Cremonese violin maker

Cremone (n) ser violin maker refers to various violin-making families who built string instruments in the northern Italian city of Cremona from around 1550 to around 1750 .

The sound quality of the instruments they build are still legendary today. The families are:

• Amati
• Bergonzi
• Guarneri
• Ruggieri
• Stradivarius

After around 1750 the last members of these dynasties had died and the art of building high-quality instruments rapidly deteriorated. The professional world is still looking for the “secret” of good sound. It is noticeable that practically all violin makers from this time and from this place are among the best in the world, although their craftsmanship is slightly different. This leads to the conclusion that a technical knowledge that has been lost today must have existed. This knowledge could not be “rediscovered” without a doubt until today.

The most famous members of this group were the Amati in the 16th and 17th centuries and the Guarneri and Stradivari in the 17th and 18th centuries .

It is by no means certain that the excellent sound quality and playability of these instruments is a lost secret. Instruments by excellent violin makers of today also have a comparable sound quality and playability, as various comparisons with modern top instruments played behind a curtain of virtuosos show.

Over the centuries, most of the Cremonese violins have been modernized (longer fingerboards, longer scale lengths, longer bass bars ; the tops of some instruments in particular have been made thinner in order to achieve more volume in the lower registers - not always with success).