John Rae

RAE, John b. c.1843 Macduff, Scotland, d. after 1924 London UK. Stradivari and Guarneri derived personal models. Over 130 instruments completed, including some violas and cellos. Inscribed internally. John Rae. Maker / London / No. 112. 1919 No 50 / John Rae. Maker / London 1901 Copy of the / Dolphin Strad 1714 / Made by John Rae 1920 Copy of Violin known as the / Messiah / Made by John Rae, London / No. 19..

He was born in Duff Street, Macduff, N.B., Oct. 31, 1847. He is the eldest son of James Rae, and the eldest grandson of John Rae, of Forglen, Turriff, well-known throughout the northern parts of Scotland as a famous maker of bagpipes. This last-named John Rae died in 1857, aged ninety. Soon after the birth of young Rae the family removed to Turriff, and resided there until his father became tenant of the Carpenter’s Croft, Netherdale. This was in 1856. The boy Rae was for some time a pupil of a Mr. Ingram, at a private school in Turriff, and got on well there till the fates decreed his removal. From Netherdale he attended the school of Inverkeithny, and subsequently Aberchirder and Marnoch schools, but only for a short time. When he was about eleven years of age a misfortune happened to the family, which, no doubt, changed the whole course of his life. They were burned out of hearth and home. The father was from home at the time on business, and in the twilight of an autumn day a gleam of light was seen in an outhouse where some sheaves of corn, the last of the crop, had been taken in the previous night. Disaster was sudden. The father returned just in time to see the last of the premises, which were in a sheet of flame — corn stacks, workshop, wood-rack, tools, and furniture, all but precious life was lost. Mr. Rae, who was not by any means a rich man before, was left now a very poor man indeed, with a family of six to maintain. The inevitable followed. Young Rae was taken from school and put to serve an apprenticeship as a joiner. At the age of twenty he went to Edinburgh, and worked there at his trade, and attended evening classes for mathematics and drawing. In 1869 he returned to Netherdale owing to failing health. It was soon after this that he essayed to make his first violin — a project carried out for the purpose of experiment, under the impetus of a theory then recently broached of a certain relation between proportionate form and musical sounds. In 1873 he regained health and came to London, hoping to find employment as a violin-maker. He found to his dismay that violin-making as a trade was non est in the metropolis, but to soothe his feelings he attended lectures on acoustics at the South Kensington Museum, and did considerable experimenting on the tonal qualities of different woods. In 1883 he got an appointment in the British Museum (Natural History), which relieved him of the drudgery of the bench. In 1884 he was married, and his wife sympathising with him in his weakness for fiddle-making, the passion for caliper and gouge broke out afresh. From 1884 to 1890 he studied the construction of the fiddle, and made moulds, models, templets, &c. Since 1890 all his spare moments have been given to his hobby, and up to the present he has made fifty-one violins and four violas. He is a slow, patient, and extremely careful worker, turning out only two or three instruments in the year. He is an artist in the highest sense of the word, and spends days over that which most makers spend only hours or minutes. His outline and model are original and highly artistic. The curves are pronounced, yet nervously delicate. His wood is magnificent. For several of his front tables he has used fine grained pine, without joint, cut from a gigantic tree grown in California. This was a tree of the species known as Sequoia Gigantea. It was 276 feet in height, and the annual rings proved it to be 1335 years old when cut down in 1872. It is very unconventional to use this wood, but the results show that conventionalism is sometimes on the erring path. The outline is grand and elegant. A very noticeable feature is the balance between the upper and lower portions of the instrument. The outline is considerably fuller at the upper bouts than is ordinarily the case. The C’s are less angular and more sweetly extended and rounded than in any but the best Italian work. The scroll is original in design and beautiful in execution. It is prim and poised. Its swell and bent are like the neck of a proud swan, and it is worthy of the hand of a Stradivari. The button is of medium size, rather too long to be described as “rounded.” The corners are full and fine, as befits the outline. The purfling is inlaid without a tremor. In some specimens it is of the usual description ; in others the middle strip is narrow — so narrow that it is hardly perceptible at the distance of a few feet from the instrument. The arrangement is well calculated to emphasise the beautiful outline of the fiddle. The maker is careful, however, to varnish the instrument in one of the lighter shades when he purfles in this way. The conception of the whole build is grand and simple. Majesty intoxicated with the wine of the Graces ! The tone is large, rich, and free. The instruments with bellies of the Californian giant have a distinct timbre, and their tone may be described as rich and ringing. Perhaps it has not the oiliness of the tone of Italian wood, but it has something else which is equally necessary to the harmony of sounds. Mr. Rae sells his instruments at £10. This sum is no indication of the artistic merits of the instruments, for they are in the front rank of modern work. It is a pity he does not make faster. On that matter, however, he has a word to say : — ” I hope to live to swell the number considerably, but I may say, as the banker-poet Rogers is reported to have said, ‘ I would rather go down to posterity as a diamond than as a ton of coals.’ “