Capitol Collectors Series

>> from the library ofcongress in washington d.c. >> nancy groce: my name is nancygroce and i'm with the library of congress and today wehave a very special guest, david bromberg. and we're going to be talking about the david brombergamerican violin collection, and specific fiddles and how youcame to acquire the collection and maybe, what wehope will happen to the collection once it comeshere to the library of congress.

>> david bromberg: very good. >> nancy groce: ok so, how didyou get into collecting violins, let's just startwith the basics? >> david bromberg: well,i was a touring musician and i played americanmusic and the first, i had a very good fiddler in theband, jay unger was in my band, and i used to playfiddle tunes on the guitar and i decided i should tryand learn to play fiddle because i knew howi wanted to sound,

i wanted to sound just like jay. so, i was in stockbridge,massachusetts and there was a guy there whohad a wall full of violins and i chose one and it turnedout to be an american one, which seemed proper becausei play american music and i have whateverpoisonous gene it is that makes people collectors and i started collectingamerican violins. at first, i didn'tknow much about them,

but the more i did it,the more i learned. eventually i went toviolin making school and saw quite a fewbeautiful violins and knew better howto organize things. because i wasn'tinterested in amateur, partly successful ventures,and america has a lot of those. >> nancy groce: you meanpeople who do one violin or-- ? >> david bromberg: yeah,or have no training at all, and really have only seen onemaybe german factory violin,

have a vague idea of what itshould it look like in the end, and there are tons ofthose in the united states. and for a long time, the american violin dealersthought that's all there was and if they saw somethinggood they would tell me, oh, this isn't american, thisis german or this is french, or you know, anythingbut american. >> nancy groce: andthat wasn't true? >> david bromberg:no, it wasn't true.

operating on the assumption that americans are notgenetically inferior to europeans, i couldn't seewhy americans couldn't have made fine violins and the morei learned about violins, the more astounded i was that people would showme an american violin and just dismiss it as notbeing worth a gorgeous thing, not being worth fixingbecause it was american. that's changed now.

>> nancy groce: so, howmany violins do you have now in your collection? >> david bromberg: um, 263, but actually a fewmore than that even. >> nancy groce: andthese have been acquired over how many yearsof collecting? >> david bromberg: oh,it must be close to 50. >> nancy groce: and isthis the largest collection of american violins?

>> david bromberg: it's thelargest and the only one that i know of, of anythingapproaching this size that is of good violins and itcovers the length and breadth of american violin makingfrom around 1848 to 1950. and there is no equivalentcollection of french violins in france or germanviolins in germany or italian violins in italy. there is nothing thatcovers it like this. not that i have every singleone, but i'm pretty close.

every single importantone, but i'm pretty close. >> nancy groce: now, you'vebrought some examples of violins to look at and i think in thetrade you called them fiddles, is there a differencebetween fiddles and violins? >> david bromberg: well, it's like a [inaudible] callshis instrument his fiddle. vassar clements, whoi used to play with, one of the world'sgreatest country fiddlers, used to call his his violin,so you go figure, i don't know.

>> nancy groce: ok, welllet's just start looking at some that you brought in. i think you broughtin, the unifying theme of the ones you brought in todayto the library of congress is that they all have somerelationship to chicago, and you lived in chicago formany years, is that right? >> david bromberg: yes, i did. this one, which i wanted totalk about first, this was made by a man named herman macklett,and he was a german immigrant.

he settled in st. paul wherehe worked as an upholsterer and he used to goback and forth. he was born in 1835 inhanover, germany and i know that because it was written onthe inside of another macklett that i owned, g-- and the rest of the word was no longervisible, but then hanover 1835, it had to have been [inaudible]. >> nancy groce: born in 1835? >> david bromberg:in hanover, germany.

and he was knownas the grandfather of the first carl becker,carl becker is very famous. >> nancy groce: asa violin maker? a late violin maker. >> david bromberg:as a violin maker. but, macklett himselfwas a fine violin maker. this is a beautiful violinand a very healthy one. allegedly, most of his werelost in the chicago fire. i don't believe that actuallybecause i've seen more

than i expected tosee given that. he was in st. paul and hetraveled back and forth between st. paul and chicago,finally officially moving to chicago in 1868 and he died, i'm sorry 1864, andhe died in 1884. and people have speculated thathe must have seen french violins and studied some really nice,maybe a vuillaume or something. and i have a different theory. >> nancy groce: oh,what's your theory?

>> david bromberg: my theoryis that there were parts of his life where wedon't know where he was and i think he was either in newyork city or astoria studying with george gemunder becausegeorge gemunder studied with vuillaume. >> nancy groce: he's awell-known violin dealer and maker in new york. >> david bromberg: yes,and the significant thing about george gemunder asopposed to the other members

of the family is he did workfor vuillaume and there's a lot of vuillaume in his violinsand so i think that was where macklett developedthe french-ness in his-- . >> nancy groce: so, you havethis direct line of master to apprentice that you'retracing down, that you can see in people's instruments? >> david bromberg: yeah,generally speaking. i brought one instrumentthat i'll show you later, by a self-taught maker,

or a maker that ithink was self-taught. but this is herman macklettand it's a lovely violin. >> nancy groce: andhe had a shop, after the first oneburned in the chicago fire. and isn't there a story abouthim and his wife putting violins in rain sacs and carryingthem across the chicago river. >> david bromberg:yeah, that's the story that was passed downin the family. carl becker knew that story.

>> nancy groce: so, evenif it was one or two, that's still a great story. >> david bromberg:well, he saved, he must have savedsome very good violins. this is a late one, i mean,this one was made in 1879. >> nancy groce: that'sa beautiful instrument, it has a one piece back and,yeah, very, very nicely done. so, and it's still playing,like a lot of the instruments in your collection, it'sstill in playing condition.

>> david bromberg: oh yes. >> nancy groce: so, our nextchicago violin is which one? which maker do youwant to feature next? >> david bromberg: this wasmade by johann hornsteiner, and in many ways johannhornsteiner was the single most important maker in chicago. he taught a generation ofviolin makers in chicago. he was the head of the lionand healy shop for a while, and he worked indifferent shops.

he had his own shopfor a while and-- . >> nancy groce: and lionand healy was a huge, not only violins but allsorts of musical instruments, and they really supplieda lot of america and american orchestralmusicians for many, many years, i believe. >> david bromberg: yes, and their violindepartment was very important and did business allover the united states.

the ironic thing aboutjohann hornsteiner is that there are very few ofhis instruments, i'm sorry, there's only this one thatwe know of that still exists. he did a lot of repairsand he taught people, but he was more enamored of playing pokerthan making violins. and so, one of hisapprentices was a great maker, named frank sindelar,and most of the ones with johann hornsteiner's labelwere made by frank sindelar.

but this was made byjohann hornsteiner. >> nancy groce: now, there's ahornsteiner family, in think, in mittenwald, in germany? >> david bromberg: thereis a hornsteiner family that goes back many generations as violin makers backto the 18th century. actually, there was apartnership between a maker by the name of neunerand hornsteiner and they created afactory in mittenwald,

germany called neunerand hornsteiner and it has its originsin the 18th century up through the 1930's. and, really the reinforcement that this is johannhornsteiner's, if there was no label, andthere are labels in violins that he didn't make,is that this violin is like the most beautiful neunerand hornsteiner ever made. there's an awful lot about itthat you can see those violins,

except it's so exquisitely done and this was 1924 iswhen this was made. >> nancy groce: and,what attracts you when you're collectinga violin like that? did you see it in a shopwindow or did someone bring it into your shop, or howdid you come by it? >> david bromberg: well, iattract american violins. i gave a number of lectures toeach of the violin societies and so when people run acrossamerican violins, i get calls,

not only from people withinthe trade but, you know, other people are told,well call bromberg, he knows about american. and this came tome from jim warren, from whom i've learned a lot, who has an importantshop in chicago. he's the third generationand his son who's in the shop is nowthe fourth generation. and when he got this hecalled me because he knew

that i would be interestedand i was looking for a johann hornsteiner. there was only one other thatwe know of that he made himself and that was a guarnerimodel, this is a strad model. he made a guarneri model forlou wallace, who was a general in the civil war andthe author of ben hur. and his estate is a museum, but the curators knowof no violin there. so, that one hopefullywill turn up someday.

>> nancy groce: so, when someonewalks in with a violin like that and opens the case, isit immediately obvious that it's an interestinginstrument? >> david bromberg: to me? it is to me yes. >> nancy groce: andwhat do you look for, what do, how do you-- ? >> david bromberg: well,beauty is functional and it takes a little education

to learn what constitutesbeauty, but that's the firstthing i look for is, does it look beautiful? and the fine violinsare always beautiful. even the ugly ones arebeautiful in their own way. >> nancy groce: that onehas a beautiful back, can we just want to see that. what's the wood on the back? >> david bromberg: almost everyviolin is made from maple back,

sides and neck and spruce top. you occasionally willfind a cedar top, but most are by far-- . >> nancy groce: and wouldthat be american wood? >> david bromberg: this one doesnot appear to be american wood, but there are some species of, alot of american wood has streaks that go across the flames. and that's, then you knowyou're looking at american wood, but there are some speciesthat don't have that

and this never struck me as being americanwood, but it could be. >> nancy groce: so,of all the years that johann hornsteiner workedand was influential in chicago, that's the one instrument weknow of his that still survives? >> david bromberg: yeah. i don't think there are many. i don't think he startto finish made very many. but he did a lotof restorations.

>> nancy groce: and poker. >> david bromberg: and poker. although he was agreat restorer, he was not a very good expert. jim warren's grandfathertold me a story about how the concert masterof the chicago symphony came in with his violinfor some adjustment and johann hornsteiner wasthe only one in the shop and he looked at thisgentleman's strad

and said it was a veryfine german violin, which caused a bit of trouble. no, people from france think,tend to think, not all of them but many of them, think thatthe most beautiful violins must be french. and german makers thinkthey must be german. [ laughter ] hornsteiner, i already said thathe taught a whole generation and amongst the peoplewho worked

under his tutelage wasthe first carl becker, so, that's where we'll go next. >> nancy groce: ok, let's-- . >> david bromberg: to carlbecker, but not directly, we're going to takea little side trip. >> nancy groce: ok,let's see another fiddle. >> david bromberg: ok. >> nancy groce: you haveanother chicago violin here, can you tell me about that one?

>> david bromberg: this was madeby a man named william t. lane, who was born in england,probably london, and came to the unitedstates and had a violin shop. he also worked in lyon andhealy under johann hornsteiner. before that i suspect hemight have been self-taught. and he liked ivoryand he would put ivory on different instrumentsin different places. this one has it at the corners. >> nancy groce: that's unusual.

>> david bromberg:it is very unusual. nice wood. probably american wood. >> nancy groce: how do youknow it's american wood? >> david bromberg:see the streaks. >> nancy groce: oh, thatgo across the flame. >> nancy groce: oh, interesting. >> david bromberg: in the 19thcentury the french used almost exclusively american wood

because they believed itwas the best sounding. so, it wasn't justamericans who used them. but, this is lane, and i forgot that there's anotherimportant piece having to do with lane that i should show. i have a photograph of carlbecker at the age of 14. >> nancy groce: thewell-known violin, chicago violin maker,carl becker? >> david bromberg: it'svery important violin maker,

and he studied with lane beforehe went to lion and healy. now lane was at lion and healyand studied with hornsteiner, and later carl becker alsowent to lion and healy and worked under hornsteiner. >> nancy groce: this islike a lot of other trades, where people all knoweach other and especially since it's a masterapprenticeship trade, there must be a lot of connections amongamerican violin makers?

>> david bromberg: strangely,there are not very many schools of violin making in the unitedstates that i can perceive. really, the most identifiableschool of violin making was in chicago and the fountainhead is johann hornsteiner. but, the immigrantslike george gemunder in new york had verylittle influence as far as i can detect in other makers. but hornsteiner, youcan see it clearly. >> nancy groce: andit's wonderful

that you've collected examples from throughout thechicago school so you can make theseconnections with your collection. >> david bromberg: yeah, someof hornsteiner's disciples went to michigan and to other places,but you can see an awful lot of him in many chicagoinstruments. >> nancy groce: now,did you acquire that instrument in chicago.

>> david bromberg: yes, i gotthis when i was in chicago. which brings up somethinginteresting, i put together this collectionwhen i was a touring musician. otherwise i nevercould have done it because strangely enough, american violins don'tseem to travel much. there were five makers whosework can be found anywhere in the united states becausethey were made for firms that sold all overthe united states.

carl becker is one of them. but, i don't know that youwould find a w. t. lane violin anywhere but chicago. >> nancy groce: andhow did you acquire it? >> david bromberg: well,i was living in chicago but i acquired the collection because i was a travelingmusician and i would look for violins wherever i went. >> nancy groce: doyou play them?

do you try playing thembefore you buy them or-- ? >> david bromberg:you generally can't. when you find an old violinit's rarely in condition to be played, unless it's beenin a shop and all fixed up, and i discovered wheni visit violin shops, when i started my collection,that they had no respect for any american violins,"oh there's one in the back, this guy wasn't to bad but it'snot worth my while to fix it," you know, and then they'd bringout something that needed a lot

of work that might be gorgeous. >> nancy groce: now you were ata violin making school where? and for how long? >> david bromberg: in chicago. i graduated. that's what broughtme to chicago. i graduated from the chicagoschool of violin making. >> nancy groce: so, youwere a touring musician, just found violinmaking so fascinating

that you just decidedto try it yourself? >> david bromberg: it's alittle more complicated. as a touring musiciani started my collection and collected american violinsand around 1970 i got burnt out. i was working too much. >> nancy groce: you weredoing very well as a musician. >> david bromberg: at thattime, i was doing well. but i stopped completely becausei discovered i wasn't doing anything a musician doeswhen i wasn't traveling.

i wasn't writing, i wasn'tpracticing, i wasn't playing with other musicians, so,if i wasn't on the road. and i didn't want tobe one of these guys who does a bitter imitationof something he used to love. so, i decided to find somethingelse that i would enjoy and devote my life to. and i was interested in violins, so i went to violinmaking school. >> nancy groce: and how longdid you study violin making?

>> david bromberg: i was atthe school for four years, to complete a 3-1/2-yearprogram. >> nancy groce: butit's very rigorous. >> david bromberg: it shouldbe very rigorous if you really, really apply yourself. other people did muchbetter at it than i did, but my interest reallywas never in making, i never wanted to be a maker. i wanted to understand how youcould look at a violin and tell

who made it, when and where. and you can't go bythe labels inside because they're frequentlyfalse. they're occasionally right, especially on the importantviolins, that's wonderful. but, you can make a lot ofmoney by putting the label of a great maker in a violinthat wasn't by that maker. >> nancy groce: and most peoplewouldn't know the difference? they identify theviolins by the labels.

the experts don't do that. so, i wanted to becomean expert. so, i wanted to be ableto identify violins. >> nancy groce: andyou really did. you established this shop,in dealing with, as they say, high end fiddles,for very many years. >> david bromberg: i'll be abeginner until the day i die because like music,there's no bottom to this and no one will everknow it all.

people consult meon american violins, although americanviolins are my hobby, my business is europeanviolins with one or two americans thrown in. this is a photograph of carlbecker at the age of 14. that was the year hemade his first violin, when he was 14-years-old. and i think that this mayhave been taken in the shop of w. t. lane, whichwas the first place

that he got any tutelage. >> nancy groce: he startedhis training with lane. >> david bromberg: yeah, hestarted his training with lane. >> nancy groce: do youknow what year that is? >> david bromberg: yes,i think it would be 1901. >> nancy groce: that issuch a terrific photograph. >> david bromberg:yeah, it's wonderful. i have two becker violins. >> nancy groce: oh, canwe take a look at them?

made by this man probablya little later in his life. >> david bromberg:made by carl becker. yes, one of them not much later. >> nancy groce: let'shave a look at them. >> nancy groce: so, you havetwo lovely violins here from, made by carl becker in chicago. >> david bromberg: carl g.becker, the first carl becker. >> nancy groce: oh, right. >> david bromberg: i was luckyenough to know carl f, his son,

who was a great maker also. he was born in 1887 andmade his first violin in 1901 at the age of 14. >> nancy groce: and that wasthe photograph that you brought? >> david bromberg:that's the photograph that i showed you, yeah. and this one, he made at theage of 20, so it would be 1917. and this is a copyof a guarnerius. and it's a beautiful violin

and it has the gorgeousorange becker varnish. becker worked for johannhornsteiner at lion and healy but he did the bulk of his worklater as he developed into, well even now you cansee he was brilliant. he worked for williamlewis and sons after that, for quite a long time untilwilliam lewis was sold. and he was the head ofthe william lewis shop. >> nancy groce: so, he wasactive the 1940's or the 1950's? >> david bromberg:he was, i'm sorry,

dates are my, i will have to-- . >> nancy groce: no, that'sok, but he was a significant, we'll do it this way, buthe was a significant force for many decades in thechicago musical scene. >> david bromberg: i thinkhe was, let me check this, i think he was activeuntil the 70's. >> nancy groce: really? >> david bromberg: imay be wrong, 50's? he died, no i wasright, he died in 1975.

>> nancy groce: so, he was, so carl g. beckerwas making violins from about 1900 to the 1970's. >> david bromberg: yes. >> nancy groce: that'svery impressive. >> david bromberg: throughto 1975, 1901 to 1975. and he was also a greatrestorer and an excellent expert at violin identification. so, this one is 1917.

and this is a stradivariusmodel from 1933. >> nancy groce: and theother one is a guarnerius. >> david bromberg: theother is a guarnerius copy, copy of a guarnerius. >> nancy groce: and experts likeyourself can tell immediately by the shape of the violin whichstandard model is being echoed by a contemporary maker? >> david bromberg:yeah, if one is, yeah. you can generally tellfirst by the outline

and second by everything else. >> nancy groce: yeah,that's why you're an expert, it's immediatelyobvious, isn't it? >> david bromberg: well,strad's and guarneri's are easy. it can get harder. >> nancy groce: tell meabout the scroll on that one, that one has a lovely scroll. >> david bromberg:yes, carl becker didn't like carving scrollsand his main competition

in chicago was carl george andthey used to accuse each other of using german partsand they were both right. occasionally carl beckerwould use a german scroll. later on, when his sonbecame his partner, his son would do justgorgeous scrolls. but, i wouldn't want to sayfor sure who made this scroll, it might have been carl or he might have modifiedan import for the scroll. scroll doesn't have a great dealto do with the sound and that's

where he was preoccupied. in mercure, france,which is a town that at one time wasalmost completely devoted to violin making. they didn't consider the scrollpart of making the violin. there was, in the 20th century, there was a guy namedjoseph delenyon [phonetic] who would make all the scrollsand he'd go from shop to shop and the shop owner wouldpeek out the window and pick

out the ones he wanted. so, it's not an unusual thing. in the time when this, in thetime when this violin was made, catalogs from the violin shops, the big violin shops wouldalso sell violin wood, they'd sell back wood, topwood, rib wood and scrolls. they didn't sell scroll wood. >> nancy groce: interesting. now, during the early20's, well three quarters

of the 20th century, ifyou were a performer, say with the chicago symphony,you'd go to carl becker to buy new instrumentsor just take care of your existinginstruments, is that right? carl was very important tothe musicians of chicago. >> nancy groce: didyou ever meet him? >> david bromberg: the senior? >> nancy groce: yeah. >> david bromberg: no, hedied before i went to chicago.

>> nancy groce: butyou knew the son. >> david bromberg: iknew his son and grandson and granddaughter, a coupleof his granddaughters. grandson and one of the granddaughtersare violin makers. >> nancy groce: still,to this day? >> nancy groce: so, it'sat least three generations. was becker-- ? >> david bromberg: four, wellfive if you count macklett,

and then there was ageneration in between when there was no maker,so you've got macklett, a generation with nomaker, carl, oh four, ok, math is not my strong point. there was somethingthat i wanted to tell you and i got lost. >> nancy groce: didhis son have stories. what would be a storythat his son would tell about carl senior?

>> david bromberg: carl juniorhad a great deal of respect for his father and his fathertaught him identification as well as making, and theyused to go to lake pickerel, wisconsin to concentrateon making. although in later years,carl f. becker, the son, would go to pickerel to make, but he'd always bring alongrepairs and spent a lot of time doing repair as well. >> nancy groce: so, justto get out of chicago,

they'd go to a quieter placeand concentrate on their art. there can be a lot ofcompetitions in one city and sometimes the differentshops don't get along. but, one shop aboutwhich i, carl becker, carl g. becker wasn't veryclose to, once told me that if you couldn'tget a stradivarius cello or a montagnana cello,don't bother with anything otherthan a becker. >> nancy groce: that'squite a compliment,

especially from the competition. >> nancy groce: let's lookat another violin here. who made this one? >> david bromberg:this violin was made by carl george inchicago in 1903. he was born in the late 19thcentury in eastern europe and moved at the age of fourwith his family to toronto. and at the same time there wasa maker named franz wagner, a friend of the family and hemoved also to toronto and then

when carl george moved tochicago, franz wagner moved as well and theyhad a partnership for a while, wagner and george. so, he was probablytaught by franz wagner. he is one of the makers who,although they weren't born on this continent, learnedviolin making on this continent. he was here sincethe age of four. the becker's were born here,macklett was born in germany and lane was born in england.

did i show anything else? >> nancy groce: no,i think that's it. so, most of the violins in yourcollection were made by people who were trained in america? >> david bromberg:it's hard to say. there is a proportion thatwere trained in america and there's a proportionthat were born in american and there's some that wereborn and trained in europe, but even in those you findsome interesting signs

that they were made in america. for example, the french makers,there are a number of oddities about the french makersin the united states. for one thing, thefrench makers didn't stay. the italians, the germans, thescandinavians, the english, they'd come hereand they would stay. the french couldn'tfind a decent baguette and they would go home. so, you have some very importantmakers in the 19th century

who came to the unitedstates from france. in the 19th century it madesense to get out of dodge, because the violin businesswas completely dominated by j. b. vuillaume in paris. so, and in england, usuallythey'd go from paris to london and london was dominatedby the hills, so some of them wouldcome to the united states. claude murmol [phonetic]came to the united states, paul byee [phonetic] cameto the united states.

i have a paul byee [phonetic] and a murmol [phonetic]in the collection. i did exhibit the collectionin paris at one point, it was much smaller then. they have a festival calledmusicora and at that time it was in the grande [inaudible] and the french makers werevery anxious to see the work of the french makers in america because the violins wouldbe wholly their work,

no assistants. they couldn't afford to bringtheir assistants all the way from france. so, the paul byee [phonetic]violin i have has a scroll that's very different thanthe paul byee's [phonetic] that were made inlondon or paris. >> nancy groce: and you think that was his workalone rather than-- ? >> david bromberg: i think

with the murmol [phonetic]the scroll is his work alone. with the byee [phonetic],he might have bought it from somebody, there's somethingvery naive about the scroll on the paul byee [phonetic]and he might have bought it from an american maker. that one's a puzzle. >> nancy groce: it's like amystery when you get a violin, especially when there'sno label on it or even if there is a label, to kindof suss out where it came from

and who might have made it. >> david bromberg: that'strue, and i was presented with a violin a few weeksago, gorgeous violin, and the color threw me. i'd never seen anamerican violin that color. >> nancy groce: you meanthe color of the varnish? >> david bromberg: the colorof the varnish, it just really, it distracted me and made itvery difficult for me to think of who made somethingof this color?

it's actually this color. i don't believe in polishing. but, i do believe in cleaning and when i cleaned this beforebringing it here i found a color that was pretty similar toone of that mystery violin. and there were some othercharacteristics that matched so i want to get the twotogether in the same room. >> nancy groce: let's talka little bit now about, what would you liketo see happen

with your americanviolin collection? >> david bromberg: i think it'svery important to have a place where you can verify theidentity of a violin. even american violins arebeing misrepresented today. i don't know of anybodywho is doing the kind of things that [inaudible] did. there may be people like that. but i do know that there arepeople who look at a violin and say, what was it, whatis it and what will it be?

>> nancy groce: sort of aresearch library of violins. >> david bromberg: exactly,because there are people in some of the auctions, you can findviolins with italian labels that were made onthis continent. >> nancy groce: so, there's noplace you can go now to get a, there's no museum or librarythat has a collection of violins that are sort ofencyclopedic of american makers? >> david bromberg: right. and to me the collectionis a document

and it's an important document. but, it's also, it alsoillustrates the quality of american violins. as i said, there was along-standing prejudice against things made here, ithad to be, if it was going to be good, it hadto be from europe. and i used to run into playerswho had american violins and, "this is my second violin,and you know, it sounds good." you know, they're, itwas like a talking dog.

it didn't matter whatit said, it was just-- . but, they do soundgood, you know, the best made ones arewonderful sounding things. as i told you with the becker's,you know, the preference for a becker cello overeverything except a montagnana and a strad, and there was a,the chief, the principal cellist of the chicago symphony was agentleman named frank miller, until he died some yearsago, who always played on a violin made in new yorkcity by a man named paul pilat.

and he could have had anything,could have had a strad, could have had a montagnana,but he loved the pilat. >> nancy groce: now, aresome of the instruments in your collection playable. >> david bromberg: yeah, quitea few of them are playable. everything i brought here is. >> nancy groce: so-- . >> david bromberg: so,they can be played, yeah, and not every singleone is set up.

there are quite a few that arenot, but you know, you can play on them and see what they do. >> nancy groce: so, wouldit be, let me start again. so, if your collection were tocome someplace like the library of congress, many of theinstruments could be used or played or madeto speak again. >> david bromberg:there's no reason why not. yeah, as i said, many ofthem can be played today, so that's kind of a given.

they could be loaned out, theycould be used in concerts, there are any number ofways they can be used. but for me, because of myown interest, the importance of them is to see,to have evidence. this was made by this person. >> nancy groce: areference library of violins? there's a violinauction in boston, the skinner violin auction, andthere's an unusual custom there. violin wholesalers takerooms right across the street

from the auction house andthe violin dealers who come to the auction, some of themare not attracted so much by the auction, but byvisiting the rooms of the people who are there to selltheir violins and i used to bring a room full of violins up when i was wholesalingviolins, as did many of mycolleagues, and there's a lot that goes on in those rooms. >> nancy groce: youmean trading or-- .

>> david bromberg: trading,buying, selling, identification. >> nancy groce: just passinginformation back and forth? i mean, it's a busman's holiday. >> nancy groce: fascinatingworld because there's just so much to know about violins. >> david bromberg:it's something, some people buy violinsover the internet, which has always struckme as buying a shoe with no size specified,off the internet

and a very fuzzyphoto, you know. >> nancy groce: do you have, in your collectionof 263, more or less. >> david bromberg: no,there's actually a couple more that i didn't put any specificvalue on, that are part of the collection that willcome here with any luck. >> nancy groce: i knowit's like asking you to name a favorite child,but do you have a couple that are your favorites?

>> david bromberg: thisis one of my favorites. >> nancy groce: and why,this is the carl george? >> david bromberg: thisis the carl george. i think it's a beautiful violin. i think he did a fantasticjob on this instrument and i don't knowwhat else to say. i think this is a great violin. >> nancy groce: itappeals to you? >> david bromberg:yeah, it speaks to me.

there are a few others. >> nancy groce: so, tellme about that violin. >> david bromberg: thisviolin was made by carl george for his sweetheart in 1904 andin that year, the photograph of paganini's cannon, that'swhat he called his violin, appeared in the chicagonewspaper and carl george copiedfrom the photograph. >> nancy groce: becausethe original cannon, which is a very famousviolin in genoa.

>> david bromberg: thecannon lives in genoa and very rarely has it everleft since paganini's death. >> nancy groce: whatmakes a violin beautiful? >> david bromberg: everythingabout the way it's made. i mean the first thing thatmost people see is the wood. the first thing the violinexperts see is the outline, the silhouette. and the precisionwith which it's made, the quality of the wood andthe varnish are important,

but also every aspect ofthe making, the arching, the cleanness of theexecution of the purfling. it's three strips of wood thatare inlaid around the violin. the purpose of thiswood, of the purfling, is to make the top weaker thereso that it if it's struck, the crack will go as faras the purfling and stop. for this reason, there aresome italian and english makers who didn't purfle the back, because the back ismuch stronger wood.

but, the truth is thatviolins look a little strange without it. >> nancy groce: andwhat about sound, can you determine how a violinwill sound by just looking at it, or do youhave to play it? >> david bromberg: a violinmaker should be able to tell if he can make aviolin sound good. if the violin is beautiful and the three-dimensionalarch is beautiful

and the varnish allows it tovibrate, then you should be able to make it, then it's yourresponsibility to make it sound. and i don't like alteringthe thicknesses of the top and the back, but thereare people who do that. i find that the importance ofthe ribs is sometimes ignored. >> nancy groce: theribs are the sides? >> david bromberg: the sides. how can you expect thetop and back to vibrate if the sides are rigid?

it can't. and so,i've had great success with occasionally bringingout the sound of an instrument by bringing the ribs tothe proper thickness. but, you know, you alsohave to do the right set up, you have to have theproper angle of the neck and elevation here and here. >> nancy groce: yeah, andthere's some inside parts to the violin right thatneed to be adjusted. >> david bromberg: well,there's a base bar along the,

that supports the baseand that's very important to the sound, andthe fit and position of the sound post is important. >> nancy groce: which isthe little post that goes to the back to the front. >> david bromberg: thewonderful and horrible things about violins is that everythingcounts, absolutely everything. this distance is extremelyimportant to the sound. >> nancy groce: between thebridge and the tailpiece.

the position of the tailgut is really important. how close togetherthey are or far apart. you can do marvelous thingsthat way and in our shop, we are very slow tomove a sound post because you can do an awful lot with the lightesttap on the bridge. moving the sound post isgenerally a bigger change and you don't needbig changes to make to a big change in the sound.

>> nancy groce: can youtalk to me for just a minute about american varnishes? >> david bromberg: well,varnish is a mysterious topic. every couple of years someonediscovers the original varnish and they publicizeit and therefore, their violins are the ones youshould buy, but the truth is, we have a lot ofdifferent varnish recipes and i think the originalvarnish has been rediscovered many times.

the problem is, nobodycan prove it. stradivarius, you know,all this nonsense is made about stradivarius' varnish,when it was exactly the same as the varnish that wasused by everyone else in his town, it had to be. stradivarius was a member ofthe instrument makers guild and the first lawof every guild is that you must patronizethe other guild members of the different guilds.

so, stradivarius by lawhad to buy his varnish from the apothecary as did everyother violin maker in town, and they bought the same thing. and one of the clues to thisfor me was the violinist of j. b. guadagnini who workedin four or five different cities and his varnish was differentin every city he went to. because the apothecaries usedslightly different recipes in every city andthere you have it. >> nancy groce: and whatabout american varnishes.

>> david bromberg: there'sa cornucopia of them. i think it's very difficult toidentify an instrument's country of origin by the varnish becausesome makers used a different formula of varnish onevery violin they made. so, the prescription forvarnish can be anything anywhere in the world. >> nancy groce: ok. thank you very much. oh, two questions, ok.

>> david, did you ornancy did you ask him where the american's wouldhave gotten their wood source? and david, do you haveany violins that you made? >> nancy groce: so, do youhave any violins that you made? >> david bromberg: doi have to admit it? >> nancy groce: oh, yeah sure. >> david bromberg: ihave a couple, yeah. >> nancy groce: anddo you play them? >> david bromberg: no.

there is one that i usedto play occasionally. ok, i have the, i don'tknow what to call it. i'm the only personi've every heard of who played carnegie hallwith his own violin three times, three different violins. so, there you go. >> nancy groce: so,all of them now can be, you can say wereplayed in carnegie hall. >> david bromberg: i guess so.

i don't know where any butthe first one is now, so. oh yeah, i know wheretwo of them are. the third one i have no idea. >> nancy groce: and are theypart of your collection? >> david bromberg: only one. >> nancy groce: and youconsider that your best violin? >> david bromberg: ohno, that's my first. >> nancy groce: let meask you another question. can you talk a little bit

about where the american violinmakers got their wood from? >> david bromberg: well, itdepends in what period of time. in the, there were violin makersearly in the 19th century, there was a man named johnantes in northern pennsylvania and there were others, andthey made their violins with locally precured woods. as america became wealthier,we imported more violins and there were morepeople making them and we also importedviolin making wood.

and as i mentioned, theshops through the 19th and early 20th century wouldsell violin makers tools and back wood, side wood,top wood and scrolls. but, in the 19th century,american wood became a fashion. during the 19th century,many violin makers in the united states, i'mthinking particularly in boston, became, and new englandin general, became really preoccupied with obtaining theoldest wood they could

and i have a violin i believe bycalvin baker, on which he wrote on the label that the wood was from a famous church dated17 something or other. now, modern, there'sa modern science of wood called dendrochronology. we can tell the age of the mostrecent ring by comparing it with [inaudible] samples, it'sa like a huge database of wood from the primary placesfrom where wood comes, and we've discovered thatthe great makes of cremona

in the 18th century veryrarely used wood older than five years old andalmost never older than 10. so, you know, thewhole preoccupation with old wood doesn'tseem to hold much water. >> nancy groce: so, the woodthat supposedly had been aged, doesn't make muchdifference in the sound? it might becauseage does something, but we don't know exactly whatand where and the great makers in cremona, being members ofthe guild, had to buy wood

from the wood cutters guild. i mean, there areall these stories about the stradivarius goinginto a forest at midnight and tapping the trees,complete nonsense. he had to buy itfrom the same people that every other instrumentmaker in his town bought it from and the only unique thing, these wood cutters wouldhave a special shed for instrument makingwood and the unique thing

about this shed isthat the floor of the shed wouldbe lattice work and they would throw oldvegetables underneath the wood so the wood would be fumedby the ammonia fumes, they would be ammoniafumed by the-- . >> nancy groce: byrotting vegetables? >> david bromberg: byrotting vegetables. how much this had to do with anything is really aserious question because none

of the wood that was exposed to these fumes would endup on the instrument. you'd have to carveaway all the outsides and so the fuming wouldhave to go pretty deep and whether it does ornot, i couldn't tell you. >> nancy groce: and whatabout using historic wood, like from an old churchor a famous tree or, do you have some examplesof that in your collection? >> david bromberg: yes, as isaid, i have at least one violin

where it's writteneither in the violin or on the label sometimes, youknow, the wood from this was from such and such a church,constructed in 17 something. wood, every few yearsor so, someone will come out with the secret ofstradivari and then reveal that the stradivari'sand the anandi's and the guarneri's aregoing to be useless soon because they've reached theend of their usefulness. you know, wood can onlylast so long and you know,

there are houses in europe builtin the 14th century out of wood that are still quite healthy, so i don't think that'seven close to true. >> nancy groce: ok, thankyou so much for coming in and sharing information aboutthese wonderful violins. >> david bromberg:thank you for having me. >> this has been a presentationof the library of congress. visit us at loc.gov.

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