Some violins are born beautiful. Some acquire it with age.  Others have a struggle on their hands right from the start. The Testore family of Milan are always associated with a rustic, even casual approach to the craft, but it is a mistake to bundle the work of the entire family together at the lowest level. It does not help matters that the most vivid phrases linger best in the memory. Charles Beare famously described Pietro Testore as having ‘possibly the clumsiest pair of hands that ever made a violin’ in the Grove Dictionary of Music, and Hills referred to them as the ‘Milanese cheapjacks’. Certainly, the family probably found their customers in the dowdier streets of the market places as well as the salons, and often worked quickly and to a price. Even though, as many players and dealers will tell you, it’s the sound that counts rather than the appearance, poor Pietro’s forebears were quite capable of carving a very pretty fiddle. Although in his case it can be a relief that you don’t have to look at your fiddle when you’re playing it. And Testore instruments invariably work, and work well. Although none can combine the power and richness of sound like a Stradivari, they maintain their well-defined and well-deserved role at the heart of many an orchestra. 

    Carlo Giuseppe Testore (active from 1690 to 1716) was the first violinmaker of the family, and his work can sometimes be elegance incarnate. A pupil of Giovanni Grancino, their work can be very difficult to distinguish from each other. The early products of the Milan school have a charm and delicacy that is quite unique, with graceful outlines of distinctly Amatese influence, but a low and subtly shaped arch, which tends towards a slightly pinched breast. The soundholes are particularly well-developed in a Stradivarian style. They generally carry a glowing amber coloured varnish, which might lack the deep colouration of the Venetians, but is softly textured and bewitching in its own way. These tendencies are all found in Carlo Giuseppe’s work, and after 1708 he was established as the leading maker in Milan.

    Carlo’s son, Carlo Antonio (b.1693, d. after 1760) was evidently unable to keep up quite to these standards, and signs of his struggle are seen from the start, using cheaper wood and hastier workmanship. The violin here is branded inside the back, as is often the case, with Carlo Antonio’s initials and an eagle inside a circle. This signifies the address of the shop, ‘Al segno dell’Aquila’ (at the sign of the eagle) which he took over on the death of his father in 1716. In appearance, the violin does rather struggle for sympathy, and it does not represent Carlo at his best, but a close look shows a considerable degree of craftsmanship disguised by the poverty of the materials. In these later generations of Testores, it became the habit to leave the back of the pegbox flat and unfluted and to substitute the purfling of the back and front with scratched lines, all to hasten the construction process. Carlo Antonio avoided these short cuts in this particular instrument, but his use of cheaper cuts of wood  seem to indicate some difficulties with the economics of violin making. At around this time, the Grancino workshop began to produce more instruments, and it may have been this competition which made life difficult for Carlo Antonio. In this violin, Carlo has  made the best use he can of locally grown maple rather than expensive imported varieties, and bottom-of-the-pile  knotty spruce. The maple is known as ‘oppio’, and is peculiar to northern Italy, never appearing in instruments made elsewhere. It is hard, close grained and dark, often showing a narrow irregular figure. While it may have been considered inferior to the clear white Balkan maple, neither Amati nor Stradivari were above using it themselves. I’m not sure Strad would ever even have contemplated using Testore’s spruce, however. It is almost certainly reclaimed wood, converted from some other use, rather than being specially nominated tone wood. It is cut off the quarter, with disfiguring knots on both sides. It is a marvel that Testore managed to work it at all, let alone make it work as an instrument in the way it surely does.

    Both plates are purfled with what appears to be poplar wood veneers, the outer strips imperfectly dyed black, and now faded to a pale grey. Poplar wood is quite soft, and cracks and buckles easily, so it unfortunately emphasises any inequalities in the slot cut to accommodate it. Cremonese makers used tougher, more elastic pearwood for the outer strips, which tends to even out any awkwardness in the channel, giving a more flowing result.   
    So poor materials make it hard for the maker. Carlo was more than equal to the challenge, and the open and graceful soundholes and the concentric spirals of the scroll show an experienced  hand at work. The flaring front view of the scroll, and the slightly pointed corners of the plates are trademark touches. In arching and outline form, Carlo Antonio was at least consistent, and on that basis his instruments have developed their reliable reputation for tone. The work of his younger brother, Paolo Antonio (born 1700), and his son, the unfortunate Pietro (active from around 1750 to 1760), is less predictable in appearance, but often provides very rewarding surprises under the bow. Over nearly a century of working as violin makers, the history of the Testore family illustrates the decline of the artist-luthier, from an individual working to the most demanding levels, to the corrupted trade of the late 18th century, when even the great traditions of Cremona had collapsed in the face of the spread of mass-manufactured instruments across Europe from the workshops of southern Germany.