi And so Margaret of Austria, who's the Queen of Spain, and so she was a Habsburg Margaret of Austria. She was married to become the Queen of Spain. She passed through Mantua on, for a five day stay on her way to Spain in November 1598. She was 14 years old and off to Spain to get married and Duke Vincenzo of Gonzaga arranged for five days of festivities and amusements and this included a very elaborate performance of Battista Guarani's pastoral play. It's all theatre. And he wanted to, the Duke Vincenzo, wanted to show that Mantua was as magnificent as any other court, but he did that through staging these spectacles. And we've got accounts of the time. These were just amazing apparently.
And it wasn't too far from Cremona, right?
So you know, it's actually, yeah, definitely, definitely, you know, depending where the best ones are. And so we know that, um, you know, he had also at court by 1607, 800 people including writers, artists, musicians, and even a troupe of commedia dell'arte actors, enjoyed Gonzaga patronage. They're also patrons of the Flemish artists Peter Paul Rubens, and so these You know, spectacles held sort of 10 years earlier, you know.
And Monteverdi.
Yeah, Monteverdi is definitely one of these patrons. Yeah, definitely. These lavish costumes and that's the thing with these Medici costumes as well, and then the Monteverdi costumes for these, they're being designed to appeal to contemporary tastes. And so, to give you sort of a sense of these spectacles, the play for Maria of Austria, this big costume, you know, music drama, it's got more than 80 different ones in rich fabrics and colours. And that was used for the inaugural performance of Teatro Olympico. And, in portraits of the era and the shoulders are, we can see in these portraits, the neckline sits right down around the upper forearms part. Off the shoulder dress. Here we've got this here in a Mary Princess Royal portrait, and we've got like this really low down, cut down, and it would have been very, very difficult to raise your arms and your elbows would have been, you know, set right down. And we see this a lot in like the Peter Lely portraits. Yes, so there's a lovely portrait of a woman playing a gamba. You sort of see with that, and she's got one of these gowns on.
A bit of talk about menswear, so this is like a lot of cloth with gold and silver embroidery, and again, that's sort of like a rich flex. Shoes by that period, we're getting like high heeled shoes, and we're starting to see, even before that in the 1600s now, moving forward in that decade, the farthingale, what's happening with the farthingale is the hems are rising. So we're getting these high heeled shoes for the first time with red, heels and, square toes. But yeah, these sloping shoulders that we're seeing in the 1650s would have contributed to that. You know, the elbows being kept closer to the body. You know, keeping your body front on the instrument being held lower against the layers of fabric and then playing like that being everything being held close in.
The classic gamba playing posture would have worked, but.
Oh, would have worked perfectly.
But, uh, having to stick your. elbows out or lift an instrument high just wouldn't have worked.
No, no. So that's why the instruments, you know, we do still have pictures of violins being played quite low and held quite low.
Although Niccolo Amati would have the good fortune to survive plague, pestilence, war and disease, his life would not have been an easy one. He grew up in a particularly turbulent time, even for Cremonese standards. In the marketplace, Girolamo Amati would have participated in discussions about the state of the city and the Spanish governor, Juan Fernandez de Velasco, stated the need to fortify the city's walls, noting that the citizens were “numerous and warlike”.
And if anyone needed a defence wall, they did. If they needed fixing, which they obviously did, who was going to do it? The city's defences and other repair and maintenance appears to have been an ongoing discussion with no one really wanting to fit the bill for the works needed inside the city walls.
But as time would tell, the state of the city's walls would be the least of their problems in the years to come. The Amati household would have definitely been a loud one with 10 children of varying ages, 6 girls and 4 boys. There was Niccolo's eldest half-sister, Elizabeth, who was about 14 years older than him. His oldest brother, Roberto, who was 9 years older than him, had joined the army. His second eldest brother was training to join the clergy, and his parents were probably encouraging some of his sisters to do the same, as dowries for 6 girls were not going to be easy to come by. He also had a little brother who died as a small child and another younger brother Stefano that we know nothing about. All we know for sure is that Niccolo Amati would help his father making instruments and soon would come to be his right hand man. In 1607 Niccolo Amati would have been 11 and most likely helping out his father in the workshop. The Amati family still had their fine reputation and Girolamo Amati had an order for a tenor viola for Pope Paul V.
The painted decorations on the back would be done by a local artist and then returned to the workshop for its final coat of varnish before being sent off. Today this viola has been reduced and the painted griffin on the centre of the instrument has been modified somewhat. I think someone tried to fix it up but it looks like a damp bunyip in between two cherubs unfortunately.
But business was good in these years. Quite a number of instruments left the workshop and a variety of violins of various sizes. Violas and bass instruments were produced. They were at the centre of musical life in Cremona. The workshop had a steady flow of musicians, music dealers, church musicians, clergy and messengers representing the nobility, so that they would have had news early on about the new opera coming to have its debut in town.
What is amazing in Renaissance Italy is that artistically, the area was a shining star, even though politically and economically it was in a free fall. Areas poverty stricken and ravaged by war and heavy taxation. And yet there were amazing motets, madrigals and operas emerging from all of this.
Emily Brayshaw.
So Orfeo, uh, and, and the spectacles in the Mantuan court, the use of the area in front of the stage was also used performance. And there was also an active involvement of the audience and this kind of sought a new balance, scholars have said, in order to connect this fluid continuum of stage and auditorial. And it was kind of this representation of openness peculiar to courtly circles. So, you know, sometimes musicians would have been on the stage or perhaps in front of the stage or don't know that necessarily there was a separate pit all the time. Or, you know, whether they're sort of coming out and playing and then going away, or whether they're coming out on stage performing while some people sing and then there are sort of lots of different. Things that they could be doing. And the Orfeo actually came to Cremona.
Girolamo Amati had just had his sixth child, which was Niccolo Amati. And so he would have been a baby. He would have been about, about two when this had happened. And they'd actually staged this in Cremona. So he could have met, there might have been like a Trip with the, going with them. It could have been local musicians. Um.
So this is something that potentially the Amati family could have gone to and seen.
Oh, look, and you know, if you are making and playing and very much involved in this world, part of keeping up to date is to watch performances, look at performances. Keeps you up to date on trends, tips, techniques. Styles, aesthetics, all of these things are, you know, really crucial to not just like keeping abreast of your skills, but also in a way, you know, the Amatis are part of the tastemakers of this era with their incredible instruments. They're setting quite literally the tone.
And so seeing and hearing how these instruments are then used and engaged with. Because the, Charles IX instruments, they were made, when Catherine and Charles did their grand tour. Right. But I'm, I'd be, I wouldn't be surprised if those same instruments were used, years later in the Ballet de la Reine because they were, you know, they fitted in with all the bling that were covered with gold and decorations and that was. And they were this beautiful, this beautiful consort of instruments that the royal family had. And that's the thing too, like you don't just chuck it away.
All anyone could talk about in musical circles was Cremona's very own Claudio Monteverdi's opera. It was supposed to be an amazing spectacle, mixing singing, dancing and drama. Moving on a few years, as Niccolo was helping his father in the workshop after school, the world of music was being rethought. Where once it was being used to convey the omnipotence of God, his creativity and power. Composers were now using it to convey the human mind and emotions, to feel love, rage, jealousy and passion. Shakespeare was writing plays in England, drawing on classical drama and using Greek and Roman plots to recreate political commentaries of the day. In France, it was Ballet, and in Italy, it was Opera.
It all started in Florence, where a group who called themselves the Camerata met. They were poets, composers, artists, scientists, and philosophers. It was another one of those academies I spoke about earlier. They wanted to recreate ancient Greek theatre, and they believed it was done through song, not the spoken word. The group would meet to discuss what the music of the Greeks would have been and delved into conversations about astrology, literature, philosophy, and of course, singing. One of the members was Vincenzo Galilei, father of the Galileo Galilei.
After years of talking about it, they finally decided to do it. They would create the ultimate art form that would combine music, poetry, drama, dance and design. Things got off to an awkward start in 1600 when they staged a very heavy and somewhat depressing production at a wedding. It was Eurydice's. Totally not reading the room with themes of doomed love and man's arrogance. They were not feeling the vibe at this raucous wedding feast, so that sort of deadpanned. But things really took off when the philandering, hardcore gambling and sometimes murderous Vincenzo Gonzaga, over in Mantua, decided he would like one of these new opera thingies of his own. But the music this time would be written by a young man working at his court, Claudio Monteverdi, a talented composer from Cremona.
This opera was called Orfeo, and like that Poof. Opera. Took off. Fifteen years earlier, the younger Monteverdi had come to the Mantuan court to work for the Gonzagas. Every Friday evening, there would be a musical soiree. Monteverdi would write and perform madrigals, and they would be performed in private concerts above the Duke's own rooms, in a mirrored trapezoidal room. Their reflections would have been reflected into infinity. It must have been psychedelic. When Monteverdi wrote the opera, he wrote about human emotions, drama and passion. It was an immediate success. After being performed at the Gonzaga Court, it went to Cremona, Turin, Florence and Milan. To accompany the singers, Monteverdi had an ensemble of instruments. A harpsichord, a chamber organ, cello, viola da gamba. Harp, and different types of lutes. Normally you would just pick one or two of these instruments, but Monteverdi used all of them. Way to go Claudio.
So here we are in Cremona at the end of the 1500s. The Amati family are in the midst of musically exciting times, and Niccolo is a young boy growing up destined for great things as well.
And this brings us to the end of this episode on the Amati brothers. But stay tuned for the next one as I talk to Timo Vecchio Valve as he tells me all about the fascinating history of the Amati Brothers cello he plays on.
It's a very cool story. James Bond is involved.
This brings us to the end of this Amati Brothers episode. In the next, I will still be talking about Girolamo Amati and his work, but also introducing Niccolo Amati, his son, perhaps the most well known of the Amatis. The father and son's lives and careers overlap, and so do their episodes. I finished this story in the late 1500s, and just a few kilometres away, in Brescia, Gio Paolo Maggini is living and working at the same time as Niccolo Amati, and will be hit with similar catastrophes.
So very soon I will be going sideways and leaving Cremona and the Amati story to fill you in on the Brescian makers before coming back to finish the Amati dynasty. Thank you very much for listening to this episode and I hope you'll join me next time for the Violin Chronicles. Right now, you're listening to a live recording of the Boccherini.
If you would like to support the podcast, please head over to patreon. com forward slash The Violin Chronicles and do that. It would be wonderful to have your support and you will also have access to bonus episodes and the All You Need to Know podcast, where we go through each maker and quickly detail their life and do a rundown of the characteristics in their instruments and how to recognize an instrument from each maker.
Do subscribe to the podcast or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. And if you want to follow on Instagram, the handle is at the Violin Chronicles. Until next time, goodbye.
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Continue listening to the tale of the Amati brothers to help understand who made which instruments from now on.
Is the violin making center of Italy the most boring city in the world? Well, we will see what 16th century tourists think in this episode continuing the story of the master violin makers that are the Amati Brothers. Violin maker and expert Carlo Chiesa talks to us about the Amati Brothers and why they had such a big falling out as does Oxford based violin expert Benjamin Hebbert. We hear from Ilya Isakovich violinist in the Australian Chamber Orchestra who plays on an Amati Brothers violin and the history of that particular violin.
Transcript
In the autumn of 1441, in the city of Cremona, a great wedding was taking place between two powerful families. The bride, 16 year old Bianca Maria Visconti, was the daughter of the Duke of Milan, and the groom, 40 year old Francesco Sforza, was a brave warrior and trusted advisor to the Duke. As the wedding feast was being prepared, disaster struck. A great drought had struck the land, and the city of Cremona was left without the necessary ingredients to create a grand dessert for the occasion. The cooks and chefs frantically searched for a solution, but to no avail. Desperate, one of the chefs had a brilliant idea. He decided to take what little sugar and almonds they had left and mix them together with some honey. He cooked the mixture until it became a soft, chewy confection that could be cut into small pieces. He then shaped the nougat, or torrone, into the form of the city's famous Torazzo bell tower. When the wedding guests were served the nougat, they were amazed at the sweet, nutty flavour and chewy texture of the new dessert. They exclaimed that it was the most delicious treat that they had ever tasted, and they begged the chef to reveal the secret of its creation. From that day on, the recipe for the nougat was passed down from generation to generation, becoming a beloved part of Italian culinary tradition. The nougat was said to have been a symbol of the ingenuity and creativity of Italian chefs, who could turn even the most meagre ingredients into something truly magical.
This is the legend of Cremona's Nougat, and to this day you can buy Nougat shaped as the Torazzo Tower.
Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I, Linda Lespets, will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding famous, infamous, or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French Violin Making School of Mirecourt some years ago now, and I currently live and work in Sydney with my husband Antoine Lespets, who is also a violin maker and graduate of the French school, l'Ecole Nationale de Luthier, in Mircourt.
As well as being a luthier, I've always been intrigued with the history of instruments I work with, and in particular, the lives of those who made them. So often when we look back at history, I know that I have a tendency to look at just one aspect, but here my aim is to join up the puzzle pieces and have a look at an altogether fascinating picture.
Welcome back to the story of the Amati brothers. In the last episode, we left them in the midst of a busy and productive period in their lives. Girolamo Amati, the youngest brother, is now a widower after his wife Lucrenzia died shortly after the birth of their daughter Elizabeth. The brother's father, Antonio Amati, has passed away and Cremona, being Cremona, was insanely busy with its influx of merchants and soldiers passing through, and never far from drama and disaster, as we will see.
Because of continual war and armies marching through the town, the walls were in a sorry state, but life ploughed on as usual, and no matter how bad things got, people still wanted music, and musicians still needed instruments. Towards the end of the 16th century, 1583, Cremona was described as a city filled with sumptuous buildings, both private and public. There were an abundance of temples and monasteries, wide and spacious streets. The walls of the city have almost completely fallen to the ground due to the numerous wars in the region, and the villages around the walls were ruined. One traveller to Cremona at the time was a little bit nonplussed by the place.
This is an excerpt from a 16th century tourist writing what appears to be a type of lonely planet guide. His name is Maximilian Mission and his book is ‘A New Voyage to Italy Together with Useful Instructions for Those Who Shall Travel Hither’.
We followed the course of the Po at some distance. Until we came over against Cremona, where we crossed over the river in a ferry boat. There are no bridges on the Po below Turin. Cremona is seated on the left bank of the river in the Duchy of Milan. It is a pretty large city, but even poorer and less populous than Piacenza. There is nothing at all to be seen in it, though its tower and castle are very much extolled. One of their authors has the confidence to tell the world that the Tower is reckoned to exceed all others in height, and for that reason, esteemed one of the wonders of Europe. And that the castle is the strongest and most formidable citadel in Italy.
If I had not been accustomed to the lofty and hyperbolic expressions of the Italians, I should have been strangely surprised, after all these rodomonts. To find nothing at Cremona worth observation. The castle is an old, shapeless, and half ruined mass, which in its very best state deserved not to be compared to a well contrived fort, but perhaps might have been reputed tolerable in the days of crossbows. And the tower is neither handsome nor very high, but inferior to a thousand that are not so much as mentioned. It was built by Frederick Barbarossi in the year 1184. There is a tradition that the Emperor Mondi and Pope John the 23rd went up this tower with a certain Lord of Cremona who repented afterwards as he several times declared that he did not throw him down from the top to bottom, merely for the rarity of the thing. And perhaps it was this story that gave the first occasion to the reflections that had been made on the height of the tower. The inhabitants of Cremona boast much of the antiquity of their city, but they produced not any monuments to confirm it. The antiquity of Cremona has a very near resemblance to that of the Po. In the distance of 14 miles from Cremona to Mantua, we saw nothing but hamlets that deserved not to be named. Only Bozzolo is a sort of little city enclosed with certain works which pass for fortifications. It gives title to a duke who, besides his place, is sovereign of a territory that extends four or five miles. We passed Oglio in a ferry boat, and great and rapid. Apparently boring as it was. The city was doing okay, but the effects of war were beginning to show. The walls might have been in a bad state, but in town there was a movement amongst the monasteries and local congregations towards creating new foundations. These included orphanages. There were colleges for youth education, boarding schools, a conservatory opened in 1587 to welcome young girls in danger, that is, who did not have a dowry and risked therefore to take a bad path. The Jesuits built a magnificent new church in 1602. The Church of St. Peter and Marcelino. For women, there were sisters who taught in the schools and boarding schools. They dedicated themselves to the education of young girls who belonged to the most distinguished and wealthy families of Cremona. These nuns were not pushed into seclusion. They are interesting in that they were free to go to the local church, leave the buildings when they wanted to, and embark on charitable works in the community, such as looking after the poor schools. This gave a particular atmosphere to the city, with many in the religious orders out and about. In the spring of 1584, Girolamo Amati married for a second time. His first wife, Lucrenzia, had died shortly after the birth of their daughter, Elizabeth. And now, Laura Medici Lazzarini, niece of a prominent nobleman, and a distant cousin to the famous Banking Medici's.
At the time of Girolamo Amati and Laura's wedding, the city of Cremona was thriving. The factories in town were working at full speed, especially in the textile sector, where wool and moleskin employed a large part of the population. The city was growing as the factories were expanding, and the nobles and rich merchants were building palaces and stately homes. The Amatis were now a well respected family. Andrea Amati had finally been able to buy their house a few years before his death, and now his sons, the brothers, Antonio Amati and Girolamo Amati, had inherited both the house and a prosperous business. They made instruments for important people, nobles and royal families.
Girolamo Amati’s marriage to a member of the lesser nobility shows an overlapping of the respected artisan class and the more wealthy noble class. Laura's dowry would have helped as well, but as with his first wife Lucrenzia, Girolamo Amati had to share Laura's dowry with his brother Antonio Amati as he was now head of the family.
I spoke to Carlo Chiesa, researcher, author, and violin maker in Milan.
Why is he called Hieronymus sometimes, and it's a Latin name, Hieronymus is the Latin from Geronimo. So I use the Italian, but it's the same name.
And on, on his labels it's, Hieronymus. He uses a Latin form, Hieronymus. Is it always Hieronymus?
No, sometimes it is Geronimo but the reason is that if you use the Latin name, it is Hieronymus. So for foreign, not Italian speaking people, I understand Geronimo is a bit difficult to remember and Hieronymus is much easier because it's also German and the English form for Geronimo.
So I think that's it. It's just is Latin.
No, come on. We are speaking of four generations, five makers, you know. We're set. We're the Brothers, Amati. Why do you think there was such a large age gap between, between the two brothers? Yeah, we don't know exactly. Apparently Antonio Amati, but we consider that is just a theory that Antonio Amati was born much Many years before Girolamo Amati.
So Gerolamo Amati was much younger. Antonio Amati was apparently an old man, a middle aged man when Geronimo was a boy. So since this I supposed at some point that they were half brothers because perhaps there was a second wife, could they have had Antonio Amati and then had a bunch of girls, because I feel like sometimes they just don't say if they're girls.
There are three, three sisters.
Oh, in between?
Yes.
Oh, I mean, so it's possible. I mean, if you're like 18, when you have the first kid and then 28, 30, 38, 40. Yeah, you can do that. It's possible.
Absolutely. Everything is possible. And I really, I also think it was not so important at that time, probably because the family was a family in which if the head of the family was a strong man.
It was not possibly so important if he had a second wife and the sons were not sons but half-brothers.
I spoke to Benjamin Hebert, expert and instrument dealer in Oxford.
They overlap, like the fathers and sons, obviously. But as you were saying with the Amati brothers, their lives were quite different to Andrea Amati, I imagine, in that they were in Andrea, even though They were, my understanding is they were occupied by the Spanish, but it was quite peaceful and, and orderly life.
And then they go into this period of, like, like you're saying, like, being basically trampled and then getting up and getting squashed and then getting up and getting trampled again, the city of Cremona. Yeah, it’s, I mean, it's one of the things you go around. I mean, you obviously go around Florence and Pisa and places like that, and it's full of wonderful stuff.
And, gosh, I found a mid 17th century account of Cremona by an English traveler, which is just where he basically says this is the most boring town in the country there is nothing to see here, there is nothing of note. And he actually sort of gets a bit angry about it, and he says, you know, they boast that they've got the highest tower in the whole of Italy, but, you know, even that's not true. And, The poor guy really is beside himself that he's gone all the way to Cremona and there's just nothing to see. You know, they're even sort of famous for having a bridge, but they don't have a bridge. And but All of this was, you know, the relative poverty of the town and all of that kind of stuff, you know, is because it was changing hands so repeatedly and being, not just changing hands, but because it was having, you know, it was being garrisoned by people who would then be leaving and other people would be garrisoned and so forth.
It can't really develop economically. So, so the, the investment in a better cathedral or whatever, I mean, the cathedral's great and but it's, it's really kind of interesting to hear in English. I mean, in the 1650s, really, really sort of giving a real one-star trip advisor.
As for the roulette of childbirth at the time, Laura was luckier than her predecessor and seemed to have no trouble having babies. One was probably on the way by the next year when things started to get a bit worrying. The weather had been terrible not only around Cremona but in the whole region. News was trickling through that crops had been ruined yet again.
One year of spoiled harvest was bad enough but several years in a row spelled disaster. Prices for bread and basic food items were rising in the marketplace. There was simply less and less to sell or buy. It was now eleven years since Antonio Amati had passed away, and the workshop had been busy. One of the characteristics of the Amati brothers work was the variety and willingness to experiment.
At this point, instrument sizes were not standardized, and the workshop was exploring different possibilities, making varying sized violins, some very small, others larger. Cellos with four or five strings. Violas of differing dimensions. Sets of vials and other stringed instruments. But living and working with a sibling can take its toll. The budget was strained at home and tensions were rising between the brothers. Antonio Amati was at least 13 years older than Girolamo Amati, and he had grown up working with their father, much longer than his little brother. But differing characters, living in the same house, and working together was getting too much.
There were financial stresses, and Girolamo Amati had a family and children. He may have resented having to share both his wife's dowries with his older brother. Four years after marrying Laura, and with famine looming over the region, the brothers were no longer speaking to each other.
Yeah, I find it, I find it hard to, there's not that much about the Amati brothers to go on. Although, you know, they do have that fight, the famous fight,
the famous fight. They sort of know that the thing they're most well-known for is fighting. Yeah. I mean, Antonio Amati is a lot, you know, his 21, you know, We think he's born around 1540. Girolamo Amati, we think, is born in 1561. I mean, really, you know, they're well and truly old enough to be father and son. And, they're having sort of, yeah, put up with each other that way. And, yeah, so, if Antonio's probably about You know, in his twenties, by the time that Andrea Amati, his father, is making these instruments for the French court, he must be complicit with him. And then this guy who's twenty years younger than him suddenly comes along and, you know, by 1600 we see the same, you know, we suddenly see the edge work that We see right the way through the Amati dynasty, we see, you know, even to Strad and so forth, and, you know, the, the birth of, you know, the final birth of the Cremonese violin as we know it is something that happens. I don't know when, I don't, I don't know what the earliest instrument I'm going to find with it, but it's closer to 1600 than it is to even 1591. It's, there's a lovely viola in the Ashmolean Brothers Amati and it's still, it's still a prototypical one as opposed to a typical kind of, kind of Amati. And so, between Andrea Amati and, you know, perhaps his son, maybe we should give him credit as part of it, you've got something where they've figured out the mathematical structure of the instrument. They've, they've actually done revolutionary things which differentiate these from, from other instruments. They've actually seen them as a, as a kind of architecture and, and they've got a model which they're happy to go on with for over 30 years. And then the other son that's 20 odd years, years, years junior, seems to rise up and says, No, that's, that's not good enough. We're going to do it differently. And actually it's Girolamo, Girolamo Amati, I think, this little son, who for whatever reason, you can, I, I can see it as, is that breath of fresh air that figures things out. Or that little such and such, who's just, has no respect for tradition and makes a pain of himself in the workshop.
Yeah, so Girolamo Amati’s instruments are quite, you see them as being quite different to the Andrea Amati I think, I think the simplest thing is if you lie a violin, you know, imagine lying at the back of a violin, as flat, and you take a marble and you let the marble roll off in any direction then the marble is going to just carry on like a ski jump, straight out into everywhere. And it does that because for the whole of the surface area of the back or the front, everything is unrelentingly mathematical. It's following a Curtate Cycloid, which is a fancy piece of mathematics, and there's nothing that's going to stop that. Girolamo Amati basically puts the edges on the tray. And, but those are really interesting because they reinforce where the ribs meet. Meet the back and the front, and they actually allow the whole thing to be a little bit more flexible just on, just on the inside. So if you take a Girolamo Amati and roll a marble down it, I'm not suggesting you do that with a real Amati. Then it won't fly straight off. It’ll It either skip over or it'll sort of fall, fall into that sort of trayishness of that nice round thing. And that's one of the things that makes an awful lot of difference. The instruments actually become far more unified at that point. You know, there’s far more predictability in how they look. There's just all sorts of refinements. He obviously loves what's been done before and it's very interesting. So the brothers Amati, their labels actually say Hieronymus and Antonius, they used the Latin. Their names are Antonio and Gerolamo. Hieronymus and it then says that they're brothers. And then it also says that their father is Andrea. And even despite all of these fights, Girolamo Amati, you know, Antonio dies in 1607. Girolamo Amati’s got another 23 years to go before he dies. And he still labels his stuff, whether his, whether his brother's in the company or not, whether his company is dead. He, right up to 1630, he carries on labelling his instruments as the Brothers Amati, who are the sons of Andrea Amati.
And because of the plague, and everything that's going wrong, and the uncertainty of the market, when Niccolo Amati comes in, it's still the Brothers Amati, and even when Girolamo Amati is dead, and Niccolo Amati is the only one that's left, through the 1630s, there's instruments that he makes entirely, and he doesn't quite have the courage to put his own label on them, he just pretends that the Brothers Amati is still going.
So there's something there's something very human and touching about that. There's also something about the importance of brand, and how they wanted to be identified as this continuation. So when Girolamo Amati, and later Niccolo Amati, his son, are making things which are different from what Andrea Amati is, there's still every label that they write is communicating that they are part of that tradition which goes all the way back. I think musically speaking, Andrea Amati is looking for something which is loud and brash and harsh. Because of what he's been asked to do, even by the 1590s, the Amatis are trying to make something which is softer and more, more of a mixing, you know, instruments that mingle better.
In 1588, Girolamo Amati wanted out, and he demanded Antonio Amati return his share of both Lucrenzia's and Laura's dowries. Probably knowing full well he was in no position to do such a thing. They would split the workshop between them, and no longer live under the same roof. As Antonio Amati could not afford to repay the dowries, he handed over his share of the family home and moved out. But not far, just down the road. That was probably a bit awkward. Anyway, they still had nothing to say to each other, and winter was coming on, so lawyers drew up a document on the 20th of December stating that Girolamo Amati had to divide up all the tools, instruments, moulds, and other items in the workshop and on the following Thursday, Antonio Amati would come and choose which pile he would take. Antonio Amati could use the workshop for another two months, but then he would have to leave and never set foot in the building again.
Carlo Chiesa. And in fact we see that the brother Amati developed the outlines. Of the instruments by Andrea Amati, and then Nicolo Amati again developed the, the outline of the instruments by the brothers. And then when we arrived to Antonio Stradivari at the end of the 17th century, that is more than a hundred years after the death of Andrea Amati. At that point, Antonio Stradivari goes back to make something that is much more similar to what Andrea Amati made as a start. That's my idea, at least. Maybe I'm, I'm wrong, but if you compare the instruments, our time of instruments from Andrea Amati made in the 1560s to the instruments made by Antonio Stradivari after 1705, that is after the period of the long pattern instruments, then they perfectly fit.
Through notarial documents, we know that the Amati ran an important workshop in which there were many people working, not just Andrea Amati first and then his two sons later, but we know that at some point the two sons of Andrea Amati, the so called brother of Amati, they split in 1588.
And Antonio Amati went on working on his own, while Girolamo Amati went on working on his own. So, also when we say the production of the Brothers Amati, in truth, all of that comes from one or the other of the two brothers and then Antonio Amati died in 1607. Meaning, before many of the instruments made by the brothers Amati were made.
They did work together at some point, didn't they? The brothers?
They worked together until 1588.
It was a bad, bad break up?
A bad break up, of course. And but, but a bad break up, but Antonio Amati stayed to live in the same street, which is a street about 30 meters long. So it's and he should
That's awkward.
Yeah. I don't know. Divorce are always sometimes. Painful. So, and then, then what happened, it was that the Girolamo Amati had a wife and son, Nicolo. At that time, Nicolo Amati was just four years old. But then Girolamo Amati went on working hard, and Nicolo Amati joined him at some point. And I'm sure that while Antonio's workshop was a small workshop. The important part of the Amati workshop was the Girolamo Amati workshop. And at some point Girolamo needed also more people working with him. And since he had only one male son but he had daughters he hired the husbands of his daughters. Antonio Amati set up his workshop and from now on was known more as a lute maker than anything else but was still used from time to time the Amati Brothers label, as did Girolamo Amati.
The brand, Amati Brothers, was still lucrative, it seemed. And documents we have no documents speaking of his marriage and we just have his death record in which he's called Antonio Amati De Iliuti, not De Violini, meaning that maybe he was going on making mainly plucked instruments and not bowed instruments, because I'm sure they made also all, all of these makers.
Down to the Guarneri's, at least, we have documents in which, by which we know that they made also plucked instruments. All of them are lost. Of course, they had workshops in which they did not make just violins. So maybe, maybe, Antonio Amati specialized in plucked instruments and Girolamo Amati in bowed instruments. But that's a theory. And as for the other part, if I have no family records, but we have no, no records for daughters or sons for Antonio Amati, so maybe he never married.
Okay. Was, would that have been unusual?
Not particularly. It happened, so. Don't ask me if there's I don't know. Also, with Stradivari, that's much better. Think of Stradivari. He had many, many sons. He had many sons. He had at least four or six children, and just one of them got married when he was a boy of 30. Francesco did not marry, Omobono did not marry, Giovanni Battista did not marry, and the two other, Alessandro and Giuseppe, both of them went to be priests.
So that's an interesting In town there was a group Girolamo Amati would have definitely known about, called the Accademia degli Animosi. In Cremona, there were not many places to perform music outside the church, and as there was no noble court, what they had was the animosi. It was a group of people who met in a nobleman's palace, the Marquis Camillo Estanga.
One of their purposes was to meet once a week and give a talk on moral or natural philosophy. All the important stuff. Before or after which there would be a musical concert. They had a violinist, a lutist, and four singers they employed for the gathering held on a Thursday. Monteverdi writes in a letter about the gatherings, as he has some of his compositions performed there. In a recount of one gathering, there was a rich reading of poems by some academics, followed by music with selected voices, turbos, violins, and bass vials, who entertained the whole audience very joyfully. Vast amounts of music were composed for the Accademia Degli Animosi over the years, but none has survived. We do have descriptions of some events, such as the election of a cardinal, where the party was described as being lively, with lighting of fires, music for two choirs, drums, dances, and choreography of various kinds.
Back in the Amati house, Girolamo Amati and Laura's family was growing, which was nice, but actually not so great, it turns out, because it looked like the food shortages and famine were only getting worse as they had more and more mouths to feed. It was harder to buy basic provisions for the family. Prices for food were going up and up as supply was diminishing. The markets were emptying out of sellers simply because they had almost nothing to sell, and what they did have was costly. During this time, Girolamo Amati made a violin that today is played in the Australian Chamber Orchestra here in Sydney.
I speak to Ilya Isakovich about what it's like to play on this Amati Brothers violin.
My name is Ilya Isakovich and I play in the violin in the Australian Chamber Orchestra for nearly 19 years now. At the moment, I'm extremely lucky to be the custodian of this amazing brother's Amati violin. It's kind of a dream come true. I think for every musician, especially violinist, you sort of grow up and hear the legends. About Stradivari, Guarneri, Amati. Those three names mostly come up as the greatest violin makers of all time from Cremona. So, I never actually imagined that. I will be playing one of those three makers violin. I was born in Ukraine, and of course those instruments are incredibly expensive and difficult to obtain, but I always dreamed about it, and I, I was kind of imagining what it could be like playing one of those. Yeah, so it's very emotional.
And here you are.
Yes, here I am. Yes. Well, there is in my mind, there is such a thing as the Italian colour of sound It's kind of like a pedigree a noble timbre to the sound, which you hear the violin, you know, and you say, oh, this is Italian. Usually, I would associate it with kind of very deep, deep sound, and at the same time, very, So usually you play those instruments and even not so much under your ear, but if you are in a larger space, they project incredibly well on the whole. But this instrument the Amati Brothers, you kind of play and people say, wow, it just, It just speaks. I think there was some kind of secret those makers possessed that allowed them to make instruments that, work incredibly well in large spaces. I'm not even sure what it is. Maybe something with the geometry or something with the timber.
Yeah. And how does it how does it blend with the other instruments in the orchestra? Oh, we, it blends incredibly well. The interesting thing about the ACO is as lots of people are saying, we are essentially an orchestra of soloists. So it does not only have to blend with the others, but everyone has got his own personal voice, which really matters in, in the complex sound that we produce. There are only 17 of us, so everyone matters a lot. And we're extremely lucky. I don't know of any other orchestra in the world at the moment that has access to such an incredible array of instruments that we, so we got a Guarneri del Gesu and at the moment three Stradivarius, two Amatis, Guadagnini and also Joseph Guarneri.
So the, the best of the best. Da Salo.
Da Salo, exactly. Yeah, Vuillaume, you can tell, you can tell the whole history of the violin in this one orchestra.
Exactly, yeah. And it's quite incredible because It also makes such a substantial difference to, to the sound that the orchestra produces, that it makes us sound even more special.
You have incredible players and incredible instruments. Yes. You now have an incredible building. What else? We're looking, we're looking at the harbour bridge, out the window, the water. But yeah, do you, I know your other instrument is 17th century as well, but does it change anything playing on a, do you think playing on an instrument that has a history as rich as an Amati Brothers violin, for example?
Of course it does. Yes. This I think this violin is actually 16th century because it was made in 1590. Yes. So it's it's the second oldest instrument in the orchestra after Max's Gasparo Da Salo and it's quite incredible to know that some actually pretty famous people have played on it. I know there was a amateur violinist called Lady Cecil.
There's a Strad called the Cecil. Yes. Is that her as well, do you think?
It might be. I'm not 100 percent sure. There was also some a Dutch writer. Roon who also owned this instrument. So yes, you, you kind of, you played and you feel incredibly lucky to be kind of connected to all those people as well, lay their hands on this. It doesn't take much effort at all to make it speak, the instrument, you know, and I am hoping as I said, I'll play it for as long as, as possible.
Yeah, so in 1590, what's interesting is that there was a famine in Lombardy. Yes. In Cremona, and it was actually the worst famine that Italy ever had. It was very severe. And there was just torrential rain and it wiped out the crops and the farmers couldn't like several years in a row, so they just couldn't bounce back. And so it's interesting to think that. His wife, Nicola is not born yet, but like they've got other children and there's this.
It must have been quite a stressful situation.
There's no food and, and he's still. Making, you know, beautiful instruments.
Yeah, it's hard to imagine, actually, what it was like living in those times with having the, not having the basic things that we're used to so much now, like food and warms, electricity and, you know and still creating basically art you think of it's, it's kind of the same period as all the Italian Renaissance painters, you know, it's, for me, it's a piece of art. It's not just an instrument. to play and you think how much work goes to create such thing.
I mean, it's, it's not only art, I suppose, but it's all mathematical, it's thought out, it's geometry, it's proportions, it's, and, and an artwork at the same time, it's a whole, and they were also, at that time, kind of the violin as an instrument wasn't really very much kind of set in stone in terms of what it is, you know, and how it should look. So the dimensions, for example, and all the proportions kept changing all the time. And Andrea Amati, who was the father, is considered by many to be the kind of the father of the violin, as we know it. It’s actually a pretty different instrument to what Stradivari later produced and Guarneri changed it a lot as well.
So it was all kind of experimental at the time. And yet it works. And it works amazingly well. Yes, I think the, for example, this particular violin, the dimensions of it are quite small compared to, as I said, the more modern and larger models of Stradivari and Guarneri and then all the makers who tried to copy them.
It's even more incredible that it produces this kind of sound of that magnitude that it does. With a smaller body. Yeah.
Can we see it? Can I see it?
Yes, absolutely. I remember you brought it into the workshop a few months ago, didn't you? Yes, yes, yes. I, I had Antoine replace the bridge. Yes. How is it? It's beautiful, yes, and no issues since then.
Yeah, it's very delicate looking, isn't it? Yes, exactly. It's almost like ladylike. Yeah, and the scroll is very, like, fine and, very quiet, like, Pronounced archings, but it's still got that that's the typical Amati Brother’s scoop. Yeah. And it's kind of very high arching.
Yeah. It'll do the scoop and the, the bulge. And what's the, is there like a pin in the back here? That was, yeah, it looks like cause you know, they used to hang the violins in the shop. Ah, yes. And they would just drill a hole. Yes. Yeah. They would just drill a hole.
Do you know when that was, when they, like, at what period they did that?
I don't know. It's like, yeah, we know, we just drill a hole. Yeah, drill a hole, why not?
And it's also quite remarkable that you look at it and you think it was made in 1590. And it's in such amazing shape. Yeah. I mean, it's And the varnish is Varnish is, most of the varnish, original varnish is still there and no, no damage, no cracks, no.
You expect if you, yeah, so it's obviously been well looked after. Every owner has, exactly, every owner had the respect for the maker, which kind of leads to sort of a continuity of the idea that Amati was a good maker don't, like, don't, don't mess with it.
And here we leave the Amati brothers, each one going his own way. Their own way, but still staying in the same street nevertheless. And it is understandable from this point on, on the majority of instruments in the violin family are by and large attributed to Giolamo Amati, the younger brother. Antonio Amati, as Carlo Chiesa mentioned, appears to have veered towards the plucked stringed instruments as a future record of him as a lute maker appears.
Their standing as luxury instrument makers does not appear to have been affected as they continue to undertake orders creating beautiful instruments for wealthy patrons. But life has a way of being unpredictable and surprising, as the two brothers will soon find out as the next century approaches. So at this stage we are at the second generation of the Amatis, and Girolamo Amati is about to have a son, Niccolo Amati, who will do something quite extraordinarily different to his father and grandfather, and change the history of violin making forever.
So do stay with me for the next instalment of the Violin Chronicles. But for now, I'd like to thank my lovely guests on this episode, Ilya Izakovich, Benjamin Hebert, and Carlo Chiesa. If you would like to support the podcast, please head over to patreon. com forward slash the violin chronicles and do that.
It would be wonderful to have your support. And you will also have access to bonus episodes and the all you need to know podcast where we go through each maker and quickly detail their life and do a rundown of the characteristics in their instruments and how to recognize an instrument from each maker.
Do subscribe to the podcast or leave a review on Apple podcasts. And if you want to follow on Instagram, the handle At the Violin Chronicles. And what you're hearing right now is Timo-Veikko Valve play on a 1616 Amati Brothers cello. Until next time, goodbye.
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