RNCM Guadagnini Violin Project

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As part of the 2011 Manchester International Violin Competition, I and three colleagues were invited to make a violin modelled on the G B Guadagnini of 1757 that belongs to the Royal Northern College of Music, which hosted the event.

For us, work started in May when the four of us; William Castle, Kai-Thomas Roth, Marc Soubeyran and I met at my workshop to take detailed measurements, drawings and photos of this lovely violin, which had belonged to Adolphe Brodsky, one of the first principals of the Royal Manchester College of Music.  After that, each of us made our own version of the violin in order to help prepare for the team instrument.

We met again in early November to discuss the details of the project and to decide who would do each job.  Each one of us stated both the jobs we were keen to do and those we would rather avoid - somewhat to our surprise, the jobs that some disliked were favourites of others, so the division of tasks was easy.  We drew up a detailed schedule of which jobs would be done on each day, and who would do them.

The violin itself was made and set up “in the white” in five days.  It was a fascinating experience.  We were working in public at the RNCM and enjoyed regular visits from students, staff and members of the competition jury and the audience. 

There were a lot of decisions to make about how we would tackle the project.  We decided early on not to try to make a slavish copy of the original violin. It has seen a lot of use - it’s a real player’s instrument - a lot of the edgework has been replaced, the arching has distorted, the scroll is well worn and the centre joint of the back has been rejoined with visible loss of wood.   We tried instead to think ourselves into the mind of the maker to try to recreate how the violin might have looked when it was new.

We had each prepared thoroughly for the project, making our own versions of the Guadagnini beforehand.  It was interesting to compare how we had all interpreted the violin in our own way.  Our first job on day one was to compare all our own versions with the original, and to note which were the closest.  This was particularly important as regards arching shape which is key to the sound of the finished instrument. We also checked the arching templates that we had made against the original violin.

We chose wood that matched the original fairly well, particularly the spruce of the front, which is unusually wide grained.  The very high-quality spruce that we were able to source was an excellent match.

Working together on a joint project like this is a real pleasure.  There’s such a lot to learn from watching how colleagues work; how they handle tools, approach different tasks, reach decisions.  We had decided to share out all the principal jobs so that at least two people were involved in every process.  So William and Kai made the scroll, William and Marc did the front arching, Kai and I did the back arching, the thicknessing was passed back and forwards between us all.  This way I think we made a genuinely team instrument rather than a composite of unrelated parts.  The sound of the finished violin, which played its first concert on day 6 of the event, vindicated this approach.

in January 2012, Kai and I undertook the varnishing of the violin.  I put on the initial priming coats that give some colour and protection to the wood, and then we took it in turns to put on the two clear varnish ground coats and the final colour coats.  It was a really useful experience to varnish as a team, as varnishing is usually our most solitary pursuit.  We used the products made by Magister in the Netherlands, which are specialist varnishes for violin makers developed from research into historical recipes.  These varnishes are applied without solvent using pads and sponges.  We had all discussed the colour at great length - we thought that the original violin would have been a surprisingly bright deep orange, and tried to replicate this to some extent, trying to achieve a finish that was akin to how the original violin would have looked when it left Guadagnini’s workshop in 1757.