Giovanni Battista Guadagnini

Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (or "G. B. Guadagnini"); (23 June 1711 – 18 September 1786) was an Italian luthier, regarded as one of the finest craftsmen of string instruments in history. He is widely considered the third greatest maker after Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri "del Gesù".

Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, aka Johannes Baptista Guadagnini, was born while both Stradivari and Guarneri were at the zenith of their production years, roughly 40 minutes away from the City of Cremona on June 23, 1711 at Borgonovo Val Tidone of Piacenza.

Recent research has shed light as to the influence of both Casa Stradivari and Casa Guarneri of Cremona on the lines of symmetry of instruments by Guadagnini, hence J.B. Guadagnini was still a youth while his father Lorenzo, both in Bilegno and Piacenza, was a contributing maker of instruments for Stradivari's workshop, the leading violin shop in the first half of the 18th century.

Antonio Stradivari died at age 92 in 1737 while J.B. Guadagnini was 26 years old, and Bartolomeo Guarneri del Gesu at 46 in 1744 while Guadagnini was 33. Hence, a logical nexus could be made whereby the young J.B. Guadagnini may have learned the rudiments of the trade in Cremona as he used the internal form with linings and blocks set in the Cremonese style, a method of construction he would use for the rest of his life.

It was the normative use of trade in 18th-century Italy for a young person to start as an apprentice in a master's workshop around age m12, to be allowed to practice a given trade afterward. Guild shops, either in consortium or under one roof, were headed by a master who provided journeymen papers for successful apprentices. Trade guilds, providing career opportunities for skilled tradesmen including musical instrument makers, were a mercantile arrangement in Europe since medieval times, including in Italy. Guilds were a pre-capitalist industrial organization under ducal oversight which regulated trade practice, quality of articles produced, and pricing policies.

The fact that J.B. Guadagnini was a skilled luthier as well as violin maker possibly before his Piacenza period attests to thorough guild training and graduation from journeyman status. Likewise, the fact that violin makers in Piacenza and surrounding cities, including Gasparo Lorenzini, Joseph Nadotti and Felice Berreta, already called themselves “alumni” of the Guadagninis attests to formal guild status attained by Guadagnini's workshop. His work is divided into four main periods corresponding to, and named after, Piacenza, Milan, Parma and Turin, the four cities in Italy where he lived and worked. Appreciation by both connoisseurs and musicians alike attest to the fact that J.B. Guadagnini may possibly be considered the last of the great master violin makers in the second half of the so-called "golden age," while Italy was under Bourbon rule.

J.B. Guadagnini died in Turin in 1786.

• Li-Kuo Chang plays the 'ex-Vieuxtemps' G.B. Guadagnini viola, Parma c.1768
• Geraldine Walther plays a G.B. Guadagnini viola, Turin 1774

• Natalie Clein plays the "Simpson" Guadagnini cello (1777)
• David Geringas plays a G.B. Guadagnini cello made in 1761
• Maxine Neuman plays a 1772 Guadagnini
• Han-na Chang plays the G.B. Guadagnini cello made in Milan in 1757
• Gilberto Munguia plays a G.B. Guadagnini cello (1748)
• Saša Večtomov played a G.B. Guadagnini cello made in Milan in 1754
• Sol Gabetta plays a G.B. Guadagnini cello (1759)
• Carter Brey, principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, plays a Guadagnini made in Milan in 1745

• Australian String Quartet (ASQ) plays four matched instruments: a violoncello (c.1743), and a violin (1748-49), both made in Piacenza, and a viola (1783) and another violin (1784) made in Turin