Part 1 (1/2)
Antonio Stradivari.
by Horace William Petherick.
PREFACE.
It was in the month of April, 1898, when THE STRAD monthly magazine had completed its eighth year of issue, that the Editor Suggested that then might be an appropriate time for giving a biographical sketch of the great Cremonese master in serial form, expressed in a manner interesting and instructive as possible. With this view I took up the subject with some enthusiasm and proposed to work upon lines which I believed to be bound by truth. All references to peculiarities in connection with Stradivari's designs, construction and purposes should be the result of my own personal observation during many years of experience as connoisseur and expert. In formulating my results of study of a great number--possibly the majority--of the instruments of the master extant--I have abstained as far as possible from using technical terms not readily comprehended by a reader coming newly to the subject, and I trust all persons reading through the matter now collected, added to, and presented in book form, will find their time not mis-spent at least when they arrive at the conclusion.
HORACE PETHERICK.
Croydon.
INTRODUCTION.
It was during the second half of the sixteenth century that the violin, with its well recognised combined excellences of artistic form and musical sonority, was started on its way in the world to supply a want and prove its fitness as a leading instrument at once and for future times. So happily was this effected, so complete and mature was it in conception, that the advancing intellect of three centuries has proved incompetent to insert any fresh and permanent addition to its original simple arrangement. Precisely as it came from the hands of an artistic and inventive genius in the city of Brescia so we have it now, unchanged in its essential details of construction, although having its natural qualities made more evident after undergoing the modern adjustment with regard to accessories of detail, or regulation as it is termed. This has been effected by simply enlarging some parts for the purpose of allowing more freedom and convenience in the execution of more modern music, its elaboration of rhythm, besides the extended range of notes in the higher positions of the register, necessitating this. As might have been expected in connection with the then still living Renaissance period, on the violin making its appearance it was soon taken in hand by men of superlative talent, who stamped it with their own individuality in which was a marvellous perception of artistic quality. All that was to be done by means of proportion, form and colour, not setting aside the essentials of refined sonority, were combined, each aiding in the grand total and producing that known and so much sought after at the present day--a beautiful Italian violin. For about a century or more many Italian liutaros were busily engaged in sending forth under compet.i.tion works which are now by the cognoscenti treated as unrivalled excellence of quality, cla.s.sical, and the outcome of genius. Each worker being anxious to maintain the standard of excellence, or take a step forward in the practice of their art, the culminating point seems to have been reached when the artist under consideration in the following pages was executing his masterpieces in Cremona.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ANTONIO STRADIVARI.]
ANTONIO STRADIVARI.
CHAPTER I.
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH OF ANTONIO STRADIVARI--HIS INSTRUCTOR IN THE ART OF VIOLIN MAKING--PECULIARITY OF HIS EARLY WORK, NOTHING STRIKING, BUT SLOWLY PROGRESSIVE--WHICH OF THE DESIGNS OF HIS MASTER HE WAS MOST IMPRESSED BY, AND HIS OWN MODIFICATIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT--HIS DEPARTURE FROM THE HOUSE OF HIS MASTER, FREE TO CARRY OUT HIS OWN INCLINATIONS.
The year 1614, although not particularly noticeable at the time for its portentous events, was destined to be one of considerable interest to those who are enthusiastic lovers of the delightful quality of sound emitted by a certain section--and that only--of a cla.s.s of stringed instruments which have made the city of Cremona famous throughout the civilised world. For in that city and in that year was born a male child, whose surname was eventually to eclipse by its own refulgence the renown of the city itself. Its paternal name was Stradivari, people trouble themselves very little about the prefix Antonio, common enough in Italy, and which was the Christian name given him by his parents. Of these we can only say, that as might be supposed, they were of a respectable portion of the middle cla.s.s socially considered and from which have sprung all over the world--with few exceptions--the greatest luminaries of the whole firmament of intellect.
Of his private life during manhood we know very little, of his boyhood nothing. But we may fairly and truly draw our conclusions that as the time arrived when he was supposed fit for training to fight life's battle, he had already exhibited talent indicative of fitness for that artistic branch of industry in which he was hereafter to be the world-wide acknowledged head.
That his special abilities were thoroughly recognised by his parents receives much emphasis from the fact of his being offered to, and received as pupil by, Nicolas Amati, greatest of that great family of stringed instrument makers. Young Antonio was thus placed in the most favourable situation possible for the fructifying and development of his own particular talents. That portion of his life which was spent with the great master of line in violin facture, will, probably, in its details always remain a blank to us: but there is a lightning like flash thrown out by the fact of old Nicolas Amati bequeathing his collection of tools, patterns, etc., to Antonio Stradivari, and, be it noticed, not to his own son, then over thirty years of age. That the future master of his craft had been a steady and beloved pupil of his great teacher, there is no room for doubt; indeed, steadiness, fixity of purpose and honest intention, are manifested in his work during the whole of his career. The earliest of his handiwork has become known to us while he was with Nicolas Amati. In this he exhibits extreme delicacy of handling, and seemingly, in the confidence of his master, certain little modifications in the design of the sound holes were permitted, or perhaps pa.s.sed as improvements, but there is nothing eccentric or extravagant introduced, a gentle addition, or a trifle less here and there, being the way in which he ever cautiously worked out his idea of improvement, and this latter seems to have been the moving spirit during his whole life.
At no time do we meet with sudden departures, or what are sometimes termed flashes of genius--the onward progress of his style of design and its execution was as unimpa.s.sioned as his life was uneventful. When we examine the earliest known work of his hand--it may be observed on some of the late violins of his master--there is plainly perceptible the efforts at excelling where at all possible; and if, as is extremely probable--his master was sometimes desirous that the purfling should be somewhat bolder than was to the taste of his refined pupil, this was inserted with a delicacy and precision beyond what had been before deemed the acme of finish.
His departure from the house of Nicolas Amati had to be taken some day in the ordinary course of events, and he would then act alone in compet.i.tion among the growing swarms of makers who were now busy as bees in most parts of Italy. The start is generally reckoned to have occurred between the years 1664 and 1666, it may have been in 1665, when he had reached his twenty-first year.
That old Nicolas Amati was right in his estimate that young Antonio Stradivari's natural abilities augured well for his success as a liutaro, was now to be proven. With the best possible recommendation--that of being trained by the most distinguished maker of the city--he carried others no less necessary for the long course of thought and labour that he was about to enter upon. These were, an earnest desire for improvement in all his undertakings, natural, indigenous ability for tasteful design and its mechanical execution and the power of steady concentration of the faculties, backed up withal by a sound, physical const.i.tution in which ”nerves of iron” must have been a conspicuous element.
To those who at the time may have been looking forward with some speculation as to what young Stradivari would put forth now that his course was free and untrammelled before him, there was probably some disappointment at finding no signs of striking originality, no spasmodic struggles of genius to a.s.sert itself by throwing aside those individualities, general and detailed, which were so well marked in the work of his great teacher, and which as pupil he had been studiously and conscientiously carrying out. On the contrary, his efforts seem to have been rather to draw the mantle thrown by his master closer around him than to dispense with any part of its protective power. Thus we see in his works of this period which have remained to us, very little more than replicas of those of his master in which he for some years perhaps had taken no inconsiderable part. But in doing this, the intention and power of selection guided by sound judgment at once a.s.serted itself. He did not take that pattern known to us moderns by the name of ”grand,”
and which term was in all likelihood quite unthought of by either himself or his master. Who invented it is a question that may be left complacently to the bookworm of the future.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE HOUSE OF ANTONIO STRADIVARI.]