RESPLENDENT HARMONY

The 1733 ‘Salabue, Martzy’ is one of the finest instruments by Carlo Bergonzi in existence. Jason Price examines the violin and looks at its travels over the past 300 years

In the 1730s Cremona was home to three master violin makers: Antonio Stradivari, Guarneri ‘del Gesù’ and Carlo Bergonzi. The Stradivari workshop was by then world-famous and ‘del Gesù’ was the third generation in a family of successful makers, but Bergonzi was the first in his family to take up the craft. He had no famous parentage or pedigree, and yet in around 1730 he burst on to the scene with his sensational, masterpiece violins.

Historically, Bergonzi was assumed to have been a student of Giuseppe Guarneri ‘filius Andreae’ but most experts now agree that he probably learnt the craft from Vincenzo Rugeri. While the influence of Guarneri is evident, Bergonzi’s social ties to the Rugeri family and the structural, technical elements of his construction methods suggest a relationship forged outside of the Amati–Guarneri tradition.

The back of the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ is made in one piece of beautiful, fully flamed, imported maple. We see the same wood in a number of other Bergonzi violins from this period including the ‘Earl of Falmouth’, the ‘Kreisler’, the ‘Knoop’ and the ‘Bennett, Reiffenberg, Brooks’. Interestingly, most Stradivari instruments from this period are made with either plain or domestic maple. Where did Bergonzi get his exceptionally fancy wood and, more importantly, how did he have a better selection than Stradivari?

The ‘Salabue, Martzy’ was built on the internal form known as MS1060, currently preserved in Cremona’s Museo del Violino. This form shares many similarities with the Stradivari moulds, also in the museum’s collection, including the system of ten anchor posts to affix the corner-blocks and ribs. The dimensions and proportions vary slightly between the Bergonzi and Stradivari forms, but the most significant difference is that Bergonzi’s upper corners are set higher and the shape of Bergonzi’s upper bouts is more of an inverted letter ‘D’, whereas Stradivari’s upper bouts resemble an upside-down Omega symbol (Ω). The shape of Bergonzi’s upper bouts does, in fact, more closely resemble the outline of Giuseppe Guarneri ‘filius Andreae’.

The ‘Salabue, Martzy’, the ‘Earl of Falmouth’ and the ‘Bennett, Reiffenberg, Brooks’, all from c.1732–36

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY TARISIO

The f-holes of the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ are bold and distinctive. In concept, they derive from a Stradivari model but the stems are more angled and the wings are broader. The upper eyes are 42mm apart and the stop length is 197mm.

The ribs are high by Cremonese standards, measuring 32mm at the upper blocks and nearly 33mm at the lower. The ribs are meticulously bent and formed, leading to perfectly parallel sides and symmetrical outlines of the front and back plates. There are traces of toothed-plane blade marks in the C-bouts. The internal work is constructed in willow. The linings are tall and precisely trimmed. The upper and lower bout linings abut the blocks, and the C-bout linings are set in with a shallow angled cut.

THE F-HOLES OF THE ‘SALABUE, MARTZY’ ARE BOLD AND DISTINCTIVE

The ears of the scroll emerge as a perfect cylinder as if the head were pierced by a pencil

The head of the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ is precisely carved but is somewhat underwhelming in contrast to the boldness of the rest of the instrument. Perhaps this is due in part to the plainness of the wood that the maker selected. The influence of Vincenzo Rugeri is detectable in the model of the head, particularly in the formation of the final turns of the volute, which lack the ‘comma’ usually seen in the transition into the eye. Viewed from the front, the ears of the scroll emerge as a perfect cylinder as if the head were pierced by a pencil. The width of the scroll is 41.5mm but appears even wider owing to the narrowness of the second turn.

As with other Bergonzi violins, the locating pins visible at the upper and lower edges of the back just inside the purfling are made of square dowels, not round. This produces a proverbial ‘square peg in a round hole’, as the corners of the pin distort the circular hole into a square.

The purfling is made of poplar. The staining in the ‘black’ strips has fled somewhat, especially in the areas under the hand and shoulder which are subjected to moisture from playing. The corner mitres and the cut of the purfling channel are by no means precise but they don’t distract from a harmonious whole.

PROVENANCE

The ‘Salabue, Martzy’ may well be the best-preserved Bergonzi violin in existence. Without a single crack to the front or back, and with plentiful and untouched, dazzling red varnish, this remarkable Bergonzi has inspired collectors and players alike for nearly three centuries.

The first to fall in thrall to the violin was none other than the instrument connoisseur and collector Count Cozio di Salabue. In Cozio’s notes, known as the Carteggio, he remarked that this violin was ‘intact’ and called it ‘my largest and most beautiful Bergonzi’. Cozio acquired the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ in 1776 from Bergonzi’s son-in-law, Giovanni Battista Cabrinetti, and kept it for at least four decades until selling it to the collector and dealer Luigi Tarisio.

Tarisio was good at both buying and selling, but perhaps his greatest talent was the art of myth-making. Although he sold many great instruments during his lifetime, he also curated the expectation that he owned other, even better instruments – like the ‘Messiah’ – that might, possibly, come up for sale later. By the time he died in 1854, his collection had become legendary. Within days of Tarisio’s death, the Parisian dealer Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume came to Milan and bought the entirety of his collection for 80,000 francs. Among the instruments that Vuillaume acquired were the 1742 ‘Alard’ Guarneri, the 1716 ‘Messiah’ Stradivari and the ‘Salabue, Martzy’.

THE INFLUENCE OF VINCENZO RUGERI IS DETECTABLE IN THE HEAD, PARTICULARLY IN THE FORMATION OF THE FINAL TURNS OF THE VOLUTE

The interior of the violin, showing the top plate with bass-bar attached, and the black plate with Bergonzi’s original label in situ

Five years later, Vuillaume sold the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ to the German violinist Hugo Wehrle, a student of Vuillaume’s son-inlaw, Jean-Delphin Alard. From Wehrle the violin passed to Julius Schloming, a violinist from Hamburg who was a concertmaster and the second violinist in Florian Zajic’s string quartet; and in 1904 the violin was sold to Baron Alfred von Liebig through the Viennese violin maker and dealer Carl Hermann Voigt. Baron Liebig had made his fortune in sugar manufacturing and served as the German Consul General in Vienna. In addition to the ‘Salabue, Martzy,’ the Baron owned two 1704 Stradivari violins (the ‘Glennie’ and the ‘Liebig, Schneiderhan’) and the c.1727 ‘Lenau’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’.

Cozio’s inventory of 21 June 1778 describing the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ as ‘large model, one-piece back, mint condition’ (Forma grande, fondo intiero… intatto)

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY TARISIO

ARTHUR HILL PLACED THE VIOLIN AMONG THE ‘FOUR FINEST EXAMPLES OF BERGONZI’S WORK KNOWN TO US’

The English dealers W.E. Hill & Sons knew of the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ from when it was still in the possession of Wehrle and they had, in fact, tried to acquire it in around 1890. Arthur Hill called it ‘one of the finest Bergonzis in existence’ and placed it among the ‘four finest examples of Bergonzi’s work known to us’. The Hills also provide an interesting clue as to the transfer of the violin after Baron Liebig died in 1930. In 1934, Arthur Hill writes that ‘[the American dealer and collector] Nathan Posner has returned from the Continent where he does not appear to have had much success in as much as the “Wehrle” Bergonzi… has slipped through his fingers’.

In 1936, the violin was sold in Zurich by Hug & Co to Daniel Tschudi, an amateur violinist and the heir to a publishing house in Glarus, Switzerland. Although just 28 years old when he bought this instrument, Tschudi had already developed a keen eye and an appreciation for fine instruments. In 1942 he published a small monograph on his prized Bergonzi.

In 1949 Tschudi invited the Hungarian violinist Johanna Martzy to give a concert in Glarus through the local concert and performance society of which Tschudi was an organiser. Tschudi must have been impressed by Martzy’s playing because shortly after the concert he asked her if she wanted to borrow his treasured Bergonzi. Martzy was born in 1924 in Transylvania. As a small child she had played for the violinist Jenő Hubay in Budapest and later entered the Budapest Academy of Music. In 1943 she debuted with the Budapest Philharmonic under Willem Mengelberg but fled Hungary after the Nazi occupation a year later. In 1947 Martzy won the top prize in the Geneva Competition and from then her career took off. In the 1950s she toured widely through Europe and debuted in America in 1957, playing with the New York Philharmonic first in November and then again in December the following year.

The Zajic Quartet in Hamburg in c.1890. Left–right Michael Löwenberg, Florian Zajic, Julius Schloming and Albert Gowa. With its deep ribs and seemingly full varnish, could this be the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ pictured with Schloming?

Johanna Martzy examining a score in preparation for a recording

Martzy’s performances and recordings attracted critical acclaim and yet her reputation as a leading violinist never fully took root. This was partly the result of the war, which interrupted her career at its formative stage, but also due to her own retreat from concertising after the birth of her daughter Sabina in 1960. In an article in The American Scholar, Sudip Bose makes the case that Martzy was ‘caught between eras’, and that the transition to stereophonic recording made her earlier monophonic recordings unpopular even as she was at the height of her career. The Canadian pianist Glenn Gould called Martzy ‘the most underrated of the great violinists of our age’.

In recent years, Martzy’s recordings have achieved cult status among audiophiles. Ironically, her monophonic recordings now sell for huge sums online. After Martzy’s death, her daughter Sabina sold the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ through the dealer Pierre Gerber to a Swiss foundation. In 1992, the violin was sold to a collector in Japan. In 2011 it was sold to an important North American collector and in 2022 it was sold through Tarisio by private sale.

The ‘Salabue, Martzy’ is featured in several important publications including Christopher Reuning’s excellent catalogue to the 2010 exhibition Carlo Bergonzi: A Cremonese Master Unveiled; a monograph written by Eric Blot in 2003; the monograph published by Daniel Tschudi; and in Walter Hamma’s 1964 Meister Italienischer Geigenbaukunst.

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Subscribers to The Strad receive a folded copy of the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ poster. To order a rolled copy from The Strad Shop, please visit bit.ly/3WQAfWV

AN UNUSUAL LABEL

The ‘Salabue, Martzy’ is one of only a dozen or so Bergonzi violins that has an original label. Close examination reveals several unconventional aspects of the label’s format and typography. Typically, violin labels begin with the maker’s name: for example, ‘Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis…’ or ‘Joseph Guarnerius fecit Cremonae...’ All the Cremonese families before Bergonzi had composed their labels this way, and in fact few makers anywhere broke with this convention until the 20th century. But for some reason Bergonzi started his labels with the date: ‘Anno 17__ Carlo Bergonzi fece in Cremona.’

The text of his label is also notably short. Being the first violin maker of his family he had no reason to name his father, brother, uncle or grandfather as the second and third generations of the Amati and Guarneri families did. Still, he could have used this opportunity to assert his pedigree and bolster his bonafides, perhaps by telling us something about his training. It was common practice in the 17th and 18th centuries that firstgeneration makers named their teacher on their labels. Andrea Guarneri, G.B. Rogeri, Bartolomeo Pasta and Giacomo Gennaro all identified themselves as alumni of Nicolò Amati. Why didn’t Bergonzi tell us who his teacher was? The first Bergonzi labels appear in instruments made when the maker was already in his late forties. Perhaps by this point he was well established and didn’t need to name-check his master as a younger maker would do. Bergonzi turned 50 in the year the ‘Salabue, Martzy’ was made: he was creating masterpieces that rivalled the best makers in town and had no reason to tell us who his teacher was.

Another interesting aspect of this typography is that Bergonzi was the first Cremonese maker to use a label with a decorative border. What was his inspiration? Perhaps he had seen the labels of his Venetian contemporaries Carlo Tononi and Pietro Guarneri, who both started using a label with a similar ornamented border a decade or so earlier. Or perhaps his inspiration was more local. Original labels from Vincenzo Rugeri are rare and yet I am curious as to why so many facsimile labels of Bergonzi’s presumed teacher have a decorative border not so dissimilar to that of Bergonzi. Did Rugeri also use a label with a decorative border but for whatever reason, no originals of this format have survived?

The two letters inserted into the border are too conspicuous to be unintentional

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY TARISIO

The original label of the ‘Salabue, Martzy’. The syntax is unusual: there is no mention of Bergonzi’s training or background, and details of the typography raise interesting questions

There are two known variants of Bergonzi’s labels: one he used before 1730 and the other thereafter. The text and typography are the same, but on his second label, which is the type used in the ‘Salabue, Martzy’, Bergonzi inserted two letters between the decorative elements of the label’s border: an S and an I (or an S and a lower-case L). The letters are too conspicuous to be unintentional. Their inclusion must have been deliberate, but what is the significance?

The other two master makers in Cremona at this time utilised prominent symbols on their labels: Stradivari featured a circular insignia of a cross flanked by his initials “(A†S)” and Guarneri had recently debuted his own new label design in around 1731, which included a cross printed above the letters ‘IHS’. Guarneri’s monogram has inspired many theories – was it a religious devotional element (Iesus Hominum Salvator meaning ‘Jesus, Saviour of Mankind’)? Historians currently believe it was most likely a reference to a sign or emblem at the location of Guarneri’s new workshop.

Bergonzi’s new label with the two letters in the border appeared at about the same time as Guarneri’s IHS monogram. Might these two letters have served a similar purpose or significance to Guarneri’s ‘IHS’?

Perhaps ‘I S’ stood for an abbreviated ‘Iesus [Hominum] Salvator’. Or did ‘S L’ stand for San Luca, the parish in which Bergonzi lived and in whose social fraternity, the Fabbrica di San Luca, he was an active member? I discussed this subject on several occasions with my friend and colleague Carlo Chiesa, the violin maker, researcher and author in Milan. He suggestedthatperhapsthelettersstandfor‘Societas Iesu’, the Latin name for the order of Jesuits. In the 18th century, as in today, when a name was followed by the letters ‘S.I.’ (or ‘S.J.’) this indicated that the person was a member of the Jesuits. Was Bergonzi alluding to a Jesuit connection?

However, it is also possible that these letters — an ‘S’ and an ‘L’ (or ‘I’) — could be just random typography, fillers added to make space between the decorations on a craftsman’s label.