Giovanni Battista Guadagnini

Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (often shortened to G. B. Guadagnini; 23 June 1711 – 18 September 1786) was an Italian luthier, regarded as one of the finest craftsmen of string instruments in history.[3] He is widely considered the third greatest maker after Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri "del Gesù". The Guadagnini family was known for their violins, guitars and mandolins.[1]

Giovanni Battista Guadagnini
Born	23 June 1711 Bilegno in Val Tidone, Italy
Died	18 September 1786 (aged 75) Turin, Italy
Nationality	Italian
Known for	Luthier pedagogue
Notable work	Baron Knoop (1744, Piacenza) Ex-Lorenzo (c.1745, Piacenza) Baron Köhner (1752, Milan) Campoli,Grumiaux (1773, Turin) Salabue (1774, Turin) Bryant (1775, Turin)
Style	Guadagnini style Piacenza period Milan period Parma period Turin period Stradivarius style
Movement	Guadagnini school[1]
Elected	Court luthier of Duchy of Parma[2]
Patron(s)	Duke of Parma Count Cozio di Salabue
Website	www.guadagnini.org

Guadagnini family tree

Biography

Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (Latinized as Johannes Baptista Guadagnini) was born while both Stradivari and Guarneri were at the zenith of their production years, roughly 30 km away from the City of Cremona on 23 June 1711 at Bilegno in Val Tidone of Piacenza.[4]

Recent research has shed light as to the influence of both Casa Stradivari and Casa Guarneri of Cremona on the lines of symmetry of instruments by Guadagnini, hence J.B. Guadagnini was still a youth while his father Lorenzo, both in Bilegno and Piacenza, was a contributing maker of instruments for Stradivari's workshop, the leading violin shop in the first half of the 18th century.

It was the normative use of trade in 18th-century Italy for a young person to start as an apprentice in a master's workshop around age 12, to be allowed to practice a given trade afterward. Guild shops, either in consortium or under one roof, were headed by a master who provided journeymen papers for successful apprentices. Trade guilds, providing career opportunities for skilled tradesmen including musical instrument makers, were a mercantile arrangement in Europe since medieval times, including in Italy. Guilds were a pre-capitalist industrial organization under ducal oversight which regulated trade practice, quality of articles produced, and pricing policies.

J.B. Guadagnini died in Turin in 1786.

Violin maker

His work is divided into four main periods corresponding to, and named after, Piacenza, Milan, Parma and Turin, the four cities in Italy where he lived and worked. Each period has its own style and characteristic. The Guadagnini's Milan style are more popular in Europe while the Turin style is more sought-after in the United States.[4] Because of different arching built for each style, the Milan models make soft and colorful sound, whereas the Turin models sound are flatter and more powerful.[4]

Appreciation by both connoisseurs and musicians alike attest to the fact that J.B. Guadagnini may possibly be considered the last of the great master violin makers in the second half of the so-called "golden age", while Italy was under Bourbon rule.

Performers with Guadagnini instruments

Violinists

Violinist	Date & place of manufacture	Sobriquet	Comments	Reference
Felix Ayo	1744			[5]
Riccardo Brengola	1747, Piacenza	Contessa Crespi		[6]
Adolf Brodsky	1751, Milan	ex-Brodsky		[7]
Zakhar Bron	1757, Milan			[8]
Amaury Coeytaux	1773			[9]
Andrew Dawes	1770, Parma			[10]
Richard Deakin			English chamber musician and soloist, currently teaching at RAM in London, was using one in 1980s and likely still is.[11]
Julia Fischer	1742			[12]
Carl Flesch	1750s	ex-Henri Vieuxtemps		[13]
David Garrett	1772		In December 2007, Garrett fell after a performance and smashed his Guadagnini, which he had purchased four years earlier for US$1 million.[14] He now uses it for mainly his outdoor crossover performances.[15]
David Greed	1757		Owned by the Yorkshire Guadagini 1757 Syndicate.	[16]
Arthur Grumiaux	1752	ex-Grumiaux		[17]
David Halen	1753			[18]
Jascha Heifetz	1741, Piacenza	ex-Heifetz	Provenance - by Rembert Wurlitzer in 1946 and Dario D'Attili in 1991	[19]
Marlene Hemmer	1764			[20]
Peter Herresthal	1753, Milan			[4]
Willy Hess	1740s			[21]
Joseph Joachim	1767, Parma	ex-Joachim		[22]
Ida Kavafian	1751			[23]
David Kim	1757		On loan from The Philadelphia Orchestra	[24]
Min-Jeong Koh	1767			[25]
Goran Končar	1753, Milan			[26]
Mikhail Kopelman	1773			[27]
Michał Kowalkowski	1753	Gucio
Jan Kubelik	1750	ex-Kubelik		[28]
Pekka Kuusisto	1752		On loan from the Finnish Cultural Foundation	[29]
Manfred Leverkus	1752	ex-Kneisel	Stolen in 2006
Jack Liebeck	1785	ex-Wilhelmj		[30]
Wayne Lin	1779, Turin			[31]
Tasmin Little	1757, Milan			[4][32]
Mauro Lopes Ferreira				[33]
Haldon Martinson	1750		Being used in the Boston Symphony Orchestra	[34]
Stefan Milenkovich	1780, Turin			[35]
Viktoria Mullova	1750			[36]
Ginette Neveu			Purchased early spring, 1949. Involved in an air crash later that year, in which Neveu died. Scroll later apparently appeared in Paris, having changed hands several times.	[37]
David Plantier	1766			[38]
Simone Porter	1745		On loan from The Mandell Collection of Southern California	[39]
William E. Pynchon	1779, Turin		Purchased March 26, 1957. Played in San Francisco Opera until 1998
Linda Rosenthal	1772, Turin			[40]
Leon Sametini	1751	ex-Sametini		[41]
Mari Samuelsen	1773, Turin		On loan from ASAF (Anders Sveeas Charitable Foundation, Oslo).	[42][43]
Stephanie Sant’Ambrogio	1757			[44]
Mayumi Seiler	1740, Piacenza
Ittai Shapira	1745, Piacenza			[45]
Sini-Maaria Simonen	1760		On loan from the Finnish Cultural Foundation	[46]
Roman Simovic	1752		On loan from Jonathan Moulds	[47]
Yvonne Smeulers	1785			[48]
Lara St. John	1779	Salabue	Called "The Resurrection" by St. John	[49]
Lyndon Johnston Taylor	1777			[50]
Henri Temianka	1752		Built based on the Petro Guarnerius model. Certificate of Joseph Vedral, violinmaker, Holland, 28 September 1929
Vanessa-Mae	1761	Gizmo		[51]
Pablo Valetti	1758			[52]
Pavel Vernikov	1747, Piacenza	ex-Contessa Crespi, ex-Brengola	On loan from Fondazione Pro Canale. Worth $1.5 million in 2016. Stolen in December 2016.[53]
Henri Vieuxtemps	1750s	ex-Henri Vieuxtemps		[54]
Henryk Wieniawski	1750	ex-Wieniawski		[55]
Bob Wills	1784		Described as 157 years old when bought in 1941 for $3,000, Wills later claimed in an interview that he gave it away "to a friend of mine in Tayxas" and bought another for $5,000.	[56]
Eugène Ysaÿe	1774	ex-Eugène Ysaÿe		[57]
Bomsori Kim	1774, Turin
Li Chuan Yun	1784		On loan from the Stradivari Society	[58]

Violists

• Li-Kuo Chang plays the 'ex-Vieuxtemps' G.B. Guadagnini viola, Parma c.1768.[59][60]
• Geraldine Walther plays a G.B. Guadagnini viola, Turin 1774.[61]

Cellists

• Natalie Clein plays the "Simpson" Guadagnini cello (1777).[62]
• David Geringas plays a G.B. Guadagnini cello made in 1761.[63]
• Maxine Neuman plays a 1772 Guadagnini.[64]
• Han-na Chang plays the G.B. Guadagnini cello made in Milan in 1757.
• Gilberto Munguia plays a G.B. Guadagnini cello (1748).
• Saša Večtomov played a G.B. Guadagnini cello made in Milan in 1754.
• Sol Gabetta plays a G.B. Guadagnini cello (1759).
• Carter Brey, principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, plays a Guadagnini made in Milan in 1754.[65]

Groups

• Australian String Quartet (ASQ) plays four matched instruments: a violoncello (c.1743), and a violin (1748-49), both made in Piacenza, and a viola (1783) and another violin (1784) made in Turin.[66]

References

1. Kass, Philip. "Violin Making in Turin, part 2: the Guadagnini family". Tarisio Auctions. Retrieved 19 May 2018.
2. "Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (1711-1786)". Guadagnini.org. 2011. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
3. Doring, Ernest N. (1949). The Guadagnini Family of Violin Makers. Chicago: Lewis & Sons. Reprint with new introduction by Stewart Pollins, Dover Books, 2012. ISBN 978-0-48649-796-9
4. "In praise of Gaudagnini". The Strad. No. Vol. 122. October 2011. pp. 36–44.
5. "Felix Ayo Biography". Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
6. "Guadagnini, 1747". Archived from the original on 4 March 2009. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
7. "Guadagnini, 1751". Cozio.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2009. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
8. "Guadagnini, 1757". Cozio.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2009. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
9. "Biography". Modigliani Quartet. 2018. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
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11. "Staff: Richard Deakin". Royal Academy of Music. Retrieved 21 October 2019.
12. Fischer, Frank-Michael (25 March 2013). "Julia Fischer performs the same piece on two different violins". Violinist.com. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
13. "Guadagnini, 175x". Cozio.com. Archived from the original on 2 March 2009. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
14. Wagner, Thomas (14 February 2008). "Violinist: Fall Fractures $1M Fiddle". Times Herald-Record. Archived from the original on 21 February 2015. Retrieved 15 February 2008.
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18. "David Halen". Mercer University. 2006. Archived from the original on 6 March 2012. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
19. Salabue Auctions (5 February 2016). "Ex-Heifetz 1741 Johannes Baptista Guadagnini Violin". Facebook. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
20. "Marlene Hemmer". Nationaal Muziekinstrumenten Fonds (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 3 April 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
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22. "Guadagnini, 1767". Cozio.com. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
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24. "Biography". David Kim. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
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29. "Pekka Kuusisto, violin". Ondine. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
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31. "Wayne Lin". Naxos Records. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
32. Yangen Xu (3 August 2006). "Great Violinists at the Proms". musicOMH. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
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34. "Haldan Martinson". Boston Symphony Orchestra. Archived from the original on 12 March 2010. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
35. "Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (circa 1780), Turin". Ingles & Hayday. 2017. Archived from the original on 30 August 2017. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
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37. Todes, Ariane (8 February 2013). "What happened to Ginette Neveu's Stradivari?". The Strad. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
38. "Les Musiciens De L'Ensemble: David Plantier". Café Zimmermann (in French). Retrieved 23 October 2019.
39. "Biography". Simone Porter Violin. Archived from the original on 26 October 2018. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
40. "About Linda Rosenthal, violinist". Linda Rosenthal. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
41. "Guadagnini, 1751". Cozio.com. Archived from the original on 4 March 2009. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
42. "Mari Samuelsen: Tracklist". Deutsche Grammophon. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
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44. "Artistic Director". Cactus Pear Music Festival. Archived from the original on 23 July 2009. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
45. Sadler, Naomi (28 June 2017). "Ittai Shapira". Tarisio. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
46. "Myönnetyt soittimet". Suomen Kulttuurirahasto (in Finnish). 2006. Archived from the original on 29 October 2007. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
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51. "Vanessa-Mae calls her Guadagnini violin "Gizmo". Why is that?". Vanessa-Mae.net. 14 September 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
52. "La Direction Artistique: Pablo Valetti". Café Zimmermann (in French). Retrieved 23 October 2019.
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Bibliography

• Grove, George, ed. (1900). "Guadagnini". A Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London: Macmillan and Company.
• Mnatzaganian, Sarah (2004). "G. B. Guadagnini". Aitchison Mnatzaganian. Archived from the original on 2 June 2008.
• Doring, Ernest N. (1949). The Guadagnini Family of Violin Makers. Chicago: Lewis & Sons.
• König, Adolf H., ed. (1981). Die Geigenbauer der Guadagnini-Familie: Die Turiner Schule [The violin makers of the Guadagnini family: The Turin School] (in German). Frankfurt: Verlag Das Musikinstrument. ISBN 978-3-92011-265-7.
• Fiori, G. (1994). "Documenti biografici di artisti e personaggi piacentini dal '600 all' '800 nell' Archivo Vescovile di Piacenza" [Biographical documents of Piacenza artists and characters from the 600s to the 1800s in the Archdiocese of Piacenza]. Strenna Piacentina (in Italian): 67–111.
• Kass, P.J. Violin Makers of the Piedmontese School.
• Vannes, Rene (1985) [1951]. Dictionnaire Universel del Luthiers (vol.3) (in French). Bruxelles: Les Amis de la musique. OCLC 53749830.
• Henley, William (1969). Universal Dictionary of Violin & Bow Makers. Brighton, England: Amati. ISBN 0-901424-00-5.
• Hamma, Walter (1993). Meister Italienischer Geigenbaukunst [Master of Italian violin making] (in German). Wilhelmshaven: F. Noetzel. ISBN 3-7959-0537-0.
• Rosengard, Duane (2000). Giovanni Battista Guadagnini: The Life and Achievement of a Master Maker of Violins. Haddonfield, New Jersey: Carteggio Media. ISBN 978-0-97042-290-3.

External links

• ""ex-Joachim" G.B. Guadagnini Turin 1775". Leroy Douglas Violins. Archived from the original on 6 January 2009.