A luthier ( ; AmE also ) is a craftsperson who builds or repairs
string instrument
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the s ...
s that have a neck and a sound box. The word "luthier" is originally
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
and comes from the French word for
lute. The term was originally used for makers of lutes, but it came to be used already in French for makers of most
bowed
Bowed string instruments are a subcategory of string instruments that are played by a bow rubbing the strings. The bow rubbing the string causes vibration which the instrument emits as sound.
Despite the numerous specialist studies devoted to th ...
and
plucked stringed instruments such as members of the
violin family
The violin family of musical instruments was developed in Italy in the 16th century. At the time the name of this family of instruments was viole da braccio which was used to distinguish them from the viol family (viole ''da gamba''). The stan ...
(including violas, cellos, and double basses) and
guitars. Luthiers, however, do not make harps or pianos; these require different skills and construction methods because their strings are secured to a frame.
The
craft
A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale pr ...
of luthiers, lutherie (rarely called "luthiery", but this often refers to stringed instruments other than those in the violin family), is commonly divided into the two main categories of makers of stringed instruments that are plucked or strummed and
makers of stringed instruments that are bowed. Since bowed instruments require a bow, the second category includes a subtype known as a
bow maker
A bow maker is a person who builds, repairs, and restores ancient or modern bows for bowed string instruments. These include violins, violas, cellos, double basses, viola d'amore, viola da gamba, etc.
The French word for bowmaker (bow maker) is ...
or archetier. Luthiers may also teach string-instrument making, either through
apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners to gain a ...
or formal classroom instruction.
Plucked strings
Lutes
Early producers of
lutes,
archlutes,
theorbos and
vihuelas include the
Tieffenbrucker family,
Martin Hoffmann and
Matteo Sellas.
Guitars
Two luthiers of the early 19th century connected with the development of the modern classical guitar are
Louis Panormo and
Georg Staufer.
Antonio Torres Jurado is credited with developing the form of
classical guitar still in use.
C.F. Martin
Christian Frederick Martin Sr. (german: Christian Friedrich Martin I.; January 31, 1796 – February 16, 1873) was a German-born American luthier who specialized in guitars and the founder of C. F. Martin & Company. He made the first guitar in ...
of Germany developed a form that evolved into the modern steel-string acoustic guitar.
The American luthier
Orville Gibson specialized in mandolins, and is credited with creating the
archtop guitar. The 20th-century American luthiers
John D'Angelico
John D'Angelico (1905 in Little Italy, Manhattan – September 1, 1964 in Manhattan) was a luthier from New York City, noted for his handmade archtop guitars and mandolins. He founded the D'Angelico Guitars company, where other notable luthier ...
and
Jimmy D'Aquisto made archtop guitars.
Lloyd Loar
Lloyd Allayre Loar (1886–1943) was an American musician, instrument designer and sound engineer. He is best known for his design work with the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co. Ltd. in the early 20th century, including the F-5 model mandolin an ...
worked briefly for the
Gibson Guitar Corporation making mandolins and guitars. His designs for a family of arch top instruments (mandolin, mandola, guitar, et cetera) are held in high esteem by today's luthiers, who seek to reproduce their sound. C. F. Martin apprenticed to Johann Georg Stauffer, a guitar maker in Vienna, Austria and
Martin & Co. was born, with the X bracing being developed in the 1850s. Martin & Co still produce acoustic guitars.
Paul Bigsby's innovation of the
tremolo arm for archtop and
electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...
s is still in use and may have influenced
Leo Fender
Clarence Leonidas Fender (August 10, 1909 – March 21, 1991) was an American inventor known for designing the Fender Stratocaster. He also founded the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation. In January 1965, he sold Fender to CBS, and later foun ...
's design for the
Stratocaster solid-body electric guitar, as well as the
Jaguar and
Jazzmaster. Concurrent with Fender's work, guitarist
Les Paul independently developed a solid-body electric guitar. These were the first fretted, solid-body electric guitars—though they were preceded by the cast
aluminum "
frying pan", a solid-body electric
lap steel guitar developed and eventually patented by
George Beauchamp, and built by
Adolph Rickenbacher.
A company founded by luthier Friedrich
Gretsch and continued by his son and grandson, Fred and Fred, Jr., originally made banjos, but now mainly produce electric guitars.
Bowed strings
Bowed instruments include:
cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G2, ...
,
crwth,
double bass
The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...
,
erhu,
fiddle,
hudok
The gudok (, russian: гудок), gudochek (, russian: гудочек) is an ancient Eastern Slavic string musical instrument, played with a bow. ,
morin khuur,
nyckelharpa,
hurdy-gurdy,
rabab,
rebec,
sarangi,
viol
The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitc ...
(
viola da gamba),
viola,
viola da braccio
Viola da braccio (from Italian "arm viola", plural ''viole da braccio'') is a term variously applied during the baroque period to instruments of the violin family, in distinction to the viola da gamba ("leg viola") and the viol family to which t ...
,
viola d'amore
The viola d'amore (; Italian for " viol of love") is a 7- or 6- stringed musical instrument with sympathetic strings used chiefly in the baroque period. It is played under the chin in the same manner as the violin.
Structure and sound
The ...
, and
violin
The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...
.
The purported inventor of the violin is
Andrea Amati. Amati was originally a lute maker, but turned to the new instrument form of violin in the mid-16th century. He was the progenitor of the Amati family of luthiers active in Cremona, Italy until the 18th century. Andrea Amati had two sons. His eldest was
Antonio Amati Antonio Amati ( – 1607) was an Italian luthier, active from 1560 to 1605.
Biography
Born in Cremona, Andrea Amati's son and Girolamo Amati's brother, Antonio worked first with his father, then with his brother, in the same workshop. With the ...
(''circa'' 1537–1607), and the younger,
Girolamo Amati
Girolamo Amati (1561–1630) was an Italian luthier, active from 1580 to 1630.
Biography
Born in Cremona, Girolamo was the youngest son of Andrea Amati and brother of Antonio Amati. Girolamo worked, probably from 1575, with his brother, in his ...
(''circa'' 1561–1630). Girolamo is better known as Hieronymus, and together with his brother, produced many violins with labels inside the instrument reading "A&H". Antonio died having no known offspring, but Hieronymus became a father. His son Nicolò (1596–1684) was himself a master luthier who had several apprentices of note, including
Antonio Stradivari (probably), Andrea
Guarneri, Bartolomeo Pasta, Jacob Railich, Giovanni Battista Rogeri, Matthias
Klotz, and possibly
Jacob Stainer
Jacob Stainer (–1683) was the earliest and best known Austrian and Germanic luthier. His violins were sought after by famous 17th- and 18th-century musicians and composers including Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and .
Stainer ...
and
Francesco Rugeri. It is even possible
Bartolomeo Cristofori, later inventor of the piano, apprenticed under him (although census data does not support this, which paints this as a possible myth).
Gasparo Duiffopruggar of
Füssen, Germany, was once incorrectly credited as the inventor of the violin. He was likely a maker, but no documentation survives, and no instruments survive that experts unequivocally know are his.
Gasparo da Salò
Gasparo da Salò (20 May 154214 April 1609) is the name given to Gasparo Bertolotti, one of the earliest violin makers and an expert double bass player. Around 80 of his instruments are known to have survived to the present day: violins (smal ...
of
Brescia
Brescia (, locally ; lmo, link=no, label= Lombard, Brèsa ; lat, Brixia; vec, Bressa) is a city and '' comune'' in the region of Lombardy, Northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, a few kilometers from the lakes Garda and Iseo ...
(Italy) was another early luthier of the violin family. About 80 of his instruments survive, and around 100 documents that relate to his work. He was also a double bass player and son and nephew of two violin players: Francesco and Agosti, respectively.
Da Salò made many instruments and exported to France and Spain, and probably to England. He had at least five apprentices: his son Francesco, a helper named Battista, Alexander of Marsiglia, Giacomo Lafranchini and
Giovanni Paolo Maggini
Giovanni Paolo Maggini (c. 1580 - c. 1630), was a luthier born in Botticino (Brescia), Italy. Maggini was a pupil of the most important violin maker of the Brescian school, Gasparo da Salò.
Maggini's early instruments are now considered very de ...
. Maggini inherited da Salò's business in Brescia.
Valentino Siani Valentino Siani (c.1595–1672) was an Italian violinmaker who worked in Brescia and Florence.
He was a pupil of Giovanni Paolo Maggini in Brescia (c.1610–1620) before he moved to Florence in c.1620 where he worked c.1620–1670.
Sia ...
worked with Maggini. In 1620, Maggini moved to Florence.
Luthiers born in the mid-17th century include
Giovanni Grancino,
Vincenzo Rugeri,
Carlo Giuseppe Testore
Carlo Giuseppe Testore (c. 1665–1738) was an Italian luthier, who worked in his later life in Milan.
Biography
Testore was born in Novara. A student of Giovanni Grancino, he went to Milan in 1687 and set up his workshop at the Sign of the Eag ...
, and his sons
Carlo Antonio Testore and
Paolo Antonio Testore
Paolo Antonio Testore (born 1700 - died 1767) was a Milanese luthier. He was born in Milan, the second son of Carlo Giuseppe Testore, also a noted luthier, and worked out of the family's workshop under the "Sign of the Eagle" on Contrada Larga in ...
, all from
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...
. From
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
the luthiers
Matteo Goffriller,
Domenico Montagnana,
Sanctus Seraphin Sanctus Seraphin (Udine 1699 – Venice 1776), also known as Santo Serafin, was a successful luthier (violin maker), working in Venice. He closed his ''bottega'' (workshop) in 1741 but he continued to work in the bottega of Giorgio Serafin, his neph ...
, and
Carlo Annibale Tononi
Carlo Annibale Tononi (1675–1730) was a luthier who trained and worked with his father in the Tononi family workshop in Bologna, Italy until his father, Johannes Tononi, died in 1713.
After his father's death, Tononi moved to the more important ...
were principals in the Venetian school of violin making (although the latter began his career in
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different na ...
).
Carlo Bergonzi (luthier) purchased Antonio Stradivari's shop a few years after the master's death.
David Tecchler
David Tecchler, sometimes also written Techler, Tekler, Deckler, Dechler, Decler, TecclerRené Vannes, ''Dictionnaire universel des luthiers'', Bruxelles : Les Amis de la musique, 1951, p. 356 or Teckler, (1666–1748) was a German luthier, best k ...
, who was born in Austria, later worked in both Venice and
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus ( legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
.
Luthiers from the early 18th century include
Nicolò Gagliano Nicolò Gagliano (active. c. 1730s – 1787 in Naples), although there is some discussion about the exact dates) (also known as ''Nicolo'', ''Nicola'' or ''Nicolaus'' Gagliano - also sometimes known as ''Nicolò I'', to differentiate him from Nico ...
of
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adm ...
, Italy,
Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi (c. 1714 – 1787) was an Italian master luthier who was active in the 18th century during the golden age of stringed instrument making.
Landolfi is considered among the half dozen finest stringed instrument makers in hist ...
of Milan, and
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. Reprint with new introduction by Stewart Pol ...
, who roamed throughout Italy during his lifetime. From Austria originally,
Leopold Widhalm later established himself in
Nürnberg, Germany.
The early 19th-century luthiers of the
Mirecourt school of violin making in France were the
Vuillaume family,
Charles Jean Baptiste Collin-Mezin
Charles Jean Baptiste Collin-Mezin (1841–1923) was a French maker of violins, violas, cellos, basses and bows. He was an Officier de l'Académie des Beaux-Arts and won gold and silver medals at the Paris Exhibitions in 1878, 1889, and 1900.
He ...
, and Collin-Mezin's son,
Charles Collin-Mezin, Jr., Honore Derazey, Nicolas Lupot, Charles Macoutel,
Charles Mennégand
Charles Mennégand (19 June 1822 – 9 January 1885) was a French luthier and a repairer of violins, violas, and cellos. He is considered a superb 19th century French maker of cellos and is consistently counted among the handful of great French m ...
, and Pierre Silvestre.
Nicola Utili (also known as Nicola da Castel Bolognese) (Ravenna, Italy, 1888–1962), beside traditional lute works, experimented the making of "pear-shaped" violins.
The Jérôme-Thibouville-Lamy firm started making wind instruments around 1730 at
La Couture-Boussey, then moved to Mirecourt around 1760 and started making violins, guitars, mandolins, and musical accessories.
See also
*
List of luthiers
*
Experimental luthier
Experimental luthiers are luthiers who take part in alternative stringed instrument manufacturing (such as the guitar or violin) or create original string instruments altogether.
Plucked instruments
In the experimental rock and free jazz scenes, ...
*
:Lutherie reference books
*
Paracho de Verduzco
Paracho de Verduzco (often called Paracho) is a small city located in Michoacán, Mexico. Located about west of the state capital Morelia, it serves as the municipal seat for the surrounding municipality of Paracho. It has a population of 37,4 ...
References
Further reading
* ''Historical Lute Construction'' by Robert Lundberg, Guild of American Luthiers (2002)
* ''The Complete Luthier's Library. A Useful International Critical Bibliography for the Maker and the Connoisseur of Stringed and Plucked Instruments''. Bologna, Florenus Edizioni 1990.
* ''Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms''. R.M. Mottola 2020.
Guild of American LuthiersGuitar MuseumClassical Guitar Museum, (UK)
Luthier InterviewsGuitarbench.com archive of Luthier Interviews.
The Consortium of Violinmakers "Antonio Stradivari" CREMONALuthiers ForumA large online lutherie community. Educational.
Contemporary violin makers from China and Taiwan* '' Il Liutaio – Origine e costruzione del violino e degli strumenti ad arco moderni'', by Angeloni Domenico, legatura tela edit. fig., pp. XXVI-558 con 176 figure e 33 tavole, Milano, HOEPLI, 1923
* ''The secrets of Stradivari'' by Simone F. Sacconi, Libreria del Convegno in Cremona, Cremona, 1972
Simone Fernando Sacconi
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Lutherie
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