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    <author>
        <name>Corilon violins</name>
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    <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/?sRss=1</id>
    <updated>2026-05-02T13:17:17+02:00</updated>
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Violin making in Turin: Guadagnini, Pressenda, Fagnola</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/turin-violin-making</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/turin-violin-making"/>
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                                            Violin making in Turin: its beginnings in the 17th century – the masters of the Guadagnini family – Giovanni Francesco Pressenda – the 20th century and today
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                 Violin making in Turin first appears on the musical instrument scene around the mid-17th century, and from the outset it was characterised by exceptionally high-quality craftsmanship, which was practised by a few master luthiers, most of whom were immigrants. Their personal achievements helped Turin to become the leading centre of violin making south of the Alps, while Italian violin making as a whole fell into a crisis after the era of the classical Cremonese masters. 
  Overview Turin violin making:  
 
  The beginnings of violin making in Turin  
  The Guadagnini family of violin makers in Turin  
  Giovanni Francesco Pressenda and 19th-century violin making in Turin  
  20th and 21st century violin makers  
 
 The beginnings of violin making in Turin 
 With  Henricus Cattenar  (ca. 1620–1701) – also known by the Italianised name  Enrico Catenari  – violin making in Turin enters the light of research, and, like the work of his contemporaries  Andrea Gatto  (c. 1660) and  Fabrizio Senta  (1629–1681), which was hardly less skilled, Cattenar&#039;s work shows strong influences from Flemish and other northern European styles.    Of course, from the 1670s onwards, Turin violins show a growing orientation towards Cremonese models, particularly those of the Amati family, but in Cattenar&#039;s work in particular, their specifics combine to create a very unique artisanal and aesthetic formal language. The fact that this style was not gradually integrated into the Italian mainstream over the course of the 18th century is probably due to the constant French influence in Piedmont and the changing political conditions. and as little as we know about the artisanal relationships between contemporaries such as  Gioffredo Cappa  (1653–1717),  Giovanni Francesco Celoniato  (1676–1751) and Cattenar in detail, it is certain that they shared a foundation in the Flemish tradition, combined with an individually balanced proximity to the Amati tradition. 
 Like the other Italian violin-making regions, Turin also experienced a crisis in the 18th century, which researchers associate with political and economic developments, but also with a certain saturation of the market for first-class violins as a consequence of the long heyday of Cremonese violin making. In retrospect, the fact that the craft in Turin died out completely for a short period in 1770 appears to have been a necessary caesura that paved the way for a new and even greater era. 
 The Guadagnini family of violin makers 
 Just a few months after the old Turin violin-making tradition had come to an end in 1770, two personalities came to the city who would not only contribute to the revival of this art but would also write one of the most significant chapters in its history.  Giovanni Battista Guadagnini  (1711–1786), who had just left Parma for economic reasons and moved with his family to Turin at the beginning of his seventh decade of life, and the young, just 16-year-old Count Alessandro Ignazio Alessandro  Cozio di Salabue  (1755–1840), who was on his way to the military academy – although he was much more interested in chess, playing the violin and excellent violins than in military training. 
 In 1773, their paths crossed and together they carried out one of the most famous business transactions in the history of music: the purchase of 10 original, unworn instruments by Antonio Stradivari and his workshop inventory from his heirs – a treasure that the passionate collector Cozio wanted to use with Guadagnini&#039;s help to revive the Italian violin-making industry, which was in crisis. In the years that followed, the two studied Stradivari&#039;s principles of construction, on the basis of which Guadagnini, thanks to a purchase guarantee from Cozio, made more than 50 instruments before his death in 1786. 
 In one fell swoop, the Stradivari model had become the standard in Turin violin making, and Guadagnini had found a solid livelihood for himself and his family despite his advanced age. And although his sons, out of pure necessity, had to concentrate entirely on guitar-making during the difficult years that followed, when Piedmont suffered from the upheavals of French history between the Revolution and Waterloo, their father&#039;s legacy as a violin maker remained alive to flourish again in the 1820s. After the early death of Giovanni Battista&#039;s younger son Carlo, his oldest son  Gaetano Guadagnini  (1796-1852) took over the workshop, guided by his uncle of the same name, Gaetano I (1750-1817). Under his leadership, both the family&#039;s guitar and violin making developed excellently, not least because he knew how to do good business on both the Italian and French sides of the music world, and, among other things, maintained extensive cooperation with the Vuillaume family. 
 After Gaetano II, his son Antonio (1831-1881) expanded his father&#039;s success. For the first time, the Guadagnini workshop became a hotbed of artistic excellence and innovation, where first-class masters such as  Enrico Marchetti  (1855–1930) and the brothers  Enrico Clodoveo Melegari  and  Pietro Melegari  perfected their art – and not a few of whom became serious competitors of Antonio&#039;s son and successor Francesco Guadagnini (1863–1948) around the turn of the century. Francesco was able to hold his own in this new upsurge of violin making in Turin and integrated newer approaches into the family tradition, in particular those of Annibale Fagnola, which soon became characteristic features of the new Turin style. 
 In 1943, the history of the great Italian violin-making dynasty Guadagnini finally came to an abrupt end when Francesco&#039;s son Paolo Guadagnini was killed in the Second World War and the Turin workshop was destroyed in a bombing raid. 
 Giovanni Francesco Pressenda and 19th-century violin making in Turin 
 Among the many great names associated with violin making in Turin,  Giovanni Francesco Pressenda  (1777–1854) ranks right up there with the Guadagninis. His instruments are much more sought after today than those of the other historic Turin masters, although the latter are by no means to be underestimated or undervalued. 
 Nevertheless, the work of Pressida is another special case in the Turin violin-making tradition, as he initially followed the example of Stradivari relatively closely, developing it into his own personal model in the 1820s and 1830s. Although the influence of his colleagues can occasionally be seen in his work – especially Giuseppe Rocca, but also unknown violin makers of the Mirecourt tradition – his works are characterised by an unmistakable style throughout his career and are distinguished by their extraordinarily good sound, which is also in great demand among soloists of our time. By concentrating almost exclusively on violin making, Giovanni Francesco Pressenda became one of the most important masters of the art, and his influence on 19th-century Italian violin making can hardly be overestimated. 
 Among his most important artistic heirs was the aforementioned  Giuseppe Rocca  (1807–1865), who tried to establish himself in Turin in 1837 and 1842, and then moved to Genoa after the death of his wife in 1851. There, too, he was unable to achieve the success that his work unquestionably deserved, and so he returned to Turin after the death of Gaetano Guadagnini, hoping for a new chance. But as was the case with Antonio Guadagnini, there was no room for him to make a living as an independent violin maker, and so he moved back to Genoa for the last years of his life. 
 With the departure of Giuseppe Rocca and after the deaths of Pressenda and Gaetano Guadagnini in quick succession, Teobaldo Rinaldi (1822–1888) established himself as a violin dealer in Turin in 1855 and tried to fill the gap that had arisen. He found support in his son-in-law Benedetto Gioffredo (1821–1886), who took Rinaldi&#039;s name and soon ran the business as  Gioffredo Rinaldi . Although Rinaldi was nowhere near the standard of the unfortunate Rocca or the Antonio Guadagninis, he built up a very successful workshop, where both Enrico Marchetti and Carlo Giuseppe Oddone worked before moving on to Guadagnini. Marchetti was to become one of the leading protagonists of Turin violin making in the early 20th century. Rinaldi&#039;s successor was another employee in his workshop, Romano Marengo (1866–1926), who was henceforth known as  Marengo Rinaldi . Both Gioffredo and Marengo Rinaldi also went down in violin-making history as chroniclers of their era and wrote the first biographical works on Pressenda. 
 Violin makers of Turin in the 20th century and the present 
 The fact that Turin was able to maintain its status as a centre of violin-making excellence in the early 20th century is due in no small part to the two major workshops that had dominated the local scene since the second half of the 19th century: the House of Guadagnini, with a tradition dating back to the 18th century, and its important competitor Rinaldi.  Carlo Giuseppe Oddone  (1866–1935) began his journey as an apprentice at Rinaldi&#039;s workshop before moving on to work for Frederick William Chanot in London for two years after Gioffredo Rinaldi&#039;s death. It was in London that he was able to study the secrets of the art of French violin making at its most advanced. Back in Turin, he set up his own workshop in 1892 and probably initially worked for Marengo Rinaldi and Enrico Marchetti, but he soon earned an excellent reputation and was considered one of the best luthiers in Italy in the 1920s. 
 The career of  Annibale Fagnola  (1866–1939), who was born the same year as Oddone, followed a completely different path. He initially worked as a baker and taught himself the art of violin making in the tradition of Guadagnini and Rinaldi. He apparently used every opportunity to study the masterpieces of Pressedas and Roccas on site, and within a few years he had established himself internationally as one of the most sought-after Turin masters – who, with a gold medal for a string quartet at the Turin Exhibition of 1911, also received the honour he deserved from his hometown. 
 Among the numerous students trained and inspired by Fagnola was  Plinio Michetti  (1891–1991), who, like Fagnola, was a self-taught luthier who, not least because of his extraordinary talent, also received instruction from other great violinmakers such as Carlo Giuseppe Oddone, Euro Peluzzi, Cesare Candi and Paolo de Barbieri, and quickly developed into a master craftsman who received multiple awards. 
 Today, the specific Piedmontese violin-making tradition is represented in the contemporary scene of Turin by the founder and president of the Accademia Liuteria Piemontese,  Enzo Cena  (1944–), who has influenced many excellent young masters in the spirit of the great Turin masters through his teaching. Furthermore, as in times gone by, the city attracts talent from further afield, such as  Francesco Piloni  (1979–), who trained in his native Cremona and worked for Carlson &amp;amp; Neumann before opening his workshop in Turin. His workshop partner,  Kanna Osaki  (1981–), also trained in Cremona, studying bow-making with Giovanni Lucchi. A particularly interesting discovery is  Yael Rosenblum , a former professional violinist and violist who studied violin making in Jerusalem and Cremona, specialising in baroque instruments, and has been working with leading orchestras and soloists worldwide from her workshop in Turin for more than 20 years. 
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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                            <updated>2025-02-03T16:30:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Violin making in Rome – the history of Roman violin making since the 16th cen...</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/rome-violin-making-history-roman-violinmaking</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/rome-violin-making-history-roman-violinmaking"/>
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                                            Violin making in Rome: important contemporary violin makers and highlights from the history of Roman violin making since the 16th century
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                 Rome, for centuries the center of the world, plays a surprisingly minor role in the history of violin making. However, it is by no means an easy question to answer what conclusions can be drawn from this observation about the musical life of the &quot;eternal city&quot; in the age of the violin.&amp;nbsp;  
 Violin making in Rome: Overview: 
 
 The beginnings of violin making in Rome 
 The &quot;Roman school&quot; around David Tecchler 
 Other historical Roman violin makers 
 Luthiers in Rome today – contemporary masters 
 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 In particular, only a few Roman violin makers are known to research from the early days of violin making in the late 16th century, but also up to the end of the 17th century; among them, there are hardly any outstanding masters and school education, even in a family context, is extremely rare. Whether the conservative attitude of the Catholic Church in the aftermath of the Council of Trent is to blame for the obvious lack of demand for high-quality violin-making services in the Papal States is a somewhat speculative theory. It is more likely that  Cremona  and  Brescia , the violin-making centers of northern Italy, dominated the Italian market after their early rise – and that the fellow members of the guild of Nicolò Amati and Antonio Stradivari had little more to do in Rome than to maintain and repair imported violins. 
 The beginnings of violin making in Rome 
 The first historically documented violin maker in Rome was  Orazio di Giovanni Filippo , who, without a surname, is mentioned in a court document in 1554 as a liutaio. However, due to the well-known vagueness of this occupational title, it remains unclear whether Orazio built string instruments at all or only plucked instruments. 
 Like Orazio di Giovanni Filippo, most Roman liutai of the 16th and 17th centuries probably came to Rome from elsewhere, for example  Paolo Albani  (1633–1680), who, coming from Palermo, probably learned the art of violin making from Nicolò Amati and is considered one of the best of his generation. There is no evidence of autochthonous teacher-pupil relationships in this phase of Roman violin-making history, and the beginnings of a &quot;Roman school&quot; can only be recognized later and to a comparatively small extent. 
 The &quot;Roman School&quot; around David Tecchler 
  David Tecchler  (c. 1666–1747) is the most important figure in the early history of Roman violin making, and his work, which was inspired by Cremonese models and also shows the influence of Jakob Stainer, represents an independent and historic achievement. His cellos in particular are still extremely popular among today&#039;s top musicians, even though only a few instruments have survived in their original, very large model. 
     
 Even though there is a lack of historically verified information about David Tecchler&#039;s family and apprentices, his influence can clearly be seen in the work of the following generation of violin makers. A &quot;Roman school&quot;, which in the narrower sense can be understood as a &quot;Tecchler school&quot;, can be seen, for example, in the work of   Giulio Cesare Gigli   (c. 1724–1794), who interpreted David Tecchler&#039;s model with a slightly higher arch and also left the musical world with excellent cellos. A similar orientation can be seen in  Giorgio Tanigardi  (Taningard, before 1750), who probably came from Germany, and in Gigli&#039;s uncle  Michael Platner  (died 1750), who, contrary to contrary to earlier research, was apparently not a student of Tecchler, but was trained in his father&#039;s workshop; he thus belonged to the second or third generation of immigrant violin makers who were able to establish themselves in Rome. Whether the same applies to  Antonio Pollusca , whose family roots are thought to be in Bohemia, remains to be seen, but he too is one of the outstanding representatives of the Roman school around the middle of the 18th century. His particularly intimate knowledge of the Tecchler model suggests a personal relationship with his workshop. 
 Other historical Roman violin makers 
 International immigrants remain characteristic of Roman violin making, which experienced a significant upswing in the 18th century and entered a more differentiated phase of its development. While the constant influx from German-speaking countries is likely to have continued unabated, there are now also traces of masters from other European countries. Examples of these are the Englishman or Irishman Patrik Harford (Patritius), who worked in Rome around 1742, and  Jacob Horil , whose name suggests that he came from Bohemia. He initially worked in Vienna and came to Rome around 1740, where he was able to place his high-quality instruments, which were surprisingly unimpressed by the style of the Tecchler school, with obvious success. 
 Among the interesting discoveries that Roman violin-making history has to offer, the  Politi family , one of the few violin-making dynasties in Rome, deserves special mention. Its founder was  Eugenio Politi  (1853–1909), a pupil of the great Enrico Ceruti, who was so good at imitating his master&#039;s style that quite a few of his works were sold by instrument dealers with forged Ceruti labels. The instruments of his son  Enrico Politi  (1885–1979) are also highly valued. Enrico was influenced more by Guarneri in his personal model and was a colleague of Giuseppe Fiorini. Enrico&#039;s son Raoul, born in 1913, also became an accomplished and successful violin maker after initially pursuing a career as a violinist. His uncle Fernando Politi (1882–1928) moved to Turin after training with his father Eugenio and is thus one of the few well-known violin makers to have taken a piece of Roman violin-making tradition beyond the city limits. 
 The most prominent representative of these &quot;emigrants&quot; is without a doubt&amp;nbsp; Simone Fernando Sacconi &amp;nbsp;(1895–1974), who, as an employee of Rembert Wurlitzer in New York, trained and inspired countless first-class masters in the U.S.A. and many other countries. Through his teacher&amp;nbsp; Giuseppe Ross i (1869–1954), Sacconi was part of the Venetian tradition of Eugenio Degani and developed into one of the leading restorers and varnish specialists of his generation. 
 The Roman school of violin making continued to develop a certain radiance through Rodolfo Fredi (1861–1950), who learned the art of violin making from his father Fabio Fredi, who was originally from Perugia. Rodolfo had previously completed a degree in violin making and was himself a professor of violin from 1875 to 1900. From 1885, he made around 450 violins, 70 violas and 50 cellos in his own workshop, supported by his students Giuseppe Giacchetti and Vittorio Bellarosa, who were to become highly esteemed, internationally successful masters in their own right. From 1920, Fredi, who received numerous awards for his string instruments and was chairman of the professional association for many years, also devoted himself to piano and organ building. 
 Violin makers in Rome today – contemporary masters 
 From its earliest beginnings, violin making in Rome was international in character, attracting masters from all the major violin-making regions of Europe. Even in the 20th century and in the present day, connections that extend beyond the borders of the &quot;eternal city&quot; characterize the scene. 
 In this sense, masters such as&amp;nbsp;  Giuseppe Lucci  &amp;nbsp;(1910–1991) represent the close ties between Rome and the other important schools of Italian violin making, specifically with the sphere of the workshop of Leandro Bisiach in Milan, to which Lucci&#039;s teacher Pietro Borghi had belonged for most of his career. Today, Rodolfo Marchini (1943–) runs the studio of his teacher Giuseppe Lucci and, with his works based on Stradivari and Guarneri, which are in great demand internationally and have received numerous awards, provides a powerful testimony to the level of contemporary violin making in Rome. 
 The Swiss violin maker Michel Eggimann, who settled in Rome in 2007 and was already closely connected to the proverbial center of classical Italian violin making through his teacher Philippe Girardin in Neuchâtel, represents the worldwide influence of the new school of Cremona. Like Girardin, Eggimann attended the Cremonese violin-making school and studied under Vincenzo Bissolotti, before going on to work on the recently founded project of Joseph Curtin and Gregg T. Alf, where he was able to devote himself to the masterpieces of Stradivari and Guarneri. He has received multiple awards for his brilliant Guarneri replicas and restorations, and has created more than 300 top-quality instruments for internationally renowned soloists and ensembles. 
 Cremona is also an important stop on Mathias Menanteau&#039;s journey to Rome, but he began his career in England with a three-year apprenticeship at the renowned Newark School of Violin Making; he then studied restoration for five years at the Anton Pilar workshop in Berlin, which is in the modern tradition of the Špidlen violin-making family from Prague. After internships in Paris and New York, as well as with Eric Blot in Cremona – one of the world&#039;s leading experts in Italian violin making – Menanteau opened his workshop near the Colosseum in 2010 and has been working in Via di Santa Maggiore since 2014. 
  Giorgio Corsini, &amp;nbsp;who was born in Tivoli in 1913, studied violin at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia before turning to violin making at a later stage, may be considered a proverbial exception to the international rule for Roman violin making. With a modest but highly individual body of work, he has earned international acclaim, not least for his excellent varnishing and his extraordinary talent as a restorer. 
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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                            <updated>2024-06-16T10:00:00+02:00</updated>
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        <entry>
            <title type="text">Cremona, the early Lombard history of Italian violin making</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/cremona-the-early-lombard-history-of-italian-violin-making</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/cremona-the-early-lombard-history-of-italian-violin-making"/>
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                                            Cremona violin making: The perfection of early Italian violin making in the classic Cremonese style of Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati
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                 Cremona violin making as the early zenith of Italian violin making in its classic Cremonese phase 
  Cremona is the proverbial city of Italian violin making – no other place has written more significant chapters in the history of violin making than the home of the greatest historical masters of old Italian violin making. How did Antonio Stradivari, Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù and Nicolò Amati revolutionize their art – and how did Cremona violin making contribute to the development of the modern violin?  
 Cremona violin making holds a distinctive position among the towns where classical Italian violin making flourished, a process whose earliest origins can never be fully explored. The reason for the special status of&amp;nbsp;Cremona in violin making&amp;nbsp;is less the fact that the Cremonese craftsman tradition has a long and time-honoured standing there, since other towns can also look back on a tradition of comparable — if not longer — history. Instead, Cremona is remarkable because from early on Cremona violin making reflected mastery and had an enduring normative influence.   
 The history of local artisanry in Cremona violin making is simultaneously the history of the earliest days of violin making, the study of which always begins with examining the classic&amp;nbsp;Cremonese violins. The artistic and technical standards defined by the famous violin makers  Amati ,  Stradivari  and  Guarneri  del Gesù in the approximately 150 years of their work remain unchallenged to this day. 
 Content overview: Violin making in Cremona 
 
  Cremona as the early zenith of Italian violin making  
  The golden age of Cremona: Italian &amp;nbsp;violin making in the era of Amati and Stradivari  
  Guarneri the Italian violin maker: An exceptional figure in classic Cremona  
 
 The golden age of Cremona: Italian violin making in the era of Amati and Stradivari 
 The figure at this pinnacle of Cremonese violin making is&amp;nbsp; Nicolo Amati &amp;nbsp;(1596-1684) of Cremona, whose instruments are characterized by their size and their highly arched tops. As one of the first  Cremona violin makers , Nicolo Amati used his model to produce a large but sweet sound which helped Cremonese violins to distinguish themselves from those of the&amp;nbsp; da Salo and Maggini school of Bresica  for the first time. Nicolo Amati&#039;s greatest student,  Antonio Stradivari &amp;nbsp;(1648/49-1737), spent half of his career following in the footsteps of his master before he began to build smaller violins with a lower arch and a more powerful sound.    As the rigours of soloist performance increased over the course of musical history, Antonio Stradivari&#039;s violins became more and more of a template for other copies. Even in light of the long-term dominance of the Stradivari violin, however, the Amati violin is in no way to be regarded as an obsolete predecessor; for centuries it remained a viable and widely imitated style, and it increased the artistic possibilities for all generations of violin makers to follow. 
 Guarneri: An exceptional figure in classic Cremona violin making 
 The most interesting person among the great violin makers of Cremona, however, is most likely to be&amp;nbsp;  Joseph Guarnerius del Gesù  &amp;nbsp;(1698-1744); his short life is steeped in legend and produced an oeuvre of fewer than 200 violins, a slim yield. In comparison to the constant perfection of the Stradivarius workshop, Giuseppe Guarneri&#039;s violins are noteworthy in part due to some of their inadequacies in craftsmanship: it would seem that Guarneri del Gesù was so radical and uncompromising in his pursuit of the ideal of a large sound that he was glad to overlook a few &quot;incidental&quot; aesthetic issues. The sound he created confirms his approach, however, and the effects of his violins have continued to have a lasting impact, even to this day. For example, Nicolo Paganini&#039;s favourite Guarneri del Gesu violin was one the legendary soloist reverently dubbed &quot;il cannone.&quot; It was repeatedly copied by the great&amp;nbsp; Jean Baptiste Vuillaume , and today one of these copies is played by the young virtuoso artist Hilary Hahn. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Related articles:  
 Stradivari&#039;s heirs:&amp;nbsp; list of contemporary violin makers in Cremona  
  Italian violin makers  - key facts and figures 
  Eric Blot , expert of Cremona and Italian violin making 
  Ente Triennale Cremona &amp;nbsp;and other international violin making competitions 
  Contemporary violin makers &amp;nbsp;- the modern artisan elite 
  Markneukirchen: violin making &amp;nbsp;in “German Cremona” 
  Mittenwald: violin making &amp;nbsp;“in the midst of the forest” 
  Mirecourt: the spacious home of French violin making  
  Contemporary violin makers from China and Taiwan  
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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                            <updated>2024-03-22T09:05:00+01:00</updated>
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        <entry>
            <title type="text">Violin making in Milan: on Milanese violin makers</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/milan-violin-making</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/milan-violin-making"/>
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                                            Violin makers in Milan: a brief history of Milanese violin making – from the old to the new Milan school – contemporary masters
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                 Violin making in Milan: overview 
 
  Old Milanese violin making up to the end of the 18th century  
  Violin making in Milan: a new heyday in the 20th century  
  Contemporary Milanese violin makers  
 
 Old Milanese violin making up to the end of the 18th century 
 Even though Milanese violin making in its origins can hardly be compared to the great epoch of Cremona and Brescia – where masters such as Andrea and Nicolò Amati, Antonio Stradivari, Guarneri del Gesù, Gasparo da Salò and Giovanni Paolo Maggini created nothing less than the definition of the violin that would endure for centuries, and a highly productive network of workshops that were successful beyond the region quickly emerged – its roots go back surprisingly far. Although Milan did not yet appear to have a well-differentiated violin-making scene in the late 17th and 18th centuries, the workshops of the Grancino family became the starting point for a tradition that would last for more than 100 years. 
  Giovanni Battista Grancino (1637–1709) &amp;nbsp;is considered to be the founder of the family tradition. He may have had forerunners and teachers in his father Andrea and grandfather Francesco, and he certainly worked with his brother Francesco between 1666 and 1685. Why his work from the turn of the 18th century shows a clear influence of the Amati school is as unclear as the identity of two other bearers of his name, who have been identified by researchers as his descendants and students; however, it is also possible that Giovanni Battista “I.” only died at the advanced age of around 90 and that they were all the same person. 
 Even if his works occasionally reveal somewhat simpler standards, for example in the choice of wood – which probably allows conclusions to be drawn about the market conditions in Milan at the time – it is precisely the later instruments from the Grancino workshop that are still in demand today as instruments with a powerful sound, and the high proportion of violoncellos in his overall work justifies Grancino&#039;s high standing in the history of this discipline.&amp;nbsp;    
 Of Giovanni Battista Grancino&#039;s students, who included interesting masters such as Santino Lavazza, Gaetano Pasta and presumably also his father Bartolomeo Pasta, Carlo Rotta and Ferdinando Alberti, the great&amp;nbsp; Carlo Giuseppe Testore (ca. 1660–1716) &amp;nbsp;is probably the one who most deserves the title of legitimate heir to the Grancino tradition. His work, which, like that of his teacher, is famous not least for its outstanding cellos, reflects the style of Grancino, without lacking a strong personal touch. In this style, the older Milanese style developed further and found faithful custodians in Carlo Giuseppe&#039;s son&amp;nbsp; Carlo Antonio Testore (1693–ca. 1765) &amp;nbsp;and his son Giovanni Testore (1724–1765). Despite the outstanding abilities of Carlo Antonio in particular, some instruments from his workshop reveal that, like Grancino before him, he was not always able to work for the most affluent clients and was therefore forced to make a number of concessions, especially in terms of aesthetics. These circumstances seem to have weighed even more heavily on the work of his brother&amp;nbsp; Paolo Antonio Testore (ca. 1690 – ca. 1750) , who, like his son&amp;nbsp; Gennaro Testore (ca. 1735 – ca. 1800) , made instruments with a beautiful sound out of lower-quality woods. 
 Growing competition may also have played a certain role, resulting from the brief stay of&amp;nbsp; Giovanni Battista Guadagnini &amp;nbsp;in Milan and the rise of the Landolfi family of violin makers. Guadagnini only worked in Milan between 1750 and 58, before moving on to Turin via Cremona and Parma, where he was to make musical instrument history together with Count Cozio di Salabue. But even this short time seems to have been enough to have a lasting effect on the local market for string instruments, as can be seen not least from the work of&amp;nbsp; Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi (ca. 1710–1784) . His work shows clear inspiration, perhaps even training by Guadagnini, and this independence from the old Milanese tradition of the Grancino and Testore families brought a previously unknown diversity to Milanese violin making. Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi&#039;s school was influenced by his son&amp;nbsp; Pietro Antonio Landolfi (ca. 1730–1795) , but even more so by the violin makers of the Mantegazza family, who contributed significantly to the flourishing of violin making in Milan in the last years of the 18th century. In the workshop of Landolfi&#039;s student&amp;nbsp; Pietro Giovanni Mantegazza (ca. 1730–1803) , there were probably up to five other members of the family, whose exact family relationships remain a mystery to this day. What is well known, however, is the basis of their economic success: their extensive collaboration with Count Cozio di Salabue, who had numerous old Italian master violins “modernized” by the Mantegazzas. They apparently also completed many violins from the estate of Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, which Cozio had purchased on a large scale from his Turin partner. 
 Violin making in Milan: a new heyday in the 20th century 
 For reasons unknown, the Grancino-Testore and Guadagnini-Landolfi-Mantegazza lines of tradition did not continue into the early 19th century. Although violin making in Milan did not come to a complete standstill in the following decades, it would take almost a century before Milanese workshops were able to regain their former regional prominence. 
 The field was prepared by smaller ateliers, some of which produced good instruments without, however, having any kind of influence or forming a school themselves – and the&amp;nbsp; Monzino &amp;nbsp;company, founded around 1750, which had become internationally successful with the construction and distribution of plucked instruments and probably under the leadership of&amp;nbsp; Giacomo Antonio II. &amp;nbsp; Monzino (1772–1854) &amp;nbsp;began to turn to the making of string instruments. 
 Toward the end of the 19th century,&amp;nbsp; Leandro Bisiach (1864–1946) &amp;nbsp;was also attracting excellent violin makers to his workshop in Milan, including his teacher&amp;nbsp; Riccardo Antoniazzi (1853–1912) , who had his own workshop in the 1870s and 80s, worked with Leandro Bisiach from 1886 to 1904, and then in the Monzino workshop during three periods of work, all of which were characterized by high standards of violin making in their own contexts. In the early 20th century, experienced, innovative master luthiers gathered in Milan as if to resume the tradition that had been interrupted 100 years earlier: In addition to the sons of Leandro Bisiach –&amp;nbsp; Andrea Bisiach (1890–1967) ,&amp;nbsp; Carlo Bisiach (1892–1968) ,&amp;nbsp; Giacomo Bisiach (1900–1995) &amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp; Leandro II Bisiach (1904–1982) &amp;nbsp;– mention should also be made of&amp;nbsp; Gaetano Sgarabotto (1878–1959) , who, with the support of Antoniazzi and Leandro Bisiach, taught himself to become a master who received many awards, as well as&amp;nbsp; Luigi Galimberti (1888–1957) ,&amp;nbsp; Ambrogio Sironi (1902–1939) &amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp; Raffaelo Bozzi (1905–1981) . 
 Alongside Bisiach,&amp;nbsp; Celeste Farotti (1864–1928) &amp;nbsp;also established himself in Milan from 1900. He was an equally talented luthier who came from the same region as Leandro Bisiach and quickly made a name for himself with demanding repairs. Farotti became a true rival to Bisiach, who was only two months younger, when, encouraged by his successes, he turned to making new instruments and established a style that, with its orientation towards Giovanni Francesco Pressenda and Giuseppe Rocca, stood in interesting contrast to the emerging new Milan school. He was supported by&amp;nbsp; Alfred Lanini (1891-1956) , whose apprenticeship with Antoniazzi was cut short by the master&#039;s early death. After his time with Farotti, he worked in his native California as a highly productive and experimental master, as did his nephew&amp;nbsp; Celestino Farotto (1905–1988) , who also worked for Bisiach after the Second World War and received numerous awards for his extensive work. 
 Contemporary Milanese violin makers 
 Not least because of the&amp;nbsp; Civica Scuola di Liuteria di Milano , the violin-making school founded in 1978, Milan now has a firm place in the world of violin making. But even outside the teaching workshops, a small but lively and interesting violin-making scene has emerged that ties in with the impulses of new Milanese violin making. 
 The most prominent example of this continuity is undoubtedly the luthier Nicola&amp;nbsp; Enrico Antonio Monzino (1970–) , with whom the tradition of this renowned family business has long since passed its 250th year. In the spirit of his grandfather&amp;nbsp; Antonio VI Carlo Monzino (1909–2004) , the heir to this long line of successful entrepreneurs and violin makers sees his workshop as a studio of classical violin-making excellence – as a new “Laboratorio Monzino”. 
  Delfi Merlo (1961–) &amp;nbsp;is closely associated with the institutions of Milan&#039;s musical life. He began his career in 1977 as an apprentice to Monzino and a few years later completed a classical violin-making apprenticeship at the Scuola di Liuteria in Cremona. After opening his workshop, he received restoration orders from the Musical Instrument Museum in Milan&#039;s Castello Sforzesco and worked for the conservatory and the famous Teatro alla Scala. Since the early 1990s, he has also built a strong international reputation for newly made instruments. 
 One of the younger graduates of the Milanese school of violin making is&amp;nbsp; Lorenzo Rossi , who discovered his love of violin making while studying physics. Since graduating, he has continued his education in numerous courses with international masters such as Carlos Arcieri and Guy Rabut, not least in the most modern restoration techniques. He has received multiple awards for his instruments at renowned exhibitions such as the Concorso Triennale Internazionale die Liuteria Antonio Stradivari. 
 Other, no less interesting accents are set by&amp;nbsp; Stefano Bertoli , who also studied at the Milan school and has since worked closely with&amp;nbsp; Carlo Chiesa . Bertoli shares a particular interest in classical craftsmanship techniques with another graduate of the same school, who has inspired him to take a deeper interest in the art of woodcarving. 
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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                            <updated>2021-02-19T08:00:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">On the history of violin making in Brescia</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/violin-making-in-brescia</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/violin-making-in-brescia"/>
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                                            Brescia violin makers - history of Brescian viokin making - da Salò, Maggini, Rogeri and Scarampella
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                 In the early days of Italian violin making, Brescia violin makers and the musical culture of Brescia were at least as important as  Cremona , which is now much more prominent. It is true that &quot;the&quot; violin was not &quot;invented&quot; by Gasparo da Salò - one of the best and most influential masters of his guild in this city - as earlier research assumed. But that both he and many of his contemporaries and predecessors were involved in the decisive steps of this musical revolution is beyond question - even if their respective contributions can often only be traced in rudimentary detail. 
 Violin making in Brescia: overview 
 
 The earliest violin makers of Brescia 
 Classical violin making in Brescia: Gasparo da Salò - G. P. Maggini - Giovanni Battista Rogeri and Pietro Giacomo Rogeri 
 Giuseppe and Stefano Scarampella 
 
 The earliest violin makers of Brescia 
 As in many other historical violin making centers, Brescia knows a founding figure whose existence is not proven with certainty and whose story belongs, at least in part, to the realm of myth. We are talking about Giovanni Kerlino, to whom instruments dating far back into the 15th century were attributed - but which are no longer preserved today and were most likely forgeries of the 18th or 19th century. There is also much speculation about his name, from which resourceful historians have sometimes distilled a Breton, sometimes a German origin - in order to be able to use it to claim nothing less than the invention of the violin itself for their own nationality. 
  On the other hand, there is no doubt about the existence of violin makers such as Giovan Giacobo dalla Corna (1484 - ca. 1560) and Zanetto Micheli (ca. 1489-1561) as representatives of the oldest tangible generation of their guild in Brescia; they were followed by Pellegrino Micheli (ca. 1520 - ca. 1609), the son of Zanetto Micheli, as well as Battista Doneda (ca. 1529-1610), Girolamo Virchi (1523 - ca. 1588) and finally the great  Gasparo da Salò  (ca. 1540-1609). The fact that no or only a few instruments by these masters have survived - with a certain exception in the case of Zanetto and Pellegrino Micheli - reinforces the aforementioned focus on da Salò&#039;s work and the overvaluation of his personal contribution to the  development of the violin . 
 The classical violin making in Brescia: Gasparo da Salò - G. P. Maggini - Giovanni Battista Rogeri and Pietro Giacomo Rogeri 
 Gasparo Bertolotti, called Gasparo da Salò, was born in Polpenazze near Salò on Lago di Garda. He probably received basic musical training from members of his family - and perhaps even learned the basics of instrument making from his grandfather. From 1562 he lived in Brescia and became friends with Girolamo Virchi, by whom he was apparently introduced more deeply into the secrets of violin making. Insofar as the surviving instruments allow conclusions to be drawn about his development as a craftsman, they present a talented liutaio who was initially largely uneducated and hands-on, who did not shy away from aesthetic concessions, but who quickly penetrated the conditions of good violin sound and, as his personal skills grew, contributed nothing less than fundamental definitions of the nascent violin type. Beyond the historical significance of his complete works, the violas and double basses in particular are still highly regarded today for their musical quality - and the &quot;treasure chamber violin&quot; devotedly revered by Ole Bull went down in music history as a richly decorated individual piece. 
 But it was not only through his own work that da Salò earned the reputation of being one of the definitive founders of the Brescia school of violin making, which until the rise of Antonio Stradivari was at least as influential as the still young Cremonese tradition. Thus, in terms of Gasparo da Salò&#039;s impact, the name of  Giovanni Paolo Maggini  (1580-1632) should be mentioned first, who was born near Brescia in 1580 and came to the workshop of the now extremely successful and wealthy da Salò as a boy barely eight years old. There he was to remain until the age of 21, receiving an excellent education, after which he was not only to create his famous, profusely decorated masterpieces of carving and marquetry, but also to achieve significant improvements in the violin model, the effect of which on the classical masters in rival Cremona is more than circumstantial. 
  Giovanni Battista Rogeri  (ca. 1642 - ca. 1710), a pupil of  Nicolò Amati in Cremona , who settled in Brescia in 1664, stands in a special way for this quite close relationship between the two violin making cities, whose contrast is often portrayed in the literature as stronger than it probably was historically. Together with his son Pietro Giacomo Rogeri (1665-1724), he created great instruments that, in retrospect, seem like echoes of the founding years of Brescian violin making, before the music world finally turned to Cremona and largely forgot Brescia as a violin making city. 
 Giuseppe and Stefano Scarampella 
 And indeed, it was to be more than 100 years before Brescia would once again see the emergence of a family of violin makers claiming a prominent place in the history of the violin. It was founded by Paolo Scarampella (1803-1870), a carpenter who had learned violin making from an unknown master - perhaps even self-taught - and pursued it with great dedication and remarkable success. His varied œuvre includes violins, violas, guitars and mandolins - and cellos, among which are his most accomplished works. 
 Paolo taught his elder son  Giuseppe Scarampella  (1838-1885) the basics of violin making, which he refined as an apprentice to Nicolò Bianchi. With Bianchi he matured into an interesting representative of the Genoese school, but after a brief stay in Paris he ended up in the Florentine workshop of Luigi Castellani and eventually became conservator of the Istituto Musicale in Florence. 
 However, Giuseppe left lasting traces not only as a violin maker, but also as a teacher, in the work of his brother  Stefano Scarampella  (1843-1927), whom he trained from about 1890. Stefano had initially become a carpenter, like his father, and in the short time between 1902 and 1915 created much of his extensive oeuvre, which, in addition to the classical models Stradivari and Guarneri, was particularly influenced by Balestrieri - an exponent of the school of Mantova, where Stefano had settled and, as Gaetano Gadda&#039;s teacher, was to have a lasting influence on this remarkable luthier and his son  Mario Gadda . 
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                            <updated>2021-02-03T16:30:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Violin making in Florence - a historical sketch</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/florence-violin-making</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/florence-violin-making"/>
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                                            Historical sketch of violin making in Florence - on the traces of great names and excellent violin makers in an important European cultural centre
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                 Violin making in Florence is one of the most enigmatic chapters in the history of Italian craftsmanship, because although musical life flourished in the city of the Medici - which was one of the most important cultural centers in Europe in its heyday - no independent local violin making tradition developed in Florence. Although many Florentine liutai are well known by name, they have left little more evidence of their work than the occasional repair note on instruments made by other masters. 
 Violin making in Florence: Overview: 
 
  The violin makers of Florence in the shadow of Brescia and Cremona  
  The beginnings of violin making in Florence  
  Important violin makers in Florence in the 17th and 18th centuries  
  German violin makers in Florence  
  Families in classical Florentine violin making  
  Violin making in Florence in the 19th and 20th centuries  
  Bisiach and violin making in Florence  
  Florentine violin making today: family and workshop relationships  
 
 The violin makers of Florence in the shadow of Brescia and Cremona 
 This finding corresponds to the situation in other Italian cities and most probably reflects the outstanding success of the famous workshops in&amp;nbsp; Brescia &amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp; Cremona , which are of historical importance not only because of their contributions to the development of the violin model that is still valid today. In fact, the Amati, Stradivari and Guarneri families and others from their sphere of influence dominated the market for new instruments and supplied sacred and secular patrons throughout Italy and beyond. 
 It can therefore be assumed that Florence offered numerous violin makers a good livelihood, certainly including first-class masters - and probably in greater numbers than research has so far focused on. 
 The beginnings of violin making in Florence 
 As little as a classical violin-making tradition developed in Florence, the information about the beginnings of the craft in the city is equally sparse. While some authors credit the proverbial universal genius Leonardo da Vinci with founding violin making in his home town, others assume that&amp;nbsp; Valentino Siani &amp;nbsp;(1595-1672) was the first liutaio in Florence to make instruments of the violin family alongside the traditional plucked instruments. Valentino Siani&#039;s instruments, of which only a few are known, display a mature, individual style influenced by his probable teacher&amp;nbsp; Giovanni Paolo Maggini . Valentino Siani&#039;s instruments are still valued today for both their craftsmanship and their tonal quality. 
 Important violin makers in 17th and 18th century Florence 
 The contemporary violin makers alongside Siani included not only outstanding masters of their art, but also&amp;nbsp; Giovanni Battista Doni &amp;nbsp;(1595-1647), a multi-talented and influential figure in music history. The scholar and musicologist is not only known as the creator of the Do-Re-Mi - by replacing the Ut in the solmization with Do, in the sense of better singability, praise of the Creator (dominus) and perhaps also the memory of his own family name - but also as the first opera theorist and innovative instrument maker who invented the lyra barberina (amphicord). And although no violins by Giovanni Battista Doni have survived, there is no doubt about his special appreciation of the modern violin: &quot;Among all musical instruments, the nature of the violin is truly wonderful&quot;, he makes clear in his Annotazioni sopra il Compendio de&#039; Generi e de&#039; Modi della Musica of 1640, because &quot;in the hands of an experienced player, the violin combines the softness of the lute, the sweetness of the viola da gamba, the majesty of the harp, the power of the trumpet, the liveliness of the pipe, the plaintiveness of the flute, the pathos of the cornet&quot;. Giovanni Battista Doni&#039;s family probably also included Rocco Doni, who was one of the most productive and respected violin makers of his time. 
    Another shining figure in Florentine violin making is&amp;nbsp; Bartolomeo Cristofori &amp;nbsp;(1655-1731), who has gone down in music history as the inventor of the fortepiano, but who - despite some historical questions about his biography that have not yet been clarified - most probably also made stringed instruments. The cellos and a double bass that have survived under his name present an excellent master with an independent artistic signature, whose work was already held in the highest esteem during his lifetime. The latter is evident from a repair label attached to a Cristofori cello by none other than&amp;nbsp; Antonio Stradivari . 
 German violin makers in Florence 
 The fact that several violin makers from Germany moved to Florence early on in the 17th century and established teacher-pupil relationships that have only been rudimentarily researched to date also speaks to the high demand for violin making services in the city. Well-known names include Filippo Zimbelmann, who probably worked for Giovanni Suover before opening his own workshop. Wilhelm and Melchior Eberle, whose work in Florence is documented from 1603 onwards, and their contemporary and presumed relative Bartolomeo Eberspacher came from Hofen near Wald in the Allgäu. 
 Families in classical Florentine violin making 
 The fact that violin makers enjoyed good working conditions in Florence is also demonstrated by the various families of violin makers in which the craft flourished over several generations, particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries. 
 The&amp;nbsp; Gabrielli dynasty of violin makers , for example, included four masters, of whom&amp;nbsp; Giovanni Battista Gabrielli &amp;nbsp;(1716-1771) was already the most famous during his lifetime. With his style-conscious, experimental and Jakob Stainer-oriented way of working, the best results of which have been preserved in the viola and violoncello subjects, Giovanni Battista Gabrielli made a good name for himself, which many a dealer had printed on false labels for a long time to come. 
 Of the nine known members of the&amp;nbsp; Carcassi family of violin makers , with whom the beginnings of a regional &quot;Tuscan school of violin making&quot; are indeed tangible,&amp;nbsp; Lorenzo Carcassi &amp;nbsp;(- ca. 1776) is considered the most distinguished and still highly esteemed master, who worked both under his own name and in cooperation with his brother&amp;nbsp; Tomaso Carcassi &amp;nbsp;(- ca. 1786) under the firm &quot; Lorenzo e Tomaso Carcassi &quot; from ca. 1745. Their work represents the influence of&amp;nbsp; Jakob Stainer &#039;s violin model in northern Italy. 
 Violin making in Florence in the 19th and 20th centuries 
 Productive and influential families of instrument makers were also active in Florence in the 19th century, first and foremost among them the name&amp;nbsp; Castellani . Although, like many Italian liutai, they devoted themselves at least as much to making guitars and mandolins, the Castellanis also produced very good violins in their workshops. Their most important representative was&amp;nbsp; Luigi Castellani &amp;nbsp;(1809-1884), who had learned his craft from his father Pietro Castellani (1780-1820) and later ran the&amp;nbsp; Castellani e Figlio workshop . Thanks Luigi Castellani&#039;s excellent reputation as a restorer, he was appointed to the Florentine Conservatory. In 1866, Luigi Castellani recruited none other than Giuseppe Scarampella (1838 - ca. 1885) to work in his flourishing business, which was taken over by Pietro Ballerini after his death. 
 Another outstanding violin maker in 19th century Florence was&amp;nbsp; Lorenzo Arcangioli , who was very successful in the first half of the century in reviving the old Italian violin making tradition and the Tuscan school.&amp;nbsp; Valentino de Zorzi &amp;nbsp;(1837-1916) was a highly innovative violin maker who was self-taught in his craft and came to Florence from Pistoia in 1885. His work followed a personal violin model - an interesting synthesis of Stradivari and Stainer&#039;s construction principles - and earned him several awards, while inventions such as an 18-string &quot;harp guitar&quot; and a &quot;contraviolino&quot; are an expression of his enormous creativity and interesting, experimental contributions to the violin making of his time. 
 Bisiach and violin making in Florence 
 The 20th century brought a breath of fresh air to Florentine violin making, which is inextricably linked with the name&amp;nbsp; Bisiach . Born and raised in Milan, trained by his father&amp;nbsp; Leandro Bisiach &amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp; Léon Mougenot &amp;nbsp;in Mirecourt, by&amp;nbsp; Eugène Sartory in Paris &amp;nbsp;and Karel van der Meer in The Hague,&amp;nbsp; Carlo Bisiach &amp;nbsp;moved to Florence in 1922. At the same time, Iginio Sderci, one of the best employees of the&amp;nbsp;Milan Bisiach workshop, who, like Carlo Bisiach, was strictly committed to the old Italian masters, followed the same path. Iginio Sderci and Carlo Bisiach worked closely together in Florence and were already regarded as leading exponents of&amp;nbsp; Italian violin making &amp;nbsp;of their era during their lifetimes. 
 Sderci left his mark on violin making in Florence and beyond, not least through his many students, among whom are highly interesting masters such as Leandro Bisiach jr, Giuseppe Bargelli and Roberto Ignesti. 
 Florentine violin making today: family and workshop relationships 
 Even today, Florence is a cultural city with international appeal, so it is not surprising that it is home to an interesting and extensive violin making scene. One of its formative influences is the Vettori family, to which 6 violin makers alone belong and in whose workshops important personalities of contemporary Florentine violin making were trained. This important family tradition was founded by Dario Vettori, who gave up his profession as a violinist in 1935 at the age of 30 to devote himself to violin making. Like him, his sons Carlo Vettori and Paolo Vettori went on to become excellent restorers and multi-award-winning liutai. Paolo&#039;s children Dario, Sofia and Lapo Vettori now work together with their father and maintain the company&#039;s specialization in working with rare, old tonewoods. 
 The Vettoris&#039; intensive workshop relationships include Paolo&#039;s connections with the workshops of the Sderci family, Giuseppe Stefanini and Lapo Casini, from whom he drew significant inspiration, as well as students such as Fabio Chiari, who, in addition to his own highly successful work, has written several specialist books and founded the &quot;Scuola die Liuteria Toscana &#039;Fernando Ferroni&#039;&quot; in 2014 - a milestone in the recent history of Florentine violin making. His workshop &quot;Liuteria Toscana&quot; alone currently brings together 16 other violin makers, and yet only represents a part of violin making in Florence, where masters such as Claudio Arezio, Tommaso Pedani, Paolo Sorgentone, Michele Mecatti, Fabrizio Di Pietrantonio, Francesco Tarchi and Jamie Marie Lazzara allow countless rewarding explorations into a flourishing craft. 
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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                            <updated>2020-11-04T06:00:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Violin making in Vienna – from the 17th century to the Viennese Classical period</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/vienna-violin-making</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/vienna-violin-making"/>
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                                            Viennese violin making – characteristics and violin makers during the Habsburg residence, the Viennese Classical period, the 19th century and today
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                 The fact that violin making in Vienna looks back on an exceptionally long history and that Viennese lute and violin makers have been known by name since the late 14th century is proof of the musical-historical rank that the Austrian capital on the Danube could claim centuries before the time of Haydn and Mozart. If Viennese musical culture of the late Middle Ages was sustained not least by the prosperous citizens of the trading city, violin making also found the best conditions after Vienna&#039;s rise to become the Habsburg residence – a situation that would remain in place until the end of the First World War and shape the history of Viennese violin making. 
  Violin making in Vienna, overview:  
 
  The Viennese School of Violin Making in the 17th and 18th Centuries  
  The limited influence of Italian models on violin making in Vienna  
  The New Viennese School and Industrial Violin Making in the Habsburg Monarchy  
  Viennese violin making between craftsmanship and manufacturing  
  Contemporary Violin Making in Vienna  
  Revival of violin making in Vienna  
 
 The Viennese School of Violin Making in the 17th and 18th Centuries 
 Considering the rich musical life in the flourishing royal capital, it may come as a surprise that Viennese violin making did not develop into an independent tradition in the 17th and 18th centuries, but instead became probably the most authentic representation of the Füssen style in Europe.    By the 17th century at the latest, the dominant influence of Füssen on violin making in Vienna is documented in the names of numerous masters who settled in the vicinity of the Wiener Hofkapelle (founded in 1498), the diverse chamber music ensembles and the bands of the nobility – often to found dynasties of craftsmen, some of which flourished for generations. Among them were  Thomas Epp , who was active in Vienna by 1630 at the latest, and his son-in-law  Magnus Feldtle  (also: Veltl, Feltl); in the following two generations, the brothers  Mathias Fux  and  Johann Jakob Fux ,  Andreas Bär (Beer)  and the violin makers of the  Hollmayr  family. 
 The limited influence of Italian models on violin making in Vienna 
 With the founding of the Lute and Violin Makers&#039; Guild in 1696, Viennese violin making also reached a new level of development in institutional terms. Although the city quickly became a major European cultural and musical centre, its violin makers initially took little notice of the groundbreaking innovations of the old Italian masters throughout the 18th century. The violin model of Antonio Stradivari arrived in Vienna comparatively late, and masters such as  Andreas Leeb ,  Mathias Thier ,  Sebastian Dallinger  and  Michael Ignaz Stadlmann  exemplify the decisive influence of the South German, Tyrolean school – which also produced the famous Mozart violin, one of its most prominent instruments, which was probably built in Mittenwald as a faithful copy of a Stainer violin, right down to the label. Only  Nikolaus Leidolf , who, unlike a large number of his contemporaries, probably came from Switzerland rather than from Füssen, was a lone representative of Italian violin making in Vienna in the early 18th century, oriented towards Testore. This conservative orientation of the old Viennese violin-making school, including instrument-historical peculiarities such as the baryton or five-string, fretted double basses, which enjoyed lasting popularity in Vienna – should not be seen as a bizarre anachronism; rather, the sound ideal of the Stainer tradition perfectly met the needs of the predominantly courtly musical culture with its strong focus on chamber music. 
 The New Viennese School and Industrial Violin Making in the Habsburg Monarchy 
 The transition to the newer standard of the Viennese School is represented by  Franz Geissenhof , whose work shows a particularly clear influence of the Italian design principles from the turn of the 19th century, the violin makers  Michael Ignaz Stadlmann ,  Johann Martin Stoss  and  Carl Nicolaus Sawicki (Savicki) , who were among the best masters of their generation, followed by the equally talented Matthäus  Ignaz Brandstätter ,  Gabriel Lemböck ,  Anton Hofmann  and his student  Wilhelm Theodor Gutermann . 
 In the 19th century, Viennese violin making was characterised by increasing interaction with the other centres of the Austrian Empire, particularly in Bohemia and Hungary. The most important exponent of this was the Geissenhof student  Johann Baptist Schweitzer , who settled in Pest in 1825 and became famous for the outstanding musical quality of his instruments far beyond his adopted country and beyond his death. He had a considerable influence on violin making in his time, not only through his own work but also as the teacher of many excellent masters. 
 Viennese violin making between craftsmanship and manufacturing 
 At the same time, the factories in Schönbach and Graslitz also captured market share in Vienna over the course of the 19th century and ensured in their own way that Viennese violin making retained a strong artisanal orientation in the 19th century – by largely and seamlessly meeting the demand for affordable instruments, preventing the establishment of industrial stringed-instrument making in Vienna for the time being. This is not contradicted in any way by the fact that respectable, well-trained masters such as  Franz Hoyer  and his student  Ignaz Lutz  also found their way from Schönbach to Vienna – and not only opened acclaimed workshops there, but also acted as bridge-builders for a wide range of business relationships between the Vogtland and the capital. 
 Contemporary violin making in Vienna 
 In the period following the world wars, Viennese violin making experienced a period of stagnation due to the poor economic situation, but also to global changes in the market; both the music industry and the trade in top-quality historical instruments – and with it the demand for high-quality restoration services – changed within the geopolitical framework, and not to the advantage of Viennese violin making. 
 Revival of violin making in Vienna 
 However, a renewed interest in traditional Alpine instruments and the revival of historical performance practice from the 1980s onwards led to a slow revival of violin making in Vienna, so that today the city has a new and highly interesting scene of artisanal violin-making workshops. Most of the internationally trained masters such as  Carl von Stietencron ,  Gerlinde Reutterer ,  Julia Maria Pasch ,  Marcel Richters  and  Hans Rombach  belong to this scene. 
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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            </content>

                            <updated>2020-11-04T06:00:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">English violins: Highlights of violin making in England</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/highlights-of-violin-making-in-england</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/highlights-of-violin-making-in-england"/>
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                                            English violins and the history of violin making in England is a narrative in which clear throughlines are very difficult to make out. Highlights of violin making in England
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                 English violins - Highlights of violin making in England 
 The history of English violins and violin making in England is a narrative in which clear throughlines are very difficult to make out. It includes talented masters who could proudly hold their own against their colleagues in the most significant violin-making centres of the Continent – and who in fact often moved across the English Channel to pursue their craft on the island. Other chapters of the story involve experts who had a profound understanding of the defining peak achievements of violin making history; still others feature industrious entrepreneurs who had an effect on global trade with history&#039;s finest instruments while working from the UK. Yet the surprising sum of all of these episodes is that a densely linked network of master workshops never formed in England, or indeed anywhere in the entire United Kingdom, the way it had countries such as Italy. Nowhere did the rich diversity of family traditions and student-teacher relationships emerge which shaped the time-honoured violin making regions of Europe. By a similar token, there were few beacons of industrial instrument making in England that could be compared with internationally active violin making venues such as  M  irecourt  or  Markneukirchen . As a result, the history of English violin making was marked by upturns that led nowhere; by outstanding masters who could not make a living off their art; and by a bewildering deficiency which Oscar H. Schmitz described in his 1914 publication, a criticism of society entitled Land ohne Musik (“A Country Without Music”). 
 
  Early English violin making in the 17th and 18th century  
  The influence of Italian masters on the oeuvre of English luthiers  
  “A country without music?” English violin making in the 19th century  
  England as a centre for international sales of violins  
  English violin making today  
 
 Early English violin making in the 17th and 18th century 
 Violin making in England appeared on the stage of musical history somewhat later than it did elsewhere: the instruments of the violin family were slower to assert themselves vis-à-vis the gambas which continued to dominate English musical culture until well into the 17th century. Wherever violins were used, they were imported (primarily from Italy); luthiers created their own workshops very gradually, and whenever they did, they frequently were run by masters who had immigrated from the Continent, such as Germany’s Jacob Raymann (circa 1596–1660), who is considered one of the first British luthiers. 
 Like their counterparts in many other European regions, the surviving exemplars of early English violin making – including works of not only Raymann but also Christopher Wise (circa 1650) and Thomas Urquhart (from the 2nd half of the 17th century) – showed a preference for designs with a high table, most notably the model by Jakob Stainer. Thomas Smith, Nathaniel Cross and Alexander Kennedy are good examples of the consistency that was evident in this tradition until the late 18th century. 
 The influence of Italian masters on the oeuvre of English luthiers 
 The fact that the re-orientation towards instruments with a lower table did not evolve in England until comparatively late should not, however, distort the relevance of interesting masters whose work reflected this transition. The main figure here is the highly regarded Urquhart student Barak Norman (approx. 1670–1740) who appears to have been heavily influenced by  Giovanni Paolo Maggini  over time and who optimised his violin model in keeping with the Brescia style. This is an interesting development in light of the fact that the much greater part of his business, even in the later 18th century, consisted of crafting gambas, lutes and theorboes. 
 The first traces of the Stradivari model in English violins can be seen in the work of Daniel Parker, who presumably came to know the Cremonese tradition in the early 18th century through instruments played by Italian musicians. However, although Parker crafted magnificent pieces – no less a luminary than Fritz Kreisler played a 1720 Parker violin – it would be another two generations before the construction principles of the Italian classics would have a broader effect. The greatest pioneers of this development were Benjamin Banks and his sons, whose workshops in Salisbury, Liverpool and London ranked amongst the premiere addresses of their guild in the late 18th and early 19th century. In this era, Charles Harris Sr. and Jr. also produced instruments of excellent quality in Oxford and London, although they were not to experience the same entrepreneurial success. 
 Regardless of these promising attempts, the Stradivari model still had difficulties asserting itself in English violin making, and even influential masters such as Richard Duke continued to craft not only these “Italian expeditions” but mostly Stainer replicas for which there appeared to be great demand even in the 18th century. Vincenzo Trusiano Panormo (1734–1813) is given credit for having helped the Cremonese model to break through in England – in part because of his students, with whose help English violin making attained a historic zenith around the turn of the 19th century. 
 “A country without music?” English violin making in the 19th century 
 Despite the fact that the 19th century began with good prerequisites for the art of violin making in England, things progressed in a very different fashion there than they did in France, Germany and Italy. No “scene” of sophisticated master workshops with their own distinct traditions managed to develop, nor were there any entrepreneurs who founded noteworthy factories or mass-production sites for stringed instruments (even though England was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution). Musicians and composers from the Continent played an indispensable part in English music culture, which had been astonishingly lacking in a clear profile since the days of Henry Purcell; Oscar A. H. Schmitz later referred to England in this period as a “country without music.“ Economical stringed instruments for popular musical culture came from the well-established businesses in Mirecourt and Markneukirchen, whereas artisanal violin making itself continued to be heavily influenced by masters who had emigrated, even in the period after Panormo. These luminaries included first and foremost  George Adolphe Chanot  and Georges Chanot Jr., nephew of the influential Vuillaume peer François Chanot; they lent their craft some international allure once again and founded one of England’s few traditional families of luthiers. 
 England as a centre for international sales of violins 
 Other talented and well-trained masters made their living under these unusual market conditions by applying their expertise to selling top-quality stringed instruments. One early example was Duke’s former student  John Edward Betts  (1752–1823), who was the first to import premium  Italian violins  and who paved the way for  Antonio Stradivari &#039;s violins in England. In the wake of this new business model, demand arose for excellent violin making, and great figures in the field such as Panormo, Joseph Hill II and Bernard Simon Fendt ranked among Betts’ employees; the bow makers&amp;nbsp; John Dodd  and Thomas Tubbs created top-tier bows for him. 
 The wider circles of the Betts workshop also included another representative of the Hill family, Joseph&#039;s son Henry Lockey Hill, who linked Betts to one of the most famous British institutions in the world of fine string instruments:  W. E. Hill &amp;amp; Sons , the company founded by his son William Ebsworth Hill. In addition to advancing  J. &amp;amp; A. Beare &amp;nbsp;and the Beare family’s work, the Hills guided the business of selling historic and contemporary master-produced violins and bows to its peak, and in doing so, they secured England’s position in the history of violin making for multiple generations. 
 English violins and violin making in England today 
 The exceptionally high standards of craftsman expertise that was cultivated in the workshops of the Hills and Beares attracted the finest international masters over time. In 1972, the Newark School of Violin Making was established, and other highly regarded training centres followed suit, leading to the more recent development of a scene of excellent and innovative luthiers who allow English violin making to look ahead to the future with great anticipation. 
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            </content>

                            <updated>2020-03-26T11:15:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Mittenwald violin making “in the midst of the forest”</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/mittenwald-violin-making-in-the-midst-of-the-forest</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/mittenwald-violin-making-in-the-midst-of-the-forest"/>
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                                            About Mittenwald violins and the history of Mittenwald violin making in Bavaria
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                 Mittenwald and the history of Mittenwald violin making in Bavaria 
  Mittenwald is a small Upper Bavarian town at the foot of the Karwendel and Wetterstein mountains that occupies a prominent place in the history of German violin making. Starting with Matthias Klotz and his descendants, an independent tradition of Mittenwald violin making craftsmanship developed that has endured to this day - not least thanks to the renowned Mittenwald violin-making school, which has been based in Mittenwald since the days of the Bavarian King Maximilian II. has been located in Mittenwald.  
 Content overview: Mittenwald violin making 
 
  About Mittenwald violins, their violin makers and the history of violin making in Bavaria  
  The state of early violin making in Mittenwald  
  Industrialisation of violin making in Mittenwald and the creation of the violin making school  
  The new era of Mittenwald violin making after the wars &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; 
 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 How and why violin making came to Mittenwald is still not fully understood, even though a great master of the craft,  Matthias Klotz  (1653-1743), was known to be a key figure in the early days. The  history of violin making  loves its founding fathers, whether they be the mythical Tywersus of  Mirecourt , the legendary  Andrea Amati  of  Cremona  or the patriarch of Vogtland violins,  Caspar Hopf . The stories of these men&#039;s lives include genius and legend, and fittingly enough, some aspects remain in the dark. An intriguing veil of obscurity has also been drawn across parts of Matthias Klotz&#039;s biography: how did this tailor&#039;s son find his way back home after training in Padua? Where and for whom did he work in this period? What knowledge and influences did he absorb? And did he visit the great  Jacob Stainer  during his travels? 
   
 The state of early violin making in Mittenwald 
 Economic history gives us more plausible reasons as to why Mittenwald as Germany&#039;s second violin making centre (along with  Markneukirchen ) emerged in a Bavarian outpost that was quite literally “mitten im Wald,” in the midst of the forest. While the expertise of  Bohemian immigrants  formed the cornerstone of the violin making industry in Markneukirchen, there were very different and quite advantageous conditions for making violins in Mittenwald. The altitudes of the Karwendel mountains yielded excellent  tone wood ; the town was located along the trade routes from Augsburg south to Bolzano and Venice, providing good opportunities for international sales; and last but not least, the location provided an opportunity to learn from the prominent masters in Tirol and northern Italy. It is no coincidence that the Mittenwald violins of the Klotz family, which shaped Mittenwald violin making well into the 1800s, reflected the traditions of Stainer and Amati. 
 Industrialisation of violin making in Mittenwald and the creation of the violin making school 
 Selling instruments in Mittenwald quickly took on a professional character: the first presumed “publisher” (i.e. broker) J. Baader hired a dependent violin maker in 1707 ( J.A. Baader &amp;amp; Co. violin ). J. A. Baader &amp;amp; Co. became the most important violin maker in Mittenwald along with Neuner &amp;amp; Hornsteiner ( Neuner &amp;amp; Hornsteiner violin ). As was the case elsewhere,  Mittenwald violin making became industrialised  in the 19th century to meet the high demand for simpler and more affordable instruments. In light of the growing specialisation and division of labour, King Maximilian II of Bavaria took steps to protect the craftsman knowledge that was the fruit of many generations: he founded the  Mittenwald violin-making school.  
 The new era of Mittenwald violin making after the wars&amp;nbsp; 
 After WWI, the violin making industry in Mittenwald collapsed. It was not revived until after WWII and was distinguished by violins of outstanding quality. Nowadays visitors can tour the town&#039;s  violin-making museum  with its excellent collection and learn about  Mittenwald violin makers &amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;the history of Mittenwald violins. 
    Related articles:  
 The  Mittenwald violin making competition  and other contests 
  Contemporary violin makers  - the modern artisans 
  The violin wolf tone : Taming the wolf in a stringed instrument 
  Samuel Zygmuntowicz : understanding Stradivarius 
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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                            <updated>2019-12-11T16:37:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">On the history of industrial factories in Mirecourt</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/on-the-history-of-industrial-factories-in-mirecourt</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/on-the-history-of-industrial-factories-in-mirecourt"/>
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                                            Manufacturing stringed instruments in France - Part 1: The development of industrial production in Mirecourt
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                  Manufacturing stringed instruments in France Part 1: The development of industrial production in Mirecourt  
 An artisan&#039;s sense of accomplishment - at least professionally speaking - is not necessarily a question of achieving perfection with uniquely successful pieces, but often merely in finding a happy medium. With this thought in mind,  Didier l‘Ainé Nicolas  initiated a new era of violin making in his hometown of  Mirecourt  in the late 18th century. Rather than concentrate on premium instruments (which he was perfectly capable of crafting), he chose to create affordable violins with a powerful sound. The craftsman standards of these instruments were simpler, yet they still offered his clients the musical properties they sought. The national and international success he soon enjoyed confirmed his strategy: in 1802 he was the first instrument maker from Mirecourt to take part in an exhibition, and in 1806 he received a silver medal at a show in Paris. More important than these milestone dates, however, was the fact that in the later years of his life, his factory employed some 600 people, making his business the first large-scale operation of its kind in the tradition-rich town in northern France&#039;s Vosges mountains. 
   
  Didier Nicolas  was Mirecourt&#039;s local example of a change which slowly evolved in other European violin-making centres of the day. The customary form of the craft – an art which was never entirely abandoned – was still being passed from  masters  to journeymen, especially within the family. But alongside this tradition, mass production emerged as well, which met a constantly growing and widespread demand. A piecework approach to making instruments was soon followed by mechanically supported production, and while this did not guarantee excellent quality, it did yield reliable products and supplanted the individual work of a master with an identifiable and more marketable profile of an instrument series. Maintaining branch offices in larger cities, especially (and obviously) Paris, as well as international trade connections helped secure the sales of these musical instruments which were manufactured in huge numbers. 
 By no means was  Didier Nicolas &#039; factory the apex of the expanding industrialization of violin making, however. A look back on this period, which lasted into the late 1960s, shows that three main companies must be mentioned as the key figures which shaped French violin making and represented Mirecourt around the world:  Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy  and two family businesses,   Laberte  and  Couesnon . 
 &amp;nbsp; 
   Related articles:   
 Markneukirchen:  violin making at the crossroads of craftsmanship and trade  
  Mirecourt: French violin making  
  Contemporary violin makers from China and Taiwan  
  J.T.L.  - Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy 
  The Laberte family companies  
  Couesnon : The third defining element in modern violin making in Mirecourt 
  Morizot , père et frères: the short history of a great family of bow makers 
  Charles Nicolas Bazin : the great name of Mirecourt bow making 
  Bazin&#039;s grandchildren : bow making in turbulent times 
  J.B. Vuillaume  
  Concours Vatelot  -- the important French violin making contest 
 Mirecourt&#039;s new masters:  contemporary violin makers in Mirecourt  
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-12-07T16:20:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">The end of the great instrument-making companies in Mirecourt</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/the-end-of-the-great-instrument-making-companies-in-mirecourt</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/the-end-of-the-great-instrument-making-companies-in-mirecourt"/>
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                                            The decline and fall of the industrial production of stringed instruments in France – the fourth and final chapter of our series 
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                  The decline and fall of the industrial production of stringed instruments in France –  the fourth and final chapter of our series   
 The factories in  Mirecourt  began to weaken during the Great Depression and were especially affected by the outbreak of the Second World War and Germany&#039;s invasion of France. In the post-war era they were no longer able to attain their former strength.  J.T.L. ,  Laberte Magnié  and  Couesnon  all met an end at nearly the same time. The flagging demand during the hardships which afflicted mid-century Europe was not the only reason why these companies could not resume where they had left off. Instead, industrial instrument-making underwent massive and rapid progress in technical innovations, and the weakened giants of Mirecourt could not efficiently hold their own. 
 New centres of industry elsewhere in Europe and overseas became more and more important, and within an alarmingly short time, all three French companies discontinued production in the late 1960s. First Couesnon was forced to declare bankruptcy in May 1967, followed by J.T.L. closing its factories in 1968, and finally Laberte shut down after no successor could be found when Philippe Laberte died in 1969. Of the three, only the name J.T.L. was to survive the collapse of the industry, and it lives on as a brand name under the management of a company in Woodford Green, UK. 
    
   Related articles:   
  On the history of industrial manufactories in Mirecourt  
 Mirecourt: the spacious  home of French violin making  
  The Laberte family companies  
  Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy  - J.T.L. 
  Couesnon : The third defining element in modern violin making in Mirecourt 
  Bazin : the great name of Mirecourt bow making 
  Morizot , père et frères: the short history of a great family of bow makers 
 Mirecourt&#039;s new masters:  contemporary violin makers in Mirecourt  
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-12-06T16:24:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">The most important bow makers of Markneukirchen: Knopf, Pfretzschner, Rau</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/the-bow-makers-of-markneukirchen-knopf-pfretzschner-rau</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/the-bow-makers-of-markneukirchen-knopf-pfretzschner-rau"/>
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                                            Markneukirchen bow makers and the origins of violin bow making in Germany - the most important names in Markneukirchen bow making
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                 Markneukirchen bow makers and the origins of violin bow making in Germany 
 As the art of building stringed instruments flourished in  Markneukirchen , it had several effects which not only included in a greater division of labour in violin making. In addition, related businesses evolved: manufacturers began producing strings, and bow makers opened workshops in Markneukirchen which rank among the oldest and most important in Germany. Despite the fact that efforts to establish a separate guild of Markneukirchen bow makers failed in 1790 due to opposition from the violin makers&#039; guild, this nevertheless reflects that manufacturing fine bows for stringed instruments had become its own distinct tradition in Markneukirchen. 
  Markneukirchen bow making overview:  
 
  Knopf &amp;nbsp; 
  Pfretzschner  
  Rau  
 
 The Knopf family of Markneukirchen bow makers&amp;nbsp;    
 One of the first to make bows in Germany was Markneukirchen bow maker  Christian Wilhelm Knopf  (1767-1837), the  pater familias  of a large line of bow makers; the  Knopf bow-making dynasty  has given important impetus to German craftsmanship and achieved worldwide renown through its business partners and internationally active members. As a brilliant master and the inventor of the metal eyelet for the frog, he continued the tradition of the European pioneers of bow makers,  John Dodd  (1752-1839) and  François Xavier Tourte  (1747–1835). C. W. Knopf&#039;s descendants went on to make names for themselves far beyond the Vogtland region; here special mention should be made of  Heinrich &quot;Henry&quot; Knopf  (*1860) and J. Wilhelm Knopf (b. 1835), whose contemporaries regarded him as the country&#039;s finest bow maker. 
 Markneukirchen bow maker Hermann Richard Pfretzschner 
  Hermann Richard Pfretzschner  (1857–1921), son of an important Markneukirchen family of violin makers and merchants, attained international acclaim: the last major student of  J. B. Vuillaume  was the pioneer of French bow making standards in Germany.&amp;nbsp; 
 August Rau, Markneukirchen bow maker 
 Markneukirchen bow maker August Rau (b. 1866) produced outstanding violin and cello bows which can hold their own in comparisons to French masterpieces. After his apprenticeship in Markneukirchen,  August Rau  studied under Wilhelm Knopf and  A. R. Weichold  in Dresden before returning to his hometown to open his own workshop. August Rau used his excellent craftsmanship to craft pernambuco wood into both light and heavy bows. 
  Related articles:  
  On the history of the violin bow  
  Ludwig Bausch : the &quot;German Tourte&quot; 
  Hopf : a dynasty of Vogtland violin makers 
  Fine stringed instruments  of Germany and other countries 
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-12-01T16:34:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Violin making in western Bohemia and the Vogtland region</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/violin-making-in-western-bohemia-and-the-vogtland-region</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/violin-making-in-western-bohemia-and-the-vogtland-region"/>
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                                            Schönbach and Graslitz: The history of violin making on the Bohemian-German border
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                  Schönbach and Graslitz: The history of violin making on the Bohemian-German border  
 In the 19th century, the new constellation of  violin making in the economic region of the border between western Bohemian and the Vogtland  evolved into a highly efficient division of labour. It went on to shape the wide-scale musical culture of Europe and the U.S. with the large numbers of cost-effective instruments it yielded. Smaller workshops throughout the entire binational area built instruments and, more notably, instrument parts to large-volume merchants who sold them internationally at top profits. In Schönbach, nearly 150,000 violins were produced each year in the late 19th century – along with 200,000 violin backs! These admirable figures clearly illustrate the economic structure of the instrument “publishing” business, as it was called. 
 There were, however, downsides to the industry&#039;s success. One was the massive need which prevailed amongst the families, who were completely financially dependent; the other was the dubious reputation of the lower-quality industrial products which to this day still clings to the era&#039;s Bohemian-Saxonian stringed instruments. Schönbach and Graslitz in particular were home to only a few violin makers who were able to create an instrument and all its parts from scratch– and who could afford the time to do so. However, their works – which were often purchased anonymously – had quite good acoustic and aesthetic properties, and these old Bohemian-Saxonian instruments do not deserve the fundamental disdain they frequently are given. 
 The Schönbach instrument makers experienced a minor form of emancipation from the supremacy of Markneukirchen around the turn of the 20th century when they founded two production cooperatives and established their own brokers. As a result, they were able to export some 20% of their own production by themselves. Within the interlinked business structure of the region, Schönbach stood out as the key centre for trading tonewoods, some 700 train cars of which were sold each year. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Related articles:  
  Crossing borders: on the history of violin making in western Bohemia  
  The second phase: the more recent history of violin making in western Bohemia  
  Markneukirchen: violin making in “German Cremona”  
  Klingenthal: the origin of violin making  
  H. R. Pfretzschner  
  Hopf: a dynasty of Vogtland violin makers  
  Ernst Heinrich Roth: a rediscovered master  
  The bow makers of Markneukirchen  
  Noteworthy families of Markneukirchen violin makers  
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-11-28T16:40:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Crossing borders: on the history of violin making in western Bohemia</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/crossing-borders-on-the-history-of-violin-making-in-western-bohemia</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/crossing-borders-on-the-history-of-violin-making-in-western-bohemia"/>
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                                            The rise of western-Bohemian violin making. The first phase: the emigration of Protestant violinmakers in the 17th century
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                  The rise of western-Bohemian violin making. The first phase: the emigration of Protestant violinmakers in the 17th century  
 The history of violin making in northwestern Bohemia is a history of borders, a story of migration, exile – and the power of art to transcend boundaries. Its origins may date back as far as the 16th century, an age of mining when villages such as  Graslitz (Kraslice) and Schönbach (Luby)  flourished for the first time. When the first western Bohemian violins were built by miners at home within their family circle, was the objective for people to improve their modest incomes, or were they creating instruments for their own use? The first clearer evidence indicates a third possibility and gives rise to the theory that musical instruments in the Bohemian-Saxonian border country were built on a “professional” basis from early on. A document dating back to 1610 spoke of the “painter and instrumentist” Johannes Artus in Graslitz, who was probably an émigré instrument maker. The honour of being the earliest known violin maker in Graslitz, however, is held by Melchior Lorenz, a miner&#039;s son whose marriage papers were signed in 1631. 
 Violin making in western Bohemia did not truly gain a historical profile until the second half of the 17th century, when people in Graslitz and Schönbach had to seek exile due to the Counter-Reformation and took their art with them to nearby  Klingenthal  and  Markneukirchen . Upon relocating to Protestant Saxony, violin-making families from Schönbach and Graslitz made names for themselves. Little documentation of their history prior to that time has survived due to the 1739 fire in Schönbach that destroyed the city, including its church and municipal archives. 
 It would seem that Protestant emigration practically brought violin making on the Bohemian side of the border to a stillstand. By contrast, the people in the Vogtland benefited from Saxony&#039;s economic upswing in the 18th century, and a highly effective sales system developed at an early date, particularly in Markneukirchen. The violin making tradition that was re-established in the 1720s in Schönbach and in the 1770s in Graslitz was always marked by the influences of the merchants and “publishers” (i.e. brokers) on the other side of the border whose sales capacities Bohemian and Saxonian violinmakers competed for. After only around 100 years, the forced emigration of Protestants had given rise to a joint centre of industry in Bohemia and Saxony – a remarkable twist of history. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
   Related articles:   
  Violin making in western Bohemia and the Vogtland region  
  Markneukirchen: violin making in “German Cremona”  
  Klingenthal: the origin of violin making  
  H. R. Pfretzschner  
  Hopf: a dynasty of Vogtland violin makers  
  Ernst Heinrich Roth: a rediscovered master  
  The bow makers of Markneukirchen  
  Noteworthy families of Markneukirchen violin makers  
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-11-27T16:39:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">The second phase: the more recent history of violin making in western Bohemia</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/the-second-phase-the-more-recent-history-of-violin-making-in-western-bohemia</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/the-second-phase-the-more-recent-history-of-violin-making-in-western-bohemia"/>
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                                            Driving the Sudeten German violin makers out of Schönbach and Graslitz: A déjà-vu of violin-making history
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                 Driving the Sudeten Germans out of Schönbach and Graslitz: A déjà-vu of violin-making history 
 The Great Depression did major damage to the export-orientated production of musical instruments, and then the National Socialists&#039; policy of autarky exacerbated the situation further. In 1939, orders were given to found an “association of Vogtland and Sudeten German makers of stringed instruments” — a mandatory consortium which represented the region&#039;s final cross-border enterprise before WWII ended the 200 or so years of Bohemian-Saxonian violin-making history. After the war, some 12,000 Germans were expelled from the region and, in a kind of historical déjà-vu, they took their art with them. 
 As was the case during the Counter-Reformation, this wave of deportations led to the development of a new centre of musical-instrument production. After attempts to create a joint settlement in  Mittenwald  failed due to the heated resistance of local violin makers, the majority of Schönbach violin makers then found a new home in  Bubenreuth  in 1949. They turned the Franconian village into a rapidly blossoming musical venue; soon other former masters and merchants from Markneukirchen, among them  Ernst Heinrich Roth , relocated there as well because they no longer had entrepreneurial horizons in the German Democratic Republic. 
  Schönbach , which was known as Luby from then on, remained a city of instrument building despite this second round of figurative blood-letting. It developed independently of  Markneukirchen ; the historical link across the border had dissolved. The few German violinmakers who had remained in Luby were joined by specialists from other towns in Czechoslovakia. They primarily worked for the production cooperative “Cremona,” which formed the basis for “ Strunal AG ” after the Velvet Revolution. Some of today&#039;s violinmakers in Luby attribute the city&#039;s new name to “luba,” the Czech word for the rib of a violin. And with its turbulent history, why should Luby not be a city – perhaps the only one – in which violin making is quite literally part of the name? 
  Recommended reading (in German):  Kurt Kauert, Vogtländisch-westböhmischer Geigenbau in fünf Jahrhunderten. Entstehung – Standorte – Strukturen. Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 2006. 156 pages, multiple images. ISBN 978-3-86530-079-9. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Related articles:  
  Violin making in western Bohemia and the Vogtland region  
  Crossing borders: on the history of violin making in western Bohemia  
  Markneukirchen: violin making in “German Cremona”  
  Klingenthal: the origin of violin making  
  The bow makers of Markneukirchen  
  Noteworthy families of Markneukirchen violin makers  
  H. R. Pfretzschner  
  Hopf: a dynasty of Vogtland violin makers  
  Ernst Heinrich Roth: a rediscovered master  
                ]]>
            </content>

                            <updated>2019-11-26T16:41:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Klingenthal: the origin of violin making</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/klingenthal-the-origin-of-violin-making</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/klingenthal-the-origin-of-violin-making"/>
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                                            Klingenthal: the origin of violin making in the Saxonian Vogtland region
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                 Klingenthal: the origin of violin making in the Saxonian Vogtland region 
 In the early 1650s, the Hobe family from Hamburg settled in Klingenthal, a little town near the border between Saxony and Bohemia. Two generations prior, mining work had moved them from northern Germany to  Kraslice (Graslitz)  in what is now the Czech Republic, and now they wanted to escape the pressure of the re-Catholicisation which was spreading through the region after the Thirty Years&#039; War. In nearby Unterklingenthal (now called Quittenbach), the family found a new home, where the father, Christoph Hobe, presumably worked as a foreman in the mines, as he had in Graslitz. 
   
 The Hobes and many other families felt welcome as “Bohemian exiles” in Saxony and found religious tolerance there, although it must be mentioned that the migrants paid a very high price in terms of taxes and obligations. The new settlers were a blessing to the remote Vogtland region, since they not only helped create communities such as Quittenbach, they also brought the art of violin making with them to Klingenthal, which went on to shape and sustain the region for centuries to come. 
 The first confirmed date in the history of Klingenthal violin making is 8 October 1669, when Johann Hertwig Graf von Nostiz confirmed that the Graslitz violin makers&#039; guild had been established. The founding members included “Caspar Hob” from Klingenthal, Christoph Hobe&#039;s son, who also ranked among the founders of the  Markneukirchen  guild under the name of “ Caspar Hopf ” on 6 March 1677. He is probably the first Klingenthal violin maker, and despite the fact that little is known about where he learned his art, a great deal is known about his defining style which made the  Hopf school  the epitome of the Klingenthal violin. 
 The decline and end of Klingenthal violin making 
 From the very outset, the Klingenthal tradition of violin making was more defined by solid musical quality than by a particularly progressive or nuanced aesthetic. The violin makers, who struggled due to the high fees they had to pay, were forced to sell their instruments quickly and in as large numbers as possible. 
 While violin makers initially travelled throughout the country to sell their work, the process of selling musical instruments became more professional over the course of the 18th century. Although they remained self-employed, many violin makers ended up growing increasingly dependent on merchants who wanted to satisfy the constantly rising international demand for inexpensive instruments. In the 1801 “Geography of the electoral and ducal Saxonian state,” Friedrich Gottlob Leonhardi documented the year&#039;s remarkable production figures: “117 basses and 4282 violins at a value of 2416 reichsthaler and 12 groschen without the harps, zithers, lutes, etc.” As the production process became more industrialised and serialised, the relatively privileged social status of violin makers continued to erode. 
 Shift to industrial production of musical instruments 
 From the 1830s onward, the economic structure of the Vogtland underwent a fundamental shift. Large numbers of jobs in the less complex fields of manufacturing combs and harmonicas were created for workers with fewer skills; from the 1850s on, accordions were build as well. Many violin makers made an additional livelihood for themselves in these new businesses, and the demanding process of training apprentices waned over time. The American civil war contributed to the crisis among Vogtland violin makers, who had had one of their most important markets in the US. By 1862 only 166 individually-operated violin-making studios still survived, and in 1887, the Klingenthal guild of violin makers dissolved. It was re-founded in 1913 and existed until 1975; however, its low membership figures confirm that the art of violin making in Klingenthal never fully returned to its former glory. 
 Today, the vocational school of Vogtland instrument building carries on the Klingenthal tradition of violin making, the history of which is documented in the  Markneukirchen museum of musical instruments . 
 Klingenthaler violin makers: Dörffel, Glass, Meisel and other important families of violin makers 
 The tradition of the large  Hopf  family has become synonymous with the art of violin making in Klingenthal, but from the very beginning the town&#039;s history was also honoured and carried forward by other significant dynasties of violin makers as well. This page briefly presents three other families, while other points of reference can be found in the PDF file of our overview (which is certainly not complete) of  Klingenthal violin makers  (approx. 140 KB). 
 Important Klingenthal violin makers: 
 
  Dörffel  
  Glass  
  Meisel  
 
 The Dörffel family of violin makers 
 The Dörffel family was among the  Bohemian immigrants  who established Klingenthal violin making. Whereas Caspar Hopf was assumed to be the first violin making master in his family, at least two other Dörffel relatives – Johann Georg (the first) and Michael – pursued their art in Graslitz (Kraslice, Czech Republic). Johann Andreas Dörffel, who was active in the first half of the 18th century, is ranked among the finest violin makers in Klingenthal. His Klingenthal violins can be found in numerous collections.&amp;nbsp; 
 The Glass family 
 Documents confirm that the Glass family of violin makers lived in Klingenthal from the 18th century onward. Their instruments earned a solid reputation which at times even approached the ranks of the legendary Hopf violins. Many members of the family worked outside Klingenthal and became ambassadors of the art of Vogtland violin making, on an international level as well. In the late 18th century, Christian Friedrich Glass began making bows in Klingenthal. 
 The Meisel family Klingenthal violin makers 
 In some regards, the Meisels, the great family of instrument makers, represented the process of Klingenthal violin making opening to new influences. Starting in the late 18th century, important members of the family broke with the distinctively Vogtland-based Hopf tradition and began to imitate Italian models. These craftsmen included Amand Meisel (1828-1893), who became an internationally renowned master and settled in Silesia in the mid-19th century. Johann Christian Friedrich Meisel (d. 1803) first produced strings in Klingenthal. 
  &amp;nbsp;  
  Further reading:  
 Crossing borders:  on the history of violin making  in western Bohemia 
  Hopf: a dynasty of Vogtland violin makers  
  Markneukirchen: violin making  in “German Cremona” 
  Ernst Heinrich Roth : a rediscovered master 
 Bow maker and entrepreneur&amp;nbsp; H. R. Pfretzschner  
  Contemporary violin makers &amp;nbsp;- the modern artisans&amp;nbsp; 
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-11-25T16:30:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Italian violin makers - key facts and figures</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/italian-violin-makers</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/italian-violin-makers"/>
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                                            About Italian violin makers and the most famous names - Antonio Stradivari, Nicolo Amati, Giuseppe Guarneri
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                 Italian violin makers – Key facts and figures 
  Italian violin makers , or&amp;nbsp; liutai, &amp;nbsp;have established an unparalleled legacy in the world of stringed instruments, particularly violins.  The most important Italian violin makers – Andrea Amati (Cremona, 16th century), Antonio Stradivari (Cremona, 17th–18th century), and Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù (Cremona, 18th century) – created master instruments with unparalleled sound, laid the foundation of modern violin making, and shaped the worldwide reputation of Italian violin craftsmanship. &amp;nbsp;Centered in Cremona, Italy, the&amp;nbsp; Italian violin making &amp;nbsp;tradition dates back over 500 years and is anchored by legendary figures like&amp;nbsp; Antonio Stradivari ,&amp;nbsp; Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù , and&amp;nbsp; Andrea Amati . Their craftsmanship is celebrated for exceptional tonal quality, meticulous construction, and artistic flair. 
     
  Italian violin makers, key figures:  
 
  Cremona as the Heart of Italian Violin Making: &amp;nbsp;Home to over 80 active&amp;nbsp; Cremona violin makers &amp;nbsp;today, including renowned modern masters such as Stefano Conia and Massimo Negroni. 
  Antonio Stradivari: &amp;nbsp;Created approximately 1,100 violins, with about 650 surviving. Stradivari&#039;s violins are known for their unmatched tonal clarity and sell for millions of dollars at auctions. 
  Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù: &amp;nbsp;Fewer than 200 violins exist today, characterized by their rich, powerful sound preferred by virtuosos like Paganini. 
  Andrea Amati: &amp;nbsp;Credited as the founder of the modern violin-making craft, standardizing the violin&#039;s design in the 16th century. 
 
  Modern Contributions:  
  Italian violins &amp;nbsp;remain synonymous with quality, combining time-honored techniques with innovative approaches.&amp;nbsp; 
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-10-18T01:15:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">The violin makers of Bubenreuth</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/the-violin-makers-of-bubenreuth</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/the-violin-makers-of-bubenreuth"/>
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                                            The history of violin making in Bubenreuth: The rise and fall of the violin making industry and workshops in “New Schönbach”
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                 Bubenreuth as the “new” Schönbach 
 A luthier memorialised in two different places:  Elias Placht  has a contemplative air on the two monuments created in his honour. In each, he is studying the violin in his hands with such intensity that it might seem as if his mind were somewhere else altogether – perhaps in the Czech town of  Luby (Schönbach) , where documents record him as the town’s first luthier in 1927, or in the Franconian town of  Bubenreuth  in Germany, where a replica of the Schönbach monument to him was unveiled in 1969.    
 The violin makers of Bubenreuth: Overview 
 
  Bubenreuth as the “new” Schönbach  
  From a farm village to an industrial town  
  Successful new and re-established businesses in Bubenreuth  
  A crisis in Bubenreuth’s instrument industry  
 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 The two monuments, which lie around 200 km miles apart, are separated by the German-Czech border, the former Iron Curtain, and about halfway between these two points in time, 1927 and 1969, the event occurred that linked the two together: after WWII,  German instrument makers were displaced from the Bohemian region , and as a consequence, a village near Erlangen, Germany, became a globally active site of industrial production. 
 From a farm village to an industrial town 
 Before the luthiers of Schönbach came to stay, the village of Bubenreuth had no more than 700 inhabitants, and other than agriculture it had no business activity of its own. The people of Bubenreuth were farmers or travelled to nearby Erlangen to work. After the migration, 400 new apartments were created for some  1,600 new inhabitants  within only a few years to accommodate those who very suddenly arrived and industrialised the rural region. The backstory to this transition involved Schönbach’s instrument makers and their interest in upholding a well-established model of cooperation that had been in practice for generations. For it to continue, the displaced people to re-settle together. Since the late 18th century, the Bohemian part of the Vogtland region had maintained a distribution of labour, a “home-industrial“ production system in which many small- to mid-sized workshops worked jointly to produce plucked and bowed string instruments. To sell their instruments, they were largely dependent on the influential merchants in the Saxonian town of Markneukirchen, who at the zenith of this development were supplying hundreds of thousands of Schönbach instruments throughout the world every year, reaching destinations as far away as the US.&amp;nbsp; 
 This approach to business was thus intended to revive the parts of Bavaria which had poor infrastructure and had been weakened by the war. It would breathe new life into the region, which was why in October 1945 the Bavarian state government commissioned guitar maker  Fred Wilfer  to prepare all of the prerequisites needed to help Schönbach citizens re-settle in the Erlangen region. This decision was made after Mittenwald, a town with a rich tradition of violin making, had been ruled out as a venue due to the vehement resistance from the luthiers there. 
 Successful new and re-established businesses in Bubenreuth 
 On 1 January 1946, the internationally renowned  FRAMUS  was founded, Wilfer’s Fränkischer Musikinstrumentenerzeugung Fred Wilfer KG (Franconian musical instrument production limited partnership, Fred Wilfer), and it represented more than simply a new business opening. FRAMUS laid the cornerstone for the entire music industry in Bubenreuth, and over time it attracted entrepreneurs such as Albert Roth, who re-founded his expropriated Markneukirchen workshop  Ernst Heinrich Roth  in Bubenreuth in 1953. Such businesses created a ripple effect and led to a network of smaller independent workshops which all focused on artisanal craftsmanship at high standards. 
    The fact that  guitar making  quickly caught up with violin making, which had initially dominated the scene, is a phenomenon that is due less to the economic influence of FRAMUS than to a development in the international music market in the 1950s and especially in the 1960s. The new residents of Bubenreuth realized how they could take advantage of this growth and link it to the successes of their previous work in Schönbach; in their new home, they created nothing less than the most important and most effectively internationally networked  centre of western German instrument making . It is an interesting twist of fate that this meant they could act freely and were no longer dependent on a dominant trade area such as Markneukirchen. 
 A crisis in Bubenreuth’s instrument industry 
 Their period of growth did not last long, however: by the 1970s, the influence of increased  competition on the world market  brought about the bankruptcy of FRAMUS and a gradual decimation of the musical instrument industry in the central Franconian region. With their orientation towards western countries, Bubenreuth guitar makers long underestimated the rise of Japanese manufacturers at first and then later the  Chinese violin makers  as a new global source of stringed instruments. This pattern emerged in a very similar fashion to the way it had happened in the 19th century in the Bohemian-Saxonian region of Vogtland where the people of Bubenreuth were from. 
 Today, little remains of what was once a booming business in Bubenreuth, although the regional yellow pages are still well-filled with listings for instrument makers – particularly for a town of fewer than 5,000 – and include many well-known names from the Saxonian-Bohemian tradition such as  Raabs, Roth, Sandner, Schuster  and  Seifert . Whereas some 1800 people were employed in the Bubenreuth musical instrument industry at its heyday, now there are only some 200. However, the relatively low unemployment figures show that the region has apparently succeeded in re-defining itself once again. 
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-08-09T17:30:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Munich violin makers and master violin makers and the joy of experimentation ...</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/munich-violin-makers-and-master-violin-makers-and-the-joy-of-experimentation-in-a-conservative-craft</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/munich-violin-makers-and-master-violin-makers-and-the-joy-of-experimentation-in-a-conservative-craft"/>
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                                            Original thinkers in the art of violin making: Munich violin makers and master violin makers and the joy of experimentation in a conservative craft. On the history of violin making in Munich
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                 On the history of violin making in Munich 
 Munich has long been known as a city of art: luminaries such as Orlando di Lasso worked at the court of Duke Albrecht V during the Renaissance, whereas King Ludwig I transformed the capital of Bavaria into &quot;Athens on the Isar&quot; with his ambitious construction projects. By contrast, however, Munich itself is not widely considered a city of violin making. Despite the great names that line its history, such as Johann Paul Alletsee (1684-1733) and Giuseppe Fiorini (1861-1934), it never achieved the name in violin-making that places such as Füssen or  Mittenwald  did. Nevertheless, in keeping with Munich&#039;s reputation for its unconventional and multi-facetted artistic and cultural life, there were indeed some interesting original thinkers amongst the  violin makers  who worked in  Munich . 
 One example of a trailblazer is Matthias Johann Kolditz, a master violin maker who was active in the first half of the 18th century and built slender models featuring lower arches than were common in his day. As a technically proficient master, he created eye-catching nonconformist pieces, including a viola with ribs that had multiple curvatures, as well as instruments with beautifully carved rosettes placed under the fingerboard near the soundholes. One of the finest Munich violin makers of the 19th century was Andreas Engleder (1802-1872), a highly sought-after repairer who taught important masters such as  Johann Kriner (1834-1883), who in turn went on to become the first director of the Mittenwald violin-making school. In his work, Engleder pursued interesting attempts at integrating new contours into stringed instruments. This was a major departure from the classic Italian templates of Stradivari and Guarneri. Engleder experimented with a pear-shaped violin and was inspired by contemporary influences to create pieces such as violins patterned after the body of a guitar. 
 In our time, innovative approaches can be seen in the work of violin maker and physicist  Martin Schleske . Much like the famous American researcher  Joseph Nagyvary , Martin Schleske has dared the to bridge the gap between craftsmanship and the natural sciences by working with tools such as computer-aided vibration analyses to explore the enigma of a violin&#039;s sound. He patented a technique that improves the resonance of violins by using the fungus Xylaria longipes to reduce the density of  tonewoods . Innovative minds like Martin Schleske and Nagyvary act as catalysts in a field that is mindful of its traditions and conservative, a craft whose great masters were also great observers and quietly did research on their own. Striking a balance between the work of a laboratory and that of an luthier&#039;s atelier can be successful and fruitful, as is evident not only in the highly respectable instruments that these violin-making researchers have created. Other proof of this interdisciplinary approach can be seen is in another context – using dendrochronology to determine the age of wood has become a recognized method in violinmaking history. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Violin shop and repair services at Corilon violins 
 Our  specialist atelier  will also accept commissions for service repairs,&amp;nbsp;bow rehair&amp;nbsp;and adjustments for your master violin, fine violin, or viola (national and international). Please contact us for a quote and instructions for sending in your instrument. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Related articles:  
  The violin wolf tone : Taming the wolf in a stringed instrument 
  Contemporary violin makers  - the modern artisan elite 
 Mirecourt&#039;s new masters:  contemporary violin makers in Mirecourt  
 Stradivari&#039;s heirs:  contemporary violin makers in Cremona  
  Mittenwald violin makers  - contemporary masters 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Matthias Klotz and pre-modern violin making in Mittenwald  
  History of the violin bow  
  Eugène Nicolas Sartory : the modern classic of bow making 
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-08-09T16:43:00+02:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">International violin making competitions: Ente Triennale Cremona, Concours Et...</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/international-violin-making-competitions-ente-triennale-cremona-concours-etienne-vatelot-vsa-competition-mittenwald-violin-making-competition</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/international-violin-making-competitions-ente-triennale-cremona-concours-etienne-vatelot-vsa-competition-mittenwald-violin-making-competition"/>
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                                            An overview of international violin making competitions: criteria, rules and areas of specialty at Ente Triennale, Concours Vatelot, VSA competition, China violin making competition, Violin sould &amp; shape and others
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                 International violin making competitions:  criteria, rules and areas of specialty at Ente Triennale Cremona, Concours Etienne Vatelot, VSA competition, Mittenwald violin making competition, China violin making competition, Wieniawski competition, BVMA competition, Violin Soul &amp;amp; Shape, The Strad contest, Wieniawski competition and Pisogne violin making competition 
 Rarely is the present-day manifestation of a 500-year-old art form as intensely tangible as at major international violin making competitions. They are an outstanding opportunity for world-ranking masters, especially those in the younger generation, to demonstrate their abilities and their appreciation of tradition and quality. Which acoustic and technical criteria are the defining standards of our time, and where will we encounter  tomorrow&#039;s greatest talents ? Below you can find our selection of important international violin making competitions, the instruments they focus on, and the rules and regulations. 
 Overview of international violin making competitions 
 
  Ente Triennale Internazionale Strumenti Ad Arco, Cremona  
  Mittenwald violin making competition  
  Czech violin making competition, Luby (Schönbach)  
  International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Making Competition, Posen  
  BVMA International Violin and Bow Making Competition, London   
  Concours Etienne Vatelot, Paris   
  International Violin Making Competition, Pisogne   
  China International Violin Making and Bow Making Competition, Beijing &amp;nbsp; 
  The Strad Bow and Cello Making Competition, Manchester   
  The International Violin Makers Competition Violin: Soul and Shape, Moscow  
  VSA Violin Making Competition  
 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 13th International “Triennale” Competition of Violin Making, Cremona 
 Since 1976,  Ente Triennale Internazionale Strumenti Ad Arco , Cremona, the most significant of all international violin making competitions has been held in  Cremona , the place where the creative and acoustic benchmarks of violin making were first developed and still live on today. Once every three years in September/October, &quot;maestri liutai&quot; from around the world have their instruments judged at  Ente Triennale  by a panel of five violin making experts and five musicians. Up to two stringed instruments each can be submitted to Ente Triennale in the categories violin, viola, cello and bass; they may not be more than three years old, must not be artificially aged, and have to meet traditional design standards. As a rule, applications have to be sent to Fondazione Stradivari, Museo del Violino, via Bell´Aspa n. 3, Cremona, Italy, by late April. Further information available on the website  www.entetriennale.it  (Italian only)&amp;nbsp; 
 
  Violins from Cremona  
  Italian violins  
 
 International Violin Making Competition, Mittenwald 
 Nestled between the Karwendel and Wetterstein mountains,  Mittenwald  has hosted the internationally renowned  Mittenwald violin making competition  every four years since June 1989. Unlike the Cremona violin making competition, here the twelve-member jury not only reviews the best violins, violas and celli but also judges bows, and all of them have to have been completed within the previous two years. Replicas and stringed instruments which do not comply with traditional craftsman standards may not be submitted to the Mittenwald violin making competition. Each participant may entire up to three works in different categories. Current rules and regulations are available at  www.geigenbauwettbewerb-mittenwald.de  
 &amp;nbsp; 
 International violin making competition, Luby 
  Luby (Schönbach) , a traditional violin making town in the Czech Republic, saw its instrument making school moved to Cheb in 2005, but nevertheless the first international violin making competition for school students and apprentices was held in Luby that same year.  What makes the  Luby violin making competition  remarkable is that not only may luthiers enter violins patterned after Stradivari or Guarneri models; they can also submit works in progress which were crafted as part of a two-day, hands-on workshop open to the public. In 2012 another international instrument competition was held in Luby, featuring the categories violin, concert guitar and western guitar. 
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 International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Making Competition, Poznan 
 Violins are the only instruments reviewed by the jurors at the Polish  Wieniawski competition , which was first held in 1957 and is the oldest of its kind. The Henryk Wieniawski Musical Society holds the event approximately every five years. Like the eponymous violin competition, which has an even longer history, the Wieniawski contest has a solid international reputation. The rules and judging criteria are similar to those of the Cremonese Ente Triennale, and the three top instruments win monetary prizes. The 13th Wieniawski competition is scheduled for May 2016, with Roger Hargrave slated to lead the jury. The application form is available at  www.wieniawski.com . 
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 BVMA International Violin and Bow Making Competition, London 
 The  BVMA International Violin and Bow Making Competition  was first held in 2004 in London as part of &quot;The Genius of the Violin Festival&quot; of the Royal Academy of Music; over 350 violins and bows were judged for tone and craftsmanship. The BVMA Competition is only one of the many ways that the British Violin Making Association (BVMA) has been helping its members pursue continuing education and share ideas since 1995. To do justice to the subjective nature of such contests, each member of the BVMA competition jury awards his or her own prize. Modern pieces and replicas alike may be entered. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 Concours Etienne Vatelot, Paris 
 The   Concours Vatelot  is another internationally important violin making competition which emphasizes highlighting the best examples of contemporary artisanal violin making. To date, there have been four Concours Vatelot contests held in 1991, 1999, 2004 and 2011 at which a jury of five violin making experts evaluated violins, violas, celli, basses and the corresponding bows for their maturity of style, dexterity of handwork and sound quality. There is only one major prize per category; the second prize wins a diploma of honour. Up to two works per participant may be presented at the Concours Vatelot. Registration information and documents are under  www.civp.com . 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 International Violin Making Competition, Pisogne 
 With its focus on antiqued instruments and replicas, this violin making competition in the Lombard town of Pisogne is quite unique. The 2014  Pisogne violin making contest  was the fifth to be held. Non-professional violin makers and students of the craft can also enter their works, and the judging is divided into three rounds and based on acoustic and technical and artistic qualities. The three top candidates receive medals. The application form is available at  www.anlailiuteria.it  or  www.stradivari.it  (both sites Italian only). 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 China International Violin Making and Bow Making Competition, Beijing 
 The growing influence that China has attained in the stringed instrument making industry over the past few years is evident in the the two events of  China violin making competition  which were held so far in Bejing 2010 and 2013. The 2013 China violin making competition in particular was widely acclaimed: it was much greater in terms of the scope and number of participants, and no fewer than 18 jurors evaluated traditionally designed violins, violas and celli as well as violin, viola, cello and bass bows to assess their artisan craftsmanship, artistic execution and acoustic merits. The next China violin making competition is scheduled for 2016. Up to three stringed instruments in a maximum of two categories or up to four bows in one category are allowed. The application form can be found at  www.civmc.com . 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 The Strad Bow and Cello Making Competition, Manchester 
  The Strad competition  - Beginning in 1988, Manchester began hosting the International Cello Festival of the Royal Academy of Music every other year. American cellist Ralph Kirshbaum founded the event and remained the artistic director of the festival until its 2007. In parallel to the Manchester International Cello Festival, cello and bow makers from all over the world can present their works to a jury of specialists. 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 The International Violin Makers Competition Violin: Soul and Shape, Moscow 
 As the fifth discipline of the legendary international  Tchaikovsky Competition , the violin making competition  &quot;Violin: Soul &amp;amp; Shape&quot;  has been held in Moscow since 1990. The Violin: Sound &amp;amp; shape event takes place at four-year intervals and is held before the main competition. Classic styles of violins, violas, celli and bows which meet the usual design guidelines may be submitted, as can replicas of historic instruments and bows as well as &quot;free forms&quot; with no limitations on the shape, material and colours; they fall into the subcategories of acoustic and electronic instruments. The three best pieces win medals, and special diplomas may be given as well. There is no age restriction on stringed instruments submitted. The Violin: Sould &amp;amp; Shape application form can be downloaded at  www.violin.soulandshape.ru . 
 &amp;nbsp;    
 VSA Violin Making Competition 
 The  VSA violin making competition  of the Violin Society of America has been held every year since 1973, making it the world&#039;s most frequently held event of this nature. The VSA competition takes place every summer at different venues throughout the US and enjoys international repute. Individual stringed instruments and the corresponding bows can be submitted to the VSA competition, and entire quartets can also be evaluated (co-productions are permitted). Multiple gold medals may be awarded if the jurors are unanimous. The adjudication criteria include artistic merit, workmanship and tone. Online registration for the VSA competition is available at  www.vsa.to/conventions-competitions  
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Related articles:  
 Contemporary  violin makers  - the modern artisans 
  Contemporary violin makers from China and Taiwan  
  Marcus Klimke : a highly decorated luthier 
  Christoph Götting : excellence by tradition 
  Stephan von Baehr  and the architecture of the violin 
  Patrick Robin  - a master of teaching an the craft 
  Samuel Zygmuntowicz : understanding Stradivarius 
  Jan Špidlen  - Art, innovation – and sport 
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-03-22T17:10:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Mirecourt - the spacious home of French violin making</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/mirecourt-the-spacious-home-of-french-violin-making</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/mirecourt-the-spacious-home-of-french-violin-making"/>
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                                            French violins: information about Mirecourt violin makers and the history of French violin making
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                 Mirecourt violin making: information about the history of French violin making 
 Mirecourt is a small town to the west of the Vosges mountains that became the center of  French violin making  of global standing in the 18th century. In the vicinity of the large manufactories of J. T. L. (Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy), Laberte and Couesnon, an ecosystem of small French violin-making workshops flourished until the middle of the 20th century, from which many a historical French violin maker emerged. Today, the violin-making museum, the École Nationale de Lutherie violin-making school and a number of interesting, traditionally handcrafted workshops are reminders of Mirecourt&#039;s great history. 
 French violin making in Mirecourt 
 
  Mirecourt: information about the history of French violins and French violin making  
  The rise of French violin making in Mirecourt  
  Famous Mirecourt violin makers  
  French violin makers in Mirecourt today  
 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 The picturesque banks of the river Madon in Lorraine lead to the source of  French violin making , and like all good stories, the trail of this tale also leads into legend. No one challenges the claim that  Mirecourt  was the birthplace of famous French violins, French violin makers and bow makers, although it is more than dubious as to whether it was first established by legendary old master Tywersus in the early 16th century. Unlike the  Vogtland region  in Saxony, the early history of Mirecourt violins is lost to obscurity. As often happens, the dates attributed to a tradition are intended to express its significance and scope, and it is certainly true that the town is seen as the capital city of French violin making. For many, the name Mirecourt is synonymous with French violins and the craft. 
     
 Fig. 1: Mirecourt - the center of French violin making 
 The rise of French violin making in Mirecourt 
 From 1732 on, French Mirecourt violin makers followed the strict rules of their guild to uphold their high standards, and apprentices trained there were in demand far beyond the confines of the town. They frequently went on to found their own studios in other cities, especially Paris. Sometimes they later returned to Mirecourt after several years of success elsewhere. As a result the local art of making French violins had a strong effect on the outside world, whilst at the same time incorporating other influences. Its style was inspired by highly sought-after Italian masters (initially the  Brescia violin makers , later  Cremona violin making ); important technical insights were adapted from  German violin making . 
 Famous French violin makers from Mirecourt 
   
 The great French families of Mirecourt violin makers include Vuillaume,  Chanot , Voirin, Bazin, Bernardel and Collin, as well as  Nicolas Lupot  , the “French Stradivarius.” The low number of falsified violin labels found in French violins from Mirecourt may be an indication of people&#039;s pride about the great artisanal tradition: Paris was often cited as the city of origin, but false Italian names were not given, as was common practice elsewhere. The main difficulty in confirming Mirecourt provenance is linked to fact that the labels and brandmarks of the workshops&#039; founders were often used by their successors. This was not a matter of taking credit for others&#039; work, but rather a proud way for young masters to honour tradition. 
 Mirecourt violin maker&amp;nbsp; Didier Nicolas (1757-1833)  was considered the first to manufacture French violins serially in Mirecourt; to this day, making instruments is still a major industry in the town. The Mirecourt violin making school,  École Nationale de Lutherie , has made it the most important venue in France for training violin makers. The local  Mirecourt violin making museum  is a worthwhile venue for learning more about the history of building violins and bows. Our online catalogue features  French violins  from Mirecourt and other regions, presented with audio sound samples: 
 French violin makers of Mirecourt today 
 Proceed to the next chapter:&amp;nbsp;Mirecourt&#039;s new masters:&amp;nbsp; contemporary violin makers in Mirecourt  
 Our online catalogue features&amp;nbsp; French violins &amp;nbsp;from Mirecourt and other regions, presented with audio sound samples:&amp;nbsp; 
  Related articles to Mirecourt violins:  
  On the history of industrial factories in Mirecourt  
  J.T.L. - Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy  
  The Laberte family companies  
  Morizot , père et frères: the short history of a great family of bow makers 
  Bazin : the great name of Mirecourt bow making 
 Mirecourt&#039;s new masters:  contemporary violin makers in Mirecourt  
  Concours Etienne Vatelot  -- the important French violin making contest 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Related links:  
  Library overview - texts on the history of violin making  
  Main page - Fine stringed instruments and master violins  
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-03-22T16:36:00+01:00</updated>
                    </entry>

    
    
        <entry>
            <title type="text">Markneukirchen: German violin making in “Deutsch-Cremona”</title>
            <id>https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/markneukirchen-violin-making-in-german-cremona</id>
            <link href="https://www.corilon.com/gb/library/towns-and-regions/markneukirchen-violin-making-in-german-cremona"/>
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                                            German violin making in Markneukirchen: introduction to the history of violin making in the Vogtland region of Saxony in Germany
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                 Markneukirchen or German Cremona: introduction to the history of Markneukirchen violins and German violin making in the Vogtland region, Saxony 
 Markneukirchen: Violin making between craftsmanship and trade 
  Markneukirchen is a town in the Saxon Ore Mountains, close to the border with the Czech Republic. For centuries, it was the unofficial capital of the “Saxon-Bohemian Music Corner”, one of the focal points of musical instrument making in Europe. After an enormous industrial boom in the 19th century, violin making in Markneukirchen returned to its artisanal roots and is now represented by small, traditionally oriented workshops, the Markneukirchen Violin Making Museum, which is well worth a visit, and a technical college for musical instrument making.  
  Markneukirchen violin making overview:  
 
  German violin making in Markneukirchen: the tradition of craftsmanship and globalisation  
  Noteworthy families of Markneukirchen violin makers  
  Markneukirchen violins  
 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 His great sense of regional pride and healthy spirit of self-confidence are what inspired Markneukirchen violin maker Ludwig Gläsel jr. (1842-1931) from Markneukirchen in Germany to print the words “Deutsch-Cremona (German Cremona)” on his violin labels.  Ludwig Gläsel jr.  was, after all, one of the finest and most successful master craftsmen of his day from the German Vogtland region, and he also made a name for himself with several publications about the history violin making in Germany. As a member of a well-established and large Markneukirchen family of violin makers, he was certainly entitled to the brash pride that led him to rank violin making in Markneukirchen, the main village of the &quot;Musikwinkel&quot; region (the &quot;musical corner&quot; on the border between Saxony and  Bohemia ) alongside the legendary name of  Cremona . 
   
 Or was his label perhaps intended as a sly wink? After all, during the approximately 350 years in which musical instruments were built in  Markneukirchen , the town did not always enjoy an unblemished reputation. Around the mid-1700s, Markneukirchen violin maker Carl Wilhelm Heber saw the need to put an additional label inside one of his  Markneukirchen violins : 
   Many an impostor  Can sneak in here and there  Take heed you read my seal  Or buyer, please beware   
 Those who deal with  old violins  are all too familiar with these false labels that claim Italian provenance as well as famous – or at least famous-sounding – names. In the “ Musicon Valley ,” as Markneukirchen&#039;s region is sometimes now called, people understood what was popular and knew that time would tell. There are many Markneukirchen violins that reveal their Saxonian heritage only upon closer examination by the trained eye. The people of Markneukirchen have more than enough reason to be proud of their violin making tradition, however. The history of German violin making&amp;nbsp;in the Vogtland region began in the mid-16th century, and as was the case in the neighbouring town of  Klingenthal , Protestant émigrés from nearby Kraslice (Graslitz) in Bohemia brought the art of violin making to Markneukirchen, and with it arose an important new branch of industry. 
 Violin making in Markneukirchen: the tradition of craftsmanship and globalisation 
 On 6 March 1677, Duke Moritz von Sachsen confirmed the founding of Markneukirchen&#039;s first guild of violin makers, which was established when 12 Bohemian immigrants who had made their homes in the Vogtland region joined forces (cf.  Klingenthal – the origins of violin making ). To safeguard the quality and integrity of this new community, the guild of Markneukirchen violin makers issued strict rules: applicants had to present sophisticated masterpieces, pay high fees for admission into the guild and find someone who would endorse their application.  
 This makes the year 1713 a much more meaningful date, since it was the first time someone &quot;untrained&quot; was accepted: merchant Johann Elias Pfretzschner. Until that time, the masters themselves personally attended markets, fairs and clients, even when great distances were involved. The dawning “professionalisation” of selling violins turned out to be a blessing and curse at the same time. On the one hand, it led to the global success of Vogtland stringed instruments; on the other hand, it brought about the decline of handmade violin making, which gave way more and more to a division of labour, if not to industrialisation. 
 In 1719, the Markneukirchen violin making guild had already accepted a craftsman who specialised in peg turning, and shortly thereafter there were separate studios run by neck carvers and makers of violin tops and bottoms. Ultimately countless numbers of people working at home did preparatory work for the few remaining studios of master craftsmen. Labourers often called themselves &quot;factories&quot; and assembled the individual components on behalf of the brokerages that had grown in impressive numbers. These businesses expanded to meet the demands of the globalised market which wanted larger and larger amounts of inexpensive instruments. Around 1800, there were some 80 Markneukirchen businesses working together to produce around 18,000 violins annually. They focussed more and more on the highly sought-after Italian models, turning away from its own Bohemian-Saxonian tradition. A century later, Markneukirchen was considered one of the most affluent cites in Germany; it even had its own U.S. consulate general. The dark side of this profit, however, was the great need of the many smaller and financially dependent masters, their families and apprentices. &amp;nbsp; 
 Introducing some noteworthy families of Markneukirchen violin makers: Heberlein, Hamm and Roth 
 German violin making in the Vogtland regionis not to be equated with the large number of cheap instruments that were sold throughout the world in the 18th and 19th centuries. Markneukirchen was the home of – and the venue for training – several  international violin makers and violin-making masters  who worked in such places as the U.S., Russia and numerous major European cities. Many of those who remained in the Vogtland region, however, also shared the same high standards of quality and solid innovation. 
   The most important Markneukirchen violin maker families :  
 
  Heberlein  
  Hamm  
  Roth  
 
 &amp;nbsp; 
 The Heberlein family 
 One of the most prominent families of violin makers in Markneukirchen was the Heberleins, who created a strong international name for themselves. Their most famous member is  Heinrich Theodor Heberlein  jr. (1843-1910), who was renowned for the excellent quality of his instruments and was awarded multiple honours, including Knight of the Saxonian Albrecht Order. Johann Gottlob Heberlein (1782-1856) was a good violinist and a craftsman who enjoyed experimentation. In 1813 he joined forces with a manufacturer of brass instruments to make a brass violin – an interesting, “interdisciplinary” chapter in the history of Markneukirchen instruments! 
 Markneukirchen violin making by the Hamm family 
  Johann Gottfried Hamm  (1744-1817) was also part of a large family of Markneukirchen violin makers and was one of the few who was successful with his fake Italian labels. Indeed, his meticulous work, especially his pieces which featured partial inlays with ivory trim, was often incorrectly attributed to Italian schools. 
 The Roth family of Markneukirchen violin makers 
 The name of the family Roth stands for producing industrial and yet quality-conscious Markneukirchen violins.  Gustav Robert Roth  (b. 1852) learned his trade in the famous Leipzig studio of  Ludwig Christian August Bausch . In 1873 he founded a factory of stringed instruments and jointly managed it with his son  Ernst Heinrich Roth  (1877-1948) from 1900 onward. Ernst Heinrich was an outstanding violin maker who perfected his art during his extensive travels through Europe. Another member of the family, violin maker Otto Roth, created a truly unique piece for the opera orchestra in Chicago: a huge bass violin with a body measuring 2.10 m and an overall height of 4.20 m. The Roth company is still operating, and further information about the history of the Roth family can be found on the its  website . 
 Markneukirchen violins:&amp;nbsp;German violins made by violin makers from Markneukirchen 
  Markneukirchen violins are made by German violin makers in Markneukirchen. Markneukirchen violin makers possess extensive expertise and a technically understanding of violin, viola, and cello construction. Today, Markneukirchen violins makers blend traditional techniques with innovative approaches to create instruments of exceptional quality. The&amp;nbsp; Corilon online violin shop &amp;nbsp;offers&amp;nbsp; a curated selection of Markneukirchen violins crafted by renowed Markneukirchen violin makers such as Ernst Heinrich Roth, his master violin shown in to the right. Each instrument is distinguished by its characteristic powerful and strong quality tone and flawless German craftsmanship.&amp;nbsp;If you are in search of Markneukirchen violins,&amp;nbsp;Corilon&#039;s&amp;nbsp;online catalogue of  German violins &amp;nbsp;is worth a visit. The Corilon online violin shop collaborates closely with talented and experienced violin makers from this renowned German violin making town.&amp;nbsp;Discover&amp;nbsp;Corilon&#039;s recommendable collection of Markneukirchen violins with the distinctive signature of Markneukirchen violin makers selected for outstanding quality and unique sounds.&amp;nbsp; 
 &amp;nbsp; 
  Related articles:  
  The bow makers of Markneukirchen  
  H. R. Pfretzschner, bow maker , and entrepreneur 
  Klingenthal: the origin of violin making  
  Hopf:  a dynasty of Vogtland violin makers 
 Crossing borders: on the history of  violin making in western Bohemia  
  Ernst Heinrich Roth : a rediscovered master 
 Reference guide:  The violin: How to select a violin, its provenance and value  
 Mirecourt&#039;s new masters:  contemporary violin makers in Mirecourt  
 Stradivari&#039;s heirs:  contemporary violin makers in Cremona  
  Mittenwald violin makers  - contemporary masters 
 Contemporary  violin makers from China and Taiwan  
 Originally published by Corilon violins. 
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            </content>

                            <updated>2019-03-22T16:35:00+01:00</updated>
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