About this episode
In this episode, we dive into the mysterious and brilliant world of Giuseppe Guarneri “del Gesù”, one of history’s most revered violin makers. Often overshadowed by Stradivari, del Gesù was doing his own thing creating violins that have raw power, and emotional depth—qualities that still captivate players and collectors nearly three centuries later. We’ll explore his fascinating life in 18th-century Cremona, the distinctive features that set his instruments apart, and the myths that surround his work. Then, I sit down with Joe Bein of Bein and Company rare violins, one of the world’s leading experts and dealers in fine string instruments, to unpack what makes a Guarneri violin so extraordinary—and why musicians from Paganini to today’s great soloists remain spellbound by them. Whether you’re a violinist, a luthier, or simply a lover of classical music’s deep craftsmanship, this episode offers a rare look into the genius and mystery of Guarneri del Gesù. And for my amazing Patreon listeners Peter Biddulph tells his intriguing story of a very important archival discovery that rocked the violin making world and we discuss a Stradivari that perhaps you never knew existed! Listen now to discover the passion, artistry, and intrigue behind some of the most powerful violins ever made. Transcript Joe Bein You know, there is something, in my experience, I think there is something primal about players when they get around. Del Gesus. And of course, we're basically just talking about violinists, but there's an excitement and there's a, I don't know, it just feels like there's a, there's something, like Stradivari of course has this regal element to it, and it's like, it's so perfect and beautiful and usually more symmetrical. And then you get to a Del Gesu and it's just this like, I don't know, it's like, it's like the wild child or it's like the, the one you're, I don't know. You're not supposed to like, but you really do. And obviously like there's this dark. Powerful sound that I think is associated with his best instruments that is just like intoxicating. And that was the delight for Joe Bein of Bein and company rare violins in Chicago. We'll be having the pleasure of hearing more from this superbly loquacious individual later on. So don't fall off the edge of your seats just yet. He'll be back. Welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a show dedicated to the story of history's greatest violin makers. Now, this season, we are diving into the life of one of the most mysterious and fascinating figures in violin making history, really. And his name is Giuseppe Guarneri Del Gesu. Hello, I'm Linda Lespets, a violin maker based in Sydney, Australia. And together with my husband Antoine, we run a workshop where many remarkable instruments pass through our hands. And here I'll be sharing the stories behind the people who created these beautiful works of craftsmanship. It really is exciting to finally be talking about Bartoloemo Giuseppe Guarneri. Now, by this time, we've already looked at 200 years of violin making, starting with Andrea Amati. Now, Andrea Amati laid down the foundations of modern violin making, and yet just two doors down from the Amati home in which Gerolamo Amati the second was living. The Guarneri family continued to follow many of the same methods Andrea Amati had pioneered keeping the cremonese tradition alive with other violin makers around town of course. So in this series, I'll be joined by some incredible guests, the renowned expert, Peter Biddulph who will share a story of a landmark discovery connected to the Guarneris, or sort of thanks to the Guarneris. You'll hear it's a very cool story. And I also speak to the expert, Joe Bein, whose deep knowledge of Del Gesu's instruments offer rare insight into the maker's genius, if you will. This European summer, I happen to be in France and I spoke to Jonathan Marolle from the French maison Vatelot Rampal who will help us explore just how the French played an unexpected role in the cementing of Del Gesu’s fame. And it gets pretty philosophical if I do say so myself. But come with me. And together we will unravel the enigma of Giuseppe Guarneri Del Gesu. Can we separate the man from the myth? You know, in rumours sometimes there is a grain of truth. What are the truths that we can find in these rumours of Guarneri Del Gesu and what lies behind the legend? So stay tuned, and by the end it will all start making a little bit more sense. Trust me. And just quickly before we start, I would like to thank this episodes sponsor Florian Leonhard, fine Violins and in particular his new book coming out on Guarneri Del Gesu called The Archetypal Violins of Giuseppe Guarneri Del Gesu. In the year 1698, Andrea Guarneri is 75 years old and no longer a young man. His son, Giuseppe, is making most of the instruments in the workshop these days. And quite frankly, Andrea is tired. His wife died three years ago and things had never really been the same since her passing. But today the family is celebrating. It's the christening of his youngest grandchild, Bartolemo, Giuseppe Guarneri. Who we know today as Guarneri Del Gesu. He already has two older brothers, the 7-year-old Andrea and Pietro, who is three. The three girls, Giuseppe and Barbara had would pass away in infancy, but with three healthy boys. Surely one of these would inherit the workshop one day, and for the moment it looked like it would be the little Andrea named after his grandfather. Of course. Now, although Andrea was still holding a grudge against his eldest son Pietro, for going off and living in Mantua when there was work to do here in Cremona, he was happy to have his sons with him. Pietro had made the trip from Mantua a few days ago and the boys had sorted out, the last of the paperwork for his will. And now they could sit back and listen to Pietro’s stories of life in the Manin Court with its extravagant goings on the banquets, the theatre, the performances. And if the young 3-year-old Pietro could have only remembered listening to his uncle describing his life in this foreign city, he could only dream of what life could be like in say, Venice, the heart of all drama. Well, maybe the little 7-year-old Andrea did, but the 3-year-old Pietro was probably running around doing more interesting things. Right now, no one realized it quite yet, but later in the year, the grandfather, Andrea would die. And so this would be the last time. The five Guarneri names we know so well, were gathered together. Andrea Guarneri, Pietro of Mantra, Giuseppe filius Andrea, Pietro Guarneri of Venice, and Giuseppe known as Del Gesu. Now Pietro of Mantua, was named godfather of this little nephew, Bartolemo, and prayed that he would survive infancy. And eventually left for his home and family who awaited him in Mantua. He would not be able to return to his hometown of Cremona for quite some years. As it turned out that the whole area was a geopolitical ticking time bomb. Let me explain. At the time of Del Gesu's birth, the region of Lombardi was in decline, not only for violin makers, but for the whole economy. Times were hard for everyone. And if you will remember, the city was still ruled by the Spanish, but things were heating up and the Beretta firm over in Brescia were working overtime, making Flintlocks arquebus and muskets because Europe was about to play musical chairs with its powers, and Cremona was in the middle of the action. Mantua would get a bit too. Don't worry. We have already spoken of the dramas that unfolded in Cremona over these next few years during the childhood of the little Del Gesu in the previous episodes on Filius Andrea, so I won't go into them too much again, but by understanding what went on in his childhood, this can help us form a picture of the man he will become. That same year that Giuseppe Del Gesu was born and Andrea Guarneri died, the Stradivari also encountered a personal tragedy when Antonio's wife, Francesca passed away. He remarried the next year, and it was the children of this second marriage that Del Gesu would have grown up with and gone to school with, Francesca, Giovanni, Giuseppe and Paolo literally lived just a few houses down from the Guarneris and we're very close in age to the boys. Francesco and Omobono that you may have heard of were somewhat older than the young Del Gesu at this time and we're already working with their father. In his workshop, these two boys were the children of Stradivari's first wife. Now in 1702, we have something called the Battle of Cremona, the little Del Gesu, look, I'm just gonna call him Jisu because even though he was never called that in his lifetime, there are just too many Giuseppes in this story. So the little Del Gesu may not have had a very steady education in those primary school age years because his town was constantly in the middle of skirmishes and even battles in his younger years Between the French and Spanish and the Austrians, this little guy got the trifecta war disease and famine armies passing through and different powers taking control of the city. Interestingly, on the instrument front, things were not all that bad. As it turns out, soldiers needed constant entertaining to keep them out of mischief. Stradivari's workshop a few doors down was doing quite well, and although the Guarneri were drowning in debt at this point, this was probably due to some bad luck and terrible financial planning on his parents' side. Now in these years when Del Gesu was about five to seven years old, the city was losing its power. In these wars that were going on the Spanish, were slowly losing control of the city and the whole area. As the Austrian start to move in. Cremona has adjusted to its new circumstances. Austrian soldiers are everywhere, and the workshop of Antonio Stradivari is entering its golden period with his older boys working for or with him on the Piazza San Marco. The Guarneri family lived in what was essentially two houses Del Gesu’s Grandfather had always rented out the second house, but since his death Giuseppe Filius Andrea Guarneri, his father, had moved the family into the larger space using both houses, but don't let that fool you. Giuseppe was struggling to keep his head above water and hoping for better times to come so that he could pay off money owed to his brother. Pietro in Mantra amongst others. Enter the Guarneri home and you would find Giuseppe and Barbara the parents, Giuseppe, AKA Filius Andrea. He would spend all his days in the workshop with his eldest son, Andrea, who is 14. There was Pietro who is 10 years old and now starting to help out his father and brother. And then the youngest 7-year-old Giuseppe, AKA Del Gesu who would've still been of an age to attend school The Guarneris had also had three daughters who all died in infancy before the youngest son Giuseppe was even born. But in the home there were also their older cousins living with them after their father had died. But soon, Giuseppe. The cousin, I mean, this is why it's so confusing. There are three Giuseppe Guarneris living in the house at the same time. It's making this narration really hard. Well, the cousin Giuseppe would leave to fight in the Austrian army like so many other soldiers in Cremona who failed to have any fixed employment and high hopes of making a fortune and seeing the world, and his sister would eventually leave the home as well, heading for a convent. Now it was this, it was this Giuseppe, the cousin that would sometimes in archives lead to confusion and the, and historians historically thinking that there were two Giuseppe Guarneris but they would mix up this Giuseppe Guarneri with Giuseppe Del Gesu. And so coming back to 1705 Del Gesu’s father starts experimenting with different violin models. It was his target market soldiers that were so often in town and perhaps looking for an affordable instrument if their wages would not permit them to buy from the esteemed Stradiveri workshop. Giuseppe filius Andrea was literally a few doors down from Antonio and his instruments were going for a lot cheaper. We're gonna have a quick break now to talk to Florian Leonhard about his exciting new book on Del Gesu Violins coming out. And here is the man himself talking to me about his latest project, a wonderful book called The Archetypal Violins of Guarneri Del Gesu. So I'm Florian Leonard, director of Florian Leonhard Fine Violins. I'm an expert in authentication of in particular old Italian instruments, a violin maker, a restorer. The dealer about 15 years ago, I, I decided to start the project. I collated by now more than a hundred instruments, 100 full size, high quality photographed instruments in the book from the earliest part to his last year of life. I wanted to highlight very much the, the early part of his production. So we don't have any publication. Yet that highlights also the early works of Del Gesus. Okay. So in your book, you're, you're documenting his life through instruments from every period of his life. Yeah. But what is interesting is that you are also looking at his earlier period, which is left documented. That's right. In my past 40 years of work, I've come across. So many go del Gesu’s that I thought it would be nice to study them and put this knowledge together into one big book. And so I wanted to create a volume where all the works that we can today find are, are shown to any violin maker. The violin makers know Stradivari quite well. We have lots of publications on Antonio Stradivari we lack a little bit publication that shows the whole life and the whole spectrum of Guarneri Del Gesu’s work. And so it is very interesting. Del Gesu was not an as prolific maker as Antonio Stradivari, and also he did not live as long in this publication, I will publish 100 and I have every single year since the early 1720s represented by at least one example. More likely like three to four. And that should help the community of people interested in the subject, but also the violin makers who want to understand the maker better or copy him or don't have access to the originals all the time to get the feeling of holding those pieces in their hand and also see the flow of development throughout the decades of his work. And we can clearly see it. You will realize. How he slowly developed, how the scrolls become his own hand, or when he carved his own scroll, and when the father created a batch of scrolls that he would make use, and how he in the 1740s creates his style. The pictures are high resolution, full size, so it's exact size of the instrument so people can use these as templates to draw their own models. It's a Maker's book, but it is also a book for people who like the history. So for makers, musicians, and enthusiasts, this book should enable them to analyse and understand and then fall in love with the work of this great master. What I add to this whole book is my descriptions of the instruments I want to share. That insight because if you also describe pictures, it brings the instrument even closer to the eye of the person. Yeah. And when you describe something, you're really drawing the eye towards it that you might not have noticed before. Correct. So this must have reference book. The Archetypal Violins of Guarneri Del Gesu is now even bigger. It was originally going to be only 100 instruments, but now it's 130 life-sized photos featured in the book. It's a whale. And if you are fast, the price is 495 pounds until the 1st of December. After that, the price is going to increase to 795 pounds because of the extra photos. So be sure to get a copy in your hot little hands by going to the webpage, Florian leonard.com. Go to the shop tab and there you can order your very own copy of this book and you too can have a Del Gesu library on your bookshelf. Now, as I said, the economy in Cremona was not flourishing since the birth of Del Gesu and with the wars and the flooding we looked at in the previous episodes on Filius Andrea, we can see a Cremona that this young violin maker grew up in well past its glory days. The days in which the Amati family ruled the market were long gone. The Guarneri parents were falling further and further into debt, and to make matters worse, the very next year tragedy struck the family. Del Gesu was eight years old when his eldest brother Andrea died Suddenly leaving a void, the Poe was flooding again. Diseases were on the rise as a result of all the displaced water. Could this have been what killed the young Andrea? He was supposed to be the son who would inherit the workshop and continue on in the family tradition, but now this baton would be passed on to the next eldest son, Pietro. But Pietro was only 11 years old and quite frankly, not that much help in the workshop compared to his older brother who was starting to really show promise. Time moves on and Giuseppe Filius Andrea, the father of the two boys, Pietro and Del Gesu, will mismanage the family finances spectacularly and the year after their eldest brother's death. The two boys were now 11 and nine years old and would not have missed the significance of the fact that the Austrians finally took control of the city officially of Cremona. These last few years, the French soldiers garrisoned in the area were draining the resources of the city. And the locals had been heavily taxed to support all these extra bodies, but soldiers also meant entertainment. And when they eventually all left in 1707. Only a year later, the local theatre closed down as well. This was a stressful time for the family and would have affected Giuseppe's income as well. He would've done a bit of freelance playing and what with all the upkeep of the instruments at the theatre there as well. He could kiss all those patrons goodbye now. Being ruled as part of the Austrian empire now meant that trade with the French and Spanish was not the easiest path to follow. But at the same time, this opened up new opportunities of commerce with the Austrian controlled areas of Europe. This was both good and bad news, as you will hear. So the bad news for the Luthiers in Cremona was that there was now many, many, many cheap instruments being made north of the Alps, flooding the market. Now for someone such as Antonio Stradivari, whose instruments were targeted at the luxury trade level, this was not so much a problem. But for the makers in the cheaper range, the competition was now fierce. And to the young Pietro Guarneri Del Gesu, his older brother, as he grew up, this became more and more evident. If he wanted to continue to be an instrument maker, the only thing he had been trained in, quite frankly, it was hard for him to see a future for himself in this town. I mean, just look at their Uncle Pietro in Mantua. He was making a great success of things compared to the Guarneris here in Cremona. He had a big house, lots of work, and a successful career as a musician. It was not beyond the realms of impossible to live elsewhere. He thought to himself. There is a change noted in the craftsmanship coming from their father's workshop in Filius Andrea's style around the years 1710, and this is probably because the two boys would've been working with their father. Pietro is 15 and Del Gesu is now 12. And although these instruments are Giuseppe filius Andrea’s, they would have been helped along by the two boys. In the previous series on Filius Andrea, Christopher Reuning talks about these distinct period of the father's work. But for now, life goes on and as time goes by, the boys will contribute more and more to the production coming from their father's workshop. And their contributions were not just in their handiwork, but in the life of their community, especially our young Del Gesu who appears to be quite the man about town. Despite his unreliable and often ill father who had a tendency to make bad financial decisions and was not to be relied upon to repay his debts. His youngest son, Bartolomeo Giuseppe Del Gesu as we are calling him, was a whole other kettle of fish. At the age of 19, he appears to be friends with every man and his dog in town, and when weddings are celebrated, he is not only invited, but asked to be a witness. When neighbours are on their deathbeds, he has called with other trusted friends to execute the dying man's testament and final wishes. Then when Del Gesu was just 20 years old in 1717, his brother Pietro announced that he was leaving the family and Cremona and moving to Venice. Perhaps he asked his little brother to go with him and seek his fortune in the Veneto. But dutiful son that he was, he stayed. He was the last of Barbara and Giuseppe's six children. Their father's health was not the best these days and it was probably not an easy decision staying with his parents who were only accumulating more debt that they could never realistically pay back, and the economy wasn't great. Business was slow, but he stayed on. So here in these years, we have our young Del Gesu alone working for his father for at least the next four years. And although he appears to have many friends and acquaintances in his local community, he's a bit of a standalone in his generation of violin makers. Antonio Stradivari is in his early seventies now, and his sons are almost 30 years older than him. Girolamo Amati is an old man. His brother Pietro has moved away and the maker, the closest to him in age would, would have to be Carlo Bergonzi. And even then, he's 15 years older than him. All the work he was doing in his father's workshop would've gone to paying off his parents' debts. There was less and less demand for instruments in a city that still had a lot of makers to choose from. He would have to seriously think about his options for the future. Deep down, he knew that he was not going to inherit much from his father in regards to the workshop, apart from a crippling debt and creditors pounding at his door. As Christopher Reuning explained in the previous episodes, here we can see the very first period of del Gesu’s work in a series of instruments coming from his father's workshop. And if we were to divide his life up into segments, these would be the early years up to 1722. Joe Bein My name is Joe Bein and I have been in the, you know, my family's been in the violin business for about half a century now. My father started in the violin business. My father was Robert Bein of course, and he started in the violin business in Cincinnati in the early seventies. So I've, I've been working in the violin business now for about 25 years. Certainly grew up around it. And then I launched. My business is called Bein and Company five years ago, obviously after being at the old firm Bein and Fushi for a couple decades. And then, yeah, and so now we're coming up on five years. And so I have a shop in Chicago that I'm on Michigan Avenue a couple blocks away from the orchestra hall. And it's great. I mean, I have a lot of fun actually, and I feel very grateful to be in this business because it's, it's one of those that. It's filled with these like multi-generational relationships. It's filled with like long-term connections with people. I think it's associated with something generally very positive. Like when you're helping somebody find something, you know, that's usually a very positive thing. You know, there's people that, for a living, obviously they write parking tickets and make people miserable. Or you know, go, go to work for companies where they, you know, have a hundred thousand employees and nothing they do makes a difference. And so I'm very happy and grateful to be part of a business that actually, you know, is a personal relationship. Now, if you didn't know, the maker we refer to as Del Gesu, whose real name is in fact Giuseppe Guaneri. He's a big deal. Such a big deal, in fact, that many articles and books have been written about his work. Not that much about his life, but we'll come to that. And so I asked Joe how he would break up the working life of this maker into significant segments to understand his methods and what he was doing. Joe Bein There's that first period, of course, when he is in the 1720s and he's there with his father and they have seemingly no money. There are details that have been dug up by, you know, colleagues of mine, you know, like Carlo Chiesa and Duane Rosenguard and Peter Biddulph and Philip Kass, who, you know, do this, the Lord's work and go diving into this archival research. We know things like he, you know, in 1715 that Filius borrowed this huge sum of money from this I think it was like a steelmaker or like a named Rolla who lived nearby. And, and we know that, you know, there was debt involved basically for the rest of his life. He never paid back that loan. I think like you see these, these instruments that, especially from the late teens that are rustic looking. There are some s instruments I've been around that are basically have cello wood on the top, you know, that are, that are after 1717. So, you know, we're we, it's not a Peter Venice. It is a, it's a Del Gesu and a, and a Filius I've seen like four or five of those where he's not buying any more wood. He's just using up this stock that he has. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and clearly, you know, he, he was still receiving orders for instruments. And so, yeah, he's not, he's not able to buy this beautiful spruce, you know, with this really tight grain and the things that he made in the decade before. And he's looking around and he's like, okay, well here's yeah, let me just grab this piece of cello wood here and I'm gonna grab some beach and, you know, cobble a scroll together and I'm gonna use this maple and the mismatched, the mismatched ribs. And yeah, a hundred percent. To me there's like a very defined period that is like this narrow wasted model. That he uses, which is more the, you know, it's kind of the s outline. You know, the violins that come to mind for me are the al for example, that was the belonged to Shmuel Ashkenazi of the Vermeer Quartet for years. We had one here in Chicago called the Kovich. I think of the Krasner. And these are, these like, you know, they're concert instruments and soloist instruments. Like there's not, they're not. Bad by any means. I think of those instruments as sort of like these narrow wasted, kind of like this, that type of model. Is where he, where he begins. Mm-hmm. There is another one called like the Zimmerman that has like these, like itty bitty eyelets. Mm-hmm. Like upper eyes. And I think that's something that, you know, that's kind of where he's, in my mind, I think of a lot of those violins, like where he starts with these little itty bitty eyes upper eyes anyway, you know, and again, like not the most beautiful materials like the Krasner is, has, you know, is a beautiful blondish fiddle, like sort of sandy, amber coloured fiddle. And that's where we'll leave our story for now. In the early years of Giuseppe Guarneri, the boy who would one day become Del Gesu. Born into a family of remarkable makers, but burdened by loss, war and financial struggle. His world was anything but easy from a childhood marked by the chaos of Cremona’s battles to the weight of his family's debts and expectations. Always looking up to his older brother, Pietro of Venice young Giuseppe grew up in the long shadow of his father's failures and the brilliance of the Stradivari’s next door yet even in these turbulent beginnings, we can already see the spark of individuality a craftsman forming his own path amid tradition, hardship, and change. These were the years that shaped his character and his hand and has set the stage for the Del Gesu to come. Coming up next, I've got a special treat for my Patreon listeners, and if you're not yet a member, now it's the perfect time to join. If you've learned something from these podcasts and want to support the show while getting access to loads of extra content and bonus episodes, head over to patreon.com/the Violin chronicles. You can sign up for the price of a coffee each month and it's completely ad free. Now this next fascinating interview with Peter Biddulph is exclusively for my lovely Patreon supporters, but to all my other wonderful listeners. Don't worry. You are wonderful as well. I'll catch you next time in the next instalment of Del Gesu, where we will be diving into what's happening in Cremona see Giuseppe fall in love and chat with a French expert in the city of love about Del Gesu and his French connection. So stay tuned and goodbye for now, but for my Patreons, let's find out what Mr. Biddulph has installed for you. And now I will leave you with this beautiful piece of music played by Julian Thompson of the Australian Chamber Orchestra on a cello made by both Fiilas, Andrea and Del Gesu, the father and son. And finally, I'd like to thank my guest, Joe Bein, and our sponsor for this episode, Florian Leonhard Fine violins.