Methods and Principles

The purpose of this database being an ongoing sources of reference on musical instruments makers and inventors, and to enable the makers of signed instruments to be identified, the layout of the entries is planned accordingly.

In general, the makers listed are mouth-blown wind instruments that have been predominantly used in literate Western traditions. Such instruments include those that have commonly been employed both indoors and outdoors, in the drawing room, in church, at court, in the concert hall, on the hunting field, by civic officers, and by the military. Excluded are such folk instruments as the alp-horn, and the mouth-organ. Makers solely of spare parts and accessories such as keys and valves are omitted. However the makers of woodwind and brass instrument mouthpieces are included, as these often marked their products, and woodwind reed makers are included.

The principal criterion for inclusion of a name as an entry is the supposition that the maker or workshop proprietor in question will have used it, or a recognizable version of it, as a 'mark' with which to sign his instruments. Exceptions are made in the case of craftsmen active before the eighteenth century. There are entries for the signs, symbols and devices frequently employed in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries in lieu of a name or initials.

It cannot however be assumed that every maker's name listed will have ever appeared on an instrument. While Langwill' s Index originated as a listing of names transcribed from actual instruments, subsequent research into archives and directories has yielded the names of many documented as having been wind instrument makers. Those documented merely as 'musical instrument makers', without there being any reason to suppose that they may have been makers specifically of wind instruments, are not included.

Entries appear in alphabetical order of name. Where initials only were used, they are ranged under the last in question (e.g., H.F. = F). Note that the spelling of given names can often vary (Carl/Karl, lohann/Johann etc). The treatment of prefixes in entry names follows current national usage: (van Heerde = Heerde, Van Engelen = Van Engelen). German names containing umlauts are ranged in conformity with Library of Congress practice and that of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: ä= ae, ö = oe, ü = ue.

Spellings correspond in general to that adopted by the maker for his mark, with alternative versions appearing in brackets. Names have been neither translated nor modernized, but are reproduced in their period orthography (e.g. Anton Czapka rather than Antonin Čapka). It may be remarked that in handwritten German, pairs of repeated consonants were often written singly, with a line on top of the first consonant to indicate this abbreviation: this has often resulted in omissions in transcription (e.g. Schemel = Schemmel). The double consonant 'ß' can also be variously transcribed as either 'ss' or 'sz'.

Entries comprise three categories:

• Maker, as individual partnership, family, workshop or factory, and dealer. Those listed are presumed to have used a personalized mark to sign their work. Certain entries are grouped together; those under a common heading include makers sharing a common family name that are known or presumed to have been related; component members are listed, with a number alloted to each, giving relationships and adding a family tree where necessary. The headings MARK, ADDRESS, INSTRUMENT, and BIBLIOGRAPHY are, if applicable to more than one member of a family, cited accordingly.
• Trade name employed, rather than a maker’s name, as mark; where known, the name of the maker employin the name is given.
• Inventor, patentee, also player or composer who has become associated with a maker or type of instrument as a result of collaboration over features of instrument design.

Heading

• Name of maker, workshop proprietor etc., or of inventor. The spelling of the name will usually conform to that used by the maker on his mark, rather than that given in contemporary written sources; alternative spellings in use appear in brackets; in the case of partnerships, the ampersand (&) replaces all forms of 'and', e.g., 'Grundmann & Floth' rather than 'Grundmann et Floth', while commas are omitted in order to avoid ambiguity, e.g., 'Rudall Rose Carte & Co.' rather than 'Rudall, Rose, Carte & Co.'; given names not customarily used appear in normal, rather than bold, type.
• Place and date born or baptised, place and date died or buried, where known.
• Abbreviations indicating whether the maker was involved with woodwind instruments (WWI), brass instruments (BI), or of unspecified wind instrument (WI). Workshops are classified into those employing manufacturing techniques relating to either woodwind instruments or to brass instruments: thus makers of instruments such as serpent, comett, oliphant and english bass-horn are classified as woodwind instruments makers, since the manufacture of these lip-vibrated instruments are primarily employed woodwind instrument making skills. Also classified as woodwind instrument are the makers of such reed-instruments in metal as saxophone, bass clarinet, sarrusophone and rothophone.
• Fl. (flourished) followed by whereabouts and dates. The name of the workplace given largely corresponds to that officially in force at the beginning of the period in question: e.g., Neukirchen until 1858, afterwards Markneukirchen, Graslitz until 1918, afterwards Kraslice. Note that, for various reasons (political, economic, ethnic, or orthographic), makers may have adopted differing forms. The names Moscow, St Petersburg and Warsaw appear anglicised for convenience, as do names of countries. The database may be searched by the makers' name, city or country. The estimated commencing and terminal dates of professional activity of the workshop bearing the name of the maker are given. The chief purpose of this information is to propose a time-frame within which instruments bearing the 'signature' of the maker in question may be assigned; thus, a maker's time spent working for other employers is ignored. These dates have in each case been estimated according to available evidence, e.g., the presumed granting of trading rights or year of decease; where less precise information has had to be relied upon, such as intermittent directory listings, the peripheral dates may be qualified with ca. (circa), before or after. In some cases the dating is based only on the style of the instrument bearing the mark. Some firms (especially in France) may be inconsistent in their claims regarding year of establishment, which may refer rather to that of a workshop predecessor bearing another name that had been taken over. The terminal date of workshop activity may, in the event of there having been a subsequent proprietor, be later than that of the death of its founder. There is also a problem in establishing precisely when a workshop successor may have ceased to use an earlier mark, substituting it with his own.

Biography

Biographical information is given first, followed by supplementary non-biographical information. Wherever possible, quotations from original sources are given verbatim, using the original language and orthography, followed by a translation where necessary. Makers active before the era of industrialization (here identified as ca. 1850) are generally treated in greater detail than those that are more recent; the more historically significant the maker, the more detailed the data that might appear. The editor has refrained from offering subjective value judgments himself on the caliber of a maker; however comments by others, favorable or otherwise, are given where appropriate.

When it is only the surname of the maker that appears on an instrument, due caution has been exercised when attributing it to a specific individual or workshop; here the careful documenting of the mark will often help to avoid gross errors of attribution. When attempting to identify the maker of a given instrument and the date of its manufacture it must be borne in mind that in certain countries such as France it was possible to purchase the brand name of a maker and continue to use it long after the demise of the original workshop proprietor. Dealers and 'Verleger' were often the client of more than one maker for the supply of their instruments.

A major problem is to determine whether someone whose name is marked on an instrument may in fact be regarded as its 'maker'. He may be a dealer who has bought it from its maker unmarked and has added his own name to it; the mere fact that such middlemen might have advertised themselves as being 'makers' would not always in itself constitute firm proof. In any case, the proprietor of a workshop signing its products with his name might be employing others to carry out the manufacturing process on his behalf. The editor has refrained from identifying persons as 'dealers' rather than 'makers' unless there appears to be some evidence to support such a supposition. See Herbert Heyde's essay on 'Makers' marks' for a detailed examination of this problem.

Mark

• Woodwind instruments: a transcription of the maker's mark is given wherever possible. In those cases where, in the absence of other documentation, it is his surviving instruments that offer the sole evidence of a maker's activity, the details of his mark are of crucial significance, these furnishing the main evidence that can enable us to identify him and his work. Where possible the transcription attempts to distinguish between the use in the original of either capital letters, lower case, or cursive script; signs and symbols are described in parentheses; the stroke (/) is used to denote a line break, the double stroke (//) to signify location elsewhere on the same instrument. A transcription taken from a source that has not distinguished between the use of capitals and line distribution is given in inverted commas. It should be noted that the published transcription of a mark will often, on inspection, prove to be erroneous. Alternatively used marks are listed on different lines and dated where possible; when undated, the order in which these appear does not imply chronological order. Signs such as letters, numbers, asterisks etc., indicating key, joint and other symbols peculiar only to certain categories of instrument have been omitted. Where the text differs between individual parts of the instrument, the most detailed version is given. An alternative version of a mark that merely omits part of it will not as a rule be given. In the case of makers after 1850, the text relating to workshop address, patents, awards, advertisements etc., may be omitted.
• Brass instruments transcriptions of maker's marks are given but not in every case. This is due to the fact that such marks lack consistency, having usually been engraved by hand or stamped on employing individual letters. Exceptions are made in the case of certain early brass makers, including those of the Nuremberg school.
• The reproductions of some 400 selected marks offer an aid to recognition rather than an accurate facsimile; some derive from originals partly effaced through wear, while others appear distorted through the photographic process. Choice has been subject to the constraints of availability and time.

Serial numbers

In the case of those makers who allot serial numbers to their instruments, datings are given where known.

Address

Addresses, and successive changes of address and title, are given selectively. Such data is of value in dating an instrument when details of the address are incorporated in the maker's mark. The precise commercial name of a firm, together with the dates when such changes have been first noted, will often help to clarify the identity and working period of different individuals and partnerships incorporating the same name. Note that the renumbering of houses and the renaming of streets can introduce a confusing factor. This information primarily derived from local directories can, with certain reservations, offer useful evidence regarding the activity of makers; in a majority of cases it is the only documentary source available. There is still much to be done in this area and the author does not claim to have researched exhaustively. Since it is impractical to list precisely every directory that has been completely searched, the author invites those wishing to pursue research on particular makers to ask for details of which specific sources have already been searched.

Invention

Information on inventions not detailed elsewhere is given here.

Patent

The year, country and number are given where known; what follows attempts to indicate briefly the subject of the patent in a free paraphrasing of the original title. In view of the vastness of this subject, the listing of patents (especially those non-British) does not claim to be comprehensive. Note that here 'patent' regarding England comprises also 'Registered Design', regarding Germany both 'DRP' ('Deutsche Reichspatent') and 'DRGM' ('Deutsches Reichs-Gebrauchsmuster'), regarding France both 'brevet' and 'certificat d'addition'. Patents taken out by wind-instrument patentees that relate to topics other than wind instruments are not included. It may be remarked that many instrument models described by their makers as 'patent' or 'breveté' prove never to have been patented.

Exhibition

Trade exhibitions, rather than temporary loan exhibitions of art objects, are cited here. The city and date is given, followed (where relevant) by what was exhibited. They are ordered chronologically, under each city in question. In view of the modem proliferation of such exhibitions, complete listings of participation are only attempted in the case of those exhibitions held up to ca. 1875; thereafter only major exhibitions are noted. Details of medals and awards conferred are not given. Coover 1981 may be consulted for full details of exhibitions and the relevant literature.

Writings 

Writings, published and unpublished, primarily relating to the subject's concern with wind instruments are listed here, quoting where and when published.

Catalog

Makers' price lists and catalogs are listed here; the title, number of pages and year of publication (where known) is given.

Instrument

The listing of reported locations of instruments, which is primarily to indicate the range of instruments made and to inform where representative examples may be found, is selective and subject to the following rules: The listing of instruments is undertaken for the majority of makers in the database and for makers active after 1850, where the listing of an instrument usefully contributes to our knowledge of the maker, and for certain inventors. Examples of each different genre of instrument are listed.

The criteria for the selection of instruments to list include: instruments that are in a public collection, and instruments in private collections that have been described and possibly illustrated in a published catalogue or video. They will be a good, representative examples of its kind; a dated instrument ; or an instrument represented in the collection by more than one example.

The provenance of a listed instrument is occasionally given where the instrument may have been cataloged while under its former ownership and where this would facilitate the identification of a particular instrument, and in cases of special interest.

Instruments are listed in standard order of subdivision by family (recorder, piccolo, flute, oboe, english horn, clarinet, bassoon, etc.; bugle, cornet, trumpet, euphonium, tuba, serpent, etc.); nomenclature will usually follow that used in English sources, but often includes the name in brackets given by the inventor and/or maker.

Each public collection or museum uses the name provided in the latest list for musical instrument museums and private collections given on the “Sigla for Musical Instruments Collections” provided by ICOM MUSIC (Formerly CIMCIM). The inventory number is given where known. In the case of a privately-owned instrument, the name of the collection is given; when the ownership 'private collection' is given, this can mean that the editor is ignorant of its location, he is not authorized to divulge it, or the collection in question is of relative modesty. Previous collections that now no longer exist appear in square brackets, e.g., [Offenbach]. The provenance of the instrument may also be indicated, e.g., [ex Fryklund coll.] in cases where the instrument has been cataloged or described by a former owner. If the instrument is dated, the date is given in brackets. The number of keys, where given, refers to that of original keys; added keys are indicated as, for example, '3+1 =4k' indicating there are three original keys with one added later. Where a comprehensive listing of instruments is available, this is referred to, e.g., [Young 1993] appears in the case of the approximately 200 makers covered in Phillip T. Young, 4900 Historical Woodwind Instruments (London 1993).

The attribution of an instrument to a specific maker is made in good faith, usually on the basis of a relevant catalog entry; it should however be noted that, especially in the case of an instrument marked with surname only, it is not always possible to attribute it with certainty to a particular workshop.

Bibliography

The bibliographic references may be searched in the database and comprise articles from periodicals; articles from encyclopedias and dictionaries, books and unpublished material. Much of the data was William Waterhouse, or Lyndesay Langwill, and supplemented with later sources by the editor.

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