THE WAY OF THE FUTURE

In the second of two articles on violin making in China, Sisi Ye examines the schools teaching the art of lutherie to young people, where tuition can last up to ten years and a grounding in music theory is essential

Students at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music’s Instrument Making Studio

XHMC PHOTOS Y.P. CHEN. ALL OTHER PHOTOS VICTOR ZHANG

Shanghai professor Xue Peng carves an f-hole

In under 30 years, China has become the world’s leading manufacturer of stringed instruments. As we saw in the March 2021 issue (‘The Enterprise System’, pp48–51), there are large numbers of businesses, based in three main regions of the country, producing violins on a productionline basis. However, China also has numerous professional luthiers working independently on high-quality instruments, many of which have been highly successful at international violin making competitions. In the past, the only option for them to train was at Western violin making schools, but now they have several options in their home country. In addition, many of the graduates from these schools are employed by the larger businesses, where they help to keep the standards of workmanship as high as they can be. With five major active violin making schools, China nowadays offers probably the most degrees in lutherie of any country in the world.

Contrary to popular belief, the first violin making class in China dates back to 1951, when an Instrument Making Studio was established at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music (SHCM) by its vice dean, Tan Shuzhen. Tan began to learn violin making in the 1930s, from Western luthiers living in China at the time. He went on to teach violin making to professional carpenters, and this led him to found the studio – which eventually launched China’s first institutionalised degree programme in violin making. In this way, SCHM began the trend for lutherie courses to be based at music conservatoires: the other four, all of which now offer a degree programme recognised by China’s Ministry of Education, are based at Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM) and those at Xinghai, Shenyang and Sichuan.

Xinghai students collaborate on a violin in the white

Vice dean Tan’s purpose in establishing the SHCM Instrument Making Studio was to allow Chinese people to be able to play a violin made by themselves. However, nowadays, the violin making programmes allow students to take advantage of the conservatoires’ academic resources, enabling them to cultivate different directions and abilities. As well as luthiers, they might become restorers, specialists, researchers or teachers themselves. One of Tan’s own students was Hua Tianreng, who went on to become SHCM’s vice president as well as one of the country’s most prominent luthiers. In turn, Hua’s student Xue Peng now holds the post of director at the Department of Musical Instrument Restoration.

‘We always insist on teaching in small classes,’ says Xue, ‘and admit only two undergraduates each year, to make sure every student is taken care of during their studies.’ SHCM has a total of 13 undergraduate and graduate students, each of whom has their own workbench. All are required to purchase their own wood and materials, but they also own the finished products. The course lasts for seven years and after graduation, according to Xue, most students are in a position to set up their own studios. This is partly a result of the low enrolment rate, and also because they have close relationships with the string performance students. Many of them develop a relationship of customer–service provider after leaving the conservatoire.

‘WE ALWAYS TEACH IN SMALL CLASSES AND ADMIT ONLY TWO UNDERGRADUATES EACH YEAR’ – XUE PENG, SHCM PROFESSOR

In the future, Xue hopes that SHCM will be able to recruit high-school students, so they can extend the amount of time spent studying their chosen vocation. This, he hopes, will improve their overall skill level before launching themselves professionally. He also intends to expand the department’s offerings in other ways: ‘We plan to develop other repairing majors on different instruments, such as wind instruments, to fulfil the diverse needs of our society. At present we only have courses relating to making and repairing violins and pianos.’

Xinghai Conservatory of Music (XHCM), for a long time the only music conservatoire in South China, has been teaching violin making since 2017. The course is led by Yi Ying from Zhejiang province, who studied with Hua Tianreng at SHCM. She later travelled to Cremona to train with master luthier Giorgio Cè. It was always her dream to return to China to teach students what she had learnt.

However, when she arrived in Guangzhou, there was no trace of violin making left in the city – she could not even find basic tools to work with. Even though the Hongmian Violin Factory had been founded there in 1953, by the time Yi arrived, its focus had shifted to guitar making and the violin hubs had shifted to the northern and eastern parts of the country. So everything in XHCM’s violin making studio had to start from zero. ‘With insufficient financial resources, I was forced to ask the local craftsmen to make special tools for my students,’ Yi recalls. ‘I also had to translate and edit all the teaching materials and textbooks myself.’

At present, XHCM accepts four to six students each year on its violin making course. Most of the current students come from the surrounding provinces and cities. After graduation, many choose to go abroad for further study. According to Yi, the biggest difference between lutherie education here and in Cremona is that teaching in Italy is more practical, and the curriculum more target-oriented.

Yi’s student Wang Ting is preparing to continue her studies in Cremona after graduating this summer. The reason, she says, is that it is hard to know what makes a first-rate violin, as one rarely gets the chance to hear and examine fine instruments in China. ‘Studying in Cremona will let me see the best fiddles in the world and learn the most authentic violin making techniques,’ she says. ‘Also, I have received many opinions and ideas from different people here, so I want to assess what I’ve learnt. It will be good to study in a place with a relatively focused tradition.

I believe it will help improve my skills for the next stage.’

Awareness of violin making as an occupational choice is still relatively low, and courses need to be promoted across China. ‘If more young luthiers were trained locally, and their achievements acknowledged, this profession could become widely celebrated by the public,’ says Yi.

Taking care of the edgework at XHCM

‘IF MORE YOUNG LUTHIERS WERE TRAINED LOCALLY, AND THEIR ACHIEVEMENTS ACKNOWLEDGED, THIS PROFESSION COULD BECOME WIDELY CELEBRATED’

This map shows the locations of the five music conservatoires in China that offer a degree programme in violin making

Beijing’s Central Conservatory of Music (CCOM) established its violin making and research degree programme in 1989. It now boasts 49 violin making students and more than 10 resident teachers, with 6 to 8 new students recruited every year. They can enrol from the age of 15 and the course can last for 10 years if they stay on for graduate study. CCOM offers three different areas of study: violin making, bow making and violin restoration, although other modules include: violin maintenance; varnishing; acoustics; draft drawing; the history of stringed instruments; wood science; and instrumental playing. All lutherie students are required to be able to play a stringed instrument to a reasonably high standard, and the entrance exam assesses their ability to make a violin head, carve a plate, or something else related to the craft.

CCOM’s Violin Making and Research Centre provides all students with the wood they need to make their own violin, which will be kept and collected by the conservatoire. As deputy director Gao Tonggong states: ‘Those instruments are seen as the students’ graduation dissertations. They are not just displayed in a special exhibition space at the Centre, but also played by the string faculty, students and guest artists who want to perform with the “CCOM sound”.’ In 2019 the violins were used in the finals of a composition competition held in honour of the late CCOM violin pedagogue Lin Yaoji; he was a strong advocate for Chinese-made instruments, which he collected for his whole life. Equally, in 2019 a concert was held in Tiananmen Square for the 70th anniversary of the founding of China. There, the orchestra played instruments made by CCOM teachers and students. Of course this was of huge significance to the programme.

CCOM professor Gao Tonggong with a student and her cello

Crafting a violin head at CCOM

From high school to graduation, students must not only make seven violins but also participate in the training of school orchestras, chamber musician and soloists, as well as present a concert with instruments made by themselves. An understanding of music history, theory and harmony is also required. At postgraduate level, students must produce a complete quartet of instruments, which will be played in a concert by some of the performance students.

In general, the students are asked to complete each part of the making process using the most primitive manual methods (i.e. without any machinery). This includes the most basic skills, such as sharpening knives. Through this learning model and philosophy, the students are expected to develop a better understanding of the artistry and handicraft of violin making.

‘As a result, Chinese students have a more solid foundation in the basic skills,’ Gao believes. The Centre also recruits teachers internationally to ensure the students can learn and receive the violin making technique globally.

Recently the president of the CCOM, Yu Feng, proposed a new idea, for the finished products produced by students to be examined by actual players, the market’s proper customers. The goal is to create a top-class violin brand belonging to CCOM itself, as well as to China as a whole.

‘Over the past few years we have been taking students out to participate in music expos,’ explains Gao. ‘We have built our own booth to show off our students’ achievements to a larger audience, and create a better platform, and employment opportunities, for students before they leave the school.’

‘In the past we have had students from Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Algeria, Italy, and areas of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan,’ Gao continues. ‘Right now there are students from Indonesia and Italy, including the grandson of luthier Gio Batta Morassi, but all have moved back to their home countries at the moment because of the pandemic.’ Countries such as Italy and Germany have preserved their own strong traditions of violin making for many years, and young makers from all over the world will go there to study. ‘The advantage of being a relatively new violin making programme is that we can serve and educate the local students with the most international resources, to help them explore their own sound and develop a more inclusive way of adopting ideas.’

‘INSTRUMENTS ARE SEEN AS THE STUDENTS’ GRADUATION DISSERTATIONS’ – GAO TONGGONG, CCOM PROFESSOR

Several of the luthiers and teachers interviewed for this article expressed the view that high-end Chinese violin making is still in its infancy, in the sense that an identifiable ‘Chinese style’ has yet to emerge. Where most of the Western violin making schools could be said to have distinct regional characteristics, most Chinese students still learn at the hands of professors who have been taught in the West. In the globalised world, with so much information and knowledge accessible, we expect that the Chinese luthiers of the future will soon discover a recognisable ‘Chinese voice’ of their own.