German Violinmaking: The Hopf Family

While early members of this dynasty created violins that have endured for hundreds of years, later industrious Hopfs also were successful at mass production.

If you peruse fine violin shops and auction sites online, a violin maker name you could well run into (depending on your price range preferences) is “Hopf.” An authentic Hopf, perhaps dating back to the early 18th century, should be available for under $10,000 US, sometimes as low as $2,000 US.

But the operative word when considering a Hopf violin is "authentic." And even if it is from the dynasty of Hopf family of luthiers, where the claim of authenticity may be genuine, that doesn't necessarily mean it is of the greatest quality. Somewhere between 18 and 40 people were members of the Hopf empire, which operated from the late 17^th century on through the late-19^th century in Klingenthal, Vogtland (now the Czech Republic) - which means that there is a range of quality from one Hopf family generation to the next.

Some of the earlier members of the Hopf family did indeed craft instruments of high quality. Those were made by founding member Caspar Hopf (1650-1711), son David Christian Hopf (birth and death dates unclear), or the grandson, David (1762-1786). They produced fine German cellos, violas and violins.

The Hopf family members overall were in fact quite industrious, literally building thousands of instruments under the family signature in a production-line assembly. One history of the House of Hopf describes the guild of luthiers (Hopfs and non-Hopfs) established by Caspar Hopf as follows:

The guild here very quickly became ‘industrialized’, with individual scroll cutters, back carvers, rib makers, even peg makers … The work produced by the family is superficially in the Stainer style, but the pattern is a little degenerate, with noticeably squared-off upper and lower bouts. As in Mittenwald, other families joined the numerous Hopfs; the Dörfel, Hoyer and Glass families being particularly significant. But by the mid nineteenth century, the boom had bust, and in 1887, the Klingenthal guild ceased to exist, having overseen the production of tens of thousands of instruments in the previous two centuries, many with the heavy brand of 'Hopf' on the back.

A genuine Hopf would need to be examined and authenticated by a credible violin dealer. If it checks out, here are some characteristics of the tones from contemporaneous descriptions: “Bright, clear, rich in overtones;” “warm, dark, rounded;” “mature, silvery;” “large, strong;” “warm, mature, resonant;” and “warm, quiet.”

So while finding a Hopf in your grandmother’s attic might not exactly be a discovery of riches, it is an indication the violin is old, it likely was made in Europe, and it represents a history of mass music appreciation in the working and middle classes of Europe and the New World in a time that preceded recorded music. 

Violinists Turned Conductors

As the orchestra concertmaster is always a violinist, it seems natural that great conductors are often great violinists. Here we list some of the most notable.

When a feature writer for Great British Life magazine interviewed Sir Neville Marriner, the English violinist who founded and conducted the orchestra at the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, in 2008, he asked the aging virtuoso what he would like written on his tombstone. Pausing for just a moment, Marriner replied simply, “Follow the beat.”

That could be the most basic of instructions for the aspiring instrumentalist of any type, violinists included. But it’s also something a conductor might say, which Marriner was as well. He wasn’t alone in becoming known as much for conducting as he was a violinist.

There is a handful of violinists who proved equally adept with the conductor’s baton as they were with their fine violins and fine violin bows. Standouts among them include:

Gustavo Dudamel – Among the younger (born in 1981) violinists-turned-conductors, he ventured onto the podium already at the age of 14, where he was studying in his native Venezuela. By the age of 19 he was appointed the music director of the South American country’s national youth orchestra, and five years later was developing a global reputation, with multiple invitations to conduct in European capitals. He is now the music director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Opéra national de Paris.

Maxim Vengerov – Born in Russia (1974) and now an Israeli, Vengerov won the International Karol Lipinski and Henryk Wieniawsk Young Violin Player Competition at the age of 10. His career took him throughout Europe, Asia and Africa before being appointed in 2010 as the first chief conductor of the Menuhin Festival Gstaad Orchestra.

Pinchas Zukerman – Born in 1948 in Tel Aviv to Holocaust survivors, the accomplished violinist and violist first played the recorder (age 4), then the clarinet, and next the violin. Studying at the Julliard School under Isaac Stern, he made his New York City debut at the age of 15, and at 19 soloed under the direction of Leonard Bernstein with the New York Philharmonic. He first conducted (at age 22) the English Chamber Orchestra and has been the principal guest conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra since 2009.

Georges Enesco – Born in 1881 in the Kingdom of Romania, Enescu is considered perhaps the greatest of musicians ever from that country – so much so his picture is on the country’s official currency and the village of his birth was renamed “George Enescu” in his honor. His debut as a conductor was leading the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Yehudi Menuhin – A prodigy from his first performances as a child, the New York born (1916) violinist had an illustrious career as both a player and a conductor. But he might be most famously remembered for his performances in World War II for Allied soldiers and surviving inmates of concentration camps shortly after their liberation in 1945. While criticized for playing under the direction of a German conductor in 1947 with the Berlin Philharmonic, Menuhin clarified that the conductor (Wilhelm Furtwangler) had saved Jewish musicians fleeing Nazism, and that music in Germany transcended the Nazis.

Lorin Maazel – Somewhat the exception in this list, Maazel is best known as a conductor (and less so as a violinist) as he began studying conducting at the age of 7 and his debut as a conductor was in Los Angeles at age 8. Later, he conducted orchestras from Cleveland to New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and toured internationally most of his life (1930-2014). It bears noting his parents both had musical careers, and his grandfather, Isaac Maazel (1873-1925), was the concertmaster violinist with the Metropolitan Opera.

Eugène-Auguste Ysaÿe – The Belgian-born (1858) violinist was in his time referred to as “The King (or Tsar) of the Violin,” and was the son of a local orchestra conductor. His turn to conducting at midlife was driven in part by health challenges, particularly in his hands, but he embraced that along with teaching and composing for the remainder of his life.

Other violinists who are noted also as conductors include Gideon Kremer and Itzhak Perlman.

Perhaps the work of Marriner lives on most prolifically, as it seems his early performances as a violinist AND a conductor of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields provides ample work that gets played again and again on classical radio programs. He followed the beat – and the beat now follows him.

Reasons NOT to Leave Your Fine Stringed Instrument in a Car

About a third of violin players acknowledge leaving their instrument vulnerable to theft, a large portion of them in cars. Which is a very, very bad idea.

In most major cities in the developed world, it’s a pretty common truism that leaving something on a car seat is an invitation to thieves. Something so worthless as an empty paper bag might be tempting enough for a smash-and-grab, just on the chance it contains a wallet or smartphone.

The cavalier among us might joke, “Heck, it’s not like I’m leaving a Stradivarius violin or something on the seat!”

Except, there have been Stradivarius violins left on seats of cars and in taxis. And they’ve been stolen or at the very least lost for days if not years. These losses are not limited to fine violins. Musicians have even had fine violas, fine cellos, and fine stringed instrument bows taken.

How is that possible? An informal poll conducted by Violinist.com in 2008 asked respondents if they had ever left their instruments somewhere by accident. The results were stunning: 36 percent (93 players) said yes, they had. The largest portion of them were in classrooms (18 percent), followed by restaurants (16 percent), cars (12 percent, plus another 3 percent in taxis), practice rooms (12 percent). A small cohort, 2 percent, admitted to leaving them in bathrooms.

Among the most valuable of violins recently left in a car and lost was the 1710 Amati II, valued at the time (December 2020) at $700,000. It is owned by an art dealer, Rowland Weinstein, who lives in Lost Angeles. Ironically, he was moving the violin to a more secure location when he parked his car, unlocked, in front of his own house. He left the violin in the vehicle for just a few minutes, only to discover the car was stolen when he came back outside – the violin still a passenger. In all likelihood the thief was most interested in the vehicle and lacks the skills and contacts for selling the fine and rare violin. It has yet to be recovered.

Another loss occurred in Los Angeles in 1967, when a Stradivarius (the 1732 Duke of Alcantara) was either stolen from a car or it fell off the roof. Yes, possibly the violinist left it on the roof. It resurfaced in 1994 after a hazardous journey involving someone finding it, storage in a closet, passing on to relatives through two different divorces, casual play by amateurs, and finally surfacing when it went into a violin shop for repairs. The owner, the University of California at Los Angeles, regained possession. The player who lost it lived to see it returned after years of remorse over his carelessness.

But even if a violin of lesser value is left in a car and not stolen, it might still suffer. Cars left parked have poor temperature control. Inside a vehicle on a summer day, the temperatures can go as high as 115ºF in 30 minutes. Simply warm weather can affect the bow-on-strings friction and expand the wood, which changes the tension on the strings. At an extreme, heat can melt the varnish, loosen the glue, and wood can even crack. In the winter, anything below 60ºF will impair the sound of the violin. Leave it in a car and the pegs will loosen, but just as importantly the dryness of winter air affects the entire instrument.

So for that 16 percent of people who leave their violins in cars, plus the 3 percent who thoughtlessly leave them in taxis: might we suggest some kind of leash? You ARE the type to leave a Strad on a seat. It’s a hostile world out there and your violin is defenseless without a little more protection.

DeLay, Gingold & Galamian: Three Legendary Violin Teachers

Even Itzahk Perlman had a teacher, without whom he would not be the performer he is today. It takes sacrifice to leave the stage and cultivate those who will one day take it themselves.

The saying, “Those who can’t, teach,” has never been true. Without teachers, civilized societies would have nothing. Teaching itself requires intense rigor and an ability to master the pedagogy of leading a student to discovery – all the while having the talent and patience required to get there.

Some of the greatest violin teachers might have suffered the slings and arrows of that unfortunate and unfounded phrasing. But they didn’t allow it to deter them. And the results are many more times violin virtuosos than there are great teachers. It’s an inverted pyramid, where great music is created on the foundation of a select few who dedicated themselves to fostering greatness in others.

As with Perlman and other renowned violinists, it takes more than talent to build a career as a soloist. It takes more than an arsenal of fine Italian violins to play on. Only those who have mastered an instrument can teach an instrument.

Three violin teachers are standouts in American music education in the 20th century. They are Dorothy DeLay, Ivan Galamian, and Josef Gingold. Among their many students are Itzhak Perlman, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, Anne Akiko Meyers, Vida Reynolds, Paul Makanowitzky, Joshua Bell, Arnold Steinhardt, Endre Granat, Leonidas Kavakos, and Gwen Thompson. Some biographies:

DeLay (1917-2002) – who trained at Oberlin Conservatory, Michigan State university, and the Juilliard Graduate School, in addition to receiving honorary degrees from several universities, Yale among them – determined in her 20s that she was less interested in performing than teaching. She returned to Juilliard to study under Ivan Galamian (see below), after which she taught there and, for 40 years, at Sarah Lawrence College, in addition to the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, the New England Conservatory, and several music festivals. Said Itzahk Perlman, her student: “I would come and play for her, and if something was not quite right, it wasn’t like she was going to kill me…we would have a very friendly, interesting discussion about ‘Why do you think it should sound like this?’”

Galamian (1903-1981) was born to an Armenian family living in Iran, and when he was a baby they emigrated to Russia; this was at a time when Armenians were being persecuted in massive numbers in their homeland. Russia (Moscow) was fortuitous for the wandering family in Galamian’s education with the School of the Philharmonic Society (although he was jailed when he was 15 during the Bolshevik revolution; the Bolshoi Theater opera manager argued successfully for his release). In addition to teaching violin at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia before becoming the head of the violin department at Juilliard, he authored two seminal violin method books (Principles of Violin Playing and Teaching, and Contemporary Violin Technique, both first published in 1962). An enduring legacy is the Meadowmount School of Music summer program in Westport, New York, which he founded. Dorothy DeLay was one of his several teaching assistants.

Gingold (1909-1995) had a notable career as a concertmaster and soloist (Detroit Symphony Orchestra and Cleveland Orchestra) before embarking on a 30-year career teaching at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University. Millions of Americans got to meet Gingold when one of his students, Patricia Shih, performed for his 75th birthday celebration on the “Charles Kuralt Show,” a national television broadcast.

But Gingold didn’t only teach. His recording of Fritz Kreisler’s work earned him a Grammy Award nomination. This is in addition to several teaching awards from various orchestras and universities.

The best teachers are those who know what they’re teaching – and multiply their talent through generations of students.

Due Diligence and Purchasing a Fine Stringed Instrument

The provenance of a great violin, viola or cello plays heavily into its value. But how that is proven is difficult – and no job for an amateur.

The challenges and sometimes great triumphs of tracking the provenance and value of art and antiques has been the subject of extensive media coverage and even movies. The 2015 biographical drama, “Woman in Gold,” tracks the story of an elderly Jewish refugee and Holocaust survivor as she and a young attorney reclaim a Gustav Klimt painting of her aunt (Adele Bloch-Bauer), stolen by the Nazis in World War II.

But for anyone purchasing a fine stringed instrument, perhaps one that was improperly documented if not entirely misappropriated by malevolent forces, the due diligence process is severely impaired.

Many fine violins, cellos, violas, basses, pianos, and other instruments in Europe were looted by the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s and never recovered. For more on that read below. But even instruments not subject to war and cataclysm can be difficult to document. We’re not talking about average instruments here. We are talking about the highest quality, fine stringed instruments for sale; fine violins, violas and cellos crafted by fine violin makers and certified by reputable and renowned experts that an instrument is what it is being sold as.

Why due diligence matters – and is challenging

At the outset, it needs to be established that the process of identifying the history and value of a fine stringed instrument needs to be undertaken by a professional appraiser. Sometimes an experienced violinist can help figure some of this out, but even then, an objective and trained researcher is still a good check on what is found.

There are several physical clues on when and how a violin was made: the woodgrain, varnish, and the shape, style, and size of the violin. The label, found inside the instrument, can be a defining characteristic, however it can also be fake (many instruments said “Stradivari” meaning ‘in the style of Stradivari,’ a critical and usually damning distinction).

The sound of an instrument might be its greatest strength. But because a violin or cello or any other instrument is also a product of its player, sound is an unreliable marker of the instrument and its history.

Documentation that includes bills of sale, reliable papers showing chain of ownership, and photographs can be very defining. But photography wasn’t invented until the mid-19th century, hundreds of years after the creation of many of the finest of instruments. Meanwhile, written documentation very often was lost in wars, through owner disorganization, and in the settling of estates.

Without documentation, there seems to be a matter of faith in storytelling that sometimes makes up for a lack of evidence. Vintage violins by the Klotz family of luthiers, who crafted fine instruments in the early 1700s in Mittenwald (Bavaria), typically sell in the $15,000 to $25,000 range, according to StringsMagazine.com. But one particular Klotz is believed to have been owned by Mozart as a teenager, and was the instrument through which he composed several concertos, so it has a much higher valuation. The story is hearsay, dependent on what Mozart’s sister said at the time, with no written documentation.

What was lost in World War II

Paintings are unique in their appearance, while violins are much less so. This impairs identifying instruments in the way art can be.

A pernicious aspect of what happened to untold numbers of fine stringed instruments is tied to a program of the Nazis that began in the mid-1930s. They literally had a unit dedicated to looting the homes of Jews who either fled Europe or were abducted and murdered. Called Sonderstab Musik, this team of organized criminals systematically cataloged and inventoried what they took. In France alone, survivors claimed 8,000 pianos that were missing. As reported by National Public Radio, instrument dealers resold instruments from the Nazi storehouses “on a large scale” without checking provenance or providing documentation.

So while it is possible that many important, fine instruments from the 17th and 18th century workshops of Mittenwald, Cremona, Venice, or Paris may indeed still exist, proving where they came from, who owned them and who played them most likely is lost to the ashes of war.

Provenance and a Fine Instrument’s Value

Some of the finest violins, cellos, basses and other stringed instruments are now 100s of years old and of great value. Knowing their history matters.

There are several factors that determine the value of a violin, and for that matter, all stringed instruments. The maker is of course a large part of that, as that tells contemporary musicians and dealers much about the craftsmanship and, as a point of beginning, its provenance.

Other factors are the current condition of the instrument; if it needs repair, knowing the extent of that repair is useful in establishing value. Aesthetics, such as the condition of the varnish, matter. But as any virtuoso will tell you, every instrument has a personality, a tonality and resonance, and playability such that there is rarely if ever an “apples to apples” comparison between instruments in the upper echelons of quality and value.

But where it comes to provenance, an essential part of establishing both value and history, there are many speed bumps on the way to knowing who owned the instrument and when. The key reasons for this are as follows:

Labels are misleading. While the acclaimed luthiers that include Stradivarius, Guarneri, et al. did label most of their instruments, it was in homage to their work that other, lesser violinmakers also labeled theirs as Strads, del Gesus, and other such names. It was not copyright infringement as we know it today, it was an acceptable way to say “in the style of.” And over time, there were forgers who have tried to pass off their work as if from the original masters. On the finest of instruments from Cremona, Venice, Mittenwald and other cities known for great violins, the presence of a label is merely a starting point in understanding provenance.

Documents are only as good as the last document creator. Provenance is based on a due diligence process that seeks out photographs of the instrument (although, those Strads were made about 200 years before photography was invented), copies of certificates of authenticity, and any kind of contemporaneous written documentation (for example, a Klotz violin is believed to have been played by a teenage Mozart is documented, somewhat, in a letter showing it was purchased from Mozart’s sister). But forgeries of those documents have to be identified; fortunately, the forensic tools for doing so today can rout out falsehoods of the past – and often confirm that which is authentic.

Wars and plunderers. The evil nature of Germany’s Third Reich included an organized effort to assemble stolen musical instruments – from Jews and others sent to concentration camps or who escaped the reach of the Nazis with little ability to transport their fine stringed instruments. Called the Special Task Force for Music (Sonderstab Musik), the Fuhrer envisioned a post-War university in Linz, Austria where 75 confiscated antique violins and cellos (two Strads and one Amati among them) would be played. The return of these instruments to their rightful owners or heirs has taken many decades, since 1945, and is still incomplete.

The Art Loss Register (Artloss.com) helps reunite rightful owners with their instruments, as well as artwork that was stolen or by other means misplaced.

Owners aren’t necessarily the musicians anymore. A phenomenon in the latter 20th century and the early 21st century has been the tremendous valuation increase for the finest and most rare instruments. It has had the effect of putting ownership of these violins, cellos, and other instruments out of reach of most musicians. Instead, it created a model of rich owners who lend the instruments on a semi-permanent basis to virtuoso players – which adds a wrinkle to the chain of ownership and playing.

There are a few expert and reputable violin shops throughout the world that specialize in determining and old, fine instrument’s provenance and value, though the process can be costly and time consuming. Oftentimes, the violin maker who performs this service has in his possession antique books and materials – as rare as the fine stringed instruments he sells – that help determine the unique histories and facts of a particular instrument and maker.

In the end, violinists will say that how the instrument plays is the ultimate mark of value – even if it comes with a touch of mystery as to where the instrument was played previously, and by whom.

A History of Violins in Rock & Roll

 

More than the guitar strings can make us rock. Violinists including John Creach, Richard Sanders, Robby Steinhardt, and David Lindley showed us how.

 

As every new genre of music builds on what came before it, it’s always interesting to see how certain instruments are employed in completely different ways. The incorporation of classical musical instruments in rock & roll music are a good illustration of this creative stretch by artists.

 

Rock of course was initially largely about three instruments: lead guitar, bass guitar, and percussion. But it’s easy to hear instruments such as harpsichords in music by The Beatles, flutes with Jethro Tull (more specifically, flautist Ian Anderson and his one-legged flamingo stance), as well as full stringed orchestras providing a symphonic sound for Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Deep Purple. Paul McCartney might have gotten the credit as lead singer, but it was The Beatles’ producer, George Martin, who laid in orchestral tracks so familiar in “Eleanor Rigby,” “I Am the Walrus,” and “Yesterday.” The cello is featured prominently in Guns and Roses’ “Welcome to the Jungle,” and Led Zeppelin’s “All my Love.”

 

But it’s the violin, in acoustic and electric versions, which are definitive parts of the sounds of certain rock artists. Unlike classical violinists who play fine violins that require ongoing maintenance of a violin maker, rockers typically use lesser quality instruments on stage – because of the wear and tear on them through touring and performance – and take their instruments to guitar luthiers. Here is a brief overview of these violin rockers:

 

Jefferson Airplane: Jazz violinist Papa John Creach, whose range of style (blues, classical, jazz, R&B, pop and acid rock) served the group well in such singles as “Bark,” “Long John Silver,” Dragon Fly,” and “Red Octopus.”

 

Kansas: Robby Steinhardt was both the violinist and a founding member of this group, which had its heyday in the 1970s (top hits: “Carry on Wayward Won,” “Point of No Return,” and “Dust in the Wind”). His skills on the strings were in every song in the group’s discography, and he also played the viola on an overlaid track of “Dust in the Wind.”

 

Dave Matthews Band: Violinist Boyd Calvin Tinsley, helped compose some of the star-studded band’s music. His most famous performance was in “Tripping Billies,” a tour-de-force for the electric fiddle. Said Matthews of Tinsley: “We had no plans of adding a violinist. We just wanted some fiddle tracked on this one song, “Tripping Billies,” and Boyd …. came in and it just clicked. That completely solidified the bad, gave it a lot more power.”

 

Fairport Convention: Over a career spanning several decades, Richard Sanders (born in 1952) lent his jazz-rock, folk rock, British folk rock, and folk mastery of the violin to many groups that include Albion Band, Strawbs, Jethro Tull, Robert Plant, Procol Harum, Loudon Wainwright III, Pentangle, All About Eve, and Soft Machine. But his discography with Fairport Convention, over the span of 1985 to 2020, includes “Gladys’ Leap,” “Jewel in the Crown,” “Over the Next Hill,” “Sense of Occasion,” “Festival Bell,” “Myths and Heroes,” and “Shuffle and Go.”

 

Jackson Browne: Browne might have needed multi-instrumentalist David Lindley, but Lindley didn’t need Browne. Lindley began playing the violin at age 3 (and broke the bridge of his first instrument), then took up a variety of other stringed instruments: the baritone ukulele, banjo, and guitar among them. Working with Jackson Browne, his fiddle is heard on “For Everyman,” “Late for the Sky,” “The Pretender,” “Running on Empty,” “Hold Out,” and “Love is Strange: En Vivo Con Tino.”

 

But this conversation is incomplete without crediting the avant-garde composer, musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson, for her inventive takes on the violin. Her “tape-bow violin” uses recorded magnetic tape on the bow where horsehair would be with a magnetic tape head in the bridge. She developed the instrument in 1977 and introduced iterations of it in years that followed.