{"id":13230,"date":"2020-01-21T11:23:38","date_gmt":"2020-01-21T16:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=13230"},"modified":"2021-01-05T15:13:38","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T20:13:38","slug":"notes-on-the-philadelphia-violin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2020\/01\/notes-on-the-philadelphia-violin\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes on the Philadelphia Violin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Looking South from 11th and Sansom Streets, January 13, 1934 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhat enables anyone, in any country, to make a really good violin?\u201d<\/p>\n

Musician, collector and instrument dealer David Bromberg had pondered this question for years. And he had an answer. Sure, a violin maker would need \u201csome talent with woodworking\u201d but they’d also had \u201cto have seen a great violin. That\u2019s the secret,\u201d Bromberg added. \u201cIt\u2019s true even in the town of Cremona. In order to make a really good violin, you have to have seen something great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flying blind, as it were, didn\u2019t stop the occasional 18th<\/sup>-century American. The Museum of the Moravian Historical Society in Nazareth, Pennsylvania preserves the earliest dated example<\/a> of American violinmaking, an instrument crafted by the 19-year old John Antes in 1759.<\/p>\n

If \u201ccolonial American makers were limited by the quality of the instruments on hand to copy\u201d that situation would rapidly change when the European masters embarked on American tours.\u00a0 According to Bromberg, \u201cthe European virtuosi treated America as their piggy bank\u2014if they were broke, they came to America to make money. Along the way, they made a valuable contribution to American violin making, thanks to the great instruments they carried.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible that if you were able to trace the itinerary of these virtuosi, you\u2019d see the lutherie improving behind them as they went,\u201d claimed Bromberg.<\/p>\n

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Detail, Looking South from 11th and Sansom Streets, January 13, 1934 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One early instance: an 1843 visit by the Belgian Alexandre Art\u00f4t, \u201cthe first European virtuoso known to have visited the United States.\u201d Violin maker Ira J. White happily welcomed Art\u00f4t and his Stradivarius into White’s Boston shop.\u00a0 Not long after, the Norwegian soloist Ole Bull stopped by with his Guarneri.<\/p>\n

When Ole Bull\u2019s tour brought him to Philadelphia, he visited the shop of John Albert. And Henri Vieuxtemps brought his Guarneri to the Arch Street shop of Albert\u2019s son, Charles F. Albert, himself an \u201cartisanal violin maker and restorer.\u201d (Much later, the Vieuxtemps Guarneri<\/a> found its way into the hands of Yehudi Menuhin,\u00a0Itzhak Perlman\u00a0and\u00a0Pinchas Zukerman). And on one occasion, the younger Albert got to repair the Stradivarius of Polish-born Henryk Wienawski, who was to perform at the Academy of Music.<\/p>\n

Albert successfully eliminated a wolf, an unwanted overtone, from Wienawski\u2019s Stradivarius. After trying out the repaired instrument, according to Albert\u2019s obituary, the master \u201cembraced Albert, and \u201ckissing him on the forehead, [and] exclaimed: \u2018young man, you have done what no other man could do for me whether in Europe or America.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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100 Block of South 11th Street, 1963 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the start of his performance at the Academy, according to The Inquirer<\/em>, Wienawski \u201cwalked about a little among the players as if he were wishing to introduce his beautiful Stradivarius to the other violins in the orchestra, so that they might go well together\u2026 \u201c<\/p>\n

And go well together they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we speak with sufficient praise of Wienawski\u2019s remarkable gifts?\u201d wrote The Inquirer<\/em>, \u201che is altogether unequaled by anyone we have heard, [his performance] \u201call full of soul and fire.\u201d Wienawski had \u201ca magnetic dash which was quite contagious among the orchestra, who followed him with almost equal impetuosity. … \u201c<\/p>\n

Albert proudly framed the bridge he removed from Wienawski\u2019s violin alongside the virtuoso\u2019s autograph.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican luthiers became as good as any luthiers in the world when they had access to iconic instruments\u2026\u201d wrote Bromberg, \u201cIt reached a point where America was making things as good as anything found anywhere.\u201d Yet, the idea that Americans couldn\u2019t match the Europeans persisted. Meanwhile, Philadelphia became a center of good, and occasionally great violin making by such makers as the Pennsylvania-born Joseph Eastburn Winner, John Pfaff from Bavaria, Joseph Neff from Baden, the brothers John G. and Frederick August Klemm, Charles A. Voigt, Charles Hammermiller, the Primaveras and the de Luccias. And then there was Martin Nebel, who traded under the name of Charles F. Albert on 11th<\/sup> Street, keeping the Albert name alive into the 1960s. And then there were the Moennigs, whose shops in Philadelphia survived for more than 100 years, lasting into the 21st century.<\/p>\n

What did these accomplished Philadelphia luthiers have in common? More than one might think. Many incorporated American woods into their instruments: spruce from Blue Mountain and maple from the Poconos,\u00a0 working in a local flair unknown to European luthiers.<\/p>\n

[Sources: Erin Shrader, \u201cDavid Bromberg on His Collection of 270 American-made Violins,\u201d Strings Magazine<\/em>, May 5, 2015; Christopher Germain, et al. The American Violin<\/em> ( AFVBM Foundation, 2016); Rubinstein And Wienawski,\u201d The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, October 30, 1872; \u201cFamous Violin Maker Dead,\u201d [Obituary for John Albert], The New\u00a0 York\u00a0 Times<\/em>, January 3, 1900; \u00a0Charles F. Albert Succumbs to Cancer, The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, July 2, 1901.]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat enables anyone, in any country, to make a really good violin?\u201d Musician, collector and instrument dealer David Bromberg had pondered this question for years. And he had an answer. Sure, a violin maker would need \u201csome talent with woodworking\u201d but they’d also had \u201cto have seen a great violin. That\u2019s the secret,\u201d Bromberg added. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}