LUIGI AUCIELLO was a master lute-maker. He lived and worked for
fifty years in Milan, where he acquired a wider and wider circle of
friends and connoisseur among musicians and lovers of musical
instruments.
His workshop was at first in via Moscova and later in via Paolo Sarpi.
During his long, passionate career, he was able to ameliorate his
technique so as make rigorous instruments wih singular creativity and
inventive talent.
He planned and made various stringed instruments with great
originality, at times taking vases and sculptures of ancient Greece as
models.
He sought a powerful sound and a sweet timbre uninterruptedly.
He both studied materials and experimented with paints of different
consistency and structure, as appears clearly when instruments made
in different periods are compared.
As he was eager to give his instruments a specific, unique identity,
as if they where "living creatures", he often used to give them a name
borrowed from the world of music and trascribed inside the case beside
his signature. He worked until the fifties of he last century.
Thanks to his endowments he met important figures living in the years
after the First and Second World Wars,who retained a clear memory of
his strong personality and exclusive devotion to his art, wich death put
an end to in 1963.
He was given numerous awards during his life, notably in the period
from 1911 to in 1963.
Yet few of them can still be documentable, At the end of his career he
was awarded the title of "Doyen of the italian lute-makers".
In particular we can supply with documentary evidence the followings
medals: the Gold Medal for the Harp and Mandolin conferred on him
by the Mostra Internazionale, Genoa in 1911.
The Gold Medal still in Genoa in 1913 . The Gold Medal for stringed
instruments awarded in Turin in 1917.
In the fifties of the 20th century was still conferred numerous awards
on the occasions of the"Exibition of the ancient and modern violin"
held in Pegli (Genoa) periodically.
There still remain certificates and a Gold Medal he has awarded on
21st September 1958.
Many instruments made by Luigi Auciello are still played by
musicians in Italy and over the world nowadays. They are also handled
by important Auction Houses and experts in this field, such as Tarisio,
Sotheby's, Bonhms and Rieman Music, Urbandale (Iowa, Usa).
Auciello,Luigi
