Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 2.djvu/177

LONDON VIOLIN-MAKERS. copies of Amati such instruments are scarcely surpassed, varnish, work and material being of the best description.' Duke, in obedience to a fashion, though a declining one, also copied Stainer, but, in Mr. Hart's opinion, less successfully. His pupils, John and Edward Betts, followed him in imitating Amati. The latter was the better workman. 'Each part,' says Mr. Hart, 'is faultless in finish; but when viewed as a whole the result is too mechanical. Nevertheless, this maker takes rank with the foremost of the English copyists.' John Betts occupied a shop in the Royal Exchange, where his business was still carried on a few years since. The Forsters (see that article) followed the prevailing fashion, and copied not only Nicholas Amati, but Antonius and Hieronymus.

4. . We now reach a group of makers dating from about 1790 to 1840, and forming the last and in some respects the best section of the London School. These makers forsook altogether the imitation of Stainer, occupied themselves less with that of Amati, and boldly passed on to Stradivarius and Joseph Guarnerius. Lupot and others were doing the same in Paris. Richard Tobin, John Furber, Charles Harris, Henry Lockey Hill, Samuel Gilkes, Bernard Fendt the elder (known as 'Old Barney'), and John Carter, are among the best London makers of this period: and Vincenzo Panormo, though of Italian extraction, really belongs to the same school. Stradivarius was the chief model of these makers, and in reproducing his style they gave to the world a host of valuable instruments. The elder Fendt is commonly accounted the best maker of violins since the golden age of Cremona, though the vote of the French connoisseur would be in favour of Lupot. Bernard Fendt the younger, and his brother Jacob, together with Joseph and George Panormo, sons of Vincenzo, continued this school in another generation, though with unequal success. The Kennedy family (Alexander 1700–1786, John 1730–1816, Thomas 1784–1870) were second-rate makers of the same school. The abolition of the import duty on foreign instruments, together with the accumulation of old instruments available for use and more sought for than new ones, ruined the English violin manufacture. During the present century, Italian violins have poured into England from all parts of Europe. Paris, to say nothing of Mirecourt and Neukirchen, affords an ample supply of new violins of every quality, at rates which drive from the field English labour, whether more or less skilled. A few makers only weathered the storm. Gilkes's son William Gilkes, and pupil John Hart, of Princes Street, as well as Simon Forster, made instruments up to the time of their deaths: and there are still living two representatives of the old English school in the persons of William Ebsworth Hill of Wardour Street, best known as a dealer in Italian instruments, but in fact a violin-maker of no ordinary merit, and John Furber of Grafton Street, who still pursues the old craft. Both are descended from violin-making families dating back to the beginning of the last century. George Hart, of Princes Street, son of John Hart, and author of a most useful work called 'The Violin, its famous makers and their imitators' (1875), is chiefly known as a dealer. A few French violin-makers who have settled in London, among whom are Chanot and Boullangier, belong to the Parisian school.

This list does not profess to exhaust the London makers of stringed instruments. But it includes the most famous and prolific among them: and it may be safely added that, taken in the mass, the instruments which have been produced in London are equal in general quality to those of any city north of the Alps, not excepting Paris itself. Until the time of Lupot, the English makers were unquestionably superior as a school to the French, though they were rivalled by the Dutch: and Lupot himself might have shrunk from a comparison with the best works of Fendt and Panormo. Whether the art of violin-making in England will ever recover the blow which it has received from Free Trade, remains to be seen. [ E. J. P. ]  LONG (Lat. Longa, Notula caudata). A note, intermediate in value between the Large and the Breve. In Plain Chaunt, the Long appears as a square black note, with a tail, which may either ascend, or descend, on either side. In Polyphonic Music, it is figured as a square white note, with a tail descending on the right. In this case, the position of the tail is important: for, though it is sometimes, in modern music, made to ascend, it can only be transferred to the left hand side in Ligatures, when it materially affects the duration of the note. [See .]

The Long represents one third of the Perfect Large, and half of the Imperfect. [See .] Its duration, in the Lesser Mode Perfect, is equal to that of three Breves: in the Lesser Mode Imperfect, to that of two. [See .] Its corresponding Rest is drawn, when Perfect, across three spaces; when Imperfect, across two only.

In Plain Chaunt, it is longer than the Breve, but not in any definite proportion, except in Ligatures, where it represents a Breve and a half, or three Semibreves. Merbecke, in his 'Booke of Common Praier Noted' (1550) calls it a 'Close,' and uses it only at the end of a verse: but this restriction is not usual in Plain Chaunt Office-Books. [ W. S. R. ]  LONGHURST,, born in 1809, studied under John Watson, musical director at Covent Garden, and on April 22, 1820, came out at Covent Garden as the Page in Bishop's 'Henri Quatre,' and gained great