Talk of Fakes (or Antiqued newer Basses) came up......

[Martin Sheridan]

Sometimes information gets shifted around in the old brain and doesn't come out right later when one wants to make the recollection.

I may have associated Guadagnini with Cremona for erroneous reasons.
A lot of people went through the shop of Nicolo Amati. There is one Stradivari violin from his early period that says "alumnus Nicolo Amati" but there is no other information that I know of that links him directly to the Amati shop. Since he lived in Cremona he may have simply walked to the shop for instruction, there would have been no need for him to have lived there. His early instruments bear a likeness to Nicolo's work, but someone pointed out that he was so talented that he might have just copied one.

The reason I mention this is that I believe there are some Guadagnini instruments that bear the inscription on their label as "alumnus Stradivari". That of course doesn't mean that he was Stradivari's pupil. It may only mean that he was trying to get a few more pesos for his work.
On the other hand a lot of people went through Stradivari's shop who might not have been recorded as having worked there. Some think that Guarneri del Gesu may have worked for Stradivari during the ten year period where we find no instruments made by him.
In the case of Guadagnini we know from Count Cozio de Salabue that he employed him to make instruments for him from the molds and designs of Stradivari that he purchased from Stradivari's son Paolo.

I wonder what Duane Rosengard has had to say about it? I understand that he has a new well researched book on Guadagnini.

[Ken Smith]

Originally Posted by Martin Sheridan

Sometimes information gets shifted around in the old brain and doesn't come out right later when one wants to make the recollection.

I may have associated Guadagnini with Cremona for erroneous reasons.
A lot of people went through the shop of Nicolo Amati. There is one Stradivari violin from his early period that says "alumnus Nicolo Amati" but there is no other information that I know of that links him directly to the Amati shop. Since he lived in Cremona he may have simply walked to the shop for instruction, there would have been no need for him to have lived there. His early instruments bear a likeness to Nicolo's work, but someone pointed out that he was so talented that he might have just copied one.

The reason I mention this is that I believe there are some Guadagnini instruments that bear the inscription on their label as "alumnus Stradivari". That of course doesn't mean that he was Stradivari's pupil. It may only mean that he was trying to get a few more pesos for his work.
On the other hand a lot of people went through Stradivari's shop who might not have been recorded as having worked there. Some think that Guarneri del Gesu may have worked for Stradivari during the ten year period where we find no instruments made by him.
In the case of Guadagnini we know from Count Cozio de Salabue that he employed him to make instruments for him from the molds and designs of Stradivari that he purchased from Stradivari's son Paolo.

I wonder what Duane Rosengard has had to say about it? I understand that he has a new well researched book on Guadagnini.

I don't have a copy of that book and it's out of print as well. I would buy one if it came up for sale at a fair price to me.

On the Alumni to Strad, Alessandro Gagliano and his brother G.B., both reportedly worked for him. I did find however a reference for Lorenzo Guadagnini who worked for Strad. Typically the Guad. family worked in Turin as well as Milan and Piacenza and some other places. I guess there is some Strad in at least one member of the family as well as his son who started in Cremona. Many of this family moved around. I just saw a few labels in the Jalovec book that shows a few of the members as alumni to Strad. News to me. Being into Bass mainly I never noticed. My bad, sorry Martin. You were right.

Right now my jaw is a little sore from pulling by foot out of my mouth. I admit that my memory of what I have read was true but my readings were not complete. My sincere apologies.

What does all of this have to do with Basses? Well, very little but some. Basses were made by members of both the Gagliano and Guadagnini families. I have never heard of any of the Basses coming from Cremona though. Giuseppe Guadagnini, the oldest of the family trained with N.Amati so I guess the 'roots' are from Cremona with this family but according to who you read, the association with Strad is 'loose' if at all mentioned.

[Martin Sheridan]

Absolutely no need for an apology. I was clearly wrong. As someone said, there's a reason why erasures are put on pencils.

What did this have to do with basses? You started a very good topic on the eastern European fakes now on the market and then one thing let to another. I get a little bent sometimes when things get off topic and this time I think I'm the one who was responsible. But I think we were talking about the difficult task of identification which led to f-hole placement which led to how the Italians themselves lost the how and why they did things.

I forgot to mention on the f hole placement issue that Sacconi said he didn't think that Stradivari's sons even understood why the old man put them where he did because he was no sooner dead than they started moving them around. I prefer to think that they had been ordered around by the old man for so long that they just wanted to try out some of their own ideas. I can just hear him saying, "put the f holes there because I said too, no ands ifs or buts!"