![]() Robert Cuthbert and Thomas Urquhart in the late seventeenth-century astutely copied Cremonese violins by the Amati family in order to provide instruments that were compelling within circles of the court of Charles II, and Daniel Parker by the 1710-20 period was the only maker in Europe to emulate Stradivari during Stradivari’s lifetime. The result is that English makers have always competed with the very highest European standards and in turn has produced a very compelling tradition of its own. In the case of violin making, the sheer richness of musical culture through the centuries with composers such as Handel and Haydn coming to England means that an internationally renowned group of musicians constantly brought the very best instruments with them. In the late sixteenth-century, up until the 1720s English performers on the viola da gamba were the most famous in Europe, and English viols became the most sought after to the point that German and French and even Italian makers largely replicated the English tradition of making up until the end of the eighteenth century. Throughout modern history, stringed instrument making has followed musical culture in general, and although the most famous centres of stringed instrument making were in Italy, demand for instruments in Britain followed the general theme of musical culture. John Rose, an Englishman working in an Anglo-Venetian tradition established his workshop under Royal patronage at Bridewell Palace and by the 1560s his instruments were ‘famed as moche in Italy as in his native contery’. The Bassano family came to London from Venice in 1538 as makers and musicians of all kinds of instruments and were given the living quarters of the Charterhouse as their lodgings and workplace as part of significant royal patronage making wind and string instruments, that in turn were purchased by royal and ducal courts throughsisout Europe as part of international diplomatic trade. In the sixteenth-century Henry VIII became a significant patron of music, bringing both musicians and instrument makers to London from all over Renaissance Europe, establishing an independent British school that rivalled Renaissance centres such as Venice and Brescia. ![]() It is, in other words as strong a part of the fabric of British society as any other element of art and culture. Instrument making in the UK has ancient roots, the earliest British-made instruments that survive are the Sutton Hoo Lyre made in the 6th-7th century, and the 14th century Warwick Castle Citole from the 14th century, one of the most significant masterpieces of medieval European decorative art. Although there is an affinity between the two crafts, it seems prudent to consider them separately. Restorers naturally fit within the definition of ‘violin maker’ and there is no meaningful distinction between the two disciplines among the craft community.īecause of the relatively late mass-popularity of the guitar in the 20th century, popular designs for contemporary making are based around automated processes of manufacture, so that even genuinely hand made guitars are nevertheless informed by production processes that do not exist in the consideration of older bowed instruments. Generally speaking it is expected that a restorer will have trained as a violin maker in the first place, in order to understand how the instruments are constructed, and many practitioners do both. Owing to the survivability of these instruments over hundreds of years, an important part of the craft community is violin restoration. Bowed stringed instrument making, more commonly violin making encompasses all members of the violin family, including violas, violoncellos, double basses and their bows. ![]()
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