My Violins (and a bow)

                                             
I don’t have a lot of memories of my first violin, other than the case was lined with red velvet and it was a Stradivarius. One of the first things Mrs. Peters told us was not to get too excited, because these borrowed violins supplied by the Winnipeg School Board were not made by Antonio Stradivarius, in Cremona, Italy in the 1700’s, but were manufactured in a factory in China and the sticker on the inside indicated that these mass produced violins were modeled on the design made famous by Stradivarius, or at least, they tried to follow his measurements.

The tailpiece had fine tuners for all four strings. As you progress with violin playing, the fine tuners for the lower strings fall away and most professionals only have fine tuners on the E string. I play at a level of fine tuners on the A and E string.

Since I started violin lessons when I was eleven, I never played on anything but a ¾ and then a full-sized violin. I help out with a student orchestra and some of the tiny players have very small violins. 1/16 being the smallest. If you’re on a 1/32 or 1/64 violin, you might want to wait a few years, if you can even verbalize this to your parents. Most music teachers I have asked recommend that some understanding of the alphabet is helpful when learning to read music. Until then, have fun banging on pots with wooden spoons, or if your parents can afford, it, do this in a group.

For a few months into Junior High School, when I was in the string program with Carlisle Wilson, I borrowed a violin from the school. Also a Stradivarius. With a blue felt-lined case and a cake of crumbling rosin in the hold-all. The rosin caked to the strings. It took a butter knife to scrape it off. Rosin dust also stuck to the violin between the bridge and fingerboard. Teaching notes and rhythm were one thing. It was a whole other job to teach kids to respect and care for these instruments.

Not just the violin, but the bows. Instruments of music and instruments of war. Made with synthetic hair and some sort of hardwood strong enough so that when the sword fights broke out, no bows were damaged. Someone eventually discovered that if you loosen the bow enough, the entire frog will come away from the stick and you can pretend to be fishing, while the pirates around you dueled.

I had been playing on borrowed violins for two and a half years. My father died in March when I was in grade six, so he never really heard me play anything good, although the consensus remains that my musical ability was inherited from him.

As a result of his passing, my mother took my sister and I to Germany for Christmas. My mom seeing her family at Christmas would be good for all of us. It was on this trip that I got my first violin. It came as a complete surprise. Part of me was expecting to play on borrowed violins my whole life. My Tante Christiane bought the violin from an orchestra player in Dresden who was upgrading to a better one. This was East Germany, where commerce was a foreign concept. She bought the violin for three hundred East German Marks. Probably about one hundred and fifty dollars. There was a label on the inside, hand- written in turquoise ink: Ernst Kreul, Geigenbauer, Markneukirchen, 1945.  Not a Stradivarius. Not even trying to be one.

First notes on the new violin. Germany, Christmas, 1977.

When I got back to Winnipeg, I showed Mr. Wilson. He walked around playing my violin in the hallways and gave it his stamp of approval. I remember him peering into the inside and saying, “Don’t tell me you got a handmade violin.” He was impressed!

I played this violin from the moment I got it, at the age of thirteen, until about four years ago. I played it for my Grade 8 exam, at the Masonic Hall at Confusion Corner. My friend Caley had come with me for support. I warmed up in the stairwell. The acoustics were amazing.

Lessons do help!

Caley and I took the bus to my exam. We knew Confusion Corner, this noted Winnipeg intersection of too many major thoroughfares, well. We used to take the bus together to the University of Winnipeg. We would chat all the way to school about anything and everything, even soup. One day, I insisted we get off a few stops early because a wasp was targeting me. Caley, incredulous, but supportive of my pending trauma, hopped off the bus with me. We walked the rest of the way, probably discussing the wasp’s hidden agenda.

So, I was in good hands with Caley there for support. In the stairwell, I played Meditation from Thais. The sound of the violin reverberated off the white metal railings and speckled floor. I was in awe of myself. The decay in that stairwell made me sound like a pro! Caley clapped. I sounded good. I felt confident.

These exams were tense. The examiner, an elderly man in a thin grey suit asked me to set up. To take my time. He asked for scales. I think the first one was E-flat major, two octaves. This was followed by requests for arpeggios. Then onto ear training and sight reading.

After all the technical stuff was done, the examiner moved onto the pieces I had selected. One Mazas study and one Kreutzer study. The pieces had to be contrasting. So, one fast and one slow. Different time and key signatures. Each highlighting technical skill.

Then, onto my pieces. I played the Massenet, a concerto by Vivaldi and then some variations on a theme by a composer whose name I forget.

Mostly, I remember that stairwell and Caley’s applause. I’m sure she was there when I emerged from the room and packed up. I had no idea how I did. We left, back on the bus. Headed for home. We both had assignments due for school. I came home and put my violin away on top of the piano. I was in second year university. It would be some time before I played the violin again.

This violin travelled with me as I moved across the country, from Winnipeg, to Toronto, to Halifax and then BC. The few months I spent in the Arctic, I left my violin at my mom’s in Winnipeg. I didn’t think I would bother to play it.

It wasn’t until I returned to Ontario that the opportunity to play in an orchestra again arose. So, my violin and I returned to a routine of practicing, and the violin got some orchestra therapy. I do believe instruments respond to the sound and vibrations of the other instruments. My violin was always happier after rehearsal where all the symphonic vibes were absorbed.

Until I travelled to Italy in 2012, I had always played with the same violin and bow. I decided, perhaps I could upgrade to a better bow. I would buy a new bow for my violin, but only if I happened to stumble upon a little violin shop in a quiet side street by accident. I didn’t want to make the search for a bow the focus of my trip. My friend, Lora and I travelled to Venice, Florence and finished our trip in Rome.

Every day we set off from our hotel in a different direction, on foot to discover what the day in Rome would bring. On one of these days, we set off down a little side street, narrower than the others with less obvious bustle and action. We were about three hundred meters from the main street when I glanced to my left. There it was. A little violin shop. In Rome on a quiet side street. I never would have found this place if I had an address scribbled down.

Inside the Liuteria:

It was a luthier’s shop, owned by a young man from France. Roma Luiteria, Mathias Menanteau. We marveled at all the violins hanging on the walls and the golden smell of linseed oil and varnish. It had finally rained, so a few hours in a violin shop would be welcome. M. Menanteau started to show me a variety of bows. He crafted violins but did not make bows. This is a specialized craft. I held each one and waved it in the air checking ther balance and feel of the bow in my hand.  He asked if I’d like to try them. Sure, I would. 

I spent a few hours in the back room trying out different bows on a lovely instrument that he had made. I treated myself to some very expensive bows, just to see. A proper bow has perfect balance and responsiveness. The best bows practically played by themselves. Hardly any effort was needed.

I had no music with me. I noodled around with some easy things I could play by ear and some scales. A trio of young girls came in and sat on comfy chairs and on some pillows on the floor. They listened in a respectful silence. I could tell by their wide-eyed, youthful faces that this was exactly the kind of spontaneous experience they had come to Europe for. I felt a surge of gratitude for their presence. I wish I could have dazzled them with something flashy. I carried on with my playing. Danny Boy and Over the Rainbow and a bit of the Meditation from Thais and my weak attempt at jazzing up Summertime.

Satisfied and onto the next big deal, they left. I chose a bow. A 200-year-old bow made by German violin maker Wilhelm Hermann Hammig. It’s a real beauty. Coincidently, he was born in Markneukirchen – the same town as Ernst Kreul – the maker of my first violin.

The story of my second violin came by an equally unexpected route. I had never fathomed owning a second instrument. I found it at a flea market. My godson liked to browse through the video games after his jujitsu lesson. This was one of those flea markets where vendors rent spots and if they are not there, then their kiosk is covered with a tarp and their wares locked up. It was early and many of the vendors weren’t onsite yet. I wandered through the rows of baseball cards and vintage neon signs, old tea sets and depression glassware. Cowboy boots, leather jackets. You get the picture.

My eyes wandered everywhere, taking in the thousands of ways a person could spend their time and money. A violin had been set on a low bench, case open. Nothing remarkable, until I leaned over to strum the strings. The sound that came from the instrument caught me off guard. It was not boxed in and muted as I’d expected. It was resonant and free. I picked up the violin and turned it over in my hands. It was so light. I couldn’t stop staring at it, I kept turning it over. It felt like it belonged in my hands. A strange sensation took over. I knew that I had found a treasure. I just wasn’t sure I needed another violin. There was no way to try it out since the bows in the case were unusable. The violin had been tuned. That was all I had to go on. I don’t know that much about violins.

It was obviously not a factory-made instrument. It had two distinctive dots on the back near the neck and the word Bristol stamped into the wood. I peered inside for a label but there was none. There was also no sound post, which made it all the more remarkable that much of a sound came out of it at all. The more I twirled it around, the more attached I felt. The varnish glowed. There were nicks and cracks, but the sound spoke for itself. This violin had not lost its voice.

The man at the booth had acquired the instrument when he won a bid on a storage locker. It had probably not been played for years. There was an accordion for sale as well. A photograph from a newspaper article taken at the Royal Legion showed a man seated in a hall, on one of those thin wooden stacking chairs with the metal legs, playing on the accordion.  I stood there holding the violin for a while. I told myself that maybe my godson would one day like to play the violin. Maybe this one would do. After all, I didn’t need a second violin. I asked the man what he was asking for it and he said a hundred. I asked if he would take sixty and he said sure. So, sixty dollars was obtained from the ATM, and I walked out with a treasure.

As soon as I got home, I unpacked the violin and got out my bow and played some notes. It took no effort at all for the sound to fill the room. This was a violin dying to be played.

I called my friend Anita. I found a violin. I think it’s maybe a good one, Could you look at it? Anita told me to bring it over. Anita knows violins. She looked it over carefully. Also twirled it around. She pointed out the pegs – perfectly flush with the holes in the scroll. The fine craftsmanship of the scroll itself. The excellent condition of the varnish and the body. And the sound – Anita had a bow. She played a few notes. Tried out all the strings up and down the fingerboard. Her eyes wild with amazement. She was ecstatic. Sixty dollars?

Anita and me - she knows everything!!

She did not play it for long. Without the sound post, it needed to be protected. Anita loosened off the strings and we put it back in the case. Yes, it was definitely worth taking in to have it properly set up and to learn something about it.

Anita, by the way, also checked over the bow I brought back from Rome and deemed it a good purchase. She’s the best!

I took it to the House of Remenyi in Toronto to be repaired. They put in a new bridge and sound post, re-glued some open seams. Cleaned and polished it. Put on new strings and gave me a new chin rest. The violin gleamed. The sight of it brought tears to my eyes. I picked it up and twirled it.

For the appraisal, I was led to a dark, upholstered room while my violin was taken into a back room. I sat on a nice sofa and waited. Why couldn’t I go with my violin? What stories would it tell?

The instrument is over 200 years old and would be valued at around fifteen thousand dollars, except for a bass bar crack – which does not affect the sound but does affect the value. The crack had been expertly repaired and had not affected the quality of the sound. The violin expert who appraised it for me could not find out a lot about it. Made in England. Expertly repaired a few times. On record as being repaired by Hill Brothers in England. During the Covid epidemic I wrote to them with a reference number stamped on the fingerboard to see if they had any paperwork on the instrument, but I did not hear back. The violin is modelled on the measurements used by Amati. “Nice measurements,” the appraiser said as he handed the instrument back to me. “You’re a lucky lady. Everyone is looking for an instrument like this.”  200-year-old sound cannot be built into a new instrument.

The violin expert thought the violin had been crushed at some point. A horse’s hoof stomping on the instrument on a cobbled street in an old English town. Probably dropped out of a case with a faulty clasp, carried by a musician making haste to the pub for a pint after a long rehearsal. It must have been a poor musician, or a good violin for someone to bother with a repair after a horse stepped on it. I felt like I saved a life.

My first violin is loud and bold. Good for Bruckner and Broadway. I’ve played this violin in a lot of dark and dingy places. Its loud, dramatic voice is well suited to cabarets and bars. It wants to be heard.

A dark and dingy place with Violin #1.

My second violin is perfect for the chamber orchestra’s Baroque repertoire. It is lighter, wiser with a golden, mellow voice. It knows it will be heard.

Concert ready with Violin #2.

Violin #1 - in my left hand. Violin #2 in my right. 

Violin #1 on the left. #2 on the right.