Alois Vincenc Honek was a famous Czechoslovakian violin-maker and surgeon.
Background
He was born in Dehylov, Silesia on October 25, 1911. His father also was a violin-maker, and Alois started to learn the art of violin-making in 1919. lieutenant was delivered to him by his father in the day of his 18th birthday, on October 25, 1929.
After finishing high school, Doctor Honek moved to Prague and started studying medicine at the Charles University, despite his father"s wishes for him to become a professional violin-maker.
Education
In 1929, as a high school student, he finished this education by presenting a sample work (a violin and some work on the violin scroll) to his teacher.
Career
Upon the teacher’s evaluation, he received a diploma certifying him as a professional violinmaker. A couple years later he became a doctor. Though the profession of a surgeon is very demanding, he devoted all of his free time until the very end of his live to violin-making and research.
He died unfortunately due to an injury at the age of almost 91 on June 30, 2002.
A. V. Honek started to study the famous secrets of the Cremona violin-makers as a fifteen years old high school student. He was asked for a translation of an old Latin text concerning violins and he was allowed to make a copy.
Initially, the document didn"t make any sense to him, but after some time he found a way of giving these letters and numbers a sense. Based on this document and decades spent studying the art of violin-making, he made his model based on the knowledge of the masters of Cremona.
He also spent many years working on a method that would be useful in assessing objectively the tone quality of violins.
His results in this area were published in several magazines. During his life he has made a large number of instruments (violins, violas, cellos and also double basses) according to his model. Almost 100 of them are being played by orchestra members and soloists not only in the Czechoslovakian Republic, but also in Germany, Switzerland, United States, Japan, Austria, and other countries.
He was also very close to the Czechoslovakian Philharmonic Orchestra and he accompanied them for many years around the world as their doctor.
Foreign his political ideas he was imprisoned by the communist government in one of the political trials in the 1950s. </gallery>.
Membership
He was a member of Kruh umelcu houslaru, which is an organization unifying the best Czechoslovakian violinmakers.
Personality
He was an intellectual with many interests such as mathematics and history.