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Old 08-18-2012, 12:37 PM
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Lightbulb Crossing borders, western Bohemia & Saxony

This is important reading concerning the relationship of makers on the German-Czech border found on Corilon.com. Three short articles here in period order.
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Crossing borders: on the history of violin making in western Bohemia

The history of violin making in northwestern Bohemia is a history of borders, a story of migration, exile – and the power of art to transcend boundaries. Its origins may date back as far as the 16th century, an age of mining when villages such as Graslitz (Kraslice) and Schönbach (Luby) flourished for the first time. When the first western Bohemian violins were built by miners at home within their family circle, was the objective for people to improve their modest incomes, or were they creating instruments for their own use? The first clearer evidence indicates a third possibility and gives rise to the theory that musical instruments in the Bohemian-Saxonian border country were built on a “professional” basis from early on. A document dating back to 1610 spoke of the “painter and instrumentist” Johannes Artus in Graslitz, who was probably an émigré instrument maker. The honour of being the earliest known violin maker in Graslitz, however, is held by Melchior Lorenz, a miner's son whose marriage papers were signed in 1631.
Violin making in western Bohemia did not truly gain a historical profile until the second half of the 17th century, when people in Graslitz and Schönbach had to seek exile due to the Counter-Reformation and took their art with them to nearby Klingenthal and Markneukirchen. Upon relocating to Protestant Saxony, violin-making families from Schönbach and Graslitz made names for themselves. Little documentation of their history prior to that time has survived due to the 1739 fire in Schönbach that destroyed the city, including its church and municipal archives.
It would seem that Protestant emigration practically brought violin making on the Bohemian side of the border to a stillstand. By contrast, the people in the Vogtland benefited from Saxony's economic upswing in the 18th century, and a highly effective sales system developed at an early date, particularly in Markneukirchen. The violin making tradition that was re-established in the 1720s in Schönbach and in the 1770s in Graslitz was always marked by the influences of the merchants and “publishers” (i.e. brokers) on the other side of the border whose sales capacities Bohemian and Saxonian violinmakers competed for. After only around 100 years, the forced emigration of Protestants had given rise to a joint centre of industry in Bohemia and Saxony – a remarkable twist of history.
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Old 08-18-2012, 12:38 PM
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Lightbulb Part II

Violin making in western Bohemia and the Vogtland region

In the 19th century, the new constellation of violin making in the economic region of the border between western Bohemian and the Vogtland evolved into a highly efficient division of labour. It went on to shape the wide-scale musical culture of Europe and the U.S. with the large numbers of cost-effective instruments it yielded. Smaller workshops throughout the entire binational area built instruments and, more notably, instrument parts to large-volume merchants who sold them internationally at top profits. In Schönbach, nearly 150,000 violins were produced each year in the late 19th century – along with 200,000 violin backs! These admirable figures clearly illustrate the economic structure of the instrument “publishing” business, as it was called.
There were, however, downsides to the industry's success. One was the massive need which prevailed amongst the families, who were completely financially dependent; the other was the dubious reputation of the lower-quality industrial products which to this day still clings to the era's Bohemian-Saxonian stringed instruments. Schönbach and Graslitz in particular were home to only a few violin makers who were able to create an instrument and all its parts from scratch– and who could afford the time to do so. However, their works – which were often purchased anonymously – had quite good acoustic and aesthetic properties, and these old Bohemian-Saxonian instruments do not deserve the fundamental disdain they frequently are given.
The Schönbach instrument makers experienced a minor form of emancipation from the supremacy of Markneukirchen around the turn of the 20th century when they founded two production cooperatives and established their own brokers. As a result, they were able to export some 20% of their own production by themselves. Within the interlinked business structure of the region, Schönbach stood out as the key centre for trading tonewoods, some 700 train cars of which were sold each year.
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Old 08-18-2012, 12:39 PM
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Lightbulb Part III

The second phase: the more recent history of violin making in western Bohemia

The Great Depression did major damage to the export-orientated production of musical instruments, and then the National Socialists' policy of autarky exacerbated the situation further. In 1939, orders were given to found an “association of Vogtland and Sudeten German makers of stringed instruments” — a mandatory consortium which represented the region's final cross-border enterprise before WWII ended the 200 or so years of Bohemian-Saxonian violin-making history. After the war, some 12,000 Germans were expelled from the region and, in a kind of historical déj*-vu, they took their art with them.
As was the case during the Counter-Reformation, this wave of deportations led to the development of a new centre of musical-instrument production. After attempts to create a joint settlement in Mittenwald failed due to the heated resistance of local violin makers, the majority of the people in Schönbach then found a new home in Bubenreuth in 1949. They turned the Franconian village into a rapidly blossoming musical venue; soon other former masters and merchants from Markneukirchen relocated there as well because they no longer had entrepreneurial horizons in the German Democratic Republic.
Schönbach, which was known as Luby from then on, remained a city of instrument building despite this second round of figurative blood-letting. It developed independently of Markneukirchen; the historical link across the border had dissolved. The few German violinmakers who had remained in Luby were joined by specialists from other towns in Czechoslovakia. They primarily worked for the production cooperative “Cremona,” which formed the basis for “Strunal AG” after the Velvet Revolution. Some of today's violinmakers in Luby attribute the city's new name to “luba,” the Czech word for the rib of a violin. And with its turbulent history, why should Luby not be a city – perhaps the only one – in which violin making is quite literally part of the name?
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Old 08-18-2012, 12:59 PM
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Arrow and, more reading here in these links.

Hopf: a dynasty of Vogtland violin makers

Markneukirchen: violin making at the crossroads of craftsmanship and trade

Noteworthy families of Markneukirchen violin makers

Markneukirchen: violin making in “German Cremona”

Klingenthal: the origin of violin making

The end of violin making in Klingenthal

Other families of Klingenthal violin makers

Ernst Heinrich Roth: a rediscovered master

From these links and the reading above, one can gain a better respect and understanding of the making of instruments and our double basses that we have seen and played with so little previous history to explain the mysteries. Instruments from mass production to the few that were made by hand independently are talked about here. Religion and politics played a role as well with makers in this region for hundreds of years. Hopefully, this will be an eye opener to most. It was for me and I have been reading and hunting for information for years.
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Old 08-19-2012, 12:57 PM
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Lightbulb replies?

You may reply and discuss this here as well. The 'sticky' is just to keep it visible on top.

I do want to note one thing here. When you see them say 'basses' in relation to production or numbers of them, it usually means Cellos. Even in the Hill book on Strad they refer to Cellos as Basses and we all know that Strad never made any Double Basses. The Bass we play is decribed in most books as Double Bass, Contrabass or what ever the name would be in that region. If you see Violins, Violas, Cellos and Basses, then, the word 'basses' refers to our d.basses. Without the name Cello in the sentence, basses probably means cellos. The double Bass was always the least important instrument in string instrument manufacturing. Many of the shops that made D.basses in the last 200 years specialised in them.

In two of my books by Jalovec, German/Austrian and Bohemian/Moravian makers, I have gone thru cover to cover marking down the names of makers Listed as making double basses or contrabasses. They are very few by comparison. Even the same writer used these two separate names in writing his books. Maybe the d.bass was a translation version of the German book while the Bohemian book is c.bass.

So, read carefully if this subject interests you and it should shed some light on why so many basses look the same that were imported and often we have no clue you really made or worked on them, regardless of the label.
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