THREE MONTHS WITH A MEZZO VIOLIN

January 27, 2012 at 6:10 PM

Hi everyone,

As an amateur, I played the same Clotelle violin for 60 years and 38 years ago the plates were tuned by a luthier who made it sound deeper and more resonant - quite Guaneri, in fact. It satisfied me, at least enough to perform the Lalo and Elgar.

At that point, I realised I couldn't spare 4 hours a day to keep in practise. Practise time dwindled to nothing over the next year and you know what that's like. Get out the music of Chauson's Poeme and make a complete hash of it so you wanna throw up with disgust.

After 22 years of 'resting' I got the urge, and that was last April. No coordination, no finger stregth and no smooth bowing. Over the months, they all returned quite quickly, but the Clotelle no longer pleased me. So I bought a bow from Howard Green in Scotland. Really magnificent as he said it would be.

Great for up and down bow staccatto 3 octave scales in one bow but the Clotelle was lacking. Maybe I had overrated it in my own mind during those 22 years.

Then it had to be a mezzo. I eventually tracked down Joris Wouters in Belgium. He had been a student of Carleen Hutchins and he told me he had a mezzo.

A day trip to Westerlo, Belgium. Up at 4, out at 5, English Channel crossing at 8, drove to Westerlo and got there at 2 in the afternoon. Fell out of the car, went with Joris into his workshop and he handed me the mezzo.

Without a shoulder rest, played a 2 octave G major scale and said "I'll have it". He was amazed.

The mezzo had not been played since made in 2009 but it had a quality to it I had experienced for 4 minutes when I was permitted to play on a J.B. Guadagnini 28 years ago.

Having taken a tatty old second hand viola case with me just in case, I paid Joris and retraced my earlier steps back to the UK.

The body length is 14.9 inches (like a 15 inch viola) and I attached a sine wave generator to the bridge for 200 hours and changed the strings to Infeld Red. Apart from a slight roughness that is still sorting itself out and gets more non-noticeable by the week, the G string sounds like a viola, the D string sounds like a viola and the A and E strings sound like a del Gesu.

Tell you, for 5000 euros I got a handmade violin that needed an adjustable viola shoulder rest and whose wood is around 70 years old because Carleen gave a lot of hers to Joris.

Add to that, one of the 200+ years old maple bridges advertised on Ebay by the guy who visits Canada once each year and buys a bit of log, and it sounds even better.

How good? Not as good or as comfortable as the J.B. I played on but deep, rich and resonant, plus projection no 14 inch body can compete with.

I'm happy and the mezzo will certainly see me out. The only thing you need remember until the habit grows on you is to bring your right shoulder forwards by about an inch. Then, the bow runs as it should. As to fingering, just like a 14 incher.

The differences from a standard violin body you notice immediately is the width of the body across the tailpece, too wide for a violin shoulder rest - and, the width of the ribs that make you think that the instrument is anorexic. Neither of those make their presence felt when playing.

The only two luthiers I know of who are 'mezzo-men' are Bob Spears in New York State and Joris Wouters in Westerlo, Belgium. If you are located in Europe, I'd say that Joris is the man if you want to try such a violin. He speaks perfect English. Bob told me he largely imports mezzos from China but can make them. If any of this is wrong information, I apologise and will rectify on hearing from these two very nice guys. They are perfectly free to post comments and those I invite.

Lastly, why have fiddlers not rushed to buy mezzos? All I can think of is that new instruments are not favoured and maybe they are not investments.

As to the first, many years ago, Isaac Stern was asked "should I buy a new or an old violin?" His answer was unless you can afford at least $250,000 for an old violin, buy a new one. Now read $2 million.

As to the second, who cares when they can sound like that. Who needs an $8000 Mirecourt effort that you will keep just because it cost $8000. There are better Chinese violins costing a lot less than that. I know because I've tried quite a few that easily outperform a Colin-Mezzin.

16th March 2012
Bob Spear has asked for a sound bite. I'll work out a good way to do that and provide one soonest.

From Robert Spear
Posted on January 29, 2012 at 1:00 PM

Congratulations to you, Alan, for a successful conclusion to your violin quest. It takes a bit of reflection, consideration, and thinking outside the box to start appreciating the benefits of the mezzo violin, not to mention the other members of the New Violin Family. So now you become a pioneer yourself, and I hope you will keep us informed of your experiences. To elaborate on a point, I am not only a mezzo-man, but a soprano-man, an alto-man, a tenor-man, a baritone-man, and (heaven forgive me) a bass-man! :-) If V-commies are interested enough to have read this far, let me recommend that you nip over to http://youtube.com/user/octavivo where you can see and hear the New Violin Family Orchestra in live performance. I hope that Alan will be able to post some videos at some point. Cheers, Alan!

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THREE MONTHS WITH A MEZZO VIOLIN

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