Weekend vote: Where was your violin born?

June 1, 2008 at 4:36 AM

Where was your violin made? You only get one vote, so tell us where your main-squeeze fiddle was born. I started with an early 20th c. German factory violin, then a modern American violin by the luthier David Scroggin, and now my main violin is an Italian Gagliano, nearly 200 years old. What a gathering I have, right here in my studio, and my fiddles are better-traveled than I am!

Romania!
My violin was made by Karel Pilař, in Bohemia, in 1940. Long ago I bought it from my teacher, and I love it.
The Pilař workshop still exists.
Romania
Mine was made in Austria about 200 years ago.
Hi everyone! I changed the categories a little, based on initial responses, so if you already voted (first 13) you can vote again!
Surprised at the % built in France !
Unknown German maker, copy of Josef Klotz 1795... made circa 1900
The violin I currently have is a Jean Paul Lucas. However, the violin I loved the most was Italian-Gaetano Guadaenini. The Lucas I now have is the closest I have had to Guad and I do love it and have started to love playing again.
Johannes the violin wants me to tell Laurie (violins find it hard to type...) that he is sulking in his case, because she didn't put down the Netherlands/Holland where he was born.

He asks me to say he is a very distinguished old gentleman and at the age of 224 would rather not be lumped into "rest of Europe". But he still loves violinist.com...!

My violin's origin has been the subject of much expert debate over a 30-year period. It has a Bailly label, but seven experts have delivered eight opinions (one changed his 15 years later). So my vote is ????.
Alfred Vidoudez 1919 Geneva Switzerland. Formerly owned by Szigeti.
Got a 3:00 A.M. phone call in connecticut from Switzerland from Pierre Vidoudez saying he had a violin for me. We were on a plane 6 hour later.
Is mine the only Brussels-born instrument here? :) Made in the same year and city as Ysaye's solo sonatas :)
my violin was made in budapest in 1926
My violin was made in France in 1905, just a little over 100 years ago.
Yes we won!!!
My fav is from France, 1780
My violin was made in 1894 in Germany by Martin Perzold.
that is, Martin Petzold :)
Oh dear, Rosalind, Ray and Marilyn! I tried to get the right countries in there, and mostly got it. I'm not too surprised to see our lead contestants, though I'd have thought there'd be a few more from China.
Built in America with Italian Parts!
This will make me sound like an Italian snob (that's what I voted), but here we go....

Years ago I had a violin "attributed" (by G Lucci) to Stefano Scarampella. After a few years I dumped it at a sale, despite its visual and tactile and - in many respects - tonal charms, because it was weak on the Ding and had an appalling wolf note on the Aing. I later realised that it was in fact a Gaetano Gadda. Oh dear...

About a year ago I acquired a Mario Gadda "built on my personal model derived from that of my father Gaetano" which looks so much like the Gaetano Gadda "Scarampella" that it's almost uncanny. It's just a couple of mm shorter, and marginally narrower in the waist, but otherwise very similar indeed - amd the good news is that it's tonally perfect. So at last I feel mollified (well, nearly) about having virtually given away a Gaetano Gadda which may have just needed a decent set-up.

As for Mantua, the home of Scarampella and the Gadda family,it's a lovely old medieval city, surrounded by defensive lakes (in effect a massive moat), with a fine old castle.

My baby was made in good old Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA, in 1956 by a Dutch gentleman named Garrett Brink. It belonged to my first music teacher (she grew up in the same neighborhood as Brink and her father bought it directly from him). Several years ago she passed it on to me, and I wouldn't part with it. I had some work done to it earlier in the year, and it's like a brand-new instrument. I love it!
Rome, Italy, 1928. I'm rather delighted at the fact that 1928 was also the year that Bartok wrote both Violin Rhapsodies and the Fourth String Quartet. :)
My baby is from Paraíba, Brasil, and its 10 months old.
My guy is a Riccardo Bergonzi, Cremona, from 2004. As I've stated here before, I love it. My back up is a Collin Mezin from 1884. My daughter's playing on it now! (but she has a faux-Klotz for school...)
My violin was born just this year actually, in New Zealand! However it was made by a Bulgarian fellow. He is the concertmaster of the Auckland Philharmonia here. :)
My violin, Franz, was made in Germany in 1857 by Johann Something Gottlieb, I think (the handwriting is terrible). Franz has an amazing, rich sound, and I am very fortunate to have him. My teacher's husband (who owns a violin shop and sold Franz to me) said that he is a great violin and that, had he been Italian, he would be worth $20,000-$30,000 more than the price I got him for. I'm very lucky that Franz is not Italian, because I would not have been able to afford him if he was! :)

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