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From the ARCHIVE
A reader takes issue with luthier and prolific contributor Arthur Broadley, and his views on the work of northern maker Walter H. Mayson which he made known in the previous edition
SIR,––The long and diffuse letter of your correspondent, Mr. Arthur Broadley, in this month’sSTRAD is a fair example of the infallibility of these learned gentlemen whose names, or assumed names, so often appear in your correspondence columns, and who lay down the law on questions of fiddles and fiddle-makers, past and present, with a delightfully serene confidence in their own wisdom and knowledge.
I am not greatly interested in the question Broadley has raised as to the thicknesses of Strad or other great fiddles; and judging from the scanty replies of which Mr. Broadley complains, it has been pretty well left to himself to answer his own questions, which he appears to have been prepared to do beforehand.
Neither am I concerned about the mysterious secrets that are in the exclusive possession of Mr. B. and three others, and which, like the Cremona varnish and other sweet old chestnuts, appear to be on the verge of re-discovery by a fourth. These awful secrets may, for aught I care, remain profoundly buried in the great minds that have discovered them or invented them.
But when Mr. Broadley leaves these higher regions and descends to the cold, dry domain of facts, I think he ought to be a little more circumspect in his statements. His revelations concerning the thicknesses of Strad violins may neither decrease nor diminish the fame of that great maker, but reckless statements about living makers are apt to cause mischief quite out of proportion to their importance; and one such statement is that in which he asserts that Mayson of Manchester was a pupil of Hill or Chanot. I have the pleasure of knowing Mr. Mayson personally, and I have it on his own authority that he has never been the pupil of anyone. He owes his present position entirely to his own efforts. The articles from his pen now appearing in THE STRAD show him to be a man of genius who refuses to be trammelled by the rule of thumb methods much in vogue among modern English and French schools; his violins speak for themselves.
Without wishing to enter upon the thickness controversy, I may say that Mr. Mayson has assured me that he has made several violins having a thickness of about one-tenth of an inch all over, which rank among his finest works.
I am, etc., CUMBRIAN
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