Violin Forum/Message Board

[John Cadd]

Very sad to read that .

[Michael Darnton]

I think the whole sound of orchestras is changing these days, and not in a good way, as good violins become too expensive for players and functionally-deaf modern makers try to market themselves as the "better" alternative.
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[John Cadd]

"A lack of percussive snap "tells me you probably have not heard Hassid play Zapateado. Hassid died some time ago so any grudging praise will not offend living players .Only 8 short recordings . All played on one violin , a copy by Vuillaume . Has Zapateado got enough snap ? Just hear that one alone if you missed it . Too much technical analysis must make enjoyment of music very difficult for you . That`s what made me sad .

[Michael Darnton]

You're missing half the beauty if the player has to fight the violin. Both from not hearing the real thing (with the proper accents) and from hearing a good player spending energy on doing something the violin should be doing for him, stealing energy from other aspects that he could be doing better if he could attend to them effortlessly.

Much like my blind hearing of HH--I knew something was wrong, something missing that should be there. That's a higher level of appreciation yielding more enjoyment. I think you're suggesting that listening with ears half closed should be sufficient. :-)
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[John Cadd]

What very obscure logic. Referring to Bell and Hahn was a surprise as they were nowhere near in the same class as Hassid . Snap can be part of the player`s interpretation or technique.the bow and rosin ,the player`s hand and wrist or just his pure physical talents .and musicianship . But you just stuck a label on me that does not apply . Where did half closed ears come into it ? A naughty calculated diversion ? For me this week it`s almost totally deaf in fact but you must be in the minority not knowing more about Hassid .I can`t believe that .
But I met a violin teacher once who had never heard of him either . Something else I could not believe . Tomorrow I meet the people who may operate to get speech understanding back again. If not I will have to rely on memory for speech and for music .

[Michael Darnton]

The snap of a violin has a different sound from that of a player. If the violin doesn't have it the player can't mimic it. They aren't substitutes for each other. That was the point of my HH vs Bell story.
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[John Cadd]

Well I`ll hold my hand up and admit I don`t know what that is .I hope other readers will learn something new .

[John Cadd]

I have bought one of those CDs with 170 old violin books and one paragraph from 1899 said almost exactly what you say about the "violin scene " in modern times . Your careful work is just as much a rarity as it was then . Basically if your developed intuitions were not here then soon violin players would have a major problem . Things players used to say on Violinist .com make you realise many players are not particularly good at practical problems involving hand tools .
One careful maker examining some Strads reported a thick plate max of 6mms.That keeps me inside the topic touchline for today .

[John Cadd]

So ,crucial questions coming up.If HH and Bell have violins without snap ( I nearly said not zingy and tangy) , you thought they needed better violins ,so could you have corrected what was wrong (q1) or was replacement the only solution ?(q2) An even better question is have you made a better violin than Hassid`s copy of a Del Gesu ?(q3) Is your best Cannon copy better than that one ? (q4). Easier if the questions have separate numbers for maximum clarity .

[Michael Darnton]

No, I was comparing Bell and HH because they are similar, enough that I initially confused them, but Bell has a really fine instrument. He's had a few different ones and they have always been great. What I said was that Hahn sounds like Bell would sound if he was having a bad day, and I blame her violin for that, not her playing.

I think Hahn's violin is probably what it is, can't be made equal to a really great one. I have seen just one Vuillaume that might fit into that category of being really great. Amusingly, it was an accurate Strad copy (Vuillaume did not usually do this--he had his own ideas.)

I can't compare my violins with something from a recording, but I have never felt that they were equal to a great Cremonese instrument, no. I don't think any modern ones measure up to that standard.
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[John Cadd]

The old books on CD bring up contrasting opinions and one clear difference is about well aged wood . One said recently cut (or split ) wood with a few years age was quite sufficient. So maybe all the best violins will only become the best after a few hundred years .
Valuable to know that mainly Vuillaume`s accurate copies of Strads were better than his own versions . Do they ever try to pinpoint what the differences were between those instruments ?
I looked up some information about Hassid and on Violinist.com is a thread which contains a free Complete Book written about Hassid by a direct relation. Hassid narrowly escaped the fate of other Jewish people trapped in the Warsaw ghetto.But I had no idea he ended up living in Hampstead in London. Those short Eight recordings were made in Abbey Road studios on one day in less than Half an Hour total.

[Michael Darnton]

I worked in a shop where someone gave us a few sets of 100-year-old wood. Those violins were definitely better.

Vuillaume made his violins usually wider and with an arching that was not Cremonese. I think he was trying to make them louder, which they were, but they were less subtle. He thought his violins would be as good as Strads in 100 years, and he was wrong.

There's dentrochronological testing on violin wood now, and we know del Gesu used relatively fresh wood, some less than 4 years old, where Stradivari tended to use older wood, up to 60. A big difference at the time, but proportionally less now!
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[John Cadd]

If Holmes and Watson were picking through the Vuillaume evidence they might be fascinated by Vuillaume`s best Strad copy and assume he used the same kind of varnish on the copy and his own models. Is that a way to weaken the varnish theories ?

[John Cadd]

One sad thought about Strad is he had a family who joined in the making.But they were not quite so good at it.But I doubt if Strad was keeping any secrets from them. So maybe Strad got so used to doing , whatever it was , that worked best without realising exactly what that was . It became so ingrained and habitual that he developed a kind of blind spot . He was continually experimenting .He sold lots of violins apart from one.The feedback would not have been perfect from his important customers. Over many years he would have heard enough about player`s reactions to them. Artistic appearance overall would have helped that for sales.
The one feature that became consistent (I think that is reliable ) was the internal air volume. How important is that ? I saw a question this week asking "What is the helmholz in a violin". It was a badly constructed question. The answer was far worse. It said "It is 440 Hz".Then ridiculously went on to mention the violin string tuning .Even old violin books are not that bad .

[Michael Darnton]

That's not a bad idea. The violins of his kids aren't terrible while he's alive, but on their own they seem to forget a lot that they learned. . . . if they learned it at all.

As a teacher I learned that people tend to want to do their own thing. I'm not sure if this is a modern trait or not. It's easier to enforce standards in a shop than to teach standards so they stick.
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