thoughts on this violin? schönbach or?

chrissweden · January 5, 2013

Got this violin from a local "ebay" for €75, to me it looks like a schönbach around 1880 is that correct?

fiddlesurgeon · January 5, 2013

Sorry, no clue as to origin. But it appears you did very well none the less, unless there are condition

issues not pictured.

Violadamore · January 5, 2013

If it turns out to sound as nice as that one-piece back looks, you got a bargain. I'd like to see some more pics and hear what Jacob, etc. think of it.

chrissweden · January 6, 2013

It's in mint condition apart from the scratches The fingerboard needs to be replaced with an ebony now as the current is made of rosewood and it has deep grooves from intensive playing.

I quickly set up the violin, I could hear straight away that it hasn't been played on for years but as I continued to play the tone became warmer and more resonant. I must say that the bridge is in a very bad condition, broken feet and the sound post was not inside so I quickly put it back in, the strings were also used and corroded.

Is there a way to remove the scratches in the varnish? I already polished the violin with tripoli which removed some rosin spots.

jacobsaunders · January 6, 2013

Yeah, Schönbach (or not far away) Dutendarbeit from the late 19th. C.

You can read up on these instruments by reading the paper by Herr Weishart, done for the VSA:

Where are Bohemia and Saxony?

Bohemia is the Latin name of a large region of the Czech

Republic called Čechy, with the City of Prague as it's capital.

Prague’s city center with an incredible number of historical

buildings is an imposing reminder of their famous King

Wenceslaus, and it is the home of the first German university,

founded in 1348.

Called Boehmen (or Böhmen) in German, Bohemia was

settled by Celtic, Germanic, and then Slav tribes over the

past thousands of years. Both German and Czech were spoken

there from the 6th Century onwards.

In the English language, the term “Bohemians” often

refers to Gypsies, which leads to some confusion. The Gypsies

undoubtedly migrated through Bohemia as they spread

westward into Europe around the 15th century, probably

coming from India.

Saxony is a now a State in the eastern part of Germany

with Dresden as its capital city. Dresden is very proud of its

landmark church, the Frauenkirche, which has just recently

been rebuilt in a few short years from huge monetary contributions

from all over the world. Another major city of Saxony

is Leipzig, where Johan Sebastian Bach was once a

Kantor, and with an historical café once frequented by resident

composers such as Telemann, Bach, and Mendelssohn.

Throughout much of the past, both Bohemia and Saxony

have been quite active as independent political entities ruled

by a king or lord.

Mountains, Wrinkles, and the Musikwinkel

The border between Bohemia and Saxony is a

wiggly line. The German word Musikwinkel,

meaning “Music Angle” or “Music Nook”, has

come to designate a famous musical instrument

making area along both sides of the border. In

delving into historical facts that might have

caused the enormous output of musical instruments

in the Musikwinkel, we are first confronted

with some rather serious topography. With valleys

at 1500 feet surrounded by mountains peaking

at over 2,500 feet, traveling through it was

difficult. The elevation makes for short summers

and long winters, a harsh and unproductive climate

for agriculture.

Although considered part of the Saltus

bohemicus (Latin for Bohemian Woods) in earlier

records, in the 16th Century the area came to be

called the Erzgebirge (the Ore Mountain Range)

as, underneath the mighty forest growing on the surface,

veins of silver, tin, copper, and other metals were discovered.

The area became a major source of them for all of

Europe. Mining caused the very sparse population to

increase.

Those mountains remained, however, on the edge of the

major political European structures that were being formed.

In the large cosmopolitan cities far away, it was convenient

to lay out political borders through the Erzgebirge, and

those borders were indeed full of wrinkles as they snaked

back and forth through the woods. They have remained so

today.

1611 in Graslitz, Bohemia: One Lone Violin Maker

The first evidence of violin-making in the Musikwinkel is

a document from the City of Graslitz in 1611 that refers to a

Maler und Instrumentalist (painter and “instrumentalist”)

named Johannes Artus. Although there is some discussion

as to whether a musician or an instrument maker was meant,

later evidence reveals that he was indeed a Geigen- und

Lautenmacher, a maker of violins and lutes. He died in 1618

without any successors.

Graslitz was a small town of 500 people along a stream,

until copper was discovered nearby and new jobs attracted

streams of people. The population then grew quickly to

6,000 and Graslitz became a city at the center of a thriving

mining district. The presence of a violin maker and other

artists there shows how the social structure was developing.

1631 in Graslitz: The Tradition Begins

A wedding in Graslitz on January 19th, 1631, produced a

document which is the first historical reference to a line of

violin makers that continues today. Melchior Lorentz married

Margaretha Sabina, née von Gräffendorf, and the marriage

certificate states that he was a Geigenmacher, or violin

maker, and his father a miner. Melchior Lorentz must have

had apprentices in his shop, because four more violin makers

came to be listed in Graslitz during the next three

decades.

The strong economy associated with the mining in the

area produced a steady demand for musical instruments, and

the mountains were full of wood for making violins. The

trees are rather slow-growing, as Graslitz is located north of

the 50th parallel, which would put it almost four degrees farther

north than Quebec on the North American continent,

and it is in a valley at 1,560 feet above sea level with mountains

at over 2,000 feet all around. The wood is therefore

narrow-grained, which is something some violin makers are

always glad to get!

In 1631, however, central Europe was in the middle of

the Thirty Years War. Huge armies lived off the land, razing

the countryside and breaking into even the best fortified

cities within a few days. In the aftermath of Martin Luther’s

Reformation, the armies were claiming land for either the

Catholic or the Protestant powers under the principle of

cuius regio – eius religio: whomever’s territory, their religion.

Any one location switched religions several times a

year.

Bohemia belonged to the Kaiser, who was Catholic. Saxony

belonged to a Lord who was Lutheran and had confiscated

all hitherto properties of the Catholic Church. He had

been able to keep Saxony out of the fighting for a while by

remaining loyal to the Kaiser in spite of the difference in

religion. However, in the interest of the Counter-Reformation

now being carried out by the Catholic Church, the

Kaiser eventually decreed that all confiscated properties had

to be returned to the Pope, including many beautiful

churches and convents which Lord Johann Georg I. of Saxony

did not want to give back.

And so, 1631 was also the year that Saxony made an

alliance with the King of Sweden, the powerful defender of

the Lutheran cause. In reply, the Kaiser’s troops promptly

invaded Saxony, reaching the Graslitz area a year later. All

the towns around, including Markneukirchen, were repeatedly

sacked and plundered.

1666: The Protestant Exulants exit Graslitz

The Thirty Years War ended in 1648 with half of the population

of central Europe dead because of fighting, hunger,

and especially the plague. Now that there were clearcut

decisions as to which areas were to be Protestant and which

Catholic, all the Evangelische (the German term for Protestants)

who lived in Catholic areas were required to convert

back to Catholicism.

However, many Evangelische refused, wanting to read

the Evangelium (Gospel) in their own language, in the new

translation of Martin Luther. The Catholics had a Bible in

Latin which, at that time, only the clergy were allowed to

read, and they compelled the Lutherans to exit from

Catholic territories, naming them Exulants.

In the future Musikwinkel area, Graslitz was Catholic,

since it was in Bohemia. However, the local area was privately

owned until 1666 by a Saxon Count, who was

Lutheran, and he tolerated the Lutherans there (in spite of

the fact that all churches there now had to be Catholic). As a

result, a steady stream of Exulants moved into the Graslitz

area from the rest of Bohemia, and also from all of Austria,

from 1648 to 1666.

In 1666, a Bohemian Count took over the Graslitz area

and promptly began enforcing the Counter-Reformation

laws. A large number of Lutherans, the new-arrived as well

as those already living in Graslitz, now moved across the

near-by border to become Exulants in Saxony.

1676: The Earliest Instrument?

Probably the earliest instrument from this period still

existing, a viola in the collection of the Germanic National

Museum in Nuremberg, bears a label with the following

words: “Hanß Adam Kurzendörfer, von Graslitz Ao 1676”.

Johann Adam Kürzendörffer must have made this

viola just before he left Graslitz, because his name is on the

list of the members of the Markneukirchen guild founded

one year later.

1677 in Markneukirchen: The Guild is Founded

Twelve of the Exulants who fled from Graslitz across the

nearby border to Saxony were violin makers, and Lord

Moritz of Saxony was prompt to license their new guild on

March 6, 1677. He was very interested in encouraging economic

development and issued the document in the picture

below.

On page two of the Guild’s Handtwercksbuch, or handbook,

we find a listing of the twelve founders which may be

translated as follows:

“In the name of the Holy Trinity, Amen! Names of the

founders and initiators, all of whom, as Exulants from

Graslitz for the sake of the plain Word of God, are establishing

themselves here, being at the beginning the following:

Christian Reichelt

Caspar Schönfelder

Johann Caspar Reichelt

Johann Georg Poller

Caspar Hoff from Klingenthal

Johann Schönfelder

Johann Gottfried Gözel

Johann Adam Kürzendörffer

Johann Adam Pöpel

Johann Georg Schönfelder

David Rudert

Simon Schönfelder, at that time a junior Master.”

A year later, two further violin makers joined the guild.

They were living two miles away in Schöneck and had also

fled Graslitz.

The Guild and the Meister

The newly founded guild operated along the same general

lines as the guilds of many different types of craftsmen,

following the pattern that had developed throughout Europe

in the Middle Ages. Masters of the trade, or Meister, were

those authorized to operate a business and become tradesmen.

The guild controlled the education of the Masters,

thereby raising the standards of workmanship as well as

making sure that not too many businesses were competing

with each other, so that everyone could earn a living.

Being a Master was a life-long career and gave you

social status in the emerging middle-class in mediæval

cities. Guilds regulated a wide variety of professions: carpenters,

masons, and roof makers, for example, as well as

artist painters and violin-makers. City schools were set up to

give children a general education in writing and arithmetic

until about age twelve, and then released them for hands-on

training in the shop of a Master. This was the beginning of

the following three phases of their lives.

• Apprentice: three to four years of basic training in the

workshop of a Master. The parents of an apprentice would

often pay the Master to train their son, who usually boarded

on the Master’s premises. The sons of Masters tended to

become apprentices in their own fathers’ shops. As centuries

went by, the apprenticeship came to include classroom time

as well, to bring basic math and grammar skills to a higher

level. Upon passing the exams at the end of the program, the

apprentice became a journeyman, or Geselle.

• Journeyman: the young man was now authorized to

work in any shop of his trade. Wages were usually room and

board, and perhaps a little extra. During the next years, a

journeyman was expected to work in one shop after another,

thereby learning different things from different Masters and

broadening his knowledge. These were the Wanderjahre, the

wander years. Many guilds found this educational experience

to be so important that they would prohibit journeymen

from returning to their home town for a specific number of

years. The Masters also provided free room and board to

any journeymen just traveling through, as a matter of principle

and as a way of getting the latest news about the Masters

of other cities. This opened up all of Europe for journeymen

to explore, and indeed, some famous artists as well as violin

makers spent their youth traveling to far-away German

cities, as well as down to Italy and over to France and the

Netherlands, trying out different styles of work and learning

more all the time. In some trades, journeymen had a particular

costume they wore so that they could immediately be

recognized as authentic members of their trade. You can still

see today young carpenters walking around in the summer

in Germany with their black vests and tall black hats.

• Master: most guilds set a specific number of years that

a journeyman had to work before making a first attempt to

pass the Meisterprüfung, the exam for certification as a

Meister.

The major part of the exam was (and still is) the Meisterstück,

the “Master Piece”. The candidates fashioned a sample

product of their trade to the best of their ability, proving

his skill to the members of the guild. Other parts of the

exam tested skills in accounting and other subjects needed

for running a small business. Passing the test meant settling

down to earn money, then getting married!

The three-step idea of apprentice, journeyman, and master

was so pervasive in European culture that traces remain

in today’s educational systems. The German word for journeyman,

which is Geselle, is embedded in the word Junggeselle,

which means bachelor, a reflection on the plight of the

young man who could not afford to have a wife until running

his own business as a Meister, and many universities

today label their degrees “Bachelor’s” and “Master’s”.

1677 in Markneukirchen: the Guild Has Regulations

The new guild in 1677 in Markneukirchen prescribed not

just one but three Meisterstück pieces that candidates preparing

their Meisterprüfung exam were to make. They had

just three weeks to make the instruments described as follows:

“1. A Discant-Geige, or “descant violin”, with pretty

wood, the neck cleanly laid in, a checkered fingerboard, the

back and top also with triple inlay;

“2. A Zitter (they meant Citter or cittern) of pretty wood

and clean on the Register;

“3. A Viola di Gambe with breaks and six strings without

a flaw, and all three pieces should be of yellow color without

blemishes.”

The guild collected fees for all services provided. For

example, those supervising the making of the Meisterstück

pieces where to receive beer or liquor and “some” bread

rolls. Upon passing the Master exam, they were to partake

of a Meister meal befitting the occasion that was to include

“three buckets” of beer.

Guild regulations often prohibited their Masters from

training apprentices from other cities, in order to keep the

trade from spreading. Also, there were penalties for selling

instruments to anyone in debt to any other Master of the

Guild.

1684 or 1694: another Early Instrument

In addition to the viola mentioned earlier, The Germanic

National Museum in Nuremberg has the instrument that was

long considered the oldest surviving instrument of the

Bohemian/Saxon violin-making tradition: a viola with a

label inside reading “Johann Adam Pöpel in Bruck 16_4”. It

is now thought that the illegible digit must have been either

an “8” or “9”, because a recent dendrochronology test

shows that the wood was probably cut around 1682.

Johann Adam Pöpel is on the list of the twelve original

members of the Markneukirchen Guild of 1677. However,

the village of Bruck cited on the label of his instrument is

just south of Schönbach, on the Bohemian side of the border.

It is certain that he did not die in Markneukirchen, so

where he actually produced most of his violins remains

somewhat of a mystery.

1716: A New Guild in Klingental, Saxony

Some members of the guild of Markneukirchen lived a

few miles north in Klingental. Three of them, and the

widow of another Master, decided to found their own guild

on January 24, 1716, much to the disapproval of the Markneukirchen

guild, which tried to prevent it.

Among them was Caspar Hopff (1651-1711), who is

also on the list of the founding members of the

Markneukirchen guild. The succeeding generations of his

family developed their own style of violin making in Klingental.

The Hopff, or Hopf, Violin is still recognized today.

Two other Klingental violin makers, Christian Friedrich

Dörfler and Christoph Adam Richter chose to remain

in the Markneukirchen guild... until the new guild threatened

to make them move out of town! They had to change

their memberships.

1720 in Markneukirchen: String Making

There is evidence that strings were made in

Markneukirchen as early as 1720. String makers attempted

to establish a guild in 1751 and again in 1761 but were not

successful until later.

1723 in Schönbach: Violin Making Comes Back

Back on the Catholic side of the Musikwinkel border, the

first evidence pointing to a re-import of violin making into

western Bohemia comes from the town of Schönbach,

where records show that Geigenmacher (violin maker) Elias

Plachte started his business. He had originally been a

forester, then trained as a violin maker in Saxony. The number

of violin makers in and around Schönbach began to

grow rapidly.

1730 in Schöneck, Saxony: Yet Another Guild

Another violin makers’ guild was founded in a town just

a few miles from Markneukirchen, only 53 years after the

founding of the original guild, whose policy of not allowing

anyone outside Markneukirchen to learn to make a violin

was very obviously not working. The demand for violins

from the Musikwinkel continued to grow at an amazing

pace.

1739 in Schönbach, Bohemia: String Making

The first indication of the existence of a string maker on

the Bohemian side of the Musikwinkel border is from the

year 1739 in Schönbach.

1777 in Markneukirchen: the Guild of String Makers

On April 11, 1777, Lord Elector Friedrich August of Saxony

granted guild rights to the string makers of

Markneukirchen. This privilegium exclusivum was a major

victory for Markneukirchen because it required the string

makers of many other cities, including the Saxon capital,

Dresden, to be subject to the bylaws of the guild of

Markneukirchen. This shows how strongly Markneukirchen

was developing into a hub of instrument making. Twelve

string makers were founding members, the same number as

the founders of the violin maker’s guild exactly one hundred

years earlier.

Many string makers came from other trades. They had

been not only violin makers and merchants, but also cloth

makers, knife makers, butchers, and in later years even tavern

owners, potterers, and wind instrument makers.

From the beginning, the guild carefully monitored the

quality of the strings being made. It appointed Schaumeister,

or Show Masters, to classify all string production as one

of the following categories: “OD” for ordinary, “F” for fine,

and “EFF” for extra-fine. The packages of strings were then

stamped with a special guild stamp bearing the category of

the string and the insignia “NEUKIRCHNER.S:*” which

came to be known all over Europe. Strings that were not up

to the “OD” ordinary category were sold too, but as Ausschuss,

or rejects, which indirectly helped to establish the

image of the stamped varieties.

The picture below shows an authentic stamp of a string

maker guild member of that time.

This careful self-scrutiny and clear trademark policy is

undoubtedly the reason for the tremendous success of

Markneukirchen strings during the next two centuries.

They were competing against Italian strings that already

had a great reputation and were made of superior lamb gut

coming from the Apennine Mountains. The Markneukirchen

guild had to find a way to make up for the lesser quality of

the gut available to them. It took lots of what they called

mühsames Forschen, Fleiß und Nachdenken, or: painstaking

research, work, and thought!

1785 in Markneukirchen: an Award for Strings

An important pioneer in the technology of string making,

Israel Kämpffe won a prize in a contest sponsored by the

Lord Elector of Saxony in 1785. He invented the technique

of splitting the gut into long strips and then spinning the

strips together. This produced a string that lasted far longer

than before.

1783: First Record of Bow Makers in Saxony

The administrative office in Zwickau, which wass in

charge of the part of Saxony where the Musikwinkel is

located, made a record of the bows produced in 1783 by

what they termed Violinbogenmacher, or Violin Bow Makers.

This entry in their ledger, which is still preserved in the

Saxon State Archives, is the earliest German document on

that specific profession. Thirteen bow makers are listed,

along with hundreds of dozens of bows of different categories.

1783 may seem to be pretty late in history for the creation

of the bow-making profession, in comparison with

violin makers, but bows do seem to have been somewhat

overlooked in the past. Made of local wood and horse hair,

it got thrown out after a while, just like a worn-out pencil

stub. Violin makers, and perhaps violinists, made them on

the side, using widely differing lengths and arch styles.

It is only recently that a monograph on German bows has

been written: published in the year 2000, the bilingual German-

English definitive workd entitled “German Bow Makers”

was co-authored by Klaus Grünke (member of the guild

in Bubenreuth and on the jury of the bow-making competition

of this year’s jubilee convention of Violin Society of

America), C. Hans-Karl Schmidt and Wolfgang Zunterer.

They begin their book with the 1783 reference to Violinbogenmacher

mentioned above.

Their book states that the two oldest German bows now

known are in the hands of golden cherubs molded into the

walls of a chapel in the St. Marien Cathedral in Freiburg,

Saxony, about 100 miles north-east of Markneukirchen. The

bows were worked into the interior redecorating that took

place there around 1592.

The decorative cherubs are using the bows to play

stringed instruments which are also real, and the church’s

archives show that they were made by the Klemmers, a family

of violin makers living in a town near Freiburg. Significantly,

those archives only mention the violins, not the

bows!

Indeed, very few German bows from the 17th and 18th

centuries have been preserved into our times, presumably

because most musicians did not think they were worth it.

The great majority of what is left is hanging in old churches.

It is safe to assume that most bows of that time were very

simple. The few 18th century records available have comments

that tend to confirm this.

After the Americas were discovered, tropical types of

wood were tried, and some German inventory records

started listing “Bows of Indian Wood” (meaning American

Indian). Around 1750, a Bavarian cabinet maker named

Joseph Strötz moved to Markneukirchen to earn a living

only making bows. Perhaps it was the new types of wood

that allowed bow making to become a profession, and a fastgrowing

one at that, since the thirteen bow makers listed in

the 1783 Saxon ledger mentioned above were producing

large quantities of bows.

1790 in Markneukirchen: More and More Masters

Guild records show 54 active Violin Maker Masters in

1790, which reflects an amazing rate of growth during the

18th Century. Not only were the sons of the Exulants in the

guild, the old well-established families of Markneukirchen

had gotten into the booming trade as well, with names such

as Pöllmann, Braun, and Voigt.

1790 in Markneukirchen: No Bow Guild Allowed!

Producing growing numbers of bows, the bow makers

thought they should form a guild too. After all, the string

makers had started theirs just thirteen years earlier. Describing

themselves as the Neukirchener Fidelbögenmacher, or

the (Mark-)Neukirchen “Fidel Bow Makers”, they described

the development of their new profession on a petition that

was several pages long, as well as the desirability of keeping

Pfuscher, or bad imitators from the market.

Almost all of the 21 signing petitioners were from trades

which had nothing to do with musical instruments. There

were cabinet makers, a butcher, cloth makers, etc... This

drew the anger of the mighty guild of violin makers; they

were adamantly against the new guild.

The municipal authorities of Markneukirchen tried to

remain impartial and sent a document to the Saxon state

government listing the arguments of both sides, which however

only 10 of the initiating 21 bow makers signed. Several

weeks later, the state committee in charge used this fact, in

addition to the violin makers’ expressed wish to make bows

themselves, as a reason to turn down the bow makers’

request.

Guild or no guild, professional bow making had arrived

for good. Statistics show 18 bow makers in Markneukirchen

in 1790, growing to 24 in 1806, and many more shortly

thereafter.

1791 in Markneukirchen: Women May Make Strings

The string makers’ guild obtained special permission for

women to work for their Masters. During the next 150

years, many hundreds of women worked in small shops, and

then in the factories that developed later.

1795 in Markneukirchen: C. W. Knopf improves bow

In 1795, he was listed as a bow maker on his daughter’s

baptism certificate, our first historical reference to his profession.

Christian Wilhelm Knopf improved the art of bow

making in Germany and produced some bows that experts

consider comparable to those of Tourte in France. Where he

acquired that skill is unfortunately no longer known. His

father was often referred to as a tailor, and sometimes as a

maker of “shoddy beechwood bows”!

C. W. Knopf was the father and grandfather of the many

famous bow makers in the Knopf family of Markneukirchen

throughout the 19th century, some of which were

Christian Wilhelm Knopf Jr., Karl Wilhelm Knopf, and

Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Knopf.

Carl Heinrich Knopf later set up shop in Berlin, and

great-grandson Heinrich Richard Knopf in New York City.

1800 onwards: The Construction of Violins Evolves

Violin-making in the Musikwinkel was often characterized

by free-form construction of the ribs (no inside or outside

mould) and a one-piece neck-and-upper-block.

Although the high arches often used have been attributed

to Jacob Stainer and the Tirolean style of violins, the latest

research is beginning to indicate that the Musikwinkel area

had developed its own style of violin making during the 17th

and 18th centuries, a style which was even distinct from the

rest of Saxony. It was a significant contribution to violin

making as practiced north of the Alps.

Beginning in the 19th century, Italian stylistic influence

became much more evident, as shown in the work of, for

example, Johann Georg Schönfelder II (1750-1824) and

Johann Gottlob Ficker I (1744-1832).

However, it should be observed that the numerous makers

in the Musikwinkel had many different styles, so it is difficult

to generalize, especially since as time went on, they

were often producing instruments sold by, and under the

names of, the violin makers in the large cities in the rest of

Saxony and Germany.

1800 onwards: Violin Makers Specialize

Until this time, it was usually those working within one

little shop who had different tasks. Masters would make violin

backs, tops, and ribs. The journeymen would for example

make necks and scrolls. Often, it was the Master’s wife

who did the varnishing! The children of the family would

sweep up the wood chips and do other simple tasks.

Now, as the volume of the instruments continued to

grow, commerce was taken over by merchants who had contacts

in far-away places, and the Masters became their suppliers.

In order to rationalize the production of large orders,

the violin makers began to specialize, as some ordered

ready-made violin parts from others. Fingerboards, tailpieces,

pegs, bridges, etc., came to be produced by specialized

workers with their own shops, who made enough to

supply their parts to many different Masters.

As time went on, an intermediate production level also

developed: some would buy parts from others and supply

pre-assembled units to the Masters. The most important of

these units was called a Schachtel, a word that simply means

“box” in English, but which violin makers still use today as

the technical term for a set comprising a back, a top, and the

ribs. The back and ribs are already glued together, but the

top is not. This allows the customer to finish planing down

the inside and thus determine the final thicknesses himself,

and therefore the sound that the finished instrument is going

to produce.

Some violin makers would buy a whole Korpus, which is

a Schachtel with the F-holes cut and the top already glued

on, to save even more time.

Hundreds of tiny independent yet heavily interdependent

businesses came into being, all part of a rather nebulous but

huge organization which was capable of mass-producing

enormous quantities of stringed instruments.

The Bohemian and Saxon sides of the Musikwinkel border

specialized differently. The Bohemian towns developed

into the center of part-making craftsmen. On the Saxon side,

Markneukirchen was where the Masters did final assembly.

They sold the finished instrument to the wholesalers providing

violins to growing markets in the industrializing societies

of Western Europe and even North America.

1800 onwards: Power Shift from Masters to Dealers

As the violin makers specialized, there was a power shift

away from the numerous and competing craftsmen and

towards commerce: it was the instrument dealers who were

making real money. They would load a wheelbarrow full of

instruments and walk for hundreds of miles, on routes carefully

defined so as not to take each others’ business away.

They walked to cities such as Warsaw, Karlsruhe, Strasbourg,

Hannover, Amsterdam, and even went all the way to

Italy, Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. Their customers were

schools, teachers, Stadtpfeifer (city pipers!) and Kantoren

(church music directors), whom they would call on regularly.

The so-called Messen, or special trade fairs, were also

very important for them.

More and more different types of musical instruments

were coming to be made in Markneukirchen, and the dealers

sold them all, as well as accessories and supplies.

Records indicate that an instrument dealer would bring

back over 500 silver Taler from a tour lasting many weeks.

Even those better off did not trade in their wheelbarrow for

horse-drawn wagon, so as to not be subject to the numerous

tolls charged by many cities and counties, of which many

were still independent and sovereign. The wheelbarrow

became a sort of a trademark sign which clearly identified a

violin salesman as he walked into the market square of the

city into which he has just arrived.

Of course, as time went on and Europe became more

organized, orders for unseen merchandise shipped wholesale

to far-away places became more important, and dealers

became wholesale agents. Around 1800, the important foreign

markets were Switzerland, France, the Netherlands,

England, Skandinavia, Russia, Poland, Spain, Portugal, Turkey,

and increasingly, the United States of America.

The stronghold of the guilds on their protected markets

was shoved aside by new legislation, especially since it was

some of the Guild Masters themselves who were finding

they could earn more money as a merchant or a wholesaler

than as a craftsman.

1800 onwards: a New Type of Strings

In the Musikwinkel area, it was around 1800 that the first

strings spun with a silver thread began to be made. As time

went on, strings were spun with gut, silk, steel, or brass.

Both the traditional type of gut string as well as the spun

variety began to be produced in dramatically increased

quantities.

1805 in Riga: String Manufacturer Opens Office

The Markneukirchen string manufacturer Israel Kämpffens

Söhne opened a branch office in Riga, the thriving port

of Lithuania on the Baltic Sea. It was easy to do business

there since the official language was German until 1891.

1824 in Markneukirchen: the Nürnberger bow makers

The first of his very famous family to be listed as a bow

maker in Markneukirchen, Christian Gottlob Nürnberger

opened his shop in 1824.

His son Franz Albert Nürnberger (Sr.) was born two

years afterwards and later trained in the shop of C. W.

Knopf, according to family chronicles. He became quite

well-known, although living at a time when bow makers

were still not conscious enough of their talent to put a stamp

on their bows. Today, it is often difficult to identify them.

Franz Albert Nürnberger Jr. took over the family business

when his father died in 1894 and caused the “Albert

Nürnberger” stamp to eventually earn world-wide recognition.

1826 in Schönbach, Bohemia: 55 Violin Makers

As a very tangible sign of increasing activity in Bohemia,

the “Honest Violin Maker Corps” comprising 55 violin makers

in Schönbach, had a flag made made for a celebration

commemorating one hundred years of violin making. Their

numbers continued to grow during the following years.

1828 in Klingental, Saxony: 28 Bow Makers

The stastics show 28 bow makers in Klingental in 1828

However, bow-making did not continue to increase there.

1828 in Markneukirchen: 46 Bow Makers and more

In spite of the refusal of the Saxon government to give

them a guild in 1790, in 1828 the number of bow makers

listed listed in Markneukirchen had gone from 18 to 46!

Added to the 28 in Markneukirchen, there were four times

more in the Musikwinkel than just thirty-eighth years earlier.

That number continued to increase during the 19th century as

Markneukirchen and outlying communities became the most

important source of German bows.

1833 in New York City: an Immigrant Opens a Shop

Guitar making was a new and profitable activity that

some carpenters in Markneukirchen turned to. The violin

guild immediately blocked this, claiming that guitars had

always been made by stringed instrument makers, and that

the carpenters’ guild had no jurisdiction in this field.

Years of disputes caused the son of one of the first

Markneukirchen guitar makers, Christian Friedrich Martin,

to emigrate to New York City, where he opened a store

selling all types of musical instruments. He later went to

Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where Henry Schatz, an old friend

from Markneukirchen was living, and founded the C. F.

Martin & Co., a guitar factory.

1837 in Markneukirchen: all Stringed Instruments

Guild records show that in 1837, apprentices preparing

their journeyman’s exams were to prepare “white” non-varnished

samples of a wide variety of stringed instruments:

violin, “altviola”, mandolin, lute, harp, pedal harp, zither,

cello, and violone.

1840 in Markneukirchen: Invention of Gut Splitter

Gottfried Gottfried Schatz, who later became the

Obermeister presidíng over the string maker’s Guild,

invented a tool called the curved Spaltbeinchen, or curved

“splitting leg”. This increased the speed of splitting the gut

strands used for making strings.

1851 in Markneukirchen: Guts from Russia

String making now consumed so many guts that the

slaughter houses of all of Germany and Austria could not

supply enough. In 1851, the buyers of the Markneukirchen

factories went to Rostow, and twenty years later they were

in Buchara, Odessa, Woronesch, and even to Tashkent. During

this period, Hermann Weller (1841-1910) had several

gut-cleaning plants in the southern part of the Russian

Empire. The one in Odessa had over 150 employees. These

new sources of guts fueled another dramatic increase of

string production from 1860 onwards.

1853 in Hoboken, New Jersey: Wurlitzer Arrives

Born in 1831 in Schöneck, Frank Rudolf Wurlitzer

immigrated to Hoboken, New Jersey, before going on to

Philadelphia and then Cincinnati. He worked for a bank and

sold musical instruments on the side, for which he made his

first trip back to Markneukirchen three years later. After

another three years, he left the bank and attended to instrument

sales full-time. In 1890, he founded the Rudolf Wurzlitzer

company and became world-famous with Wurlitzer

movie-theater organs.

1860: Largest Foreign Market is now North America

The New World was attracting hundreds of thousands of

German-speaking Europeans, and the building of railroads

throughout Europe accelerated the emigration movement.

Following the flood of emigrants, exports of instruments to

North America became larger than those to any other country

after about 1860.

1865 in Markneukirchen: C. A. Hoyer Co. makes bows

The C. A. Hoyer company was founded in 1865 and

developed machines for the mass-production of bows.

1871 in Markneukirchen: 96 Master Violin Makers

The guild in Markneukirchen listed 96 Master violin

makers running independent businesses in 1871.

1871 in Markneukirchen: 413 People Making Strings

The string makers’ guild lists 413 employed in the production

of strings in the year 1871, of which 325 were in the

city of Markneukirchen. The number of those employed in

the string-making industry would continue to grow to over

1,500 during the next decades.

1872 in the Markneukirchen area: 170 Bow Makers

The Chamber of Commerce in Plauen, Saxony, made a

study in 1872 of what it termed the Bogenmachergenossenschaft,

or “Bow Makers’ Cooperative” in the

Markneukirchen area. The study shows that in that year,

there were 70 bow making enterprises in Markneukirchen

itself and 100 more in the neighboring towns. They

employed 42 registered assistants and had 44 apprentices,

and 76 others were suppliers of various products for them.

Their output in 1872 was:

Pernambucco Bows ......................... 1,500 dozen

Snakewood Bows ................................ 500 dozen

Brazilwood Bows ........................... 18,000 dozen

Beechwood Bows .......................... 16,000 dozen

– – – TOTAL production : 36,000 dozen bows.

To console those bow makers who may be reading these

lines now, only a very small portion of that 1872 outpouring

was of a caliber worthy of the properly trained bow maker

today. In the figures above, it was only 5½ percent of those

432,000 bows that were made of the better types of wood.

Other figures reveal that only 4% of the pernambucco bows

above were equipped with nickel-silver fittings or better.

1874: The Industrial Revolution in String Production

A machine revolutionizing one important step in the

string-making process was patented in 1874, the Schleimmaschine

invented by Bernhard Otto Seckendorf together

with the String Maker Master Carl Schreiber.

Two years later, Ernst Paulus II began using gas powered

spinning machines to produce strings in his company in

Markneukirchen, which brought the spinning into his factory,

away from the many private homes supplying him previously.

As a result of mechanization, string making became

more and more concentrated in the hands of a few large

companies, in contrast to violin making with its large number

of tiny interdependent businesses.

1874 in Markneukirchen: Over 150,000 Violins a Year

Statistics of 1872-1874 show that Markneukirchen was

producing 38,400 violins a year, 600 cellos, and 780 basses,

as well as 12,000 guitars and 4,000 zithers. Another 120,000

violins were being made in the surrounding area. The quan-

tities continued to grow until the First World War started in

1914.

1875 in Markneukirchen: the Railroad Arrives

The station for Markneukirchen was built two miles

away on the new rail line coming from Chemnitz in 1875.

This brought the seaports of Hamburg and Bremen much

closer and helped the booming export business to the United

States and the rest of the world.

Ten years later, a committee was formed to have a branch

line built right into Markneukirchen and to continue over the

border of Bohemia to Schönbach in order to facilitate the

transport of the hundreds of thousands of instrument parts

being made there. The line to Markneukirchen was eventually

built in 1909. Two routes over the hills to Schönbach

were surveyed, but the idea was repeatedly vetoed by the

authorities in charge because of the high cost.

1878 in Klingental: End of the Violin Maker Guild

During the second half of the 19th Century, the new popularity

of accordions and harmonicas caused the violin makers

in Klingental to change instruments. One major factor

was that the newer type of instrument was made in factories

that paid young men wages, whereas apprentices for violin

making still had to pay money to the Masters for their training.

In 1878, the 41 remaining members of the violin makers’

guild decided to dissolve it. By this time, the importance of

guilds had diminished, and the absence of one did not mean

that violin making was completely gone. Twenty years later,

the township still listed 59 violin-making businesses, 23

making strings, and 7 bow makers.

1880 in Markneukirchen: H. R. Pfretzschner bows

Before founding his company in 1880 in Markneukirchen,

he trained in the workshop of his father Carl

Richard Pfretzschner and then spent a year in Paris with

the legendary French bow maker, J.-B. Vuillaume. That year

made a life-long impression on him, and through him, Vuillaume’s

ideas exerted a lasting influence on German bow

making.

Hermann Richard Pfretzschner had great success with

his company, supplying a large number of other shops with

unstamped bows as well as developing a highly recognized

name of his own. The title Königlich Sächsischen Hoflieferanten,

or “Supplier to the Saxon King’s Court”, was conferred

on him in 1901. In 1903, he introduced his Wilhelmj

Bow model.

In 1914, he turned the company over to his two sons

Richard Hermann Pfretzschner and Berthold Walther

Pfretzschner. whose bows are well-known today.

1883 in Markneukirchen: Museum is Founded

A teacher interested in creating a more complete educational

experience for young instrument makers started a collection

of musical instruments in 1883.

Now with its main collection is located in the Baroque

mansion built in 1784 by one the better-off merchants of the

time. The Markneukirchen Musical Instrument Museum

has more than 3,100 instruments of all types from all over

the world on display. See www.museummarkneukirchen.

de for more details.

1888 in Markneukirchen: Guild of Bow Makers

Almost exactly one hundred years after their first

attempt, the bow makers of Markneukirchen were finally

granted the rights to found a guild in 1888. However, the

new guild only lasted one year, showing that guilds were no

longer as important as they had been.

1893 in Markneukirche: U.S. Consular Office

From 1893 onwards, the U.S. government maintained a

Consular Office in Markneukirchen to help expedite the

paperwork for the tremendous volume of instruments going

to the United States, and it was active there until it was

closed in World War I. Roughly a third of all instruments

made in the Musikwinkel during this time went to the United

States. The sales volume was not steady, but went rather in

leaps and bounds, as it was very dependent on the health of

the economy.

1894 in Markneukirchen: bows of W. A. Pfretzschner

From 1894 to 1947, bow maker Wilhelm August Pfretzschner

opened a business that produced bows in a wide

price range. Some of which were of very high quality.

He was not directly related to the other Pfretzschner family

mentioned earlier.

Around 1900: Mass Production versus Masterpieces

With the tremendous price pressure that the wholesalers

were exerting on everyone making violins at the beginning

of the 20th Century, the quality suffered, although everything

still had to be done by hand. Violin prices were quoted by

the dozen on some price lists, and the Duzendgeigen

(“dozen violins”) developed a negative image. Many of the

approximately 250 violin makers located in the cities of

Germany did not want to be associated with the instruments

from Markneukirchen and they started calling their violins

Kunstgeigen, or Art Violins.

The controversy between urban violin makers and those

of Markneukirchen continued for decades, in spite of the

fact that all urban violin makers earned money by selling the

Markneukirchen violins.

In Markneukirchen itself, some violin makers decided to

specialize in the “Art Violin” and sell directly to musicians

rather than supply the wholesalers. Some of the most significant

were Ludwig Glasel Jr. (1842-1922), Heinrich

Theodor Heberlein Jr. (1843-1909), Arnold Voigt (1864-

1952), and Paul Knorr (1882-1977).

A rare collection of their work was shown in November,

2012, at the 40th Anniversary Convention of the Violin Society

of America in Cleveland, Ohio.

1900: Schönbach Women Trek across the Border

In Schönbach, often on Saturday afternoons while the

men were finishing up a week of making violin parts in their

homes and perhaps doing one of many chores in the farming

and gardening commonly done on the side on those days,

the women would load a stack of Schachteln on their backs.

A Schachtel is a set of parts: a violin back and ribs glued

together, with a matching top turned over and held on with a

string. Sometimes they would carry Korpusse or even complete

violins, but most often is was the Schachteln.

The stack was so tall that it loomed up over the women’s

heads. They then trudged uphill for about two miles on the

road towards the border. Arriving at the customs offices,

they patiently went through the formalities of the border

officials processing their papers for the export of their wares

from the Austrian/Hungarian Empire and import into Saxony.

Then it was another two or three miles down into

Markneukirchen. The violin makers awaiting them called

them Botenfrauen, “delivery women”, knowing very well

that they certainly did not want to carry their wares back,

and have to clear customs again! That had a very strong

downward effect on the price paid and the income brought

back to the family home.

The Botenfrau is an unsung heroine of the affordable violins

that found their way into the hands of countless millions

of children and amateur violinists all over the world during

the 19th century.

1902 in Markneukirchen: Ernst Heinrich Roth Co.

The son of Gustav Robert Roth grew up in his father's

violin maker's shop in Markneukirchen. He was 25 years old

in 1902 when he and his cousin Gustav August Ficker

founded the Ernst Heinrich Roth company there. Ernst

Heinrich had success selling his stringed instruments in Germany

and Europe.

He had two sons. Gustav Albert Roth became a violin

maker. Ernst Heinrich Roth II became a business apprentice

and then decided to go to the United States in 1921 at

age 19!

In the U.S., he and his friend Alban Scherl founded the

Scherl & Roth company which became a famous wholesaler

of stringed instruments and supplies all over North

America in the ensuing decades.

1907 in Schönbach: Huge Numbers of Parts Are Made

According to a detailed economic study of Schönbach in

1907, there were 424 instrument makers working in Schönbach

itself, and 256 more in the surrounding villages. They

produced 146,000 violins, 2,200 cellos, and 1,300 basses in

that year. They also made 200,000 violin necks, 200,000

backs, 300,000 Schachteln (back glued to ribs and loose top)

and 25,000 Korpusse (the Schachtel with top glued on).

Schachtel makers typically produced 18 to 20 a week of

the cheapest type, and 12 to 15 of the higher-priced type.

Normal working hours were 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., and during

the period of high demand in autumn, they worked until

midnight.

1907 in Markneukirchen: Machined Violin Parts Fail

Although mechanization had successfully industrialized

string production by this time, this was harder to do in violin

making. In 1904, the German Kaiser’s Patent Office registered

inventions of an engineer in Klingental for the

machine routing of wooden violin parts.

In 1907, a new company started production with 12

machines that were to make 52,000 Schachteln (violin back

plus ribs plus top) a year. Because of the lack of sales, they

started selling complete instruments in 1911. The great hope

of reducing the Markneukirchen dependence on the

Schachtel coming out of Schönbach evaporated as it became

clear that the machines were more expensive than the myriad

self-employed craftsmen making everything by hand

across the border.

In 1914, World War I broke out, ruining the market, and

after the War, the great era of mass-produced instruments

waned as one economic depression after another affected

Germany and the whole world. The company with the partmaking

machines was dissolved in 1930.

1913: Schönbach is Poor, Markneukirchen is Rich?

During the heyday of mass-produced instruments in the

Musikwinkel, one researcher reported that there were an

unbelievable 138 millionaires living in Markneukirchen, a

city with a population of under 10,000 in 1913. Although

there is no real information on the “138 millionaires”, reliable

statistics were showing the highest per capita income in

the area.

Another researcher wrote that “while Markneukirchen

has blossomed into a true industrial city where ... many millionaires

live, and where much of the work is done behind

snow-white embroideried curtains in nicely kept houses

everywhere, Schönbach has fallen to become a city of poor

people, which today still has distressing aspects in its

appearance, in the condition of the houses, streets, sewers,

etc.” Poor nourishment and bad housing were causing a high

incidence of tuberculosis (causing 50% of all deaths), accidents

at work, skin and eye diseases, child deaths, misuse of

alcohol, and prostitution.

Some reports on Markneukirchen showed, however, that

the average violin maker there was not much better off than

in Schönbach. The prices for their production were held

down at a very low level by the wholesalers competing with

each other on the world markets.

1913: The Most Instruments Ever Made

75% of all strings made world-wide were coming from

members of the guild of strings makers of Markneukirchen,

according to statistics of 1913.

40% of all stringed instruments made world-wide came

from the Musikwinkel (both violins and guitars, and other

stringed instruments).

A year later, business was disrupted by World War I.

1913 in Markneukirchen: bows of Albert Otto Hoyer

According to the Hoyer family, it was after spending two

years in Paris with E. Sartory in Paris that bow maker

Albert Otto Hoyer opened shop in Markneukirchchen. He

called himself “Pariser” and was very successful for many

years.

1927 in Markneukirchen: 250th and 150th Anniversary

The violin-makers’ guild celebrated its 250th anniversary

together with the string-maker’ guild’s 150th anniversary in

1927, during the years of economic depression of the

Weimar Republic. A play about the Exulants of 1677 was

premiered as part of the anniversary celebration.

By then, string production was coming from just a few

large companies as a result of mechanization, of which

Künzel was the largest. In contrast, the guild’s violin makers

had 216 registered businesses which continued making

everything by hand.

1929: Two-Thirds of U.S. Instruments

Records from 1929 show that around two-thirds of all

instruments imported to the U.S. were coming from Markneukirchen,

whereas France and Czechoslovakia were next,

with about one-tenth each.

1929: Just Before the Depression, still Big Business

The records in 1929 of the whole Vogtland area of Saxony,

to which Markneukirchen belongs, show that 348 registered

companies were making bowed instruments providing

income to 655 persons. There were 423 bow makers

employing 520.

The astounding number of 1,609 persons was working in

the businesses of the string-making guild members of

Markneukirchen (data from 1928).

In addition, there were many other companies producing

other types of musical instruments that were also sold

world-wide.

The Great Depression and the years of the Third Reich

soon reduced Markneukirchen’s production to a small fraction

of what it had been.

1945 in the Musikwinkel: the Iron Curtain Falls

The end of World War II put both Saxony and Bohemia

behind the Iron Curtain. Saxony was in the Russian occupation

zone and was to became part of newly-created East

Germany.

Western Bohemia was reassigned to Czechoslovakia and

the Potsdam Communiqué of May, 1945, decreed that all

ethnic Germans were to be expelled.

1946: Exodus from Schönbach to Bubenreuth

On the day the eviction order came to Schönbach, Germans

had a very short time to pack and leave. They were

allowed 30 kilograms of luggage (66 pounds). Anything

over was confiscated at sight, as well as all the possessions

they were leaving behind.

However, Schönbach was originally occupied by U.S.

troops, before the international Conferences decided how

central Europe was going to be cut up. Very informal channels

and the good will of many U.S. Army officials were

able to get a lot of wood and tools out of Schönbach before

the Russian Army took over. Fred Wilfer for example, who

was born and raised close to Schönbach, was allowed to put

on a G.I. uniform and make several trips over the border in a

U.S. Army truck to pick up supplies for making instruments,

even after Czech authorities had taken control. The many

former refugees who are still alive today in Bubenreuth can

talk for days on end about all the adventures they had.

The refugees from Schönbach were just some of the

many millions of ethnic Germans moving from many areas

of eastern Europe into bombed-out Germany, mostly on

foot, leaving chaos behind and arriving into more of the

same. Every city and town in West Germany was locating

refugees in every building available. However, efforts were

made to relocate the violin makers together so that they

could restart the production of their instruments.

1946 in Erlangen: the Framus company is founded

Erlangen was a small city just north of Nuremberg that

was going to become the world headquarters of Siemens,

which was relocating from Berlin.

Fred Wilfer received an exeptional license from the

Mayor of Erlangen to manufacture and repair musical

instruments and then founded the Framus company on January

1, 1946. He spearheaded the efforts to settle the refugees

from Schönbach in the Erlangen area and got the State government

of Bavaria in Munich to see the potential for economic

growth with this type of export product that would be

bringing in Western currencies.

1949 in Bubenreuth: “Violin Maker” Housing Area

The cornerstone of a new housing development called

the Geigenbauersiedlung (Violin Maker Settlement) was

laid during an official ceremony on October 20, 1949. This

was the culmination of months of deliberations by officials

at different levels of government, requests made in several

towns on behalf of the violin-making refugees, and then an

historic vote within the town council of Bubenreuth.

The population of Bubenreuth was then 500. The town

agreed to take on over 800 refugees from Schönbach, which

grew to 1,600 during the following ten years, and help set

up the nebulous organism of independent and interdependent

family businesses with which the Schönbach violin

makers had made their living for the past centuries.

Now that Markneukirchen was behind the Iron Curtain

and cut off from most of it's market, the refugees of Bubenreuth

had a huge opportunity, particularly from the United

States.

1950 in Bubenreuth: School of Violin Making

It was October of 1950 that construction of a new violin

maker's boarding school began. The first classes were with

twenty students in May of 1951, and the first school year

began in autumn with nine apprentices for violin making

and plucked instruments (mainly guitars). The Minister-

President of the State of Bavaria came from the capital in

Munich to hold the inaugural speech: he enthusiastically

encouraged the new students to not only learn technical

skills but to make instruments that one day would further

the understanding between the nations of the world, using

art as a medium.

The first bow making apprentices started in 1952, also

nine in number.

1952 in Bubenreuth: Post Card of Housing

The post card above shows the housing development area

for the refugee violin makers from Schönbach.

1953 in Markneukirchen: VEB Musima is founded

The ideology of the new German Democratic Republic

was against private ownership of the country's productive

assets, which meant that the tiny little businesses of the

Musikwinkel were considered archaic and unnecessary by

the central planners in East Berlin, doomed to die out in

time. Many did disappear in the following years and the

guilds had a hard time surviving. In the 60s and onwards,

violin parts became scarce because no-one was learning

how to make them.

The communist idea of instrument production was

embodied in the creation of the VEB Musikinstrumentenbau

Markneukirchen, which came to be called the Musima company.

It was located in the confiscated building of Ernst

Heinrich Roth and employed 60 craftsmen, many of whom

were the former Roth employees. They were to use “modern”

mass-production methods of production for guitars,

bowed instruments, and many other instruments that were

added to the product range.

In 1967, the Musima moved to new quarters with the

goal of raising the “mechanization” quota from 8.5% to

55%. According to their figures, by 1979 they had produced

1.6 million guitars, 95,000 electric guitars, and 50,000 violins

of all price ranges.

By 1989, the Musima had grown to over 1,100 employees,

but after the end of communism, only a tiny portion of

them could continue working there, and the company disappeared

in 2003.

1953 in Bubenreuth: the Roth Company restarts

After some disagreements with communist officials in

Markneukirchen, Gustav Albert Roth's violin-making

facilities in Markneukirchen were confiscated. He fled to

West Germany and came to Bubenreuth.

In 1953, he started a new company and sent his son

Ernst Heinrich Roth III to the then new Bubenreuth violin

maker's school. Ernst Heinrich took over the company upon

his father's death in 1961 and passed his Meister exams the

same year.

After finishing the violin maker's school in Mittenwald in

1985, Ernst Heinrich's son Wilhelm Roth joined him in the

company.

1956 in Bubenreuth: 90% of 45,000 Violins Exported

In the years 1954 to 1975, the figures kept by the State of

Bavaria show from 34,000 to 45,000 violins a year exported

to other countries, peaking in 1956. Other instruments

played with a bow vary between 4,000 and 10,000. Bows

exported were at a peak of 144,000 in 1956.

In terms of income, total sales of bowed and plucked

instruments, plus bows, were 9.5 million Deutschmark in

1956.

These figures are for the state as a whole, and roughly

90% applies to Bubenreuth and the neighboring communities.

1962 in Bubenreuth: “Beat” Music Booms

The guitar came into prominence with the popularity of

“Beat” music. The Beatles achieved national fame in the

U.K. In 1962. At that time, there were an estimated 350

bands in Liverpool alone. The craze soon spread all over the

world. Bubenreuth was ready for the huge new demand for

guitars world-wide.

1964 in Bubenreuth: The Rolling Stones play Framus

The Framus factory produced both bowed instruments

and guitars, and had over 300 employees producing 5,000

instruments a month. Their plant was considered the industry’s

most modern at that time.

In 1964, the Rolling Stones were pictured in a Framus ad

with the caption: “Bill Wyman plays and praises Framus.”

Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles were

playing Framus guitars.

When Framus started building its second plant several

miles north of Bubenreuth a year later, for 150 additional

employees. The sign on the construction site said that

“Europe’s largest guitar factory is building a another plant

here.”

1965 in Bubenreuth: 2,000 At Work in 100 Companies

At the height of the music business there, hundreds of

commuters trekked through the little Bubenreuth train station

every day to augment the work force living in town.

There were 2,000 people working in 100 different companies

in what was considered Europe’s largest center for

musical instrument production.

1965 in Bubenreuth: Violin Maker's School Closes

Efforts to insure future financing of the school by turning

it over to the State of Bavaria failed in 1965. Ernst Heinrich

Roth II, former head of the guild, had gone to the capital

city of Munich several times and funds had already been

approved, as he told this writer recently.

However, various violin making companies in Bubenreuth,

some having become very large by then, had differences

in opinion as to the usefulness of such specific training

in the “modern” post-war world of the 60s. Also, the

violin maker's school in Mittenwald had already secured

State funding and actively opposed it. The whole project

was turned down at the last moment and the Bubenreuth

school closed. Bubenreuth and Mittenwald are still at odds

today, especially since there are around ten times more violin

makers in Bubenreuth than in Mittenwald at this time.

1965 in Markneukirchen: Instrument Makers' Contest

The annual musical instrument contest of Markneukirchen

was started in 1965 to rekindle general interest in

instrument-making in communist East Germany.

Now as then, the contest features different instruments

every year, guitars, woodwinds, brass, as well as bowed

instruments.

1967 in Bubenreuth: Archbishop Blesses New Church

The violin makers of Bubenreuth were Catholic because

Bohemia had been Catholic since 1648. The population of

Bubenreuth had been fairly evenly split between Lutherans

and Catholics until it took on the huge number of Schönbach

refugees in the 1940s. There were too many new

Catholic parish members for the size of the church.

Two decades of planning came to a end at a very festive

mass in 1967 when the Archbishop of Bamberg formally

consecrated the new church building, built to seat 500 in

inspirational modern architecture. The former priest of

Schönbach participated in the ceremonies.

1968 in Bubenreuth: the Boom Begins to Bust

Japanese guitars came onto the market in 1968, cheaper

in the lower price categories, and this was the beginning of a

long downward spiral in Bubenreuth. In 1975, there were

only 800 working in the music business, and by 2004, there

were only 130 people left in it.

1969 in Bubenreuth: Schönbach's 650 Years of History

The City of Schönbach celebrated its 650-year history

under it's present name of Luby in Czechoslovakia, but there

was a big celebration in Bubenreuth too.

1975 in Bubenreuth: Population Over 4,000

The population of the town increased dramatically every

year from 490 (in 1945) who originally welcomed the

refugees. Thirty years later, it was leveling off at just over

4,000 inhabitants and has not increased much since then.

1977 in Bubenreuth: The Largest Factory Demolished

Framus had gone bankrupt two years earlier and a competitor

bought their Bubenreuth factory, by far the largest in

town, and had it destroyed by a controlled detonation on a

fateful day in 1977 so that the land could be sold for at a

good price for housing. Bubenreuth had become a suburb of

Erlangen.

1979 in Bubenreuth: 25-year-old Guild starts Museum

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the guild in Bubenreuth

was a fitting occasion to open a museum documenting the

Schönbach violin-making roots, which were still felt quite

strongly by many in town, as well as the accomplishments

of the new generation of violin makers. Located in the basement

of the Town Hall, it was expanded in 1985 and has

kept adding to its collection.

1990 in Bubenreuth: Quantities Down, Earnings Up

The State of Bavaria shows a total of 38,000 violins still

exported in 1980, with the Bubenreuth area accounting for

90% of that. Ten years later, it was only 20,000.

Surprisingly, the amount of “other” instruments played

with a bow remained fairly constant at around 7,000 per

year during those 10 years.

Earnings were 16 million DM in 1980, then 20.8 million

in 1985, and 22.4 million in 1990.

1990 in Markneukirchen: Germany is Reunified

The border between East and West Germany disappeared

in 1990, and Markneukirchen suddenly regained easy access

to the Western world.

2002 in Markneukirchen: Guild’s 325th Anniversary

Proud of the 22 Masters in the reviving violin-making

activity in Markneukirchen, the Obermeister of the Guild,

Eckart Richter, wrote a glowing preface in the program

booklet of the 325th Anniversary Celebration.

He pointed out that the technical schools in Markneukirchen

and Klingental, and the studios of active violin makers,

are tangible signs that the long tradition will indeed continue.

He wrote: “I hope and wish that in the future, many,

and moreover impressive, instruments will be carrying the

good reputation of our homeland into the world.”

2002 in Markneukirchen: First Monograph of Violins

Rushed to completion for the anniversary celebration

mentioned above, the second volume of Bernhard Zoebisch’s

monograph on the violin makers of the Musikwinkel

was the culmination of many years of research. The two volumes

are the first publication containing the complete list of

the Masters down through four centuries, and has high-quality

photographs of their most important masterpieces. Guild

Obermeister Richter's comment was that “a gap” in the

world literature on violin-making had finally been filled.

They may be ordered from the Musikinstrumenten-

Museum in Markneukirchen (see address at the end of this

publication). There is no English translation yet, but now

there is talk of revising the work to bring it up to date with

the latest research and improving the photography of the

first volume. Perhaps it will be translated at that point.

2004 Schönbach/Markneukirchen: No More Customs

The Czech Republic became a member of the European

Union in 2004 and has been part of the huge free-trade area

since then. There are no customs offices on the road over the

hills between Markneukirchen and Luby (formerly Schönbach)

for the first time in many centuries.

What a dream it would have been for the ladies on foot

on Saturday afternoons 150 years ago!

2009 in Bubenreuth: Museum and “Bubenreutheum”

In 2009, a new team of history-conscious promoters

came to the aid of the 81-year-old pioneer of the museum in

the Town Hall. Naming themselves the “Bubenreutheum”,

the all-volunteer organization remodeled the exhibits and

started working on an ambitious project for the future, a

museum and concert hall befitting the current instruments

and bows now being supplied by guild members to musicians

of the best orchestras in Germany and the world. The

latest developments are always posted on their web site at

www.bubenreutheum.de.

2011 near Chicago: Eric Chapmann's Meeting

On April 1, 2011, Eric Chapman and his family hosted an

informal meeting of several Chicago violin makers in his

home. An American living in Bubenreuth brought a few

stringed instruments and violin parts from Bubenreuth so

that everyone could get an idea of what today's violin makers

are producing there. Mr. Chapman talked about his

nation-wide demonstrations of Roth violins and violas when

he was young and encouraged all those present to become

familiar with the present output of Bubenreuth violin makers,

as an additional type of craftsmanship available to

American violin makers and musicians.

2011 in Markneukirchen: World’s Largest Violin

In 2011, violin makers of Markneukirchen finished a violin

and bow made exactly seven times larger than normal.

Tuned three octaves below normal, it takes a crew of three

to play it. A composer living in the city of Leipzig, Stephan

König, wrote his Rhapsody for Giant Violin and Orchestra

for this instrument.

Not knowing if the instrument would ever produce any

sounds, a team of fifteen put in more than 1,300 hours of

work, using more than a cubic meter of spruce and maple,

40 kilograms of ebony, several kg. of glue and varnish, etc.,

to create a violin 14 ft. high weighing 250 lbs., and a bow

17 ft. long weighing 30 lbs. It is featured in the 2012 Guiness

Book of Records.

Although it occasionally travels, and was on display at

the 2012 Music Fair in Frankfurt, the giant violin’s home is

in the Markneukirchen Museum of Musical Instruments.

2012: Exhibition of the Violin Society of America

For its 40th Anniversary Convention in November, 2012,

the Violin Society of America under the leadership of President

Rodney Mohr has requested Bruce Babbitt organize

one of the most important showings of Markneukirchen violins

and bows in recent years. The instruments on view will

be professionally photographed and documented, and the

catalog made available world-wide after the convention, a

fitting tribute to four centuries of violin-making.

lyndon · January 6, 2013

You don't need to replace the fingerboard just because its rosewood, rosewood is just as hard and wears almost as well as ebony, if its thick enough, you can just resurface it till the notches are gone, just like you would for a worn ebony fingerboard. However if its already been resurfaced a couple times before and is thin to start with then it will need replacement, but not because its made of rosewood.

Violadamore · January 6, 2013

Thank you, Jacob! Excellent article

jacobsaunders · January 6, 2013

Thank you, Jacob! Excellent article

You’re welcome. It’s the best paper I have come across in the english language yet on the subject, so please save and quote it all the time, and save me having too!

I had to laugh at the “buckets of beer” which is an obvious clumsy translation mistake. “Eimer” means “Bucket” in modern North German language (Kübel in Austria) today, but back then it was a common, pre-metric measure of (liquid) capacity, equivalent to about 12 litres (NB regional variations). Herr McKee-Wisehart must be a vagrant american Double-Bass player.

Penelope the Duck · April 6, 2015

Oh this is a great article - thanks Jacob - a good bedtime read.

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thoughts on this violin? schönbach or?

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