| RIN:100 |
|
www.fritz-reuter.com |
| Surprisingly little is known for certain about
how Baroque violins and their relatives were made, by whom and
when, and how they originally sounded. Mythology and ignorance
cloud our view; for example, only flimsy evidence sustains the notion that "Amati
taught Stradivari the art of violinmaking from about 1660 to 1683.1 This widely repeated assertion is based chiefly on
reports of a single
violin bearing the label ‘Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis
Alumnus Nicolaij Amati, Faciebat Anno 1660’.2 While
Amati clearly influenced Stradivari’s early work, the
authenticity and significance of this label are open to question.
Elia Santoro has recently
shown that the young Stradivari received practical training and
support from an architect, Francesco Pescaroli.3 Their relationship needs to be explored in light of the implications of
proportional schemes for both architecture and lutherie.4 Extant instruments, contemporary documents and iconography, and living traditions of violin making would appear to furnish abundant guidelines for defining 17th and 18th century construction practices and regional styles. However, these issues must be further clarified before modern copies appropriate to various repertories can be made with full assurance of their accuracy, particularly with respect to stringing and pitch. Before reliable distinctions can be drawn among regional styles and phrases of violin making, experts must date and attribute old examples correctly and identify later alterations. We often assume that the question ‘Who made what when?’ was answered long ago by dealers and luthiers who have been studying and copying fine old violins for generation. |
| However, recent investigations show that
traditional wisdom may be suspect. Scientific studies, for
example at the University
of Hamburg department of wood biology, have begun to challenge
long-accepted dates and attributions.5 For example,
the dendrochronologist
Peter Klein has determined that the top of a ‘Mariani’
violin dated 1651 was made of 18th century wood.6 Admittedly, much nonsense, for example on the subject of varnish, has been propagated in the name of science.7 Nevertheless, we must continue to pursue and evaluate every means—scientific and scholarly as well as intuitive and empirical—of refining our understanding of early violin making: no single approach is adequate. Unfortunately, conflicts of interest, wishful thinking and reluctance to expose valuable violins to objective scrutiny often stand in the way of more reliable authentication and definition of stylistic parameters. |
| Some dealers and collectors oppose revealing
tell-tale details of master craftsmanship because of the risk of
fostering undetectable fakery and because general knowledge of
criteria for authentication could cause established experts to
lose business. Such resistance to the free sharing of expertise,
and instead confining knowledge to a circle of initiates willing
to pay the price of apprenticeship, characterized the guild
system and lingers in the hermetic world of violin dealing today.
This attitude can inhibit independent efforts to penetrate
thickets of appraisal certificates and come directly to grips
with refining, for example, the vast corpus of Stradivari’s
work.
Stradivari’s extant output dwarfs that of any contemporary master; but despite his approximately 70-year career, it strains credulity that all the violins that have been seriously attributed to him—approximately 635 according to Herbert Goodkind, plus 60 cellos, 17 viola and a quantity of other types—are authentic.8 No one has closely examined all the violins illustrated by Goodkind, and he himself, like nearly all cataloguers, relies heavily on second- and third-hand information. That his numbers are disputed raises questions such as to what extent violins can be altered or made up of originally unrelated parts and still be termed ‘authentic’. |
| With notable exceptions such as David
Boyden’s monumental study,9 the bulk of violin
history has been written not by rigorous scholars but by dealers,
restorers and amateur collectors, many of whom have money and
reputation vested in asserting the truth or elevating the status
of one thing or another. To be sure, dealers and restorers often
have better access to instruments and better trained hands and
eyes than academic scholars. That abstract knowledge is no
substitute for hands-on experience is shown in Simone
Sacconi’s partial replication of Stradivari’s working methods;
Sacconi’s insightful study provides usefully detailed
stylistic criteria.10 Similar studies of other makers are hindered by
scarcity of extant instruments and of workshop materials that
luckily (though fragmentarily) exist for Stradivari, even for
types of instruments he made of which no example survives. In view of the increasing number of violins entering public collections, we could hope that museum conservators, who have made impressive progress in examining other works of art, would address our concerns. But museums, too, are not unreasonably reluctant to expose violins to hands-on examination, not only for reasons of conservation but to avoid possible embarrassment and unfortunate tax consequences for donors. Also, few museums employ sufficiently experienced instrument conservators, being generally content to rely on outside specialists who are normally the same expert dealers and restorers mentioned above. |
| Too much courting of donors and collaboration
with dealers can lead museums into awkward situations that
compound confusion. One such case occurred when a private
collector, unable to acquire a cello to complete a quartet of
inlaid Strads, bought a plain Strad cello and had it decorated by
means of an ingenious photographic process. He then published an account extolling his
quartet as a matched set of decorated instruments’, which of
course is true in a fashion.11 Then, and this is the rub, the quartet was borrowed for
display by a museum which thus lent legitimacy to the operation.
Reversible or not, altering the appearance of a work of art for
no apparent reason but vanity or commercial gain is reprehensible
and exposes all involved to censure. We must further decry the pernicious practices of supplying false labels for violins that lack original ones (or worse, replacing original labels), and casually certifying any old violin as ‘authentic and unaltered in all essential parts’. This conventional phrase actually refers only to the body and scroll, as normally all other original parts – neck, fingerboard, tailpiece, bass-bar, and son on, not to mention strings and bridge; that is, elements musicians critically need to know about – have been altered or replaced. In the upper end of the violin market, which is driven largely by investors, not musicians, monetary value resides very much in appearances; even a regraduated and unvarnished violin has been called ‘unaltered’, begging the whole question of how its maker meant it to look and sound. Integrity is further degraded when restored work is painted to look indistinguishable from old material and no permanent record is kept of the process. |
| Gradually investigators are penetrating these
illusions to revise attributions and provide useful new
information, not without risk to their careers. Karel Moens has
produced substantial
physical evidence that certain supposedly early and now
replicated Italian viols are 19th -century fakes.12 The
disturbing implications of Moens's studies have won him stern
disapproval in some circles; however, his assertions deserve
serious consideration lest
these suspect viols continue to be regarded uncritically, as in
one study of north Italian bowed instruments. 13 If the irritation expressed in the preceding remarks provokes discussion, at least this might help clear the air and lead eventually to the intense co-operative effort that the importance of our subject demands.
|
|
1 H.K. Goodkind, Violin Iconography of Antonia Stradivari (Larchmont, NY, 1972), p21BACK 2 Reproduced in W.H. Hill et al., Antonio Stradivari: His Life and Work (London, 1902), between pp.216-17, and discussed on pp.26-7. BACK 3 E. Santoro, 'Stradivari: un genie en son temps', Stradivarius: de l'arbre au violon, catalogue of an exhibition at the Grand Theatre, 3-21 June, 1987 (Cremona, 1987),pp.14-17 BACK 4 See K. Coates, Geometry, Proportion and the Art of Lutherie (Oxfore, 1985). BACK 5 See, for example, P. Klein, H. Mehringer and J. Bauch, 'Dendrochronological and Wood Biological Investigations on String Instruments', Holzforschung, x1/4 (1986),pp.197-203. BACK 6 Personal comjunication, 26 February, 1987, later confirmed by Gary Sturm of the Division of Musical Instruments, National Muserm of American History, in another personal communication. BACK 7 See for example B. Jepson, 'It is no disgrace to be second fiddle to a Stradivarius', Smithsonian, October 1990, pp.160-69 (referring to the controversial work of Joseph Nagyvary). BACK |
| 8 Goodkind, Violin Iconography, p.14,
where other counts are also cited. More recently, Jacques
Francais has put the number of violas at 13 (The Dr Herbert
Axelrod Stradivari Quartet; Neptune City, NJ. 1985, p.25). 9 D. Boyden, The History of Violin Playing from its Origins to 1761 (London, 1965) BACK 10 S. F. Sacconi, I'segreti' di Stradivari (Cremona, 1972) BACK 11 Francaix, Axelrod Stradivari Quartet, p.29; Francais's text was heavily edited by the publisher and Francais is not in accord with all statement attributed to him in the publication (personal communication, 9 July, 1987). BACK 12 K. Moens, 'Authenticiteitsproblemen bijoude strijkinstrumenten Deel 1: Toeschrijvingen en signaturen', Musica antiqua, iii/3 (August 1986), pp.80, 85-87; 'Deel II: Boutechnische aspecten van vercalsingen; Musica antiqua, iii/3 (November 1986), pp.105-14 BACK 13 L. C. Witten II, 'Apollo, Orpheus, and David,' Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society, i (1975), pp.5-55 BACK |