About The Baroque Violin Family
At first glance a baroque instrument is distinguished from a modern one by the set up, the neck and the bass bar.
But the acoustically relevant difference are the gut strings with a wider vibration and at the same time weaker, tuned approximately half a tone lower.
There are instruments – antique and new – that due to their construction lend themselves more to this type of strings, others less. If we build a new instrument for baroque music, we need a body that vibrates very easily at the first impulse with deep and still controlled bass, and equally controlled, but still open treble. Personally, I especially like baroque violins that, due to their fundamental low tone, resemble viola.
The Baroque Violin
Natale
With this instrument you do not need to search for the sound, it is instantly enormously present without any pressure from the bow. When you apply pressure, you “kill” it. You may need to controll it, to find your own voice. The g string is almost oversized, like of a viola, the e string is bright and at the same time has a deep fundamental, d and a are in between. The sound would be almost overwhelming for a modern violin, but is ideal for baroque music with good gut strings at low or middle tension.
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Made in 2015 it is based entirely on my own design from 2012. Curiously the measures and proportions correlate to those that I discovered 5 years later in important Cremoneses violins and then gathered in a unique design called “Codice del Violino Barocco”.
The plates are both of two mirrored pieces: the belly of Italian spruce with fine grain, the back with a narrow and very marked flame of Balkan maple, as well as the ribs and the neck. Fingerboard and tailpiece are made of maple, veneered with Katalox, a black Mexican wood harder than African Ebony. The pegs are also of a Mexican wood, the Chechen. The purfling is handmade of Katalox and Maple with the detail at the upper part of the back taken from an anonymous Italian violin of the 18. century. The current bridge is of “Mexican cherry tree” (Prunus salicifolia), a piece of wood more than 100 years old.
The varnish is a combination of resins and pigments in alcohol and in turpentine or oil, concluded with French polish with combined resins (Benzoe, Alcamfor, Rosin, Mastix and Turpentine of Venice). The color is a dark cinnamon with a little more robinia red in the center of the belly.
The weight of the violin is: 387 gr.
“I really enjoyed playing on your Natale. It has an easy response (very good approach) and all the strings sound balanced. I also really like the look of the violin.”
Hachidai Saito
Available
for sale
How it sounds?
The Baroque Viola
Tertis
The model Tertis was created on the basis of many trials according to the violinist Lionel Tertis and is one of the few instruments that were developed down to the last detail by a musician and not by an instrument maker.
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This model is so well designed that it is almost impossible to make a bad sounding instrument with it. Although the instrument is large (42.7 cm), it is so comfortable that even musicians of small stature and with small hands can play it effortlessly.
Our model is designed in such a way that it can be played equally well with modern or baroque set up, you only replace the strings together with the tailpiece.
Accordingly, we deliver the instrument with two sets of strings and two different tailpieces.
The arching of the back is very flat, so that even gut strings with low tension can make the body vibrate easily.
The plates are both of two mirrored pieces: the belly of Italian spruce, the back with good marked flame of Balkan maple, as well as the ribs and the neck. The top of the fingerboard is made of solid ebony, the core of lightest red cedar and the edges of flamed maple. This reduces the fingerboard to an exact weight, which dampens the sound to the right degree as well with modern or gut strings.
As with the fingerboard, the edges of the tailpiece are made of flamed maple, which creates the overall aesthetic of a baroque set up. Purfling is handmade of Mexican Katalox and Maple. The current bridge is of “Mexican cherry tree” (Prunus salicifolia), a piece of wood of a more than 100 years old tree.
The varnish is a combination of resins and pigments in alcohol and in turpentine or oil, concluded with French polish with combined resins (Benzoin, Alcamfor, Rosin, Mastix and Turpentine of Venice). The color is a warm brown.
This instrument has an exquisite, deep and powerful sound. You simply cannot stop playing this beautiful instrument when you perceive the incredible range of harmonics that it emits!”…
“Maybe I fell short sometimes there are no words to express something so good.”
Hiram Herrera
Available
for sale
