In fact the Kingdom of Saxony was a military ally of the Austro- Hungarian Empire prior to the unification of the German states in 1871. This area always had very close ties with the German province of Saxony just over the border. Graslitz was the German name of this small town located in the border region of what is referred to the Sudetenland. These three towns supplied the vast majority of violins, violas, cellos and other string instruments as well as percussion, brasswind and woodwind instruments for the Empire and all of Europe. There was as well a corresponding great number of symphony orchestras, concert bands, military bands, ensembles, all requiring quality instruments. Composers who were active in the Empire were, Gluck, Hayden, Mozart, Salieri, Beethoven, Dvorak, Smetana, Fucik, Janacek, Schubert, Weber, Liszt, Brahms and Mahler. The Empire had 50,000,000 citizens with its capital Vienna and a vibrant musical tradition. From 1526, Bohemia was a province of the Hapsburg Empire, (also known after 1867 as the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Prior to Czechoslovakian independence in 1919, the region was a German speaking area of North West Bohemia. From that date on, production of musical instruments of all types flourished in the area. A violin maker’s guild was established there in 1669, and was the start of over 300 years of musical instrument making tradition in Kraslice. One of the most important areas for the production of musical instruments in the world is the area in and around Kraslice in the now Czech Republic. I used the online Google translation service for the translation from German to English.įinally, I take full responsibility for the content of this article, and I invite corrections and improvements where they are required. I especially want to thank Klaus Dapper ( and Klaus Schneider ( their websites provided the basis for this article. I do believe that Amati’s line of saxophones and instruments deserve a fair consideration from Canadian and American consumers. I admit my Czech-Canadian heritage and that I am a bit of a ‘shill’ for the Amati brand. I will leave it to some scholar in the future to write the definitive history, with names, details and facts that I have not included in this short summary. My goal is to provide some insight in the evolution and revolutions that have taken place to result in the Amati-Denak company of today. The instrument makers were directly impacted by European wars of the Twentieth Century, Nazi and Soviet expansionism and the Cold War. The history of saxophones and other instruments produced by the predecessors of Amati-Denak is complex, confusing and convoluted. The opinions in this article are the author’s and I reprint it here without any edits. This 2008 article has been reprinted in whole with the permission of its author, Dennis Gazarek.
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