Part III: Cremona’s Second Genius

Who was Stradivari’s teacher?

Stradivari’s long-supposed apprenticeship with the Amatis is based only on superficial observation of his works high level of craftsmanship, and on a single surviving Stradivari label — that of his earliest-known violin of 1666 — naming Nicolò Amati as his teacher. However, the differences in style and technique between Stradivari and Amati are evident from the beginning, and one suspects that this label was no more than a piece of opportunism that was widely practiced at the time by Rugeri and others.

Whatever his influences, Stradivari slowly but spectacularly took the violin to new heights, experimenting restlessly with form, dimensions, appearance and tone throughout the last half of the 17^th century. For the previous century, Cremonese violins had been marked by their consistency and conservatism. Refinements to Andrea’s original patterns came slowly, in fractional increments that make it relatively hard to distinguish an Andrea Amati of 1574 from a Nicolò Amati of 1674. The Brothers Amati and then Nicolò did manipulate the arching and form subtly but significantly to refine the sound, but at the same time they diminished its power.

Stradivari’s Golden Period

Whatever the case, Stradivari’s lavish work drew even more attention to Cremona. After 1700 he settled into his so-called ‘Golden Period’, characterised by a consistently flatter-arched design based on three surviving patterns, designated ‘P’, ‘PG’ and ‘G’ by the master himself, which still survive in the Museo Stradivariano in Cremona. Stradivari also brought his cello design to perfection with the ‘B’ form model first produced in 1710. His varnish by now was a rich and brilliant red, contrasting with the subtle golden hues of the Amatis, and his style a new and masculine form for the violin, producing a more powerful and focussed sound.

By now in middle age, with two sons, Francesco and Omobono, to support him (and possibly a third, the previously unnoticed Giovanni Battista Martino, who died in 1727), Stradivari might have been looking forward to retirement. But he worked on doggedly until his death in 1737 at the age of 91, thoroughly eclipsing all other makers, including Francesco and Omobono, who survived their father by only a few years. One of the makers who succumbed to Stradivari’s dominance was Girolamo Amati II, the last of the Amati violin makers. He died in straitened circumstances in 1740, having left Cremona altogether for several years around the turn of the century.

After Stradivari’s death, the change is remarkable. Del Gesù’s later instruments eventually became as sought-after as those of Stradivari, but their relaxed, almost haphazard style of craftsmanship marks a distinct shift in approach and aesthetic. They are impetuous, improvised and dramatic variations on the two-hundred-year history of Cremonese violin making, an escape from the traditional disciplines of workmanship and the values of Stradivari and the Amatis. Del Gesù’s scrolls in particular are thrown off without a second look — the painstaking symmetry and geometrical elegance of the Amatis is discarded entirely.

But where sound was concerned, del Gesù took no short-cuts, and produced a tonal quality that was darker but equal in power to Stradivari. These instruments, still second-to-none in tone, provided a different palette with which violin virtuosi could experiment from the early 19^th century onward. But del Gesù left no children to carry on his work, and when he died in 1744, and Bergonzi succumbed three years later, the rest of the world finally had a chance to catch up.