|
The violins made for
this recording form part of the
answer to this question. They are based on an original by the Amati
brothers
from 1595, owned by the Royal Northern College of Music.
The neck,
fingerboard,
bridge and other fittings are matched as closely as possible to
paintings
and other
information from c1600-1630. The bass violin
played here was also made by Stoppani
some years ago for Paul McCreesh.
It is a copy of a
17th century Italian
original owned by Mark Caudle, and set up after Praetorius's
illustrations in Syntagma Musicum,
c 1620.
|
click on
image
|
|
|
The
original model:
brothers
Amati, 1595.
Photo: George Stoppani
|
Praetorius’
illustration of a bass violin tailpiece, from Syntagma Musicum,
1614-1620
|
click on image |
click on image |
One
of the Stoppani copies and the Stoppani bass violin, played here by
Joseph
Crouch. Photo: James Gilham
|
Tailpiece
from the Stoppani bass violin.
Photo: James Gilham |
We’re delighted to
have complemented this splendid
instrument with violins that would have been familiar to the owner of
the
original. You can also hear the violins and bass featured in the bonus
track –
Marini’s sonata La Foscarina
– available from iTunes.
Reaching this point,
however, has been far from
straightforward, although the journey has been immensely
rewarding. In essence the process was simple: choose a
maker, decide on a model and agree on the set-up. In fact, only the
first of
these was easily done: we decided immediately to ask George Stoppani to
make the violins. I have worked with him for years as a string-maker,
and have
come to understand that his approach to historical instruments chimes
perfectly
with my own, and with the Gabrieli philosophy. I had also been
wonderfully
impressed
by the quality of his instruments that I had seen and played.
The second proved to
be tougher, and almost brought the
project to a halt. There are many instruments of the right period in
existence
but very few are available to see; many belong to international
soloists and
some are in private collections. Most others had to be ruled out due to
being in poor
condition, the wrong size (violin size was not standard in 1600), or
from the wrong
region of Italy
(Monteverdi was said to prefer Cremonese instruments). By mid-July we
had
narrowed the field to 2 candidates: a 1629 Brothers Amati belonging to
the
Royal Academy of Music, and the 1595 model we eventually settled on.
The
1629 violin is
beautiful, but it was one of the first of
the slightly larger “Grand Amati” design, and therefore anachronistic
for the
Vespers of 1610.
click on image
Brothers
Amati 1629 violin at the Royal Academy of Music. Photo: George
Stoppani
The construction
of
the violins had
to
begin with measuring and photographing the original. We had taken all
the
necessary measurements by the end of
July 2005. I was able to take part
in one
measuring session, and it was a
fascinating and painstaking process.
Templates
had to be used to measure the arching at critical points, and a cunning
device known as a Hacklinger gauge,
involving a spring and magnet allowed us to measure the
thickness of
the wood
without taking the instrument apart.
A detailed photo
session completed the work, and George
was able to start making the instruments at the beginning of August.
At this point,
questions about the details of the
instruments came into play, and we had to become detectives. Surviving
instruments, fragments from museums, paintings and other iconography,
musical
evidence, literary references and a healthy dose of common sense were
all drawn
upon to find answers.
For example, some
surviving instruments have marks where
the bridge feet have been placed. In many cases, this is in the
standard
modern position, level with the f-hole nicks, but in some we find them
much
closer to the tailpiece. This makes an interesting comparison with many
early
17th century paintings, where we often see the bridge in a
lower
position, especially (though not exclusively) in the work of Roman
artists such
as Caravaggio, Guido Reni, and Carlo Saraceni.
This led us to
surmise a
connection between bridge position and pitch standard, because Roman
pitch was
significantly lower than Venetian pitch, and the longer string length
that the
low bridge position gives is ideal for playing at lower pitch. Since we
are
using A=440Hz for this recording, we have chosen the “standard” bridge
position, although happily this does not exclude future experiments
with
different positions.
 |
Possible
bridge positions:
“high pitch” (pink)
“moderate pitch” (red)
“low
pitch”
(blue).
Illustration by
George Stoppani. |
The shape of the
bridge is also critical, and we based
our design on a pattern seen in a number of paintings by Cavarozzi,
Gentileschi
and Guercino from the 1610s and 1620s.
No less a literary
source than William Shakespeare also
provides us with evidence about violin fittings: his character James
Soundpost
in Romeo and Juliet (1597)
suggests
that the soundpost was new enough on the scene to warrant a little
satire!
We could
have
continued researching [1] for
years – and no
doubt will – but eventually we felt we had answered the critical
questions to the best of
our ability. The violins were completed and brought down to London on
October 10th, to great relief and excitement. We are
immensely
grateful to George for working at an incredible pace yet with
impeccable
attention to detail. It has also been very satisfying to be involved
with the
design process at every stage, and to work with someone so receptive to
informed historical debate.
Catherine Martin and I tried the
instruments
together, and what immediately struck us was how although each had a
strong
individual
character - hers is brilliant and
direct while mine is mellower and a little sweeter - when they were
played
together, the blend was perfect. They belong to the same sound-world,
in
which
violins, although known for brilliance and penetration, were also
expected
to play as a consort, and in which a strong, speaking articulation was
just as
important as a free, singing tone. This also brought home to us the
great
benefit of having a matched pair of instruments, a luxury rarely
managed today.
click on
image
Oliver Webber playing one of
the Monteverdi violins. Photo:
James Gilham
 click on
image
Catherine Martin
holds one of
the Monteverdi violins. Photo:
James Gilham
click on
image
Oliver Webber and
Catherine Martin with the Monteverdi violins. Photo:
James Gilham
We have also found
that they complement the sound of the cornets and
sackbuts
- with which they are so often paired in this repertoire - much better
than
other
models. I hope that, whatever debate and refinements the future of
violin
research brings, this venture has gone some little way to giving
Monteverdi his
true voice, and that you can enjoy the fruits of these labours in the
Gabrielis' recording of the Monteverdi Vespers.
The
violins and bass violin in action at Christchurch,
Spitalfields, October 2005
with
the Gabrieli Players and Paul McCreeesh. Photo: James Gilham
previous
page
[1]
Oliver
Webber’s ensemble, the
Monteverdi String
Band, is currently planning the construction of a full violin band
along the
lines of Stoppani’s Monteverdi violins. This will involve considerable
investigation, the results to be published in due course in the Galpin
Society
Journal.
|
