By Erin Shrader
Carl Becker & Son Is part of a family dynasty of violin makers that spans three generations.
“I’m Carl Becker.” The voice comes from the back of the hall, deliberate and clear despite that slight tremor of age. Heads turn, a murmer swells through the crowd. Before the elderly violin maker can address the lecturer, a burst of spontaneous applause grows into a resounding ovation. This man has set the standard of excellence for decades.
The lecture hall is in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The attendees are members of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers, master craftspeople gathered this spring from across North America to mark the AFVBM’s 25th anniversary. The group has undertaken the first wide-ranging study of violin making in this country, a project that includes public concerts, exhibitions, and an important series of lectures and panel discussions on making in America.
In a moving ceremony at the Library’s Great Hall, the Federation also acknowledges Becker and William Salchow as deans of American violin and bow making. “You know what that means,” Salchow tells Becker. “We’re a couple of old fossils!”
Neither craftsman seems in danger of becoming a relic. Salchow recently spent his 80th birthday teaching bow-making classes while the 86-year-old Becker is making instruments at the family workshop in northern Wisconsin.
As a young maker, Charles Rufino once asked violin expert Charles Beare to name the greatest living violin maker. Beare had replied, Carl Becker.
The Beckers are a rare boreed: a family of american-born, American-trained makers.
“I remember the first time I saw Carl, at the first Triennale [lutherie competition], where he was judging,” continues Rufino, who later worked for Becker in the 1980s. “When someone pointed out ‘That’s Carl Becker,’ I went, ‘Oh my goodness.” “It struck me: he looked like nothing other than a gentle, kind scoutmaster. He was just a good, earnest, kind, gentle man.”
In a country where children are not obliged to take up their parents’ work and no formal violin-making training was available until the 1970s, the Beckers are a rare breed: a family of American-born, American-trained makers.
“Their tradition spans the entire 20th century,” says Rufino, starting in 1901 when Carl Becker Sr. made his first violin at age 14. Carl Jr. marks 70 years at the bench this summer and his children Jennifer am! Paul are carrying on the trade with Jenny making violins fulltime in Minneapolis and Paul having recently opened a branch of the Chicago-based Carl Becker & Son violin shop in the National Concert Hall in Taipei, Taiwan.
Carl Becker Jr. took time to reflect on the, family tradition In a series of phone interviews, from the summer workshop his lather built in 1924 in Pickerel, Wisconsin, where he has returned to full-time work at the bench.
For Becker, the family tradition starts with his great-grandfather, Herman Macklett, who came from Germany In the 1860s, settling in Chicago. Macklett started as an upholsterer but a few years later was making volins-quire Hood ones.
“He evidently had a gift for figuring things out. We’re no: sure where he trained, or if he did train,” says Becker. “My father figured he really learned from old Instruments. He saw a resemblance in his late scrolls to Joseph Rocca.”
Even at that time. Chicago would have afforded a talented craftsman access to fine Instruments, a crucial element in a maker’s development. All three generations of Beckers have spent decades studying, repairing, and restoring the best instruments of the 16th through 20th centuries.
As with most businesses, the axiom “follow the money” applies to violins and by the 1860s the money was in Chicago. As the western hub of transportation and trade in America, Chicago grew from just 350 souls in 1833 to an astonishing 300,000 at the time of the Great Fire of 1871. Musical culture flourished, served by such storied firms as Lyon Healy, founded in 1864; John Hornsteiner; and William Lewis and Son.
Carl Sr. worked for them all. Macklett’s shop burned in the Great Fire, hut according to family lore, the luthier managed to survive the disaster financially by gathering up his tools and some violins and escaping to safety. The Beckers still own two of Macklett’s violins and have seen others. -There was a steady improvement in his work and his ideas,” says Becker. “It all became more and more refined as he got older.”
“A lot of his learning was just observation and he was talented enough to make use of his observations and his thoughts. You’ll hear me talk about that with my dad’s work. I like that; I like to feel that he was my ancestor because of that.”
Macklett’s daughter Adeline inherited his capable nature. “If there was something [in the house] needed fixing she’s the one that got out the hammer and the saw. She did some bow rehairing. And she was the most wonderful person, so level-headed. Her attitude was calm and steady.”
Adeline married German violinist Carl Johannes Becker. “My grandfather added some musical talent; that runs through our family, Becker describes him as a well-trained, highly expressive player, who inspired the :Best in those he accompanied.
Their son, Carl G. Becker, was always making things in grammar school, especially kites, which he sold for a penny or two apiece. “That’s as far as he went,” says Carl Jr. “But in those days, grammar school was a real school. It was a good education at that time; far better than what –the kids get now.”
Carl Sr. made his first violin in 1901 as an -entice in the shop of W.T. Lane, begin, a lifelong fascination with violins. “He couldn’t pass an instrument without looking it and deciding for himself what it was,” CarI Jr. says. “He had an instinct that was to remarkable. When he was working with Lane, he said he’d be sent on errands going to Lyon & Healy. Every time he’d go, he’d pause and look at the instruments displayed in the window. They had a lot of fine instruments in their collection at that time and that was part of my father’s development.”
Carl Sr.’s considerable talent developed quickly at Lyon & Healy, where he started in 1902 under John Hornsteiner, the beginning of a 22-year working relationship. At the time he was 18, he was given a cello that was owned by the principal cellist of the Chicago Symphony, which was known as an Amati. The man, Bruno Steindi, had had an accident on a streetcar. The neck was broken, the cello had cracks in it, and this job was given to my father.”
Years later, Carl Sr. still marveled at placing such trust in so young a workman. Says his son, “Dad repaired the cello quite successfully and he also made a copy of it. It was quite distinctive in having fleur delis ivory inlays in the corners, so Dad did that with his cello. He must have made it look old, and the cello came out quite nicely. We own it now.
“One of the symphony men, klammsteiner, came in and played on it, thought in it was quite nice and went off to rehearsal. After rehearsal, Steindl came in with his Amati. He was sitting in the shop playing his original cello when Kammsteiner walked in again. Klammsteiner, how does the cello sound?’ asked Steindl. Clammsteiner looked and listened. ‘Oh, it sounds very nice, but you as can hear it’s new!’
Does that tell you a story about prejudice?” chuckles Becker. Carl Sr. followed Hornsteiner when he opened his own firm in 1908 and worked with him until the old man died in 1923. At that time, Carl Sr. was offered a position as leader of the workshop at William Lewis and Son, a position for which he was well-suited. In addition to his expertise, “Dad was a man’s man,” says Carl Jr. “He was a very highly respected person, solid, not boistrous or flamboyant but always ready for a good laugh.”
By this time he had made about 100 violins and wanted time to make more without having to go into business on his own. So they made a deal: Carl Sr. would take off for three months each summer to make fiddles, and everything he made, Lewis would buy. The arrangement stood from 1924 until the Beckers left Lewis’ in 1968. That summer Carl Sr. M Frank Kovanda from Lewis’ built the Wisconsin workshop and the two men started taking violins right away.
Taiwan Enterpirse
The October 2005 gala at the opening of the Taipei branch of Becker & Son was attended by colleagues from three continents, but Carl Jr. seems most taken with the warmth and sincerity o the local people he met in Taiwan, from restaurant workers to Wen-Lung Hsu, founder of the Chi Mei Corporation.
Chi Mei, among the first plastics factories in Taiwan, is now the world’s larger producer of ABS plastic (think car bumpers), and a major supplier of LCD TV screens. They also own one of the world’s largest violin collections.
In the early 1990s, the Chi Mei Culture Foundation acquired about a dozen instruments by such makers as Amati, Guarneri, Steiner, and Stradivari. During the past two years, the collection has skyrocketed to some 78 historical instruments by the most famous names, plus contemporary instruments.
Carl Jr. expected the man behind such a collection to be quite formal businesslike, “with a black suit and a starched collar, maybe spectacles and his head up in the air a little bit.” Instead he met someone close to his own age, “very informal and so nice to talk to. I was impressed with this man.”
The chairman, who plays violin, mandolin, guitar, and piano, invited the Beckers to his home in Tainan on a small, traditional-style street paved with round bricks. “The whole evening was music.” recalls Becker. The chairman, who loves Stephen Foster, played ‘My Old Kentucky Home’ with mandolin and guitar, and Paul gave a rendition of Hank Willams’ ‘Your Cheatin’ Heart.’ ”That’s what they do every Friday and Saturday night. How about that?” says Carl Jr. “The warmth and friendliness there was so striking to me. These are wonderful experiences.”
Two people working together can do the work of three. “Dad was very conscious of the value of time,” says Becker. “His work was highly skilled and also very efficient. He had a talent for that.”
He also had a system.
Carl Sr. made instruments in groups rather an one at a time. This approach allowed him to work very quickly, with the great precision and uncanny consistency that was characteristic of Becker instruments. “If you’re making ten at once, you very quickly begin to realize the deficiencies in your technique, and you strive to correct it,” explains Rufino.
“Those years, 1925, ’26, ’27, he was making 25 instruments a year, along with running .repair shop for Lewis and Son,” marvels grandson Paul Becker. Still, there was always time for fishing, a pastime that the Beckers still take seriously.
Carl Sr. worked alone for a few years after Kovanda married in 1931. “My mother was very supportive. Her name was Elsa Rose Toennegis, she was a cellist,” says Carl Jr. “What a good sport she was to go along with the whole thing!”
She took care of the family, helped with roughing out instruments, and read stories to Carl Sr. as he worked, “supporting my father very much in spirit. They were wonderful parents, they gave me a feeling of great security at home.”
Carl Jr. began contributing to his father’s instruments in 1936, starting with cello ribs. “Dad wanted to teach an understanding of things, not just measurements and details,” he says. So those ribs were made on principle rather than bent around aluminum forms.
Having no other plan, Carl Jr. started at Lewis’ in 1937, stringing up cheap instruments and helping his father in the summer. “The work suited me and I suited it,” he says. By age 19 he was helping with the restoration of an Amati violin at Lewis’, piecing at least 20 tiny fragments of wood into the badly worn top. The elder Becker remarked once, “I may have been alright in my day, but I never had the patience to spend the time that he does.”
World War II brought the younger Becker new opportunities. He became a pilot and taught instrument flying (flying guided by instruments when visibility is hindered by fog, storms, clouds, or smoke) in the Army Air Corps. “I was good at that,” he says, “and I was considering a career as an airline pilot. I had most of the qualifications.” But family ties and the appeal of making violins won out. “I wanted to come back and make instruments with my father,” he explains.
Becker instruments made between 1948 and 1967, numbers 489 to 746, are joint efforts between father and son, using patterns and molds of their own design. “Our instruments are based on [my father’s] examination of old instruments,” Carl Jr. explains. “He did not go to a violin-making school, so, in a sense, he was not restricted to a schooling. He observed the way things actually were, not just following a tradition. He ended up following the tradition of the instruments that really worked.”
To this, Carl Jr. has added his fascination with the violin from an engineering standpoint, especially the effects of archings and graduations (the thicknesses of the top and back). Physics, not guesswork, he says, is behind great sound.
Another important contribution to the Beckers’ instruments came from Simone Sacconi, who Carl Sr. visited on business trips to Rembert Wurlitzer’s famous violins shop in New York. “You can imagine how they hit it off,” Carl Jr. says. “Sacconi shared ideas with ‘ my father, not so much about repair work [for which Sacconj is famous] as about the drawing of outlines.”
The early Cremonese makers developed a system for drawing violins using a compass. “That’s the way I draw all our outlines,” he says. “You get a look to an outline, a Cremonese look, that you don’t get any other way. That method must have been established going back as early as Andrea Amati, before 1600. Stradivari applied his own thinking to that. The history of that work really gets to me.”
The method fell out of use after about 1750, but is gradually making a comeback with today’s makers, including Jennifer Becker.
As well as father and son worked together. “They were very different,” says Paul Becker. “My grandfather had a more artistic view, my father has a very scientific view. My grandfather’s work was very fine, there’s not much difference when you look at the details, but Dad took it to a level that’s just perfect. He made perfect instruments. His first violin was like, come on….”
“The first time I saw a Becker cello,” says Rufino, “it looked so clean, it looked like it had been carved out of ice. I found it cold.’ But, over time, Rufino realized that while the work is clean and brilliant, it has “a purity and beauty of line, every curve was just sublime. He worked with great precision, but the work is very soulful.”
Carl Becker and Son formed in 1968. “Lewis’ had changed things and we didn’t seem to fit together anymore,’ says Becker. Buying benches, tools, and supplies from the old Lewis shop, they somewhat reluctantly opened their doors. “Dad always rejected the idea of being in business for himself,” says Carl Jr., who took on the business as his wife Geraldine stepped in to handle the finances. “We had very little at all,” he says, “but we continued with our making.”
Then came an order from Morton Ginsberg, an amateur musician, in memory of his parents: six violins each from Carl Sr., Carl , Jr., and Jennifer—a real vote of confidence for 3 the young woman who made her first violin at age ten out of cardboard, scotch tape, and scraps.
“Dad said, ‘Lets see what she can do.” Carl Jr. recalls. “He was always leading the way in this sort of thing, in his wisdom and. his sense of what could be done.”
Jennifer started tool work at age 11 finished a violin at 15, and joined the business full-time at 16. Her younger brother, Paul, made his first violin at about the same age, but gravitated toward repair. After marrying in 1985, he stayed behind and kept the store open in the summer while the others went off to make instruments. “Now I pretty much run the business,” he says.
After 20 years of running the business, Paul recently decided to change the focus. “I’m trying to bring back [violin] making in a major way for our family. We really suffered from doing so much repair that I felt we lost our focus as makers, which is our namesake.” Jenny has closed her retail shop to make instruments full time, Carl has retired from restoration altogether and jus settled down to work in Wisconsin, and Paul has returned to making, shutting down the store in the summer.
The family name was one of the motivations for opening the Taipei branch in October. “I want our name to grow and be international,” he says simply. “I want that for my grandfather, I want that for my father, I want that for our name. I look at the market in China as being huge.”
China itself is not quite ready, he adds, but “Taiwan sets the stage.” When the chance to locate in the national concert hall in Taipei came up, he said, “That’s the only place I want to talk about. If we get in there I’ll open a business in Taiwan.”
Paul also is concerned with conducting business according to the family tradition. “My dad and grandpa just drilled it in how you have to do things ethically. I see a lot of taking advantage of people,” he says. “They’re not aware of it, I see it, and I say I’m not gonna do that.” In a heated voice he describes instruments purchased from unsuspecting widows for a fraction of their true value, and dealers who exploit contemporary makers. “I have a total open-book policy,” he says.
The Taipei branch sells the entire range of instruments, from the old Italians to Chinese-made student instruments with Becker setups. He also travels to search out the best contemporary violin and bow makers. “That’s what I was doing at the Federation meeting,” he says, “looking at makers that I plan on representing in Taiwan.”
Paul chooses the makers he represents based on quality of work, plus a willingness to come to Taipei and to maintain those instruments and establish relationships with the people who buy them.
“I think it’s remarkable what he’s doing” says Carl Jr. “He’s handled himself in such a way that he’s established a trust over there.“
Paul said, ‘if you ever come to Taiwan, this is the time to do it, when we’re opening he shop.’” After some resistance, Carl Jr. relented. “I’m so glad I did,” he says.
Carl is working alone now at the lake. “It’s a little different than it used to be, first with Dad, periodically with go Jenny and other people,” he says.
It’s been a difficult year since his wife passed away.
“I can still work,” he adds, “thank goodness. I’m still able to see properly and do the things that need to be done.”
Rufino carries a vivid memory of Carl Jr. at the lake on a sunny, breezy September day. “Carl came out of the shop, and you could just see the life and enthusiasm and joy in him. He may have had his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth like, ‘Oh, boy, here I’ve got another violin!’
“He’d just put his first coat of varnish on, this beautiful, beautiful brilliant color … and he’d just hung it up on the clothesline to catch the sun.”
The six instruments he’s working on have been about half finished for ten years, pushed aside by the demands of restoration work. “I’m just gonna have to stay here till I finish them,” Carl Jr. says. “That’s all. I’m working at it.”