The Anoniazzi Influence Gaetano Antoniazzi, pupil of Enrico and Giuseppe Ceruti, brought the Cremonese tradition of his teachers to Milan in 1870. Gaetano Antoniazzi, along with his sons Riccardo and Romeo, trained Leandro Bisiach, and together with the Antoniazzis, Bisiach influenced the creation of a workshop environment that was to dominate early 20th Century Italian violinmaking. Departing […]
Enlivening History Stradivari's Genius by Toby Faber
Summer
Toby Faber’s Stradivari’s Genius makes a good read. The book seems destined to entice broader audiences into this normally arcane subject much the way the films The Red Violin and Amadeus do. But where those films make no attempt at or pretense to historical factuality, Stradivari’s Genius is based on considerable research on the part […]
A Fine Addition: Stefano Scarampella by Eric Blot
Winter
Within the last few years a number of large-scale works on violin makers have been published, and so it may be with some surprise that a new study of the makers of the Scarampella family appears in a relatively “modest” 143-page publication. The unassuming title—Stefano Scarampella—belies a detailed and splendid review of the lives and […]
Dendochronology and the Messiah Stradivarius An Interview with Henri D. Grissino-Mayer
FallAt the recently concluded 2001 meeting of the Violin Society of America, Professor Henri D. Grissino-Mayer presented the results of his dendrochronological analysis of the Messiah Strad. For those who could not attend he has kindly given us this summation of his science and his findings. Professor Grissino-Mayer introduces himself: I’m an Assistant Professor in […]
Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, by Duane Rosengard The Life and Achievement of a Master Maker of Violins
Winter
When Ernest Doring’s The Guadagnini Family of Violin Makers was published in 1949 it was a watershed event. At the time relatively few books were available on the subject of master violin makers. The Guadagnini family had not yet commanded the full attention of those who were researching and writing about the classic luthiers. Doring’s […]