Musicologica Austriaca (Apr 2021)
Inventing the Italian Violin Making "Tradition": Franjo / Franz / Francesco Kresnik, a Physician and Violin Maker, as Its Key Figure in a Fascist Environment
Abstract
This article investigates the role played by the physician and violin maker Franz / Franjo / Francesco Kresnik in the discourse on violin making in the first half of the twentieth century. It also considers the effect of his presence at the "Bicentenario stradivariano," the 200th anniversary of the death of Antonio Stradivari in Cremona in 1937, during the "Ventennio"—the two decades of fascist rule. Art and music had at that time become central for the construction of national identity and the mobilization of the population by means of elaborate public events and media discourses. The Vienna-born Kresnik grew up in Fiume / Rijeka in present-day Croatia. After studying medicine in Vienna, Graz, and Innsbruck, he worked as a physician in Fiume / Rijeka and made violins in his spare time. He was always interested in the theory of violin making, and his visits to the collector Theodor Hämmerle in Vienna gave him the opportunity to examine several Cremonese violins from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His knowledge made him popular in fascist Cremona; the young Cremonese violin maker Carlo Schiavi traveled to Fiume in order to study with him. Schiavi later taught at the violin making school founded in 1938, a year after the "Bicentenario stradivariano." Stradivari became both a national figure and a reference point for Cremona’s reentry into the world market for new stringed instruments. On the basis of press and archival material, it will be shown how the multicultural Kresnik was received by the fascist press and to what extent the "Italian" violin making tradition can be understood as an invented one.
