The workshop of William Lewis & Son in c.1930, around the time Kovanda, Lohberg and Halvarson would have been working there
Much has been learnt since the publication of Joseph Roda’s 1959 book Bows for Musical Instruments, yet little has been written on the life and work of the American bow makers it illustrated. When one thinks of the finest bow makers working between the 1920s and 50s, very rarely does anyone think of those working in the United States. Arguably the best American bow makers of this generation were Frank Kovanda, Ernst Julius Lohberg and Anders Ernfried Halvarson. All three of these makers worked at the well-known Chicago shop of William Lewis & Son in the 1920s, before continuing their work in different parts of the country. All three had popular followings during their lifetimes, from high-calibre musicians in top American orchestras to studio musicians throughout the nation. They were also among the best repairmen of their generation, working with such musicians as Heifetz, Milstein and Stern. Kovanda, Lohberg and Halvarson all had in common a reverence for the great master F.X. Tourte; a predilection for innovative designs; and impeccable workmanship. And although their effect on American bow making was not as influential as that of William Salchow in New York, their work had an impact on a generation of American musicians in profound if unseen ways. Together, they form the nation’s first school: the ‘School of William Lewis’.
Self-stylised as a ‘violinist’s headquarters’, William Lewis & Son was indeed one of the centres of the American stringed-instrument world. Headed by Carl Becker Sr., the workshop was one of the largest in the country and the influences coursing through it were vast: fine examples of all the great masters’ instruments and bows, and with an active group of researchers publishing seminal works on the history of the violin. By the late 1920s another Frenchtrained bow maker, Raymond Del Prato, joined the workshop. According to Becker Sr.’s son, Carl F. Becker, he was a ‘marvellous worker’ and his bows were undoubtedly influential among his colleagues. Though his work is virtually unknown today, he had a gold-mounted violin bow for sale at Lewis’s for $150, a mere $25 less than a similar bow by Eugène Sartory. All of these factors would have had a profound influence on the genesis of eager bow makers such as Kovanda, Lohberg and Halvarson.