THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF VIOLIN MAKING

AFTER THE DEATH OF ANTONIO STRADIVARI.

THE PIONEERS OF VIOLIN MAKING IN HUNGARY.
When in December, 1737 in Cremona Antonio Stradivari - the greatest figure in
violin making - was taken for his last journey, nobody knew how many legends
would hover over his life and activity after a few decades. Though his greatness
was appreciated and his creations were taken as models, no one believed
that the trade had reached its zenith with him. It was because the two Stradivari
boys still lived in Cremona - and people thought if there were any hidden secrets
in his work, the father had probably given them over to the sons before
his death - and the Guarneris were still alive, among them the most famous
one, del Jesu, too, and the Guadagninis also worked there - though many of
them in other towns -, and besides them there were many who worked in the
trade in Cremona and in other Italian towns. The making of bow instruments
spread beyond the Italian borders, too. Though the dispute is still going on to day:
who can be considered the first violin makers of the world (the Italians,
the French, or perhaps the Germans?), one thing cannot be questioned: in 1737,
violins were already made all over Europe; in France, in Germany, in Bohemia,
in Poland, and even in Hungary. The quality of violin making was on a very
high level not only in Italy, but in the above listed countries as well. Though
Stradivari's name was unquestionably among the best masters of the period,
his violins were far less demanded than they are today. There were, however,
certain exceptions. Considering his age, we cannot talk about concert life, concerts
and concert halls in the present sense of the words. Musical demand was
mainly shown for chamber music sound - as a result of exclusive musical events
and closed circle concerts -, and thus, Stradivari violins with their brighter sound
did not surpass the Amati-Stainer type of violins on German territories, neither
in number, nor in esteem. The situation was different in France, probably partly
because of Tarisio, who was an enthusiastic amateur patron, art collector and
dealer, who regularly delivered master violins from Italy for his French partners.
It is interesting that the violin makers of Hungary - the first one known for us
was mentioned by Daniel Speer in Eperjes under the name Bessler Adam in his
work titled (Unterricht in der Musikalischen Kunst. Ulm. 1687), did not copy the
features of the Stainer school (higher arch, small sound-holes, low rims, and
due to these, a fine, but low volume sound!), they followed Stradivari's track.
True, that the first masters arrived from Austrian and German territories (e.g.
the Leeb and Thier families in Bratislava at the beginning of the 18th century),
nevertheless, luckily enough for Hungarian violin making, they took over the principles
of Italian violin making. (Lower arch, bigger sound-holes, etc.) What were
the reasons for this - perhaps the always existing demand of Gypsy musicians
for louder sound, or the anti-Austrian feelings of some music loving noblemen,
or apart from all these the purchases of Italian musical instruments (a Stradivari
violin was already recorded in the inventory of the Esterhazy family) - , we do
not know. But the fact is that violin making in Hungary avoided the dead alley
the German Stainer-Klotz school walked in. Due to this, Hungarian violins still
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are among the demanded and highly appreciated instruments of international
musical life. (That is an other matter that much less Hungarian instruments could
have been put up at foreign instrument auctions, if our masters had chosen the
German way.)
The violin - and all other bow instruments - can be judged from several
aspests. Without entering into the details of these judgements, it can be easily
accepted that all violins make the first impression on their viewers as objects of
art. This is even truer for the instruments bearing definite features of art objects
(human or animal figures, carved heads, painted decorations, ornaments,
etc.). It is again obvious that the placticity of an instrument - proportions and
the contours of the parts, varnish, etc. - may give similar impressions. This is
followed by the moment when the future user of the instrument, the musician,
takes it into his hands as a tool necessary for his activity. (He judges
managebility, fittings, technicality, etc.) Nowdays motion analysis is used to recognize
these features, though mainly in other professional fields. But how important
it would be, when an activity as complex as violin playing is concerned!
Then the instrument sounds and makes at least two impressions: one on
the player and one on the listener. (Naturally it might differ depending on the
number of persons involved.) When judging an object we are free to decide the
order of importance of the criteria - it is always up to us - however, in case of
a musical instrument it is not right if the demand for good quality sound is not
the first in the sequence. At the same time it is again true that the first glance
at an instrument has an enormous impact on the artist, and he tries to play on
it so, that the preferred instrument would sound the best.
Let us not enter into further details, since the above said must have convinced
everybody that the judgement of violins is a very complex thing. This
gives partly the explanation for the interest shown in, the passionate dispute
over, and the tireless search for the secret of Stradivari violins.
What kind of secret can we talk about here? Probably about the secret that
is a common feature of all great artists, and, if you like, more or less of all
humans. Their creations can be analysed, can even be copied (as it has been
done several times; and even today there are copied Stradivaris in circulation in
a great number, it is not an exaggeration to say that three or four Stradivaris
wouldn't have been able to produce that many), and in certain ways they can
be surpassed. This, however, does not diminish the value of the great master.
The merit resides in the creation of the object and not in its reproducability. It
is sure that Stradivari himself did not believe that there was only one single
solution, since he kept on experiencing till the end of his life, although he studied
in one of the best workshops (perhaps the Amatis implanted the passion
for research into him), and he lived for more than 90 years.
Stradivari knew the trade and used his professional knowledge on an artistic
way, he knew "lots and lots" of secrets, while his followers wanted to
find one single "secret". We cannot even approximately guess the number of
his countless followers, copiers, falsifiers and admirers. However, instruments
labelled with his name turn up again and again, and when people talk about
violins somewhere, his name is almost always mentioned. But his followers do
not follow him just in the very thing that was characteristic of all his life: permanent
experimenting. Or more precisely, experimenting with academic demand
on the basis of a well-grounded knowledge. They do not set the targets to be
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reached and cannot ensure reproducibility. They do not count with changed circumstances.
Since Stradivari the construction of the violin has also changed. The neck
became longer, the mensura (the length of the freely vibrating string) and the
pressure of the string have changed (today instead of the former strings made
of intestine and silk, steel and plactic strings are used), consequently, to compensate
for this, the angle of incidence of the neck, the length of the bass-bar
(on the inner side of the violin) have changed as well. The concert-pitch has
been being lifted all the time, too. (This is true even if we can find some exemptions
in every period.)
The common feature of the noted musical instrument makers of Stradivari's
age was that they knew the effects the different impacts made. They did not
want to make instruments that could satisfy all the different demands (especially
physically impossible demands). When Antonio Bagatella won a prize for his work
written about violin making in Padua (1789!), his argument was that with his
method he could generate a previously defined sound on his violins. It also might
be of interest that his booklet was published only one hundred years later in
1909 in Germany, and is still not known - or only by hearsay - for Hungarian
violin makers.
This is really characteristic for the rest of the history of violin making. In
our country, even today, people mainly try to find the answer to the question
with single attemps, and the masters frighten away the really knowledgable experts
having thorough theoretical knowledge from their jelously protected domain.
Probably there are branches of physics of higher esteem, nevertheless,
sometimes, Ivan Peter Valko and Tamas Tarnoczy ventured to take part in studying
violin making. One example is probably enough to show the reaction to such
involvements. Janos Toth, the otherwise very talented master, lectured - or at
least tried to lecture - Ivan Peter Valko, who won a Rauer prize with his study
in 1939 at the contest of the Royal Hungarian Association for Natural Sciences
(The Examination of Master Violins).
Judgement - as I explained above - may comprise of several components
and may take us to a wrong direction already at the very beginning, as it happened
in Hungary, where external features of violins became decisive. In the
wake of it a special Hungarian school has appeared; instruments are very attractive
to the eyes, but the quality of sound is far below the requirements. A
major part of Hungarian masters unfortunately did not possess the necessary
theoretical grounding; their knowledge about music was rather imperfect; consequently
it was rather natural that Hungarian violin making had a drawback in
spite of its good start. We have to admit it even though meanwhile we had
such excellent masters as for example Samuel Nemessanyi (1837-1881), or one
of the 20th century masters, Janos Spiegel (1876-1956). After all, we were not
short of good-named masters, but in most cases real instrument qualities were
missing. It is true, that in spite of this Janos Toth had good achievements, but
it was not at all general, and even he did not possess the theoretical and practical
grounding necessary at the start, which was given in Stradivari's case by
the Amati workshop and in Nemessanyi's case by the Schweitzer workshop.
In Germany certain acoustic phenomena were being researched quite early
(Helmholtz), which were in close relation to violin making. The same is true for
France (Savart). Both countries began the mass production of violins quite early
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(Mittenwald, Markneukirchen and Mirecourt, respectively). Naturally mass produced
instruments do not reach the quality of individually prepared pieces, however,
reasonably enough, excellent ones can be found among them. The main
reason for this is that due to uniform dimensioning, sometimes the wood and
the sizes of the pattern fit well together and result in a good instrument. This
method (selection after manufacturing) is quite common both in instrument and
bow manufacturing. In Hungary, industrial violin making existed in Szeged, but
only for training violins.
In the English speaking world relatively many were engaged in the research
of violins, but they worked mainly in the 20th century. (Raman, Saunders,
Hutchins, etc.) By then the Germans had already published their big books about
violin making (Apian-Benewitz, Mockel, Winckel). Their publication was preceded
by long academic research and experiments. Recently Americans and Japanese
gave signs of fast development in this field, their research achievements have
already been published.
Whichever country's results we look at, we find that the achievements are
not solely due to the examination of a single factor. The main trends in researching
the subject are represented by research methods of scientific value, the definition
of the qualitative features of the instruments - and their measuring and
registration (lately by means of holography) -, reliable methods of control - instead
of tricks of publicity -, the examination of materials and definition of their
characteristic features, and of course by many other methods.
It may well be true that again and again some dream-readers, or secrethunters
turn up, who alledgedly solved the secret of Stradivari's varnish, or renew
the old tales about woodworks in churches; the problem is that these goodwilled
(sometimes not really good-willed) day-dreamers don't even know that
both wood and varnish oxidate, and Stradivari could hardly use schellac for
polishing his violins because it was not known in his time. Thus, when these
instruments are finished, and they do sound (just to mislead the naives, even
the first violin sounds immediately, so the poor ones believe that each further
piece would sound better), but they have nothing to do with Stradivari. This is
the same when good-willed, ambitious people put a Stradivari to pieces (and it
is the better when it is a fake one, because the harm made is less, and their
findings are close to nothing) and they analyze it, measure it millimetre by
millimetre and then copy it. They leave "only" one factor out of consideration;
the wood. They do not know that this is never a homogenous material, all parts
of it are different, even the same variety of tree differs from country to country,
and even the wood from the different parts of the same tree are different. It
would be useful to be aware of this. And it would also be useful to know that
having reached this point, how to do the dimensioning of the different wood
pieces to the required size. But let me stop here.
Even today excellent violins are being made, there live excellent violin
makers in Hungary. It is a pitty that we are a bit lagging behind in this area,
and it seems to be quite difficult to repeat our former successes. Though it is
probably not an impossible desire in the country of Bartok and Kodaly to expect
that the realization of the idea "Make music a common property" should
be supported by making good Hungarian violins as well.
About ten years have passed since I finished one of my writings with these
words. During the past years not only much water has flown down the old
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Danube - though at certain places less than expected the working circumstances
of our violin makers have also changed substantially. Here and since
then we could experience the truth of the verse: "Only free people can make
wonderful things." Our violin makers can prove it, too; our lagging behind the
world is more and more diminishing.
Besides the great old masters of the trade we have talented young ones,
and even grandchildren appear on the scene. Antal Arzt, doyen of the trade, Pal
Saranszky, the master reputed far beyond our borders, Istvan Balazs, the supporter
of good-handed and hard working amateurs and Lajos Konya, the tireless
creator, whose grandchildren can already proudly bear the name of the founder
of the dynasty, are personalities much devoted to Hungarian violin making. Tibor
Semmelweis, Peter Temesvari and Lajos Konya have done a lot both in respect
of creation and organization. Ernő Guminar, Laszlo Marosvary and T ibor
Semmelweis Jr. are getting better and better results at international competitions
of violin makers. Close behind them we find the young violin makers of
the High School for Musical Instrument Makers,: some of them really deserve
mentioning their names: Bencze Hollo, Zsombor Kemeny and Gaspar Kocsis. And
we haven't even mentioned our outstanding restorers yet, whitout their work
significant values might have been lost in the past decades. The names of Ferenc
Lakatos and Attila Rezsabek are legendary without any exaggeration. The significance
of their performance cannot be overestimated. We can only much regret
that they are practicing their excellent repairing work without having descendents.
From among the masters of the new genereation of repairers the
names of such young creators as Orsolya Kiss, Laszlo Nemessanyi and Laszlo
Toth should be mentioned, but we have several young hopes besides them.
We also have to mention the excellent group of skilled workers at the
Musical Istrument Factory of Szeged, who help not only the studies of Hungarian
youngsters in instrumental music, but almost of the entire world, with their
ever improving string instruments. The work of the master, Miklos Sebők, who
is no longer among them, is continued by experts like Gyorgy Romak and Istvan
Zsibok, who offer affectionate help for the education of musical instrument makers
and with their creations to all Hungarian musicians. I know that I have left
out many from among those worth mentioning, but I hope I w ill have the opportunity
to make up for the negligence in my next book.
The good results achieved by Hungarian participants at the violin contest
in Budapest in 1993, and in Cremona in 1994, may give good grounds for nice
hopes for those who are worried for the future of violin making in Hungary.