In order to study, learn from, and react in an orderly way to all that the great violin maker Antonio Stradivari’s work has to offer, I have undertaken an annual series of 300th anniversary instruments, making copies of Strad violins…
The 15” Cut-Away Viola, Revisited
In the 2006 edition of my newsletter The Scroll, I wrote about an experimental 15” viola model I was developing.
Koff Model Violin
Robert Koff offered me encouragement in many forms, one of which was access to and insight into his Vuillaume violin. He played this violin in the Julliard Quartet for several years and he considered it the perfect instrument, with a dark chocolaty quality and plenty of power and punch. Robert’s violin was made in the Paris workshop of Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, probably around 1860.
#838 “Jackson” Stradivarius 1714 Violin
About this instrument 300th Anniversary Strad Series Antonio Stradivari looms large in the life of any violinmaker working with traditional design and process. How does one deal creatively with this 800-pound gorilla in the room? In order to study, learn…
A Special History: Violin Opus 157
“Ginn” 1691 Long Pattern Strad copy I had built two violins patterned on Marylou Churchill’s very large long pattern Strad before making this violin. One went to one of her students and the other she used as a back-up instrument,…
Early Work: Baroque Violin Opus 11
Baroque Violin #11 This was the first of the violins I built as part of my work for J. Bradley Taylor. Beginning in 1978 I devoted one day a week to making new violins with a separate workshop set up where…
“Rosenblith” 1713 Strad Violins, #806 & #807
Antonio Stradivari looms large in the life of any violinmaker working with traditional design and process. How does one deal creatively with this 800-pound gorilla in the room?
Opus 812, Lira da Braccio “Linarol”
I have long thought about building a lira da braccio, an instrument that served as a transition to the violin from medieval and Arabic instruments.
Viola Pomposa
About this instrument The violin family tree has many branches, some short and stubby like the 6-string Arpeggione, for which Schubert wrote his famous sonata now played by cellists. Another early branch was the Viola Pomposa, or five-string viola. J.S.…
#802 A&H Amati Violin
The violin that caught my attention was an A & H Amati grand pattern instrument. Its simple elegance and refined taste made me feel at home with it, and the one-piece slab back was just like a batch of wood I cut in 1983.