‘Ex-Corbett; ex-Bennett’ Girolamo Amati II violin

Perhaps more influential to Corbett was the Cremonese nobleman Gaspar Visconti who arrived in 1703 in England as another pupil of Corelli, and with whom he regularly performed. In March 1704 Corbett put together a ‘benefit concert’ including Visconti, James Paisible and John Banister (II) at the fashionable York Buildings, and in a benefit for Giuseppe Olzi in April, Visconti performed Corbett’s sonatas. He returned to Cremona in 1705 having married Christina Stefkins, the daughter of another celebrated musician in royal service in the English court. In turn, Visconti certainly knew Stradivari, for surviving templates indicate that he made a viola da gamba for Christina, and in 1720 the biographer Dom Desidero Arisi touched upon the idea that Visconti was the musician who assisted Stradivari in his designs. It is worth mentioning that the 1706 Corbett Stradivari with “W.C.” branded on the bottom rib coincides with Visconti’s return to Cremona, and is the only known Stradivari with a scroll for five strings. Both Corbett and Atillo Ariosti called for a five-metal-string “viol d’amore” for opera arias (distinct from the viola d’amore), and this accords well with “5-hole” violins by Nicolo Amati and Jacob Stainer that featured in Corbett’s will. Whether it was intended to be sent to Corbett in England, or commissioned in anticipation of his arrival in Italy, Visconti seems to have been the likely intermediary, and this unusual violin would seem to be an instrument intentionally made for Corbett’s particular requirements.

Corbett probably left for Italy in 1709 when he received his place in the Royal music establishment. Charles Burney records that he was there in 1710, and that he studied with Corelli, which places his visit before Corelli’s death in 1713. Fifty years earlier, John Bannister, leader of the four-and-twenty fiddlers of Charles II’s court, had taken a similar journey at the outset of his royal patronage to visit Paris and study with J.B. Lully, and it seems that in 1709 Queen Anne was the eager patron of a musician who could bring the latest fashions of Italy back to England. During his frequent returns to the country, a benefit concert for him at Hickford’s Rooms in 1713 included “A Cantato with the Arch Lute, and a new Concerto on the Mandolin, being an Instrument admired in Rome, but never Publick here” as the highlight of a concert showcasing new concertos for a variety of instruments, and the latest developments in Italian opera. Another concert at Hickford’s Rooms in April 1714 was dedicated to showcasing Corbett’s performances of Corelli’s sonatas, perhaps strengthening a case for him having been a recent pupil.

It seems that his salesmanship was relatively successful, though it is possible that he was trying his luck at high prices rather than trying to liquidate his collection. It is notable that there are no Stradivari violins or Magginis in the collection at the time of his death, nor the “celebrated violins” of Gobo, Torelli, or Leonardo of Bologna. The Hills were the first to point out the phrase old Stradivari, drawing comparison to “Il vecchio Stradivari” by which he appears to have been known in Cremona. It suggests a personal acquaintance with the man, which is all the more likely in view of Corbett’s residency in Milan and his direct connection with Gaspar Visconti and his extensive travels in Italy.

Corbett probably returned to England permanently in 1732, continuing to publish his Universal Bizarris, his collected compositions based on his experiences in Italy, and in 1742 the King granted “Our Trusty and Wellbeloved William Corbett, one of Our Musicians” a fourteen-year copyright on all his printed works. Corbett’s final act was the donation of his collection of instruments to Gresham College, an educational institution in the City of London, which he stipulated in his will in 1747. The collection went further simply than violins, and included Italian paintings, harpsichords, furnishings and collections of his music. ‘I bequeath … my curious Series or Gallery of Cremonys and Stainers violins’. Corbett seems to have made a number of presumptions about the college and what it was willing to accept. One condition was that Bridget Bohannon, one of his executors (and possibly his mistress) would receive lodgings in the college and a stipend of ten pounds per year for life for “her trouble in showing the aforesaid Curiosities at the said College” along with a kindly five pounds to pay her funeral expenses when she died. Ultimately, it transpired that the Professor of Music was renting the proposed gallery space as a warehouse, and was unwilling to lose the extra income. Meanwhile the college authorities decided it would be an unwelcome precedent to provide lodgings for anyone except a professor of the college. Resultingly, they made arrangements for Bohannan’s security, but in 1750 the college authorities disposed of Corbett’s estate. According to Sir John Hawkins, “there was a sale by auction of his instruments at Mercer’s-hall, where many curious violins were knocked down at prices far beneath their value”.

Gresham college had been founded in the Elizabethan period with the purpose of educating merchants of the City of London, and it seems from the description in Corbett’s will that the instruments in the collection were intended as a study collection to be looked at and to remain within the college. This suggests that Corbett’s intentions were to benefit violin makers working in the City of London and to encourage appreciation of Cremonese standards of making. Certainly the collection was extremely well curated to these ends. The will was evidently written by an amanuensis, and there are various confusions within it. In particular, the two Andrea Amadi violins (Corbett uses the spelling found on Andrea Amati’s genuine labels) correspond to the 1564 “Charles IX” violin in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the 1574 violin in the National Music Museum, South Dakota, if we accept that the dates have been accidentally switched in the will. Both instruments have the same “W.C.” brand on the ribs near the endpin, and a further “44” mark whose purpose is unclear. (It should be noted that the presence of a Charles IX Amati in England as early as 1747 confounds many of the traditional assumptions about these instruments being dispersed at the time of the French revolution. Entries in the Lord Chamberlain’s accounts of the English court show payments for Cremonese instruments being brought over from France in the 1630s by the musician Estienne Nau – perhaps when the plague in Italy made it impossible to purchase violins in Cremona – and that John Bannister submitted receipts for two Cremona violins in 1661 upon his return from studying with Lully in the French court). “A tenor of Grannini of Milan” should obviously be Grancino, whilst there seems to be some doubt about the authenticity of a 1684 Nicolo Amati. Perhaps most curiously of all is the claim of ten bows “by the most eminent masters”, there being little textual evidence that bow makers were held in significant esteem in the 18^th century. Altogether, the collection is a remarkable reflection of what would be considered the ideal collection today.

Of all the instruments, only one of them is dated to the period when Corbett was in Italy, a Hieronymus (II) Amati made in 1710. Two things can be said of it from the amanuensis’s description. It had a “whole back”, i.e. a one-piece back, and it was quite a dark violin, because in the slightly conversation-driven inconsistencies of his writing, we know that the 1684 violin that is next on the list was “a paler” one. Thus this satisfactorily describes the Hieronymus (II) Amati bearing identical “W.C.” and “44” stamps to the two Andrea Amati violins also listed in the will. It is incredibly rare to find a Cremonese violin that can be traced back to its first owner. In this case the physical markings of the instrument place it irrefutably within the context of William Corbett’s will. Meanwhile the likelihood that he acquired the instrument in Cremona directly from the hand of the maker seems to fit well within the surrounding evidence and circumstances.