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Changing of the guard: French transitional period – part one

2026-07-17T08:57:00

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The ‘transitional period’ in French lutherie usually refers to the period of change from the Baroque bow to the Tourte model. In the first of two articles, Florent Boyer illustrates how violin making also underwent a seismic shift through the 18th century and into the 19th

The history of violin making in France begins somewhere around the second quarter of the 16th century. The instruments of Gasparo Duiffopruggar (Tieffenbrucker), a German-born maker who moved to Lyon, were said to be very similar to Italian designs (see ‘Secret history’, The Strad, October 2025). Violin makers were able to take advantage of the growing cultural ties between France and northern Italy to examine and copy violins from Cremona, or even from Germany in the case of makers from Lorraine…

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