SOUNDPOST

LETTER of the MONTH

A selection of glues from the workbench of luthier Christian Schabbon

VEGAN FRIENDLY

Has The Strad considered an article on vegan violin playing? As more people switch to ethical and moral animal-free/cruelty-free options, it’s important that wooden instruments have an alternative to animal-hide glue. Also, there need to be more professional-quality synthetic options available for bow hair as more professionals turn vegan.

The voices of vegan professional string players need to be heard, so that something can be done about our predicament. Society is only going to go more animalfree, so there will be more and more players needing vegan options.

BRENDON MASSETTI

NORWEGIAN WOOD

Thank you so much to the Dextra Musica foundation and the string players who made videos of themselves playing and discussing each of the instruments featured in the 2021 Strad Calendar (bit.ly/3x2QOif ). I particularly loved what Henning Kraggerud (below) had to say about playing the 1744 ‘Terminator’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’, and then presenting his own variation on Ole Bull’s little-heard composition ‘La Mélancolie’. The tone quality of the instrument is extraordinary, and to my ears sounds more like a viola than a violin. I can only imagine how it would sound in a concert hall. As Henning himself says: ‘I’ve always envied cellists who play these warm, beautiful, big instruments, and this has some of that – while still being a violin!’

I would be very interested to find out if the tone quality has anything to do with the beechwood back – which, as far as I know, is unique in Guarneri’s oeuvre.

ANNE MARTIN

Lyon, France

ATYPICAL WOOD TREATMENT

John Simmers’ account of how he repaired the varnish on a cello splattered with hand sanitiser (Making Matters, May 2021) reminded me of an incident in my younger playing days that proved almost as catastrophic. I was busking on a street corner in Birmingham one weekend and was surprised by a tin of creosote that fell out of the sky, courtesy of a clumsy workman on the scaffolding above me. Most of the contents went over my violin, and I considered myself lucky that the tin itself hadn’t landed on the woodwork, given its fall was arrested by my head. Since at the time I was only playing a Markneukirchen fiddle I had bought for outdoor playing, this wasn’t the disaster it might have been, and I replaced it soon afterwards, but I often wonder if it might have just been an easy way to preserve the varnish.

ARTHUR WELCH

Sarehole, UK

A WATERY END

I was interested to read about the recent research into possible wood treatments by old Cremonese luthiers such as Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati (bit.ly/3dveLY9). However, neither the article nor the paper tackles the theory that the old Cremonese makers were simply using whatever wood was supplied to them, without any treatment of their own. As I recall, the theory states that the trees were cut down in the forests of northern Italy and then floated down the rivers to the various cities that needed them; and that while the best wood was earmarked for naval vessels, the second-rate wood was sent to towns such as Cremona. The long periods in which the trees were soaking in water is borne out by the high levels of calcium and magnesium found in tested samples, as well as iron, copper, sodium, potassium and aluminium. Given the extent of this new study, I’d be interested to know whether this conjecture still (as it were) holds water.

CARWYN JOHN

Treorchy, Wales, UK