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Figure 4. The Hutchins violin octet in the living room of 112 Essex Avenue (Montclair, NJ), circa 1965. See Figure 3 for names of the instruments. This photo is the cover of Research Papers in Violin Acoustics 1975–1993, edited by Carleen Hutchins. Courtesy of the Hutchins Estate.
Harkness Pavilion first-floor telephone booth. After discuss- ing all options, Apgar advised that the only way to get it was to steal it!
The nocturnal shelf-stealing escapade proved the beginning of a close friendship between Hutchins and Apgar. Apgar, who had no family of her own, soon became an adopted member of the Hutchins family. In fact, Apgar asked Hutchins to teach her to make a viola. It was the first time Hutchins taught a pupil violin making. Hutchins helped Apgar make a violin, a mezzo, and a cello that Hutchins finished when Apgar died suddenly in 1974. These four instruments became known as the Apgar Quartet and are presently housed at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.
A New Family of Fiddles: The Hutchins
Violin Octet
A violin octet (Figures 3 and 4) is a matched consort of eight violins across the range of a piano, each instrument toned and tuned like a violin. The octet instruments, from smallest to largest are treble, soprano, mezzo, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, and contrabass.
Alto Violin
In early 1959, by the time composer Henry Brant knocked on her door at 112 Essex Avenue, the “New Jersey house-
wife violin maker” had made 50 instruments, mostly violas, including 10 violins and 1 cello.
Carleen made the first “new” violin, the alto violin, by cutting down an enlarged viola that had been a cut-down 16th-sized child’s cello. When Hutchins and Saunders found the air reso- nance was too low because of its deep ribs, Hutchins cut the ribs down two inches at a time. Hutchins and Saunders found that when the main wood resonance and the main air reso- nance occurred on the two open middle strings, they were pleased with its sound.
Just at this moment, Louise Rood had sent Carleen a copy of a brochure entitled Filling in the Gaps in the Violin Family by Connecticut luthier Frederick Dautrich. When Carleen found and phoned Jean Dautrich, she discovered that he had all his father’s instruments. On May 16, 1959, Hutchins and Apgar ventured to Torrington, Connecticut.11
On arrival, Hutchins and Apgar were amazed to see the Dautrich instruments spread across the living room: violin, Vilonia, Vilon, cello, Vilono. Pleased with the sudden inter- est from Hutchins, Jean Dautrich agreed to lend a Vilonia, Vilon, and Vilono to Hutchins with insurance values of each: Vilonia, $200; Vilon, $200; Vilono, $350; and the bass bow, $300, for a total cost of $780. Right then, Hutchins offered
to purchase them.
Tenor Violin
In late 1960, as Hutchins contemplated the next octet violin, the tenor, she reasoned that the tenor should ostensibly be twice the size of the violin. But when she and Saunders worked it out, they discovered they did not have to make the body twice as long as the violin to get the desired pitch. Size in relation to the tuning was what mattered. To her delight, Hutchins discovered that the Dautrich Vilon was close to the desired tenor size, but the ribs were too deep. So, she cut down the ribs, working trial and error to get the right air mode. Eventually, when she determined that the first tenor was too short to get the optimal air mode, Hutchins rede- signed and built a slightly larger tenor from scratch.
Not everyone in Carleen’s circle liked Brant’s idea of a new violin family. Both Saunders and John Schelleng, a sound engineer and cellist working on an article about the violin as a circuit, doubted that Hutchins could make stringed instru-
11 Letter, CMH to Fryxell, April 1, 1965.
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