Italian Violinmaking: The Amati Family

 

Stradivari is known for the greatest violins, but the likely inventor of the modern violin was Andreas Amati. French royalty deserves some credit as well.

 

The story of the Amati family of violin makers is closely intertwined with another, historically prominent clan: that of Catherine de’ Medici (1519-1589), the Italian noblewoman, queen consort of France, and mother of the French kings Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III.

 

This was a time when the original Amati luthier, Andrea (1505-1577), essentially invented the violin in the form we know it. The Amati violins preceded Stradivari, Guarneri, Stainer and others for whom a greater body of work survives to this day. The story of the successive three generations of Amatis is one that emphasizes the strong relationship between the royal courts of Europe and the development of the fine violins, violas and cellos we know today – and the precarious place these exquisite instruments occupied as dynasties fell to revolutions that overturned the monarchies.

 

Andrea Amati essentially created the “violin family” –which includes the violin, the viola, and the cello – standardizing the evolution of stringed instruments from the medieval fiddle, the vielle, lira da braccio and rebec. Other luthiers were his contemporaries (the families Micheli and Bertolotti da Salo), but Amati had an important customer early on that propelled his instruments, and the family legacy, to fame.

 

(It bears noting that the evolution to the Amati violin form is subject to some debate. Some Amati instruments survive to today while evidence of other versions of the violin exist only in paintings and church frescoes. The depictions of those other versions from that time have only three strings and an oval-ish body, unlike the hourglass-with-cutouts form from Amati that has defined the appearance of these instruments for 500 years.)

 

Today, the auction house Sotheby’s has said about the Amati instruments that their “brilliance raised the status of the violin from a farmhand’s entertainment to an embellishment fit for a royal court.”

 

Indeed they did. The luthier Amati had made the earlier, three-string version of violins up until a point. But around 1536, when he would have been about 30 years old, it is believed (through thin but convincing evidence) that his relationship with the French court began with 4-stringed instruments in the form that Amati devised. The first cello, created by Amati, was called “The King” and made in 1538. This is around the time when Henry II ascended the French throne. Henry’s mother, Catherine de’ Medici, commissioned an entire ensemble of 38 instruments in 1560 from Amati.

 

Andrea Amati had two sons who were luthiers, Antonio and Girolamo, and they were succeeded by Girolamo’s son Nicolo, who is credited with improving on the violin in ways that created a powerful tone (referred to as the “Grand Amati”). Nicolo’s son, Girolamo (aka, Hieronymus II) was the last in the line of Amati violinmakers, living until 1740, a full 200 years after his great grandfather made the name synonymous with fine, royalty-worthy stringed instruments.

 

All dynasties fall eventually, including that of the French aristocracy. Of the 38 instruments commissioned by Catherine de’ Medici, few survived the French Revolution of 1789, a time when vestiges of both wealth and the Church – art, buildings, and lives – were destroyed. Surviving Amati instruments are highly prized and largely kept safe in museums, where common people can see them and study the journey of simple fiddles to fine instruments – all attributable to a visionary luthier of the early 16^th century.

Andrea Amati and the King Charles IX Instrument Collection

 

Catherin de’ Medici brought a love of dance from Italy to the French court. In so doing, she drove the enduring standardization of violins, violas, and cellos.

 

Hard as it may be to imagine, it was a practice in the 18^th and 19^th centuries to reduce the size of bass violins (bassos) to what we now know the cello to be. This was even done with one of the 38 instruments made by early luthier Andrea Amati for King Charles IX of France.

 

First, a little history on the collection:  The instruments – a full complement of the modern interpretations of the violin, the viola, and the cello – were commissioned by none other than Catherine de’ Medici (1519-1589), the queen consort of France and mother of three French kings: Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III. The luthier, Amati, somewhat standardized these from earlier stringed instruments, part of how this music was elevated from the peasantry to the royal courts – an enduring legacy seen on concert stages in the 21^st century.

 

But while only nine of those instruments in the King Charles IX collection survived the destruction of the French Revolution (1789-90), one that evidently made it intact to 1801 was the “King cello.” Curiously, Amati didn’t originally make it as a cello but as a “basso,” or bass violin. Larger than the cellos Amati did make, it was literally cut down as bassos had fallen out of favor with musicians and audiences by this time. Rather than it be neglected, a Parisian luthier, likely Sebastien Renault, inscribed on the back of the reduced instrument, “Mended….1801” after the reduction.

 

That mending process might seem extreme, but in fact was done a fair number of times in this era. The Vienna Symphonic Library posts a description in an article titled “How the violone became a cello,” in which it says:

 

“One further characteristic of early cello-making should be mentioned: the so-called “cutting,” the reduction in size of large instruments to dimensions which have remained customary to the present day: the top and bottom of the body was cut off, shortening it, the upper and lower bouts were narrowed and the ribs made flatter. Not one of the instruments made before the middle of 17th century seems to have survived this rather gruesome-sounding hacking up of instruments.”

 

To initiate such a clear alteration of an instrument with such provenance speaks to the favored place of Amati’s standardization of the string instruments – even while disrespecting the larger original size. Andrea Amati was in fact part of several generations of Amati luthiers, however this particular violin maker was known to de’ Medici, herself originally from Italy and one who loved to dance. She is credited by way of this commission with transitioning the higher-pitched violin from its origins in lower-brow culture to the royal courts. The original collection of fine stringed instruments was made up of 12 “large” sized violins, 12 “small” sized violins, six violas, and eight cellos. The collection was commissioned by de Medici for her son Charles IX’s ascendancy to the throne in 1560.

 

So while only about a quarter of the original collection survives to this day, including one instrument in significantly “mended” condition, the basic structure of the violin, viola, and cello have endured to this day. Credit one queen consort and her love of dance.

Why You Can’t Easily Sell a Stolen Stradivarius Instrument

 

Rare stringed instruments have a chain of custody known as provenance. Without clear and legal ownership, the instrument is more a liability than asset.

 

In the world of very valuable things – think art, antiques, Stradivarius violins – there is a mix of beauty and threat that is ever present.

 

Fine art galleries have their works under 24/7 security. Antiques are heavily insured and protected, particularly if they have a connection to historical events. And when a virtuoso musician travels with a fine stringed instrument, it never gets checked with luggage: a violin might fit in overhead luggage, but when YoYo Ma flies with his cello (the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius), it goes strictly first class with its own seat and boarding pass.

 

Still, there are thefts of fine stringed instruments. And the irony is that the things of highest value – which of course include any violin, cello, viola, guitar, harp, mandolin or bow made by Antonio Stradivari – are of least value to thief. Why? There is far too much scrutiny of those instruments and their provenance. And, a thief of something such as a Strad is almost by definition unsophisticated and very bad at the crime business.

 

There are thefts of fine Italian violins, violas and cellos that seem to occur out of a love of the instrument and the music it can produce. But more often the thief is looking for a big payoff, or simply doesn’t realize the expensive looking instrument he just stole is as priceless as it is.

 

A recent example is the theft in a parking lot outside Wisconsin Lutheran College’s Schwan Concert Hall near Milwaukee in 2014. The Lipinski Strad was on loan to the concertmaster, who was attacked with a stun gun following a performance. The Milwaukee police chief, fortunately, was an avid concertgoer and understood the value of the instrument. It was recovered ten days later, and the suspects were arrested, charged, and convicted. They had no apparent plans for how to resell it, and one of the criminals had a prior rap sheet that included an unsuccessful fine art theft.

 

Another case illustrating a different kind of Strad theft was the 1734 Ames Totenberg Stradivari. It went missing from Roman Totenberg’s office as he greeted well-wishers after a concert at the Longy School of Music (Cambridge, Massachusetts) in 1980. It surfaced 35 years later in the belongings of the suspected thief, a violinist who had a mediocre career before dying at middle age.

 

One still-missing stolen Strad is the Davidoff, Morini 1727 that was taken in 1995 from the apartment of its owner, 91-year-old Erica Morini, as she was dying in a hospital. It has never (yet) resurfaced and is today on the FBI’s top Ten Art Crimes list of unsolved art thefts.

 

Many other Stradivarius thefts were solved eventually, with the perpetrators unable to gain financially. But several remain missing. They include the 1709 Mendelssohn (stolen in Berlin in the Nazi era in 1939), the 1709 King Maximilian (stolen in 1999 in Mexico City), and the 1714 Le Marien (taken from a consignment sale shop in 2002 in New York City). These and at least six more remain missing – and yet there are no known successful sales of any of them, likely because a buyer would be implicated in the crime if they were aware of the true provenance and value of the instrument.

Stringed Instruments of the Renaissance

 

Musical eras and the instruments that created them are on an historical, evolving continuum. But each era, the Renaissance period included, has its own instruments.

 

The Renaissance was a period so associated with the new, the creative, the break from the status quo, particularly in the arts, it’s no wonder there was an explosion of new stringed instruments used in the creation of music.

 

Consider first how musical instruments were largely banned in the church during the medieval era (500-1450 CE). The plainchants of male voices in the cavernous cathedrals of Europe were largely what had defined sacred music. Secular music of the homes and taverns and public squares were livelier, with dulcimers, citterns, harps, lutes, and the occasional hurdy-gurdy providing what had to have been more joyous enjoyment of melody and rhythm. The Renaissance period elevated those instruments and their sound – along with the development of newer fine stringed instruments.

 

What were the stringed instruments that defined the music of the Renaissance? These are the primary ones:

 

Lira da braccio: A bowed, seven stringed instrument, it resembles the modern violin, albeit larger with a wide fingerboard. Two of the strings are drones. “Braccio” is Italian for arm, referring to the limb that holds the instrument against the shoulder (akin to the violin positioning).

 

Rebec: Also considered a precursor to the violin, the rebec had a boat-like (or elongated teardrop) shape carved from a single piece of wood, with between one and five strings played with a bow. It has roots in Morocco and Islamic Spain going back to the 9th century, so it is not entirely an instrument of the Renaissance.

 

Citole: Historians debate the history of this instrument, as evidence of its origins exists in the first century AD. Carved largely from a single block of wood, the neck is so thick it has a thumbhole for the player to hold as one might a modern guitar. While very much an instrument used in medieval times, it played a key role in the evolution of stringed instruments as discussed (Dr. Emanuel Winternitz, et al.) in terms of how luthiers were constantly innovating upon these instruments, leading to what we have in modern violins, guitars, etc.

 

Viol/viola da gamba: “Gamba,” Italian for leg, describes the position with which this instrument was held, lending it to comparisons to the modern cello. But it has several differences, even if there is a historical lineage between the two. The viol has five to seven strings (vs. four in a cello), a flat back (vs. curved), sloped shoulders (vs. rounded), and c holes (vs. f holes). The bowing of the viola da gamba is with an underhand movement (vs. the French overhand bow grip). Of all these instruments, it isn’t uncommon to find a violin maker who still crafts and sells viols to modern viol players.

 

It was with these instruments – as well as the woodwinds (recorders, chalumeau, a precursor to the modern single-reed clarinet, shawm, a precursor to the oboe), brass (trumpet, cornet, natural horn, slide trumpet) keyboards (clavichord, harpsichord, organ), and percussion (drum, timpani, cymbals, bass drum) – that enabled a jauntier, harmonic, complex style of music that eventually led to the baroque, classical and eventually modern music eras.

The Violins of Ruggiero Ricci

 

Over a long career that left a legacy of recordings and accomplished students, Ricci always had an eye (and ear) for fine violins, both old and new.

 

When virtuoso violinist Ruggiero Ricci died in 2012 (b 1918), the obituaries tracked his storied career. From his status as a child prodigy (two of his five siblings also achieved professional status as stringed instrument players), through a period of feeling like a “has been,” back to a renewed career of triumphal performances that lasted his entire life. His accomplishments include 6,000 concerts in 65 countries, and later teaching at the Juilliard School, Indiana University, and the University of Michigan.

 

But those histories are a bit muddled as to which fine violins he played on. That is due in part to a somewhat promiscuous love affair he had with fine Italian violins – there were quite a few over time, some made by the great luthiers of history (Stradivarius, Guarneri, and Storionis). But he also commissioned contemporary violinmakers to build new violins that replicated the work of the old masters – reportedly to great success.

 

The list of violins that count Ricci in their provenance, in no particular order, includes:

 

(Works of the masters)

·       Lorentius Storioni, Cremona 1779, now known as “the Ex Ruggiero Ricci;” it sold at auction in 2017 for £528,000, reportedly at “the highest price ever paid at auction for an instrument by the maker…coupled with the name of Ricci it wasn’t a surprise when it did so well,” according to the auction house chair, Peter Horner.

 

·       Guarneri, del Gesu violin (also know as the ex-Bronissaw Huberman 1734)

 

·       Guarneri, the “Ferni, duc de Camposelice” (1734), owned and played by Ricci from about 1947 through 1958.

 

·       Guiseppe Guarneri ‘del Gesu,’ Cremona, 1731, also known as the “Gibson, Huberman” (believed to have been in Ricci’s ownership around 1977)

 

(20^th century made)

·       The Haddock copy of the Huberman Guarneri, 1985 (luthiers: Curtin & Alf, of Ann Arbor, Michigan). Reportedly, Ricci eventually had three violins made by Curtin & Alf.

 

·       The Frederic Chaudiere violin, 1997, sent to Ricci after the soloist requested to sample some of the luthier’s work. While not made as a copy of any particular instrument, it was styled after del Gesu (Guarneri) instruments made after 1735.

 

·       Samuel Zygmuntowicz copy of the del Gesu 1735 Plowden violin. The violin maker worked in Prospect Heights, New York, and also crafted instruments purchased by Isaac Stern.

 

While he performed into his old age – live in concert, and on dozens of albums, including the very collected 1964 “Ruggiero Ricci Vivaldi: The Four Seasons Stradivarius Chamber Orchestra” – Ricci is remembered as a very nurturing teacher and modern thinker. The fact he could place great value on the luthiers of the present, not necessarily being slavishly devoted to the masters of Cremona in the 18^th century, illustrate his willingness to embrace the present.

Pablo Casals and His Goffriller Cello

 

Misidentified for decades, the instrument of the famous 20^th century cellist is still in the ownership of his widow. Tax policy is why it was misidentified.

 

A rose by any other name is still a rose.

 

The same could be said of the 1733 Goffriller cello. The prized instrument of legendary cellist Pablo Casals, it was hiding in plain sight, believed to be an instrument from the violin shop of violin maker Carlo Bergonzi of Cremona, Italy. Casals played it for 50 years before he knew who actually made it, and today it lives on as “The Pablo,” currently played by Israeli cellist Amit Peled.

 

So why the confusion?

 

The real maker of the cello that Casals played throughout the bulk of his career – touring the capitals of Europe and the Americas, playing for royalty and the American President John F. Kennedy (at the insistence of First Lady Jackie Kennedy) – “actually labeled only a small percentage of the instruments [he made] in order to avoid paying Venetian taxes,” says the Wikipedia page about luthier Matteo Goffriller (1659-1742). Consequently, over time Goffriller’s instruments were often misidentified, even to a world class player such as Casals.

 

(This isn’t the first instance where a tax policy affected the arts and design. The original mansard roof, at a near vertical slope, reduced a tax liability for homeowners of multi-story homes in 1798 France, with the roof subtracting the top floor from the assessment. Queen Anne would similarly tax two-story homes in the American colonies, which led to the New England colonial saltbox home that lent them the appearance of a single story from the front elevation. Machinations by homeowners with chimneys [eight fireplaces vented through just two chimneys] and windows (reduce the number facing the street) similarly saved the owner on their taxes.)

 

Casals acquired the cello around 1917, which featured a facsimile of the Bergonzi label, dated 1733. So the confusion is understandable, although dealers today are held to a higher standard of determining makers and provenance. Carlo Bergonzi was himself renowned for crafting fine Italian cellos, violas and violins.

 

The wood used in the instrument – maple for the back and side, the top from veined spruce – is more characteristic of Venice luthiers, where Goffriller worked as a member of that city’s guild. Cremonese luthiers used different woods from different sources, including willow for internal blocks and linings. The cello’s scroll is characterized by a low belly and forward thrust, a characteristic of Goffriller’s other instruments.

 

Just as remarkable is this instrument’s history and misidentification is the life of Pablo Casals. Born in 1876 near Barcelona, he was in that city in 1937 as the Spanish Civil War raged. He had to escape on a propeller plane to Prague just as Barcelona was about to erupt into war; we can assume the few items he was able to take with him would have been the cello. The catastrophic bombing of Guernica in that conflict – the subject of one of Pablo Picasso’s most famous paintings – along with other hardships on the Spanish people drove Casals to raise money for the afflicted through music.

 

Casals remained in exile until his death in 1973 at age 96, just two years short of the death of dictator Generalissimo Franco.

 

His first marriage existed mostly on paper for decades, but Casals divorced in 1957 to marry his student, the 20-year-old Marta Montañez y Martinez of Puerto Rico. Today, Marta Casals Istomin is in her mid-80s, is a former president of the Manhattan School of Music – and remains the owner of the Goffriller 1733 cello, which she lends to Peled.

 

The Goffriller cello is the rose Marta Casals Istomin could not part with.

 

Pablo Picasso and the Violin

 

The crossover between visual and performing arts is not uncommon. But in his championing of Cubism, Picasso found his inspiration to paint in violins.

 

Art historians know all about Picasso. They understand his oeuvre (“Cubism,” primarily), his various periods (Blue, Rose, Analytic Cubism, Synthetic Cubism), and the fact he frequently incorporated violins and guitars into several of his paintings.

 

But not everyone is a student of visual art. If that’s your jam, or more accurately a lack thereof, this article is for you.

 

First, why all the disjointed faces and objects in his Cubist works? Well, in simplest terms it’s as if his eye took a picture of things (faces, violins, grapes, bottles, etc.) from different angles, then he pasted those pictures into a collage. The idea is to represent something in a more complete, multidimensional way – from different perspectives – within the confines of the two-dimensional medium of a canvas.

 

Next question: Where do violins, and more broadly, music fit into this? The fine stringed instruments are variously depicted with guitars, humans, bottles, and grapes in several Picasso works. But don’t expect to see a complete violin – he really only painted parts, usually the f-holes, sometimes the headstock, the curved body, and parallel lines meant to represent the strings. This is of course part of how Cubism works. Art historians say his use of violins are to evoke less about the instrument and more about the sounds, the movement of music that brings a type of life to the painting.

 

It bears noting that this then disqualifies Picasso’s work from being considered abstract. It might require study to find the objects, or parts of objects, in his work. But those violin parts are there, not some splotches of paint that evoke more of a mood than an actual Stradivarius.

 

Some of the most recognized Picasso works featuring imagery of fine violins are:

 

Violin (1911-1912), now in the Kroeller-Muller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands

 

Man with a Violin (1911-1912), now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

Violin (1912), now in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia

 

Violin and Grapes (1912), now in the Museum of Modern Art, New York

 

Guitar and Violin (1912-1913), now in the State Museum of New Western Art, Moscow, Russia

 

Three Musicians (1921), now seen in the Philadelphia Museum of Art: the other two musicians in the painting seem to be holding a clarinet or recorder, and a keyboard instrument, perhaps a version of an accordion.

 

It should be noted that Violin and Candlestick (1910), now in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, was painted by fellow Cubist, Georges Braque, whose work is very similar to that of Picasso. The two considered themselves colleagues. Another Cubist who incorporated musical instruments was Jean Metzinger in his Violon et Flute (1918).

 

So if you’re more oriented to music, there is some indication that Cubism presaged or is otherwise represented in jazz phrasings (see Parker, Coltrane, and Monk). The balletic composition of Erik Satie, Parade (1917), is arguably a Cubist work. Some types of architecture from the 20^th century – from Le Corbusier to Libeskind to Gehry – trace to Cubism. The iconic Gehry concert halls in Los Angeles (Walt Disney) and Chicago (Prizker Pavilion) easily relate to Picasso’s work.

 

The crossovers between art forms are interesting to consider. It’s interesting to consider how violins seem to be a string that runs through much of it.