THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 Gift of 
 
 Mrs. Lawrence C. Lockley 
 
 MUSIC 
 LIBRARY
 
 Be jfifciculis pu6cula. 
 Opusculum vii. 
 
 WORSHIPFUL GUILD OF VIOLIN-MAKERS 
 OF MARKNEUKIRCHEN, 
 
 aift anb flDarianna IbcroiWHUcn.
 
 >e ffi&iculis puscula. 
 
 he Ancestry of the Yio 
 Hodges against Chanot 
 }. Libri Desiderati 
 
 4. Fidiculana ^^^9 
 
 5. Libri Hestderati... 
 
 6. Do B.'riot and Malibran
 
 DC JftWculte puscula. 
 pusculum vn. 
 
 THE 
 
 anb Grafts Pooh 
 
 WORSHIPFUL GUILD OF VIOLIN-MAKERS 
 OF MARKNEUKIRCHEN, 
 
 Prom tj?e ^eap 1677 to tf?e ^eap 1772, 
 
 EXTRACTED AND ANALYSED BY 
 
 Dr. IRicbarfc 
 
 TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY 
 
 ant> (TDarianna Iberon-Bllcn. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 I'l'HI .ISIIKll KOK THK At IIIOR BV II. S. MCIIOI.S ASP CO, 
 
 ;. SOHO syfAKK, W. 
 
 ,894. 
 
 PRICK ONK SHIIJ.INt;.
 
 This Edition is limited to 100 copies. 
 
 This is No.
 
 Music 
 Library 
 
 ML 
 
 Befctcation. 
 
 'i'<> H>r, 3osepb Soacbim. 
 
 Dear DR. JOACHIM, 
 
 During the fifty years that England has been, as you 
 felicitously expressed it, your ''second home," our countrymen 
 have learnt what Germany has done for the art of Violin- 
 playing. It is, therefore, with a keen sense of the fitness of 
 things that we address to you these observations upon the 
 services rendered to the art of Violin-making by your country- 
 men. 
 
 We are. most sincerely yours. 
 
 j^vai'> anfc HDartanna 
 
 Xcnfcon,
 
 J. W. \V.\KKHAM, PRIXTKR, 4, BEDFORD TERRACE, KKSSINUTOX, W. 
 1894.
 
 THE ARTS AND CRAFTS BOOK 
 
 OF THE 
 
 WORSHIPFUL GUILD OF VIOLIN-MAKERS 
 
 OF 
 
 MARKNEUKIRCHEN, 
 
 From the year 1677 to the year 1772. 
 
 EXTRACTKD AXD ANALYSED BY 
 
 DR. RICHARD PETONG. 
 
 TRANSLATED AM) EDITED BY 
 
 EDWARD AND MARIANNA HERON-ALLEN. 
 
 This guild which celebrated its 200th anni- 
 versary in the year 1877, undoubtedly laid the 
 corner stone of that branch of industry to 
 which Markneukirchen owes its world-wide 
 renown, its distinctive character, and its pre- 
 sent prosperity. Among its archives may be 
 found a book bearing the above title, tilt- 
 contents of which might, from many points of 
 view, be incentive to a fresh departure in the 
 manufacture of musical instruments in this 
 locality, and might suggest a wider scope for 
 the operations of this branch of industry so 
 long established in the Vogtland. 
 
 How, in the early days of the history of 
 this industry, a mere handful of independent 
 masters and workmen applied themselves to 
 the manufacture of violins and 'cellos, and
 
 how this artistic handicraft (its practitioners 
 goaded to emulation by the superior models 
 brought from foreign lands by masters of the 
 art) became gradually extended to the manu- 
 facture of many other kinds of musical 
 instruments is now well known. Especially 
 did this become apparent when the manu- 
 facture of harps attained such proportions 
 as to call for the formation of an indepen- 
 dently organised guild. 
 
 We find in the " Grasseltschen Chronique " 
 a work so scarce as to be almost unknown 
 -that, according to contemporary tradition, 
 the population engaged in the manufacture 
 of musical instruments at the commencement 
 of the 17th century appears to have been 
 composed of the descendants of a small 
 number of Bohemian and other immigrants, 
 who had left their distant fatherlands in 
 order that, in a new country, they might 
 enjoy liberty to profess and practise their 
 Evangelical religion, and had settled in 
 Markneukirchen, bringing with them the 
 arts and crafts of their native lands. To this 
 nucleus were added in all probability other 
 families from neighbouring localities, but the 
 number of parent, or head families, was com- 
 paratively only slightly increased. In the 
 year 1627 they numbered probably no more 
 than 06, this being the total number of houses 
 occupied by fully enfranchised citizens at that 
 date, the privilege of free citizenship being 
 conferred by the High Court of Justice 
 through the Kurf first Johann of Saxony. 
 
 We may take it as certain that at that 
 time there were already a certain number of 
 brothers and other relatives of some of the
 
 principal inhabitants, who lived apart from 
 them in houses of their own and on terms of 
 equality with them as regards their rights of 
 citizenship, and the number of less well-to- 
 do inhabitants (those not possessing the 
 same municipal privileges) must have been 
 inconsiderable. Those colonists (if we may 
 so call them) who joined the community 
 later on, stepped into the places of such 
 freemen as had died, or had continued their 
 wanderings farther. Hardly one-third, how- 
 ever, of the inhabitants possessing full rights 
 of citizenship can have devoted themselves to 
 the craft of violin-making, and the houses 
 that are still engaged in the art and are flourish- 
 ing at the present day can, as a rule, trace 
 their history back over a hundred years. The 
 following complete chronological record is a 
 .key to the list of the original masters of the 
 art, as well as to those subsequently admitted. 
 The book begins with the words : "In the 
 name of the Holy Trinity, Amen ! " and pro- 
 ceeds to give the 1 2 following names as those 
 of the exiles from Graslitz who, as " Fun- 
 datores " or Pioneers settled in Markneu- 
 kirchen under the direction and inspiration 
 of God. In order to facilitate a rapid survey 
 the register number of each family is added 
 in Roman numerals. 
 
 1. I. Christian Keichel. 
 
 2. I. Caspar Schonfelder. 
 
 3. I. Johann Caspar Reichel. 
 
 4. III. Johann Georg Poller. 
 
 5. IV. Caspar Hopf from Klingenthal. 
 
 6. II. Johann Schonfelder. 
 
 7. V. Johann Gottfried Bopel. 
 
 8. VI. Johann Adam KurzendorSer.
 
 6 
 
 9. VII. Johann Adam Bopel. 
 
 10. VIII. Johann Georg Schonfeld. 
 
 11. IX. David Eudest. 
 
 12. VIII. Simon Schonfeld (at that time- 
 the last master received into the Guild). 
 
 Of these, the two Eeichels, Hans Georg 
 Poller, Caspar Schonfelder, and Caspar Hopf 
 officiated as head masters of the Guild until 
 1690, during which period they admitted the 
 following masters and skilled workmen : 
 
 13. X. Andreas Hutel, an exile from 
 Graslitz, who had migrated thence to Mark- 
 neukirchen, 1678. New citizens, on being 
 admitted to the Guild, enjoyed the privilege 
 of paying only half the municipal tax, viz., 
 eight florins, whereas the entire tax, amount- 
 ing to sixteen florins, was exacted from 
 citizens who were not members of the Guild. 
 
 14. XI. Hans Georg Dorfel, an exile 
 from Schoneck, admitted in 1678. 
 
 15. XII. Nikol Kolb, born at Schoneck, 
 admitted in 1678. 
 
 16. XIII. Hans George Ludwig, from 
 Klingenthal, 1680. 
 
 17. XIV. Hans Friedrich Dorffler, from 
 Klingenthal, 1680. 
 
 18. I. Georg Reichel, son of Christian 
 Reichel, 1682. 
 
 19. XV. Wolff Nikol Lippold, violin 
 maker, from Klingenthal, 1683. 
 
 20. Sebastian Dormer, from Klingenthal, 
 1688. 
 
 21. XVI. Simon Pohlmann, burger anil 
 " Defensioner," of Markneukirchen, 1696. 
 
 Until the year 1704, when Johann Caspar 
 Eeichel is described as head master of the 
 Guild, the names of the heads of the Guild
 
 are wanting on the admittance protocols ; 
 there were admitted meanwhile as master- 
 workmen : 
 
 22. Christian Reichel, son of Johanu 
 Caspar (3), and 
 
 23. Johann Schonfeld, son of Simon the 
 journeyman (12), both admitted on May 3rd, 
 1697. 
 
 24. Johann Reichel, son of the deceased 
 Christian (I.), 1677. 
 
 25. Johann George Dorffler, son of the 
 deceased Sebastian (20), 1677. 
 
 26. XVII. Adam Braun, apprentice to a 
 violin maker of Markneukircben, but not son 
 of a master, and therefore liable to a tax of 
 9 florins on admission to mastership, 3fl. 9gr. 
 for the two years spent as a journeyman, and 
 a further 3fl. to be paid to the exchequer of 
 the Guild ; whereas at the admission of 
 sons and masters a half- tax of five florins 
 was deemed sufficient, and though all mem- 
 bers of the Guild had to contribute to the 
 expenses of the banquet held on the admis- 
 sion of each new master-workman, in the 
 early days of the Guild, personal circum- 
 stances were taken into consideration, and a 
 reduced fee accepted in lieu of the full contri- 
 bution. 
 
 27. XVIII. Adam Vogt, 1699. 
 
 28. Johann Michael Hopf, 1702, Xov.25th. 
 
 29. Georg Caspar Hopf, 1702, Nov. 25th. 
 
 30. XIX. Johann Dengel, who married 
 the \vidow of Johann Friedrich DorfHer (17). 
 
 31. Conrad Adam Schonfelder, a master's 
 son, 1704. 
 
 32. Hans Georg Kurzendorffer (see 8), 
 1704, July 14th.
 
 8 
 
 33. Hans Martin Schonfelder, son of 
 Master Caspar (2\ 1704, Nov. 29th. Johann 
 Eeichel going bail for the five gulden due on 
 taking up the mastership. 
 
 34. Christian Friedrich Dorffel, 1704, on 
 the same day. 
 
 35. XX. Christoph Adam Eichter, violin- 
 maker's apprentice, not a master's son, 1708. 
 
 36. Johann Caspar Reichel (junior), son 
 of Johann Caspar (3), 1708. 
 
 37. Johann Reichel (junior), eldest son of 
 master Georg Reichel, 1708. 
 
 At the last last three admissions, Johann 
 Caspar Reichel having been killed by a fur- 
 nace explosion in 1706, Caspar Hopf Jig^res 
 as Headmaster. Afterwards, from 1709 Xill 
 
 1712, Georg Richel and Simon and Caspar 
 Schonfelder occupied the post. In addition 
 to the above were admitted : 
 
 38. XXI. Johann Adam Lorenz, violin- 
 maker's apprentice, son of a citizen, who had 
 married a master's daughter, admitted in 
 1709. 
 
 39. XXII. Johann Klemin, a worthy 
 citizen, who had learned lathe-turning from 
 his father, admitted in 1710. 
 
 40. Johann Georg Dorffler, son of Sebas- 
 tian (20), 1710. 
 
 41. Georg Adam Reichel, son of the 
 deceased Head Master Johann Caspar, 1712. 
 
 42. XXIII. Johann Gutter, 1712. 
 
 43. XXIV. Elias Pfretschner, who had 
 to pay 21 thaler for the rights of mastership, 
 
 1713, when Georg Ludwig (16) was Head 
 Master. 
 
 44. Peter Reichel, a master's son, who 
 only paid 6 thaler as a half contribution to> 
 the cost of the admission banquet, 1713.
 
 45. Johann Friedrick Popel, youngest son 
 of Johann Gottfried Popel, 1715. 
 
 If the later way of spelling Popel with a B 
 be incorrect, we must reckon one family 
 less the same might be said of Schonfeld 
 and " Schcnfelder." 
 
 The spelling of " Eeichel" is also uncer- 
 tain and variable. 
 
 46. Johann Adam Pfretschner, son of 
 Elias (43), deceased, 1716. 
 
 At that time, and also in 1729, the two 
 cousins, Georg and Christian Eeichel, were 
 Head Masters ; Christian Eeichel, is alluded 
 to by that title as late as 1732, and with 
 him Simon Schonfeld, Johann Reichel, and 
 Conrad Adam Schonfelder. 
 
 In due course the following attained (8) 
 the rights of mastership. 
 
 47. XXV. Johann Adam Jaeger, who, 
 being an orphan, could not pay the full 
 expenses of the admission banquet, and 
 therefore only paid 16 thaler in consideration 
 of his poverty. 
 
 48 Johann Georg Klemm, son of Johann 
 The Turner (39), as Peg-turner, who paid 
 9 thaler in satisfaction of the full dues, and 
 the Master Banquet, and served his appren- 
 ticeship like the others, 1719. 
 
 49. Johann Georg Eeichel, son of Georg 
 Eeichel, the Head Master, 1722. 
 
 50. XXVI. Johann Caspar Hicker, 
 violin-maker's apprentice, who paid 23 
 thaler for the Mastership Banquet, 9 thaler 
 as compensation for his Diploma masterpieco 
 being unfinished, and 3 thaler for his fees 
 as a journeyman, 1722. 
 
 51. XXVII. Georg Carl Kretschmann, 
 violin-maker's apprentice, 1723.
 
 10 
 
 52. XXVIII. Wolff Conrad Kessler, 
 violin-maker's apprentice, 1723. 
 
 53. XXIX. Johann Michael Seidel , 1723. 
 
 54. XXX. Johann Adam Glier, 1723. 
 This family was settled in Markneukirchen 
 
 :;is early as 1")60; one Andreas Glier (who 
 was schoolmaster in 1587) is described as a 
 native (Stadtkind). 
 
 55. Johann Eeichel, son of the Master 
 Johann Keichel the elder, admitted in 1724, 
 whose dues to the amount of 6 thaler and 18 
 groschen were immediately paid by his father. 
 
 56. XXXI. Johann Andreas Hamm, son 
 of the Klingenthal tailor and lawyer, Andreas 
 Hamm, who learnt the art of violin-making 
 in 1724. As he could not provide the 
 Mastership Banquet as a citizen, he paid for 
 everything 35 thaler, which was the sum 
 exacted from strangers. 
 
 As the violin-making industry in Klingen- 
 thal complained of the heavy fees payable to 
 the Guild, which threatened to prevent the 
 .appearance of any more postulants for the 
 estate of master- workman, these fees were 
 lowered to 6 thaler, which was the sum pay- 
 able by the sons of native master-workmen. 
 But as Hamm again solicited admittance in 
 the following year, wishing to pursue his art 
 in Markneukirchen instead of in Klingenthal, 
 the dues were lowered to 34 thaler in con- 
 sideration of the six already paid. (The 
 meaning is here hopelessly obscure. E.H.-A.) 
 
 57. XXXII. Johann Georg Hamig, 
 violin-maker's apprentice, 1725, paying 16 
 thaler in dues. 
 
 58. Georg Simon Schonfelder, a master's 
 *on, paying six thaler in dues, 1727.
 
 11 
 
 Within the first 50 years of its existence 
 only 46 men joined the Guild as new masters. 
 As probably few attained the rights of Master- 
 ship at 20 years of age, and the founders of 
 houses were mostly of riper years, we may 
 surmise that the latter had died in the mean- 
 time, and of the 46 that stepped into then- 
 places, at least one third were blessed with a 
 fair share of temporal riches. The number 
 of journeymen was therefore probably between 
 20 and 30, and as each journeyman had the 
 right to employ an apprentice, and as many 
 .also took in students, we may reckon the 
 number of persons engaged in the manufac- 
 ture of violins at somewhere between 60 
 and 70. 
 
 Among these there were but 30 families of 
 violin-makers represented, if one identifies 
 the variously-spelt names of Pupel and 
 Schonfelder. Of the house of Eeichel there 
 were ten master- workmen, of that of Schon- 
 felder eight, from the families of 1'opcl, Hopf, 
 and DorrHer respectively, three each, so that 
 the members of these five families alone 
 nearly equalled the remaining 25 in numerical 
 strength. Of the 14 families mentioned in 
 the municipal registers of the year 1627 we 
 only find the names of 13 ran n, Glier, Pollman, 
 .and Jager, in addition to the before-men- 
 tioned family names. We must not lose 
 sight of the fact that in the early history of 
 the Guild, the addition of new families of 
 makers to the industries originally founded by 
 immigrants was very slow. But we should 
 not lay too much stress on this, lest it should 
 be thought that the new comers and the, 
 older and respected citizens held aloof from
 
 1-2 
 
 each other, for it is an undoubted fact that 
 the original 10 exiled families took especial 
 pains to live on terms of close unity with the 
 inhabitants of Markneukirchen. 
 
 Were not all in. this laiid, where the very 
 cradle of the Reformation had stood, and in 
 a town whose church had been consecrated 
 by the Evangelical services held therein by 
 the great Reformer himself, bound together 
 by the ties of an identical religious belief ? 
 
 This meant a great deal more in those 
 times, when State and society, and all the 
 vital interests of a mixed population depended 
 on the security and freedom of religious 
 practice, than one is accustomed to realize 
 in the present century of overwhelming 
 enlightenment, of religious half-heartedness 
 and of individual free-thought, if one may so 
 express it. 
 
 We shall be probably correct in surmising 
 that a long time before the formation of the 
 Guild, violins were made in Markneukirchen 
 by the founders of the Guild themselves and 
 by their immediate ancestors, and that those 
 seven original families (or at least the more 
 important among them) had been settled in 
 Markneukirchen a hundred years before, and 
 that this lapse of time had amply sufficed to 
 convert them from exiles into full-blown 
 citizens. 
 
 The first charter of this Guild of violin - 
 makers was granted and confirmed by the 
 Herzog Moritz of Sachsen on March 6th, 
 1617. We must remember that the persecu- 
 tion of the Evangelists in Bohemia did not 
 begin in the 17th century, but in the 
 days of Kaiser Rudolf II. (the pupil and
 
 13 
 
 patron of the Jesuits), whose reign began in 
 the year 1576, and Bohemia only succeeded 
 in the year 1669 in obtaining the Eoyal edict 
 granting freedom to the practice of Evangeli- 
 cal religious belief, which freedom, as history 
 shows us, did not last long. 
 
 A second no less weighty reason for our 
 belief in an earlier commencement of the 
 pursuit of violin-making in, and the unsever- 
 able affiliation of, the violin-maker farnilies- 
 to our city, lies in the conditions necessarily 
 precedent to the pursuit of the craft, and in 
 the habits of life of that period itself. The 
 possession of a house, and at the same time 
 the acquisition of rights of citizenship laid at 
 that time upon the owners of such privileges 
 the necessarily primary and frugal ground- 
 work of a thriving industry. The violin- 
 making handicraft was distinguished from 
 simple handiwork (whose practitioners 
 delivered their wares on the spot for imme- 
 diate use, and, as a rule had not far to go for 
 materials) not only by the difficulty of dispos- 
 ing of its manufactures, but also by the great 
 care and far-seeing calculations which come 
 into requisition iu the procuring of seasoned 
 woods, of strings, and other materials neces- 
 sary to the completion of the instruments. 
 
 Such an art could only yield a certain (or 
 indeed any) profit to those who had connec- 
 tions with districts and countries where the 
 same art was already flourishing, and who 
 knew the markets for the obtaining of its 
 materials, and the sale of its products. The 
 requirements of family life demanded, even of 
 the skilled, that other means of livelihood 
 such as beer-brewing, cattle-breeding, build-
 
 14 
 
 ing, inn-keeping, and such other trades as 
 the locality offered, should not be neglected. 
 
 But the living and work-rooms in the 
 master violin-maker's house, not devoted to 
 his mere trade, were entirely at his disposal, 
 us they chanced to suit him for the ware- 
 housing of materials and perfected instru- 
 ments, and for the composition of varnish. 
 
 Taking, therefore, these circumstances into 
 consideration, the non-ownership of a house 
 by a postulant for the mastership appears to 
 have been regarded as a social stigma and 
 disqualification for membership of the guild 
 in many of the recorded transactions and 
 deliberations of the assembled masters. 
 
 The banquet given on his admission by 
 every new master, at which all the existing 
 master- workmen and their wives were in the 
 habit of being present, could not take place 
 in the apartments of a new master who was 
 not a householder. A person so situated had 
 to give a considerable money compensation 
 in place of the customary banquet, in spite 
 of which compensation his position in the 
 guild remained an inferior one. Thus w T e 
 find that the two brothers (or cousins), 
 Reichel and Caspar Schonfelder, possessed 
 each of them his house, and were duly- 
 qualified burghers of Markneukirchen. 
 
 ft is recorded of Johann Eeichel (Christian 
 Reichel's son), who, soon after his father's 
 death, was admitted master (in the year 1097), 
 that he took a house and proposed to set 
 up housekeeping with his mother. Johann 
 Caspar Reichel was next door neighbour to 
 Caspar Schonfelder, who, besides being a 
 master violin-maker, was also a baker by 
 trade.
 
 15 
 
 Though Caspar Reichel's son Christian, 
 and his cousin Johanu, were admitted masters 
 in 1697, on the same day. the two must have 
 pursued their trades in separate houses, as 
 it would have been highly unseemly for two r 
 or, worse still, for three masters of one 
 family, to live with their families in one 
 house, where in addition room had also to be 
 found for a widow of the family. One Eeichel 
 house was situated at the epoch of the 
 foundation of the Guild, in the middle of the 
 market place, where it stood until the year 
 1840, while the other, so far as the available 
 sources of information throw light upon the 
 subject, was beyond it in the market place,, 
 next to the Burgher Schonfelder's house. As 
 far as the families of the remaining five 
 founders are concerned there is not sufficient 
 reference in the Book of the Guild to prove 
 their possession of burgher houses, yet 
 there is little doubt that such proof could be 
 found elsewhere. 
 
 In such cases at a later period, as make no 
 specific mention of the want of a house- 
 holder's qualification on the admission of 
 any person to mastership, we may accept 
 without hesitation the inference that the 
 admitted master was a burgher or house- 
 holder. 
 
 The designation of "Exiles from (iras- 
 litz " must not convey the idea that these 
 exiles had only just settled down, bought 
 burgher houses, and immediately started the 
 Guild of Violin-makers in Markneukirchen. 
 Just as in Prussia the French refugees, and in 
 the next generation the Salzburghers, were 
 harboured by the Hohenzollerns (ever the
 
 J6 
 
 protectors of Protestantism) and retained 
 the designation of " Refugees " amid their 
 new surroundings; so in Marknetikirchen the 
 children and grandchildren of the first 
 exiles continued to be known as such. 
 
 The second half of the first century of 
 the history of violin-making in Markneukir- 
 chen, which, alas ! the Book of the Guild 
 only allows us to follow up to the year 1772, 
 shows unnn'stakeable signs of soaring ambi- 
 tion, of a great consolidation of the trade and 
 of its statutory ordinances, and a greater 
 influx of new masters, although the increase 
 in the number of established families living 
 by the art was comparatively small. 
 
 It has been already shown by the list 
 which we have given that of the non-exiles 
 who had settled there in the 16th century 
 the old families Brann, Gotz (Goetzel), Pohl- 
 mann, and Glier, had been taken in; we need 
 only add besides that the exile-family Papel 
 (Topel) is casually mentioned in Markneu- 
 kirchen in 1632. 
 
 The following are the masterships conferred 
 between the years 1727 and 1772 to which 
 the numbers denoting new families are 
 .added in parenthesis: 
 
 1. Friedrich Popel, 1727, who was ap- 
 prenticed to his father. 
 
 2. Johann Adam Schonfelder, son of the 
 deceased Burgher and violin-maker, Johann 
 Schonfelder, 1729. 
 
 3. (I.) Johann Christoph Schetelich, 
 who married a master's daughter, 1729. 
 
 4. (II.) Hans Christian Uebel, who 
 probably did likewise, since he, like the last- 
 named master, was admitted on payment of
 
 17 
 
 the half tax of 6 thaler and 18 groschen, 
 1729. 
 
 5. Georg Heinrich Kurzendorfer, 1729. 
 
 6. Johann Elias Pfretschner, who paid 
 the dues claimed from a master's son, and 
 was therefore probably son of Johann Adam 
 Pfretschner, who was admitted in 1716. 
 
 7. Adam Voigt, the youngest son of a 
 master (see No. 27 in the former list). 
 
 8. Johann Georg Lorenz (see No. 38 in 
 the former list) 
 
 9. (III.) Christian Friedrich Meinel was 
 admitted on payment of 8 thaler, exclusive 
 of other dues, because he married a master's 
 daughter, 1730. The family is alluded to as 
 domiciled in Markneukirchen in 1632. 
 
 10. (IV.) Hans Adam Wurlitzer, who 
 " intended " to marry a master's daughter, 
 and therefore was admitted on the condition 
 of a possible subsequent raising of the dues 
 in case he should not fulfil his intention, 
 1732. 
 
 11. Johann Adam Kurzendorfer, for pay- 
 ment of whose dues Master Christoph Goxe, 
 citizen and clothmaker, went bail, 1732. 
 
 On this admission Conrad Adam Schon- 
 felder and Christianus Eeichel figure as head- 
 masters, and from henceforward it became 
 the rule that only the holder of the post of 
 "Umpire" (adjudicator?) who was deputed 
 by the council, should sign the protocol of 
 admission. 
 
 This post through many generations was 
 in the hands of the family Kretzschmar. The 
 first to sign himself " Umpire " was Cornelius 
 Kretzschmar, in the year 1710. Afterwards, 
 from the year 1729 till 1772, the post was
 
 18 
 
 tilled by Job ami and Johann Gottfried 
 Kret/schmar, probably father and son, the 
 latter of whom was still living in 1779, after 
 the peace of Teschen. 
 
 The father seems to have died in 1760, 
 between the 29th May, on which date he 
 signed the protocol as Umpire for the lust 
 time, and December 2nd, when we find Johann 
 Gottfried Kretzschrnar acting in that 
 capacity. 
 
 In tiie year 1782 two new masters were 
 created in addition to the above-mentioned, 
 namely : 
 
 12. Simon Voigt, a master's son, and 
 
 13. (V.) Gottfried Pilz, late musketeer, 
 who taught himself the art of violin-making, 
 and who, in consideration of whose service in 
 the Kurfiirstlich Horse, was admitted on easy 
 terms. His admission was contemporary 
 with that of Simon Pohlmann, a citizen and 
 ' Defeusioner " of the year 1696. Mean- 
 while, in the year 1734, we find admitted to 
 Mastership : 
 
 14. Johann Adam Eeichel, second son of 
 the head-master, Johann Reichel, the elder. 
 
 15. (VI.) Cark Wilhelm Heber, of whose 
 origin nothing further is mentioned. 
 
 16. Johann Conrad Reichel, third son of 
 Johann Reichel, the elder, 1737. 
 
 17. Christian Reichel, son of Master 
 Johann Caspar Reichel, 1738. 
 
 18. Hans Adam Kretzschmann, born at 
 Wohlhausen, 1738. He paid 30 thaler and 
 gave besides a tun of beer. As the fees of 
 admission to Masterhood for a stranger were 
 generally about 1- thalers, the cost of the 
 Master Banquet, without the beer, was pro-
 
 19 
 
 bably valued at 18 thalers. Whether Hans 
 Adam Kretzschmann was a relation of 
 Georg Karl Kretzschmann (see fcrmer list) 
 must remain uncertain, but it is not im- 
 probable. 
 
 19. Johann Adam Pfretschner, a master's 
 son, 1738. 
 
 20. Hans Georg Eeichel. fourth son of 
 master Johann Eeichel the elder, 1738. 
 
 21. Hans Georg Kretzschmann, who 
 " intended" to marry the youngest daughter 
 of Hans Martin Schonfelder, citizen and 
 violin-maker, 1739. 
 
 22. Johann Georg Reichel, eldest son of 
 Master Peter Eeichel, citizen and violin - 
 maker, 1740. A master, Johann Blech- 
 schmidt, went bail for the payment of his 
 admission fees. 
 
 23. (VII.) Hans Georg Martin, citizen 
 and violin-maker's apprentice, 1742. He 
 paid 22 thaler 5 groschen. 
 
 24. Georg Adam Gutter, youngest son of 
 the head-master, Johann Glitter, 1743. On his 
 admission Johann Caspar Eeichel and Conrad 
 Adam Schonfelder again sign as head-masters. 
 
 25. Johann Adam Klemm, citizen, son of 
 Johann Georg Klemm, 1743. He, as well as 
 his father, undertook peg-turning as a pro- 
 bationary post, and when his turn came filled 
 the place of junior master of the Guild. 
 
 26. Johann Friedrich Eeichel, youngest 
 son of master Peter Eeichel, citizen and 
 violin-maker, 1745. 
 
 27. Johann Wilhelm Gotzel, violin- 
 maker's apprentice, from Wernitzgriin, son 
 of master Johann Conrad Gotzel, violin- 
 maker and inhabitant of Wernitzgrun, 1747.
 
 28. VIII. GotthiJf Fischer.violin maker's 
 Apprentice and a military man, in considera- 
 tion of whose sta?iding as a soldier, the taxes 
 were reduced, 1748. 
 
 29. Johann Adam Gutter, son of the 
 Head-Master, Johann Glitter, like the fore- 
 going engaged in the Militia, and who 
 -obtained the consent of his Captain, 3748. 
 
 30. IX. Johann Christoph Schemmerling, 
 .a violin maker's apprentice, born in Dorpers- 
 dorf, who married the eldest daughter of the 
 Master Gottfried Piltzen, 1748. 
 
 31. X. Georg Schuster, citizen and violin 
 maker's apprentice, at whose admission the 
 greatest caution was observed, for we find 
 that the three petitions for admission, pre- 
 sented to the Guild since June 27th, 1748, 
 were remitted for consideration from quarter 
 to quarter, and full admission only followed 
 on payment of 25 thaler, on the 10th April, 
 
 1749. 
 
 32 34. Johann Christian Hamig (Ham- 
 mig), Johann Gottfried Schetelig, and 
 .Johann Gottfried Reichel, all three sons of 
 Masters hitherto working as apprentices, 
 1751. 
 
 35. Johann Gottfried . Kretschmann, 
 citizen and journeyman, son of Master 
 Georg Carl Kretschmann, 1751. On this 
 admission for the first time was required a 
 vow to live " in accordance with the all- 
 merciful mandate for the abolition of abuses 
 among the workmen." 
 
 36 38. Johann Freidrich Voigt, Johann 
 Gottferid Pfretschner, and Johann Adam 
 Fucker, violin maker's apprentices from above- 
 mentioned families, 1751.
 
 21 
 
 39. Carl Friedrich Harnm, son of the 
 citizen and violin maker, Johann Andreas 
 
 Hamm , 1 75 1 . 
 
 40. XI. Adam Rossbach, violin maker's 
 apprentice, son of master Adam Eossbach, 
 citizen and saw-maker, 1752. He paid 29 
 thaler down for the master banquet and 
 other dues. 
 
 41 43. Johann Georg Glier, Johann 
 Friedrich Glier, and Johann Adam Fischer, 
 violin makers' apprentices, sons of families 
 above-mentioned, 1752. Johann Friedrich 
 Glier paid 31 thaler because he was not a 
 master's son, and Johann Adam Fischer ^9 
 thaler for the master banquet, whereas 
 Johann Georg Glier only paid 8 thaler 6 
 groschen, being a master's son. 
 
 4446. Johann Georg Ficker (XII.), 
 Carl Friedrich Liebel and Hans Georg Piltz, 
 three violin makers' apprentices, 1752. The 
 Liebel family was already mentioned in the 
 roll of enfranchisement of 1627, in which 
 Johann Liebel, is alluded to as council friend 
 (? Raths-freund), 1752. 
 
 47. Johann Michel Seydel, the younger 
 son of Johann Michael Seidel (sic), 1753. 
 
 48. Christian Gottfried Schonfelder, son 
 of Georg Simon Sclionfelder, citizen and 
 violin-maker, 1755. 
 
 49 and 50. Johann Christian Ficker and 
 Friedrich Wilhelm Meinel. the former, son 
 of the Head-master Johann Caspar Ficker, 
 the latter, son of the master, Christian Fried- 
 rich Meinel, 1755. 
 
 51. Johann Georg Kaessler, son of a 
 citizen and violin-maker, 1756.
 
 22 
 
 52 and 53. XIII. Johann Gottfried Lippold' 
 and Curt Friedrich Kretschmar, violin-makers' 
 apprentices, 1759. The latter was descended 
 from the Umpire family, and in consideration 
 of his father and grandfather having for a 
 long time occupied the post of Umpire (or 
 adjudicator) to the Guild, he was charged 
 smaller admission fees than other master's 
 sons. 
 
 5460. In the year 1760, on May 28th, 
 no less than seven violin-makers' apprentices 
 were given the rights of mastership at a single 
 meeting. These are : Johann Christian 
 Voigt, Johann Conrad Reichel, Johann Georg 
 Lippoldt, Johann Carl Pfretschner, Georg 
 Adam Voigt, Johann Adam Martin and 
 Johann Georg Kurzendorfer, all members of 
 families already mentioned. Johann Adam 
 Martin (not a son of the above-named Martin, 
 23) paid as a stranger 24 thaler for the right 
 of mastership, whereas the other six, being 
 masters' sons, only paid 8 thaler 6 groschen 
 each. 
 
 61. The admission of Johann Adam 
 Glier at the same assembly was a little moi e 
 complicated. He was introduced into the 
 Guild by his father, Johann Adam Glier, who 
 also paid the first dues for him. He paid 
 5 groschen for fees and 1 groschen for duty. 
 The formal admission was only completed 
 on December 2nd of the same year on 
 further payment of 7 thaler 12 groschen tax 
 for the right of mastership (exclusive of the 
 fees already paid). It was decided at the 
 same meeting that in future all master's 
 sons should be subjected to the same rules of 
 admission and treated in the same manner as 
 Johann Adam Glier.
 
 23 
 
 62. Johann Georg Fucker was admitted 
 .to the rights of mastership on May 29th, 
 
 1760, and gavo of his own free will half a 
 barrel of beer to the Guild of Violinmakers. 
 Fucker had been enlisted as a recruit during 
 the seven years' war, when, by order of the 
 King of Prussia and Kurfiirst of Branden- 
 ,bury (i.e., Frederick the Great), recruits had 
 been levied for the 10th Saxon Infantry 
 Regiment. As he had found an opportunity 
 
 of leaving the Prussian service and of entering 
 the Saxon Service, he begged for the rights 
 of mastership to be conferred on him. The 
 full taxes were not claimed, probably on 
 account of his being a soldier. 
 
 63. XI V. Johann Adam Niirnberger, 
 
 1761. He learnt the violin-making trade in 
 Klingenthal from Johann Christian Eubel, 
 won the rights of citizenship at Markneu- 
 kirchen, and had half a mind to marry the 
 youngest daughter of master Johann Eeichel 
 the elder. On this consideration the fees on 
 admission to mastership were reduced to 10 
 thaler 16 groschen. In the event of his 
 neither marrying the lady under considera- 
 tion, nor any other master's daughter, the 
 sum of 31 thaler was assessed upon him as a 
 deferred payment. 
 
 64. Hans Georg Gcetzel, from Wernitz- 
 ; griin, son of Hans Conrad Goetzel, member 
 of this Guild and an inhabitant of Wernitz- 
 griin, 17H1. 
 
 65. Hans Georg Eeichel, son of Tohann 
 'Conrad Eeichel (see No. 16), and 
 
 66. Hans Georg Kretschmann (son of 
 Hans Adam Kretschmann), both violin - 
 anakers' apprentices, 1762. They were
 
 admitted on immediate payment of the 
 mastership fees, and both gave besides 
 2 groschen 6 pf. towards the funds of the 
 masters' Treasury. Keichel 12 groschen 
 in addition towards the Exchequer of the 
 apprentices. 
 
 67. Johann Friedrich Eeichel, son of a 
 deceased Johann Keichel, violin-maker's 
 apprentice, was admitted as a member to this 
 Guild, after compliance with the prescribed 
 formalities, in 1762, in public session of the 
 assembled Worshipful Guild of Violin-makers. 
 He paid, besides the usual master taxes, 
 12 groschen to the masters' Exchequer and to 
 the apprentices for pipes and tobacco. Be 
 was simultaneously admitted to participate 
 in all the benefits which were enjoyed by 
 other masters of the craft. 
 
 The records in the Chronicle concerning 
 this admission are characteristic of the 
 changed, or at least wavering, nature of the 
 violin-maker's calling. These 67 masters 
 admitted since 1727 had developed, together 
 with a few dating from the earlier times, into- 
 a numerically important community during 
 the past generation. The manufacture could 
 now be carried on on a larger scale on account 
 of the newer directions in which musical 
 taste hal progressed and the important 
 development of concert music. But from 
 these very causes the artistic aspirations of 
 many of the makers became dulled into a 
 commercial activity and the appreciation of 
 the meaning of their art pursued as an art 
 became more and more a thing of the past. 
 
 The descendants of fathers and grand- 
 fathers, who had done splendid work under-
 
 very difficult circumstances, felt satisfied with 
 inferior work, restricted as they were in their 
 efforts by the rules of a mere trades-union. 
 By degrees they cut themselves off more and 
 more from all connection with all matters 
 foreign to the objects of the Guild, and the 
 marrying of a master's daughter became the 
 only means open to a so-called "stranger" 
 of obtaining admission to this great com- 
 munity, conspicuous for its wealth and influ- 
 ence in matters municipal. It may be 
 taken as a sign of the greater importance 
 attached to household tenure that single 
 members of the violin-makers' families 
 devoted themselves to University studies, 
 whilst outsiders, such as the two subsequently 
 admitted pastors, Schetelig and the sons of 
 the magistrates Kretschmar and Siebel, sought 
 admission to the rights of mastership in the 
 Guild. As early as in 1682 there had been 
 some talk of a confirmation of the Guild by 
 charter, but indications of official incorpora- 
 tion are first found in a proctoeol of the 
 year 1729, immediately following on one 
 bearing only the theretofore usual designa- 
 tion of the Guild's work as a " worshipful " 
 art. 
 
 The seven years' war was ended, and the 
 arts of peace, especially music, nourished 
 once more, and this renaissance brought with 
 it higher efiorcs of mechanical skill, and a 
 greater appreciation of the value of more 
 delicate work, in the fabrication of musical 
 instruments. This is noticeable already in the 
 admission of masters in the following years. 
 
 68 and 69. In the year 1764 the violin- 
 maker's apprentices, Johann Gottfried Hamm
 
 26 
 
 and Johann Gottlob Ficker, were admitted 
 masters in the Corporation of this worshipful 
 art as before, and were only called upon to 
 promise to conform to the rules of the com- 
 munity and the " Beneficent Mandates relat- 
 ing to the Suppression of Abuses among the 
 Working Classes." 
 
 These mandates were first mentioned in 
 the year 1745. As their title denotes, they 
 were by no means restricted to the violin- 
 maker's Guild alone, and indeed were only 
 recommended to its notice because according 
 to the artistic comprehension of that time, 
 violin-makers were classed with the common 
 workmen. 
 
 Notwithstanding these circumstances, 
 however, it was an epoch in which the 
 authority of the Corporation, with its regu- 
 lated ritual, its control of the market, and 
 command of remunerative work (with which 
 control not only rights and privileges but 
 also burdens and duties were combined), 
 must have been highly beneficial in its 
 workings, not only to the members of the 
 Corporation and all who were in close 
 relation with it, such as the apprentices, 
 students, and journeymen, but also to all who 
 stood without its immediate influence, but 
 whose interests were in many ways con- 
 nected with the Corporation. 
 
 What would have become of a branch of 
 industry such as the art and craft of violin- 
 making, in which the sale of the manufac- 
 tured article depended entirely upon the 
 absolute confidence which the buyer had 
 in the gradually-acquired experience, and 
 trade secrets of the maker, a confidence
 
 27 
 
 which any superficial treatment or insuffi- 
 ciently clever imitation was calculated to 
 shape ? 
 
 It being well understood that all within 
 the privileged Guild knew how to distinguish 
 between generally artistic and common work, 
 and that the Guild only offered as first-class 
 work, instruments which they knew to have 
 been wrought with the greatest care and 
 skill, combined with the use of best materials 
 only, not only were the interests of the 
 Guild served, but also of those of the 
 .buyers. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the manufac- 
 ture of musical instruments was in a position 
 to flourish and make strides. Had free trade, 
 as it has existed among us, for some decennia 
 past, existed at the iime in which we write 
 it would undoubtedly have rendered such a 
 branch of industry as that of the manufac- 
 ture of stringed instruments impossible as a 
 means of livelihood. Whilst the good com- 
 radeship existing in the Guild made it easier 
 for beginners in the art to obtain a trust 
 worthy education in the requirements of 
 their calling, it certainly made the acquisi- 
 tion of the art cheaper, simpler, and more 
 likely to be tried with success by the isolated 
 member than if he had gone his own solitary 
 way independently. Apart, however, from 
 the few delicate nuances and super- 
 ficial fads of construction such as are 
 and must be customary in the highly- 
 developed art of violin - making [as it 
 was practised in Cremona] they had to keep 
 on the whole to the fundamentary rules of 
 construction laid down by the great inventor,
 
 28 
 
 Tieffenbrugger (sic.), whc flourished in the 
 year 1510. 
 
 From the beginning they were probably 
 obliged to use for the better class of instru- 
 ments, old and seasoned maple wood from 
 Bavaria, the Tyrol, and other parts near to 
 the Italian frontier, and, without doubt, 
 they were also early in possession of valuable 
 Italian instruments, which, once, recognised 
 and used as models, were accessible to all the 
 artists and craftsmen in the town. 
 
 In all probability, a few apprentices early 
 found their way, during their wanderings, to- 
 Italy and other centres of instrument manu- 
 facture, and thus new ideas and extended 
 knowledge reached the workmen engaged in 
 the home industry. The two Fickers men- 
 tioned by Friedrich Niederheitmann in his 
 " Charakteristik der Italienischen Geigen- 
 bauer"(Lcipzig, 1877), point back to the first of 
 the family of that name, a family still inhabit- 
 ing Markneukirchen, and which, ao we have 
 already seen, has produced several masters. 
 
 Niederheitmann points out that the violins 
 made by Johann Ficker in the years between 
 1719 and 1738 in Cremona have nothing in 
 common with the peculiarities of the great 
 Italian masters, of whose school Ficker was 
 reckoned a member, but rather display an 
 original technical intelligence. This traditional 
 spirit of original art makes itself felt to this 
 clay in the studios of Markneukirchen, where 
 violins of genuine German make are con- 
 structed, and sold at high prices, while in the 
 other factories are turned out mere imitations- 
 of the most celebrated Italian masters, such as- 
 Amati, Stradivarius, Maggini, and Guarnerius,
 
 It appears, from the records found in the 
 registers of the Guild, that, on the admission of 
 the later masters, the rule of the Charter of the 
 Guild requiring that the applicant should have 
 passed two years as a journeyman was 
 relaxed, an 3 higher fees were demanded for 
 the Guild Treasury in lieu of service. In 
 this matter violin-making stood on a different 
 footing to other trades, and such a dispensa- 
 tion was not only unproductive of harm to the 
 art, but often, especially in the case of masters' 
 sons, demonstrably advantageous. Sons of 
 families whose head members undertook trade 
 journeys, had always the opportunity thus 
 afforded them of learning new things whereby 
 they could enhance and improve the status 
 of their handicraft. It was certainly different 
 where new comers were concerned, men who 
 had no connection with the older families 
 and who were obliged to content themselves 
 with their own imitations of existing models 
 and the amount of manual dexterity which 
 their instructors had taught them. In such 
 a case it was necessary to obtain the assent 
 of the Head Authority of the State (the 
 Landgrave) before the candidate to master- 
 ship could forego the years of probation as a 
 journeyman. An instance of this happened 
 at the admission of Adam Braun in 1697, but 
 with regard to the enforcement of the two 
 years' probation they seem, later on, to have 
 exercised great indulgence. In 1748 a return 
 was made to the strict observance of the arti- 
 cles of the Guild's charter as far as the 
 formalities of admission were concerned. 
 Hitherto it had been frequently regarded as 
 an unnecessary loss of time to let the three
 
 30 
 
 prescribed taxes be paid at different times. 
 As these were all paid at once it was 
 possible to admit an apprentice to mastership 
 within the limits of one day. After the first 
 coming into force of the Landgrave's edict 
 concerning the reform of abuses, the facilities 
 afforded by a speedier mode of payment was 
 still allowed to Gotthilf Ficker, a member of 
 a family not hitherto connected with the art, 
 but who had been enlisted in the Militia. 
 
 On the application of the violin-maker's 
 apprentice, Georg Schuster, on June 27th, 
 1748, it was decided that the taxes should be 
 payable quarterly ; thus Georg Schuster was 
 really only elected to Mastership of the violin- 
 maker's profession at the Guild Meeting of 
 April 10th, 1849. As he had to pay 25 thaler, 
 he certainly cannot have been a master's son, 
 ncr in possession of a Burgher-House, yet 
 the family of Schusters was probably settled 
 in Markneukirchen as early as the middle of 
 the 17th century, for in a diploma of the 
 year 1666 there is mention of one " Kauner 
 Schusterin," i.e., certainly the wife of a man 
 named Schuster who had wandered thither 
 from the village of Eaun (or she might have 
 been a born Eauner) and in the year 1683 is 
 mentioned the joiner, George Schuster, as 
 owner of the site for the new cemetery. 
 
 On the admission, in 1760, of John Adam 
 Glier, (son of the master of the same name), 
 and of Johann Georg Ficker, who had per- 
 formed his military service, the father, Glier, 
 appears to have attached much weight to the 
 observance of the articles of the Guild 
 Charter, especially to that part relating to 
 periodical payments ; the time over which
 
 31 
 
 the payments extended lasted, for his son, 
 from the 18th May to December 2nd, 
 and the resolution was taken that in the 
 future all masters' sons should be similarly 
 treated. 
 
 If on the following admissions the terminal 
 times of payment are not set forth in the 
 Guild Register, it does not prove that the 
 resolve was broken. Four candidates for 
 master's rights who presented themselves for 
 admission in June, 1765, and paid their 
 taxes, only attained the full estate of master- 
 ship in June and July, 1766. The same 
 rigour was observed in the subsequent admis- 
 sions, although the candidates were scions of 
 masters' families. 
 
 Still more severe, and conducive to the 
 maintenance of the esteem which the excel- 
 lence of their instruments had won for the 
 violin-makers of Markneukirchen, was the 
 rule which enforced the production of one 
 masterpiece by way of diploma-work, from 
 all, without distinction, who proposed to 
 practise the art and craft as an independent 
 master. 
 
 In the original confirmation of the Charter 
 by the Landgrave the requirement of a 
 masterpiece had not been particularised, in 
 many cases they had been satisfied with pay- 
 ment of a certain sum in place of the testing 
 of work by the assembled Guild. Now the 
 rule came into operation, that after payment 
 of the third tax, the commencement of 
 Masterhood should date from the commence- 
 ment of the Masterpiece, and 20 days were 
 allowed over and above for its completion. 
 They went still further in prescribing the
 
 quality of the diploma work required. Just 
 as to-day, violins of different qualities of 
 higher or lower value are in demand [and we 
 should consider it as an artistic impossibility 
 for a Joachim, an Ole Bull, or a Princess 
 Dolgorouki to try to pi-oducethe indescribable 
 fruits of their artistic knowledge and power 
 from the same sort of instrument as that 
 used by gipsies, village-musicians, and ballad- 
 singers] so in those days it was an undoubted 
 necessity for the welfare of the " arts and 
 crafts " that the Masters should be able to 
 manufacture wares of different values. In 
 this way they almost attained in one century 
 to a distribution of work, expecting from one 
 Master violins of inferior manufacture, and 
 from another the fabrication of finer instru- 
 ments, and the diploma works were judged 
 accordingly. 
 
 Still in "March, 1766, they resolved to 
 inquire of the Council how the articles relat- 
 ing to the diploma-work in the Landgrave's 
 confirmation of the charter should be inter- 
 preted. The Council gave answer in the 
 interest of the manufacture and the trade, 
 that each candidate, for the rights of master- 
 ship, should be obliged to deliver two diploma 
 works, one an inlaid and the other a plain 
 violin ; and thus the manufacture of an 
 ordinary violin no longer sufficed for the 
 attainment of mastership. According to 
 modifications introduced later on ["resulting 
 from the continuance of the same ideas] it 
 was permissible to make two inlaid violins, 
 of finer quality, as Johann Gottfried Kretsch- 
 mann did in the year 1767, or else one inlaid 
 violoncello such as Johaun Georg Eeichel
 
 33 
 
 (violin and bass-maker's apprentice, son of 
 the Master Johann Adam Reichei) manu- 
 factured in 1771 as his diploma work. This 
 was the first occasion that the making of basses 
 (violoncellos) was recorded in the Register. 
 
 Johann Adam Reichei, who died in the 
 year 1794, aged 80 (probably born about 
 1714), and who had married the violin-maker, 
 Wolf Ehrhard Lippold's daughter, Eva 
 Sophia, it curtly described as a bass-maker, 
 and this art was carried on by his descen- 
 dants in both branches, and the Ecclesiastical 
 Registers designate them all as " Bass- 
 makers." It can hardly be inferred, however, 
 that the art of bass-ma.king was more 
 generally spread than this. 
 
 We have Johann Adam Reichei I., a direct 
 descendant of the originator, founder, and 
 head master of the Guild of "Violin- makers 
 mentioned in the first half century of the 
 Craft Register ; though we regard him as the 
 first who made bass-making his chief study, 
 and at last even his only work, yet there is 
 always a possibility that there may have been 
 isolated cases of other masters of the same 
 family, or relations of the family seeking to 
 rival the Reichels. The stigma of narrow- 
 minded exclusiveness (Guild egotism] does 
 not, as we have seen from many facts recorded 
 above, rest upon the Reichei family. Artistic 
 and technological records point, however, to 
 the fact that bass-making in Markneukirchen 
 was limited to these families. 
 
 The entire 16th century, and also the 17th, 
 
 was far less favourable to the development of 
 
 instrumental than to that of vocal music, as 
 
 Von Wasielewski has observed in his history 
 
 - of instrumental music.
 
 Contemporaneously with the older stringed 
 instruments of the Viol-family (such as 
 Luther used to play in the circle of his 
 family;, the violin became more and more 
 popular as an accompaniment to the voice ; 
 at length, however, as "Queen of Musical 
 Instruments " (being the one which nearest 
 approached the human voice in quality of 
 tone), it completed its triumphal progress 
 through Europe and beyond it, distancing all 
 rivals. 
 
 Perhaps the Eornanians and their near 
 Alpine neighbours developed their love of 
 guitars, lutes, cithera, and such like instru- 
 ments earlier than the Middle and North 
 Germans ; with us the deeper, more penetrat- 
 ing and fuller toned music such as the violin 
 afforded, moved men's souls more easily and 
 more lastingly. As long as no perfect piano 
 existed (for the spinnet was yet too meagre 
 and expensive) violin-playing and music were 
 inseparable. Not only in the houses of music- 
 loving citizens, but, above all, among the great 
 masses of the populace, in seminaries, from 
 learned colleges to the humblest village 
 school, and in the churches, the violin was 
 indispensable. The new evangelical congre- 
 gational singing as it gained in meaning, 
 through the works of the sacred-song writers 
 of the 17th century, depended principally on 
 the violin as its medium of interpretation, 
 and chief accompaniment. 
 
 In Markneukirchen itself there was a great 
 number of so-called " choir-assistants " who 
 regularly, with their violins, accompanied 
 the singing in the churches ; and indeed, it 
 was not likely that the descendants of those
 
 35 
 
 noble-minded Bohemian settlers, who had 
 become exiles for their faith's sake, should 
 'forget to give their faithful services to the 
 evangelical church-service, and to do honour 
 to the congregation by the added beauty of 
 musical support. This habit was so deeply 
 rooted in the lives of this religious sect, that 
 a, mighty convulsion was caused among them 
 when, in the beginning of this century 
 (through discordance among the choir- direc- 
 tors of the church), only three violinists were 
 allowed to take part in the service. This is 
 recorded by Heinrich Glasel in his record of 
 noteworthy facts written in the Vogtlandisch 
 dialect. 
 
 Meanwhile in Europe, and especially in 
 Germany, but little orchestral music was 
 performed, excepting perhaps at the petty 
 courts of the Landgraves, and at a few par- 
 ticularly musical centres. The researches of 
 the musical archaeologists of to-day have only 
 succeeded in placing the origin of public 
 string-orchestral concerts at a hundred years 
 'back, reckoning from the present time. It is 
 probably within the knowledge of the whole 
 world what service was rendered to music in 
 this respect by Spohr, Marschner, Schubert, 
 and Meyerbeer ; but when we try to go back 
 as far as the 17th or even the first half of the 
 18th centuries, we encounter, even among 
 those learned in musical history, a conviction 
 that we are groping in the dark, unable to 
 form an opinion of any distinctively charac- 
 teristic type of concert music, at least as far 
 as Germany is concerned. 
 
 In Italy, from classic times the home of 
 -art, and in France, the two countries which
 
 36 
 
 took the lead in, and sounded the key-note? 
 of, art and culture during the 17th and the- 
 first half of the 18th centuries, it was 
 earlier understood how to blend harmoniously 
 together different musical instruments. In 
 the south of France, the cradle of the trou- 
 badours of ch'ivalric times, German musicians 
 and instrument-makers were at an even 
 earlier date welcome arrivals, but they may 
 very probably have wandered thither from 
 Bavaria, the Tyrol and other south German, 
 countries. 
 
 In the Museum of Musical History in 
 Berlin maybe seen a sort of bass instrument, 
 called a "luther bass," but connoisseurs doubt 
 whether this was made in Luther'stime and not, 
 as is rcore likely, put together some time later. 
 Violin-making was, without doubt, earlier 
 carried to perfection by the old Italian 
 masters than by the Germans, as is proved 
 by the Italian name "Viola," a name by 
 which all similar string instruments were 
 designated up to the middle of the 16th 
 century, after which time the diminutive 
 form " Violino " (little viol) was first 
 generally adopted ; the Italian masters 
 certainly played a form of string quartet, ear- 
 lier than we Germans, yet it is questionable 
 whether the " Contrabass " (also called the 
 "Big Bass Violin " or " Violone ") held the 
 same position then as it holds in the string 
 quartet of the present day. 
 
 The German musical author, Michael 
 Pratorius, describes the different bow-instru- 
 ments in the second volume of his work 
 "Syntagma Musicse " (which appeared in 
 1,619) and distinguishes them only by the
 
 37 
 
 manner im which they were played ; thus : 
 1. Viole da gambe, which are held between 
 the legs ; and 2, Viole da Braccio, which are 
 held on the arm ; the latter are also called 
 "little Polish Violins." The big viola ii 
 gamba (contrabasso di gamba, with six 
 strings) did not find much favour on account 
 of the incompleteness of its tuning-mech- 
 anism ; otherwise, he is of opinion that it 
 matters little how one tunes one's violin or 
 viola, so long as it is tuned to pitch, and the 
 player can perform on it well. It would be 
 clearly seen that even our modern four- 
 stringed bass only gradually attained an 
 enhanced importance, when we consider' that 
 for a long time even the four-stringed violin, 
 invented by Tieffenbrugger, and improved 
 upon by his Italian followers, was played 
 upon, tuned to very varying keys, and that 
 till 1680 one played only up to the A above 
 the cleff, later rising to the C or Ut, and that 
 real virtuosity, as we understand the term to- 
 day, only began with Locatelli in the middle 
 of the 18th century. 
 
 So long as there was no specifically 
 developed string-orchestra music in Germany, 
 at least as long as the real string quartet had 
 not found a wide field, the bass was perhaps 
 a desirable but still not indispensable instru- 
 ment, and it certainly required a series of 
 progressive stages of development before the 
 bass was recognised as a concert instrument 
 independent of the violin before it reached 
 such popularity that without the accom- 
 paniment of the violin it was played in 
 village music supported only by the bagpipe. 
 In later times its use and importance
 
 38 
 
 depended mainly on the position which the 
 all-conquering violin attained in the orchestra, 
 where, at first, in the mixture of all attain- 
 able instruments, the deep-toned trumpets, 
 the trombone, the bassoon, struggled for 
 supremacy with the contra-bass as the 
 ground- work of the harmonies. Among the 
 "Gamba" instruments the most popular 
 was certainly the small ones called " Celli " 
 (Yioloncelli*, but it was apparent from the 
 already quoted work of Pratorius that even 
 in a band composed a-ccording to the canons 
 of Italian taste, the Viole da Gambe were 
 only used "when they were to be had," and 
 in default, the Viole de Braccio (modern 
 viola) were considered as sufficient substi- 
 tutes. 
 
 The whole of the 17th century was an era 
 very unfavourable to the development of 
 orchestral music, owing to the unceasing din 
 of war, and the consequently persistent 
 abandonment of all higher culture and art. 
 Meanwhile the strides that had been made 
 in establishing the importance of the " Trom- 
 pette Maggiore '' (big trumpet), and the 
 " Tromba da Tirarsi " (slide trumpet), by 
 Girolamo Fantini, served as a foundation for 
 still more firmly establishing the prestige of 
 the violin. For, as a matter of fact, the 
 violin attained its position as a ruler of all 
 instruments, only at the time when the 
 simplest form of trumpet had reached its 
 .zenith. It was only in the first half of the 
 18th century, when Johann Sebastian Bach 
 (1750) had inaugurated the renaissance of 
 church music, that the orchestral standing 
 of the violin was also established. Bach was
 
 39 
 
 the first to make the artistic polyphonic 
 treatment of musical sounds universal in 
 Germany. In his oratorios, side by side with 
 isolated wind instruments, the string instru- 
 ments were provided with the most difficult 
 and complicated solo parts, and it must be 
 remembered that Bach was director of the 
 Thomas School in Leipzig, whither a com- 
 mercial high-road from Bohemia led through 
 Markneukirchen. Our native instrument- 
 makers and those of other towns were in the 
 habit of mingling in intercourse here, and to 
 the present day, there exists at Markneukir- 
 chen a musical confluence at which during 
 fair times the whole of eastern Europe satis- 
 fies its demand for violins. After this has 
 been established it is hardly open to the 
 smallest doubt that if, as we have seen, the 
 manufacture of basses only began in the 18th 
 century in Markneukirchen, the incentive 
 came from Leipzig and from the introduction 
 of church- music, and that in this respect (i.e., 
 bass making) the family Keichel distinguished 
 itself. 
 
 A new orchestral wave soon after per- 
 meated from the southward to our musical 
 valley. Joseph Haydn, bandmaster to Prince 
 Esterhazy in Vienna, became, between 1760 
 and 1790, founder of the modern orchestra, 
 by the invention and introduction of the 
 symphony, as opposed to opera, which had 
 by that time come over from Italy. Haydn 
 first founded the real quartet, in which each 
 instrument of the viol family held its special 
 place ; the treble, alto, tenor, and bass 
 viols, and it was at this period that the bass 
 became the real foundation of the whole 
 scheme of orchestral harmony.
 
 40 
 
 With this epoch-rnakiug progression in the 
 musical history of the German people the 
 bass-makers were obliged to keep pace, but 
 for the less expert members of the community 
 it remained a daring undertaking to give 
 themselves over exclusively to this branch of 
 manufacture. Owing to the continued com- 
 petition of Bohemian, Austrian and Bavarian 
 instrument-makers, only such makers or 
 dealers as commanded the entire field of the 
 violin-making art were intrusted with com- 
 missions, makers whose position was a 
 guarantee of the excellence of build and 
 acoustic properties of the instruments, and 
 this is a condition of things which, we see, 
 continues to the present day. In consequence 
 of the defective means of intercourse existing 
 in these times (the Thurn and Taxis Courier 
 service refusing to forward these delicate 
 instruments) the trade ia basses was by no 
 means a simple or easy one, although they 
 were only required singly. From all appear- 
 ances, there appear to have been a number 
 of families even then who, by preference, 
 occupied themselves with the sale of finished 
 instruments, persons who undertook all the 
 difficulties incident to the transport of violins 
 and other small instruments such as wood- 
 horns and flutes (which were manufactured 
 during the 10 years immediately preceding 
 the close of the records we have, under con- 
 sideration) and even charged themselves with 
 the trade in, and transport of, basses. Iso- 
 lated houses of the Reichel family may, 
 however, even earlier have devoted them- 
 selves to the business, merely dealing in the 
 instruments ; and we mav infer this from the
 
 41 
 
 fact that Crasselt mentions in the beginning 
 of the next century, besides a violin-making 
 Eeichel family, three or four families of 
 dealers or traders of the same name. Three 
 families named Paulus are also mentioned as 
 violin-makers. We must assume that this 
 family occupied itself wiih the other trades 
 .prevalent among the citizens of Markneu- 
 kirchen, such as cloth-making, and especially 
 string-making (in which .calling we find them 
 employed till the end of the century), as 
 they are not mentioned in the register of the 
 Guild among violin -makers proper before 
 1772, yet at the very latest they must have 
 become inhabitants of our town in the 
 middle of the previous century, since at that 
 time they were already closely connected 
 with the Eeichela by marriage. Anna Mar- 
 garethe, nee Paulus, is mentioned in 1749 as 
 widow of the Master Christian Eeichel. The 
 Paulus family was also connected with the 
 original colonist family of Eeichels by ties of 
 religious sympathy as they were descended 
 originally, on the mother's side, from one of 
 the Protestant families driven, in the year 
 1640, from Austria on account of their faith, 
 and which settled first in the village of 
 "Wohlbach, between Schdneck and Markneu- 
 kirchen, whence they subsequently came 
 over to Markneukirchen. We learn from a 
 chronicle in the possession of Herr Eichard 
 Schuster that an old man of the name of 
 Johann Georg Paulus died during the course 
 of a commercial tour in Paderborn, and left 
 Among his personal effects two basses, 
 besides several small packets of string and 
 other appurtenances. Certainly this Johann
 
 Georg Paulus did not begin his commercial* 
 tours in his old age ; he had probably dealt 
 in the basses made by his friends and rela- 
 tions, the Reichels, for decades. We may 
 take as an example of the difficulties with 
 which the fabrication of, and traffic in, basses- 
 were beset, that a member of an old estab- 
 lished family of citizen manufacturers, Carl 
 Fnedrich Jacob (born in 1778), was desig- 
 nated as a bass-maker on his death in 1814, 
 whereas he had previously been by turns 
 carpenter, locksmith, violin and general 
 instrument maker. 
 
 The manual dexterity of the hill-folk is 
 properly looked upon as an important factor 
 in the history of modern industries, and in 
 the Vogtlanuish hill country this aptitude 
 seems to have attained a particularly wide 
 development. It would otherwise be difficult 
 to understand how in an age like the 17th 
 and 18th centuries, in which the different 
 manufactures were monopolised by so many 
 different Guilds or Trades Unions, the same 
 person could be by turns (to judge by the 
 extant accounts of isolated individuals), shoe- 
 maker, tailor, furrier, cloth-maker, saw-smith,, 
 and then string-maker. But even though 
 different branches of the musical instrument 
 making industry were freqtiently practised 
 by the same person, yet it may be inferred, 
 in view of the progress hi the technics of 
 instrument-making, that it was less in conse- 
 quence of a many sided aptitude for art work, 
 than in consequence of a mere endeavour to 
 find occupation (amid the many channels of 
 activity open to craftsmen employed in lucra* 
 tive and artistic trades), that craftsmen eked
 
 out a livelihood by first one and then 
 another branch of the art and craft of instru- 
 ment-making. 
 
 It would be a hopeless task to attempt to 
 trace the gradual progress that was made in 
 the selection and treatment of materials, in 
 the excellence of production, and in the 
 ornamentation and beauty of the finished 
 instruments. Hyacinth Abele, a thorough 
 savant in the history of the violin and its. 
 construction, laid down as early as the year 
 1864 the axiom that the important point of 
 such an investigation would be to find out, if 
 it were possible, how far each master kept to 
 his own pattern, what deviations he allowed 
 himself, and what improvements he projected 
 and carried out. 
 
 Indeed the intellect which could succes- 
 sively master the difficulties incident to the 
 execution of this task (a task almost beyond 
 the bounds of practicability) might indeed be 
 called an enviable one. Anyhow the fact 
 remains that, in the establishment of every 
 proposed technical improvement, it was of 
 immense importance that the travelling 
 manufacturers and traders should strive to 
 educate themselves still further by contact 
 with musical artists by studying new models, 
 and by keen observation of every kind. 
 
 Travelling for purposes of trade as well as 
 of manufacture was indispensable at least in 
 the second half of the 18th century. In all 
 probability the practice of travelling then 
 came in again, the practice from which the 
 " journeymen " properly speaking took hi*, 
 title before attaining the rank of master- 
 workman.
 
 44 
 
 The admission of Christian Gottlob 
 Pfretzschner could only take place in July, 
 1766, on account of his absence abroad, but 
 he had applied for admission in June, 1765, 
 and had paid the preliminary tax. It can 
 hardly be doubted after this explanation and 
 those that have gone before, adverting to the 
 dangers to which such "travelling youths" 
 were exposed by reason of the war, that the 
 " years of travel " (as journeymen) and even 
 longer period of expatriation became more 
 frequent among apprentices. The Register 
 of the Guild gives no further information 
 respecting the direction in which such expedi- 
 tions were made, but it cannot be doubted, 
 on reference to other chronicles, that 
 Northern Germany, westwards and east- 
 wards as far as the Sclavonish countries, as 
 well as the south as far as Italy, were much 
 visited. In the historical course of things 
 Markneukirchen had become, to a certain 
 extent, a centre of the earlier and more 
 highly developed art of violin-making as prac- 
 tised in Italy and the countries of Southern 
 Europe, including Austria. The principal 
 depots for the sale of the instruments must 
 have been found in Northern and Eastern 
 Germany and in the neighbouring Sclavonic 
 states. 
 
 When once the wholesale trade in musical 
 instruments was nrmly established, the 
 artistic training of the apprentices and 
 masters was conducted less in the undertaking 
 of trade journeys than by the establishment 
 of new trade centres, and new connec- 
 tions for the further development of the 
 manufacture of and trade in the instru-
 
 45 
 
 meuts. It was also of importance that 
 the travelling violin-maker should be on the 
 look-out for gut adapted for the manufacture 
 of strings, good and cheap resin, oils, colours, 
 wood, shell, and other material for inlaying 
 instruments, especially if he desired to 
 become a dealer as well as a maker. It was 
 more advantageous to procure these articles 
 (especially the resins, foreign woods and gut) 
 from Northern Germany via the Dutch 
 harbours of Hamburg, than by the Mediter- 
 ranean harbours (whence they had to make 
 the difficult passage of the Alps), unless 
 these materials were to be had at the fairs. 
 
 It is an established fact, and one within 
 the recollection of men living on the spot at 
 the beginning of this century, that in our 
 town the manufacture of strings had begun 
 in the year 1730, although it was not until 
 the year 1870 or thereabouts that a charter 
 of Incorporation was granted to the string- 
 makers' &uild. 
 
 It is further stated in this connection, that at 
 first, only a few who had previously trav- 
 elled abroad occupied themselves with this 
 branch of the art and raised it gradually to 
 its present status by laborious study, 
 industry, thought, and expense. It is 
 reserved for future and more minute research 
 to discover the names of those men who first 
 devoted themselves to this useful trade, and 
 to find how far the development of this par- 
 ticular branch of industry may have influ- 
 enced the history of violin-making. The 
 wide pasture lands of the great North 
 German low-lands favoured the keeping of 
 Jarge herds of sturdy native sheep, which
 
 46 
 
 furnished the gut necessary for string- 
 making, gut as worthless in those as yet 
 unmusical parts of the country, as it was 
 useful and valuable in the skilful hands of 
 the workmen of Markneukirchen. 
 
 In all probability, they only gradually 
 penetrated from the west to the far-lying 
 Ostsee territories, where a firmly established- 
 trade centre was discovered for the sale of the 
 " Polish Violin," especially in Danzig, the 
 trade metropolis of the still important state 
 of Poland. But it is not likely that these 
 " Polish Violins " were really invented in 
 Poland, but only that they were sold there in 
 great quantities. 
 
 A certain Johann Tiingel, born in Danzig r 
 settled here (Markneukirchen) in 1700, and 
 devoted himself to violin-making until his- 
 death, which occurred at the age of 90 in 
 1757, and he is said to have taught the 
 violin-makers of this town the compounding, 
 of a new varnish of fine quality. Of this 
 Tiingel there is no mention in the register of 
 the Guild, and yet it cannot be doubted that 
 he introduced into Markneukirchen a new 
 method of preparing varnish. 
 
 Coming as he did, from the country that 
 supplied Europe with amber, he probably 
 understood the confection of amber varnish 
 better than anybody else in Markneukirchen,. 
 as also that of the red-brown varnish, at this 
 epoch so popular in Italy. Probably Tiingel, 
 not being a member of the Guild, established 
 an important trade between his friends in 
 Danzig and the principal members of the 
 Markneukirchen Violin-makers' Guild, so 
 that posterity has preserved a grateful
 
 47 
 
 remembrance of the Prussian, of whom 
 Crasselt has recorded that " he brought 
 violin-making to its highest condition of 
 prosperity." 
 
 Still, there were locally closer trade connec- 
 tions which were not neglected by the travel- 
 ling artist. It may be remarked in this connec- 
 tion that the art of making forest-horns, and 
 wooden instruments derived its chief incen- 
 tive from Leipzig and Hof, and that in the 
 latter branch of the trade a member of the 
 already mentioned Gutter family distin- 
 guished himself. It would over-step the pro- 
 posed limits of this work to go further into 
 the details of the ever-varied demand for 
 violius on the one hand and for wind 
 instruments on the other. 
 
 It would not, however, be out of place to 
 remark at this point that the manufacture of 
 violin bows remained at first far behind that 
 of violins, and that for a long time bows were 
 made only by the inferior artisans. 
 
 The Chronicle relates that the art of bow- 
 making was introduced into Markneukirchen 
 by a citizen named Joseph Strtiz. He died 
 in the year 1760, and probably bad settled 
 there in the first decades of the century. We 
 may infer from this that an earlier connection 
 existed between our town and the centres of 
 musical industry in Bavaria, and that the 
 travelling apprentices and traders often dealt 
 there. 
 
 In the Bavaria of that day (for the 
 Frankish States abutting upon the river Main 
 were ruled by the Frankish branches of the 
 House of Hohenzollern and by ecclesiastical 
 princes) one can only reckon Mittenwald and
 
 48 
 
 a few neighbouring places in Upper Bavaria 
 as the centre of the musical instrument 
 industry. At this place ( Mitten wald) violin- 
 making became established in 1683 by 
 Egidius Klotz (the esteemed pupil of the 
 celebrated violin-maker Stainer) some years 
 before the proud Venetian merchants trans- 
 ferred their business to Mittenwald on 
 account of some offence taken at the yearly 
 market at Botzen. In the Upper Bavarian 
 and the neighbouring Tyrolese Alps where 
 Jacob Stainer (who was a pupil of Amati) 
 was born, the wood of the hazel fir was found 
 which was so highly valued on account of the 
 splendid tone it imparted to the instruments, 
 and it did not grow in the Vogtland and the 
 Fichtelgebirge. Besides this there was 
 always something to be learnt from the 
 masters in Mittenwald and Fiissen, as they 
 were in constant communication with the 
 Italian masters, and especially with those of 
 the Cremonese school. 
 
 In the beginning of the century there were 
 in Vienna, Prague, Nurnberg, Wiirzberg, 
 Bamberg, Langenfeld, and Franken, many 
 violin makers, and it can hardly be doubted 
 that the travelling makers from Markneukir- 
 chen frequently wandered thither, and even 
 into Italy. The maple trees of the country 
 round Markneukirchen and the surrounding 
 territories no longer sufficed for the growing 
 manufacture ; even at the beginning of the 
 previous century it had been necessary to 
 procure suitable maple wood from Bavaria- 
 and the Tyrol, where maple trees eight 
 hundred years old were to be found. The 
 south German and Austrian forests supplied
 
 large quantities of pear wood, such as was 
 used for finger-boards, tail-pieces, and pegs. 
 Above all, for a long time it was necessary to 
 procure strings, ready made from Italy, as 
 indeed is the case to this day. 
 
 If the travelling dealers did not reach as 
 far as the centres of the string manufacturing 
 industry, such as Venice, Cremona, Treviso, 
 &c., they were obliged to satisfy their needs 
 either at the markets of Botzen (to which the 
 Venetians had retransferred their depot after 
 a short absence) or at other instrument- 
 making centres. 
 
 It is not probable that the violin and bass 
 makers of the time chronicled by the Eegister 
 of the Guild had penetrated beyond northern 
 Italy in the south, and the Ehine Vistula in 
 the north ; at any rate aH record of such 
 wanderings is wanting. 
 
 Subjoined are the names of those masters 
 who were admitted from the year 1765 up to 
 the time when the register closes : 
 
 7073. Johann Adam Martin, CarlFriedrich 
 Pfretzschner, Christian Gottlob Pfretzschner 
 and Johann Gottfried Kretschmann, whose 
 admission was begun by payment of taxes 
 on June 9th, 1765, and was only completed 
 in July, 1766. 
 
 7477. In the year 1768, Georg Adam 
 Kassler, Christian Gotthilf Fischer, Carl 
 Friedrich Eeichel, and Johann Georg Voigt, 
 were admitted as masters, but Eeichel's 
 third tax was not paid until the following 
 year. 
 
 78, 79. Johann Georg Schdnfelder and 
 Johann Adam Kretschmann, two Militia 
 recruits, who were admitted free in 1769.
 
 50 
 
 80. In the year 1770, Johann Georg 
 Reichel (son of the before-mentioned violin 
 and bass maker, Master Johann Adam 
 Reichel) became, master. 
 
 81. The Master-book closes with the 
 record of the admission of the apprentice, 
 Johann Gottfried Voigt, 10th June, 1772, 
 third son of Master Simon Voigt. The clos- 
 ing words are " Soli Deo Gloria." 
 
 When we look back on the long list of 
 'newly-admitted masters in the compara- 
 tively short space of 45 years, we must at 
 once be struck by the difference between this 
 ; period and that of the first 50 years. Among 
 those of the last half-century we count alto- 
 .gether 30 families, seven old and 23 new ; in 
 the first only 15 new families, inclusive of 
 the families of Ooetzel's not enumerated 
 after the year 1761, when Adam Niirnberger 
 from Klingentbal (who was engaged to a 
 daughter of the Reichels) was admitted, no 
 new parent stock was added to the Guild. 
 Those admissions recorded in 1752 and 1759, 
 viz. : those of Carl Friedrich Siebel and Carl 
 Friedrich Kretzschmar were merely those of 
 sons of families who were either magistrates 
 or priests. Of the seven founders' families 
 those of Poller, Knopf, and Rudert, have 
 entirely disappeared, three each of the Schon- 
 felder and Kurzendorfer families and one of 
 the Popel attained mastership, whereas the 
 Reichels contributed 12 new masters in addi- 
 tion to the 10 admitted in the first 50 years 
 of the Guild, next to them of the older 
 families stand in eminence the Voigts with 
 seven new masters, the Pfretzschners and the 
 Kretzschmanns each with six and the Fickers 
 with five.
 
 51 
 
 The four original parent stocks already 
 named produced 19 masters, and later, up to 
 the year 1723, the four newly-added parent 
 stocks produced 24, thus making 43 alto- 
 gether, out-balancing the whole 24 other 
 families, which together only produced 38 
 new masters. On the whole in spite of the 
 almost doubled number of masters, only 
 about the same number of families as before 
 (30 32) were really actively engaged in the 
 pursuit of the art. Besides the 45 families 
 recorded in the Guild Register, others after- 
 wards wandered thither, not counting the 
 seven emigrant families of the year 1677. 
 There were six from Klingenthal, two from 
 Schoneck, one from Wohlhausen, one from 
 Wernitzgriin, and one from Dorpersdorf. 
 Only a comparatively small number out of 
 the 45 original families, have become entirely 
 extinct. Such has been the case (I am 
 informed) with the families of Poller, Pupel 
 and Eudert, who took part in the founding 
 of the Guild. Descendants of the founder- 
 families Hopf and Schonfelder still live in 
 Klingenthal and Wernitzgrun, as violinmakers. 
 Of the rest, with few exceptions, it would be 
 easy to find descendants (in the case of most 
 of the families) in such numbers as could 
 hardly be equalled for magnitude by the 
 noble families of the lowlands, or the patrician 
 houses of the oldest and most celebrated towns. 
 
 As far as riches, fame, and. family standing 
 were concerned the Markneukirchen violin- 
 maker families at first could not attempt to 
 measure themselves with the celebrated 
 violin-maker families of Cremona and other 
 Italian centres of artistic industry.
 
 52 
 
 The unpretentious character of their 
 domestic habits was consequent principally, 
 however, on the lower state of the develop- 
 ment of artistic culture in Germany as com- 
 pared with that of the Komaic countries. 
 
 In the present century, under the favour- 
 able auspices of the newly-arisen German 
 Empire, not a few families have attained 
 world-wide importance by the magnitude of 
 their manufacturing and export establish- 
 ments, whereas in earlier days such establish 
 ments were mainly Italian. Besides the 
 works of isolated families in the violin-maker's 
 Guild, later on [in view of the sharper defini- 
 tions erected between wholesale and retail 
 manufacture and trade] several other out- 
 ward influences came to bear, as would be 
 seen if the steps in the commercial progress 
 of single families could be minutely traced. 
 Minute researches into the history of the 
 string-makers would probably throw much 
 light on the subject. 
 
 The most eminent of the citizens of the 
 Markneukirchen of to-day (which can corn- 
 pare with the most prominent towns of 
 Saxony and Germany in respect of its com- 
 mercial prosperity) are a splendid example 
 of the beautiful adage "Work is the orna- 
 ment of the citizen, and blessing is the price 
 of toil," not mechanical work merely, but 
 artistic work in the service of the Ideal, of 
 Eeligion, and of Art. 
 
 We are justified in directing special atten- 
 tion to the family of Eeichel, in view of the 
 large number of masters (22), which that 
 family boasted within the comparatively 
 short space of a hundred years, whereas
 
 the family of Schonfelder, who reckoned 
 originally twice as many as the Reichels, 
 only produced half the number of masters. 
 
 We may regard the development of the 
 Eeichel family as typical of the whole group 
 of manufacturing families, seeing that out- 
 wardly their ways of life were exactly alike, 
 and that they and their families were strongly 
 bound together by ties by Guild fellowship 
 and of art. The Eeichel family was also con- 
 nected during the 18th century, with the old 
 native families of Markneukirchen, such as 
 those (not at that time members of the Vio- 
 lin-makers Guild) of Ardler, Heinel, Wild, 
 Roth, and Stark, the family of Lippold 
 (which had settled there at latest in 1683), 
 and the older houses of Schuster and Voigt 
 rather than with the newer houses of Gutter 
 Paulus, Ebner, Miiller, Blechschmidt, Niirn- 
 berger, and Lederer. 
 
 The connections between the families of 
 Lippold, Paulus, Reichel, and Schuster, are 
 of such frequent recurrence that many of 
 those to-day bearing those names are not 
 only connected by family intermarriage, but 
 also by blood relationship. 
 
 Other prominent families besides Eeichel' s 
 were certainly not exclusive in their dealings 
 with their less well-to-do fellow artists and 
 fellow citizens. Judging from the Register 
 of the Guild, the Eeichels showed a kindly 
 spirit of fellowship towards the apprentices 
 and students in their choice and election of 
 Masters of the Guild. 
 
 If the Reichel family appears to-day con- 
 siderably less prominent in Markneukirchen 
 than formerly, it must not be forgotten that
 
 54 
 
 after the great fire of 1840, the principal 
 branches of the family left the town with 
 their capital (not inconsiderable for those 
 times), and found a field for their artistic 
 work and spirit of trade in other lands. In 
 13ol the brothers Eeichel won the gold 
 medal in Tilsit for their gut strings manufac- 
 tured there, and exhibited in London at the 
 first International Exhibition. Far from 
 home, they still preserved a faithful attach- 
 ment to their fellow countrymen ; they were 
 instrumental in enlarging the trade connec- 
 tions of their native town with foreign coun- 
 tries, and in the increase of their possessions 
 kept pace with the most prominent families 
 of their native country, without thereby 
 losing any of their love for their fatherland, 
 and the newly risen German Empire. 
 
 Many services to the community are 
 ascribed to them by those yet living, services 
 which, according to more correct authorities, 
 they did not render, as for instance, the 
 tradition that they were the first to establish 
 the trade of Sheep-gut with Odessa and 
 Tashkend, a service really rendered by the 
 old family of Weller, and the family known 
 at the beginning of this century as that of 
 the Burgomaster Christian Jacob Durr- 
 schmidt. These encomia upon their name, 
 and the recollections of some still living who 
 were contempories of their youth, prove the 
 popularity of the Eeichel family and the high 
 esteem in which it was held. Members of it 
 have settled not only in many European 
 countries, but latterly even in more remote 
 parts of the world, thus enlarging their sphere 
 of mercantile operations and doing much 
 service to the trade of the world.
 
 55 
 
 May the many who bear this name, or who 
 related by ties of blood or sympathy, remem- 
 ber, on looking back at the examples of their 
 fathers (who, for their faith's sake, forsook 
 their free citizenship and their earlier Aus- 
 trian home), that happiness in life is not 
 dependent alone upon the possession of 
 worldly goods, but on the prizing of higher 
 and more ideal interests ; may they further- 
 more strive after simplicity and nobility of 
 manner and custom combined with artistic 
 spirit and piety, mingling the softer disposi- 
 tion of the south with the energy of thought 
 and will that characterises the north, and 
 may they ever remain true to their Vogt- 
 landish country, and, above all, to the faith 
 of their fathers ! 
 
 To God alone the glory !"
 
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