Cremona Society
The Cremona Society of London was founded in 1886 for the study of the violin and other stringed instruments. The name The Society was named after the Cremona region of Italy which had a long tradition of violin making, and from which some the greatest stringed instrument makers such as Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri had come. The name is not unique. There was a Berlin Cremona Society, a Boston Cremona Society, and the Bard Conservatory has a Cremona Society, open to those who loan or donate a violin to the Conservatory. Monthly meetings and transactions The society held monthly meetings from October to June. Membership was ten shillings and sixpence a year, half a guinea. Who's Who in Music and stated that the Society published the transactions annually. However, the British Library holds one volume (Volume One) of the Transactions, published in 1906, when the Society was twenty years old, so the amition of annual publishing had not been met. The typical format for the monthly meeting was a lecture presenting a paper, often on some technical aspect of violin making. The following will give a flavour of the meetings: February, 1906: Vincent J. Cooper presented a paper on