Old Violins by H. R. Haweis

MIRECOURT

Mirecourt in Lorraine has the glory of being associated from so early a date as 1566 with the Cremona workshops.

Andrew Amati, who made six small fiddles for Charles IX. about that time, employed Nicolas Renauld of Nancy, who was a pupil of the celebrated Mirecourt lutist Tywersus, to assist him in finishing these important court orders, which did so much to establish the supremacy of the "petit violon" over the crowd of competing viols which then held the popular ear, and, as we have seen, died very hard.

The great princes of Lorraine occupied a castle of pleasure called Ravenel, at a short distance from Mirecourt.

These accomplished noblemen, touched with Florentine culture, often made excursions into Lombardy, and delighted in the refinements of the Italian princedoms and duchies.

They brought back with them pictures, ironwork, laces, musical instruments.

Tywersus, their private lute-maker, was deeply influenced by the work and models of the early Amatis, and from the school of Tywersus came Nicolas Renauld, Jean Medard, and Nicolas Medard. When Amati left Paris, whither he had gone to present his violins in person to Charles IX., he left behind him Nicolas Renauld, who slipped into the lucrative post of luthier to his French Majesty, and we find his friend and co-worker Medard installed in the same fat office under the Grand Monarque, Louis XIV., who, with his expensive mistresses, certainly spared no money or patronage to secure those who could in any way minister to the extravagant court pomp and artistic amusements of the Pompadour and the Petit Trianon.

Meanwhile Mirecourt, in the heart of the Vosges mountains, with easy access to the grand timbers of their ancient forests, within beck and call of Lombardy, and in close touch with the great Italian fiddle-makers, Mirecourt long held supremacy as one of, if not the most important mart of fiddle manufacture.

It shared with Mittenwald and Markneukirchen the honour of supplying that rapidly growing violin market which was now springing up, and whilst Cremona made largely for home consumption and a few foreign courts, Mirecourt undertook the more modest but equally useful duty of multiplying Cremona school violins, which circulated far and wide throughout the French provinces, and frequently reached our own shores; indeed the fiddles often passed for Cremonas.

The popularity of these Cremona replicas brought on that inevitable deterioration in quality which always follows over-rapid production and cheap wares, and at one time Mirecourt, in spite of its elaborate industry, was fast becoming a byword for bad fiddles. Happily the danger was seen and speedily checked, and Mirecourt now stands out as perhaps the greatest and most excellent emporium of modern violin manufacture.

All who wish to know what can be known, go to Mirecourt, just as people who study art go to Rome and Florence, or people who study the fashions go to Paris.

To Mirecourt we owe Rambaux, who was born there in 1802 and died there only in 1870.

Francis and George Chanot both came from there.

The Lupôt family are claimed as natives of Mirecourt, although the greatest of them, Nicolas, whose violins run some of the finest specimens of Cremona very hard, was a native of Stuttgard. His father was a Frenchman, and came from Mirecourt. All his traditions belong to Mirecourt, and these, as we all know, he carried with him to Paris, where he died in 1824, and was succeeded by Gand.

The names of Maucotel, Medard, Menegand, Silvestre, and Deragay, and above all Vuillaume, must always shed an imperishable lustre upon the little town in the Vosges mountains.

Every one of the Vuillaumes, eight in number, including the immortal Jean Baptiste, were born at Mirecourt. Two settled at Brussels, three at Paris, but all the others lived and died at Mirecourt.

William Ebsworth Hill was careful to send his sons to this celebrated school of violin art, and we may be sure that they did not come away until they had possessed themselves of everything that Mirecourt had to teach the violin maker or the connoisseur.

M. Thibouville Lamy of Mirecourt, who has trade branches in Paris and London, manufactures a violin at about 3s. 10d. cost price, selling at about 4s. 6d.; but Markneukirchen probably leads in cheapness and quantity, if not quality, turning out quite playable fiddles for the modest figure of £1 to £2, 10s.

The best Mirecourt fiddles will fetch from £6 to £10.

The Grand and Bemardel prices range from £16 to £20.