A. E. Smith (violin Maker)

Arthur Edward Smith MBE, known as A. E. Smith (1880 – 16 May 1978) was an English-born Australian violin and viola maker of world renown. His violins and violas are prized for their excellence of tone and decorative elements such as the sound holes, scrolls and curves. Among musicians, "it is his violas that have the greatest reputation, being easily counted amongst the greatest ever created, regardless of era or nationality."

Smith is believed to have been born in 1880 at Islington, London. He began his violin-making hobby in order to improve upon the inferior instrument he played in the Maldon Amateur Orchestral Society. This soon overtook engineering as his primary interest. Smith was self-taught, but guided by A. E. Hill's book on Antonio Stradivari. He rapidly acquired expertise, attracting the attention of the Maldon antique and musical instrument dealer C. W. Jeffreys, whose firm he joined in 1905 as repairer and violin-maker.

By 1909 Smith had made twenty violins and a quartet, his instruments already being notable for their excellent outline, arching and scrolls. Wishing to set up on his own in an environment with fewer established competitors, he migrated to Melbourne, Australia. In 1912-14 he worked with the Hungarian Carl Rothhammer at San Francisco, exhibited a quartet of violins at the World Trade Fair, then moved to Sydney, where he briefly continued his partnership with Rothhammer.

In 1919 he established A. E. Smith & Co. Ltd, which was an importer and repairer as well as a manufacturer. Smith trained his craftsmen to produce violins, violas and cellos, enabling them to pursue the art privately if they wished. His workshop established the careers of many other leading Australian violin makers such as Charles Clarke, William Dolphin, Harry Vatiliotis and his own daughter, Kitty Smith. His expertise encouraged the development of local orchestras and violin teaching and helped to give foreign virtuoso violinists the confidence to accept Australian concert engagements and subject their precious instruments to the long sea-voyage. During World War II when German strings were unavailable, Smith, under the trade name 'Paganini', further supported the Australian music world by designing and building machines to manufacture fine strings and fittings.

Smith created his own masterpieces at his Roseville workshop, producing between one and six violins a year and an occasional viola and cello. His total output between 1899 and 1970 was about 250 instruments, the details of each were carefully recorded in a series of notebooks. He used only traditional, well-matured woods—European maples for the ribs, scrolls and backs of his instruments and Swiss or Italian pine for the bellies—aiming, through the Italian method, for the structural perfection of Guarneri and Stradivari models. He took a musical approach to the science of acoustics. His varnishes were produced to suit each individual instrument.

In 1938 his daughter Ruth married Ernest Llewellyn, a violinist, violist and conductor, and later the founding director of the Canberra School of Music. Smith's wedding present to Llewellyn was a new violin, which he used while concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra 1949-64; it then passed to a later concermaster, Dene Olding, who also used it in recordings of works such as the violin concertos of Ross Edwards, Samuel Barber, Frank Martin and Darius Milhaud.

In 1947, Isaac Stern visited Australia for the first time. He attended a performance by the Queensland State String Quartet and was struck by the tonal qualities of the violin being played by the leader, Ernest Llewellyn, so he went backstage and met him, and learned about A. E. Smith for the first time. The next morning they played together after swapping instruments. They became lifelong friends.

Smith's reputation for an even sound and tonal quality reminiscent of the Cremonese masters attracted the interest not only of leading Australian players but of the world's great violinists, violists and cellists; in addition to Isaac Stern, those who acquired and used A. E. Smith violins included Yehudi Menuhin (whose sister Hephzibah had played the Beethoven sonatas with Ernest Llewellyn), Tossy Spivakovsky, Ruggiero Ricci, David Oistrakh and Zlatko Baloković .

In 1949, A. E. Smith was awarded diplomas of honour for both violin and viola at the International Exhibition of Violin Makers at The Hague and next year was the first Australian to be elected to the International Society of Violin and Bow Makers. He suffered a series of strokes from the late 1950s onwards and the workmanship on his later instruments fell away. In 1971 he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his services to music.

For relaxation he played the viola with his family musicians. Smith died in Canberra on 16 May 1978 aged 98, predeceased by his wife Kate, née Dènèrèaz, formerly Davidson. He was survived by a pianist son, Arthur Denereaz, and his daughters Kitty Smith and Ruth Llewellyn. Kitty succeeded her father as violin maker and manager of A. E. Smith & Co. until its closure in 1972. A grandson Roderick Smith is also a violin maker.

A quartet of A. E. Smith instruments is held by the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, and a violin at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney. The cello of the quartet held by the National Museum of Australia can be heard played by cellist David Pereira on an audio file.