My violin

My violin, was made 150 but possibly 200 years ago by an anonymous violin maker in Mittenwald, a small town on the route towards the Brenner Pass from Germany to Lombardy. The town was noted for its violin manufacture, an industry started by Matthias Klotz in the 17th century and developed by his sons, and grandsons. The other day I was talking about selling it and insulted it. I said that its scroll is crudely made, which is true; if you want to make as many violins in a short time as you can you don't spend time tuning the scroll into a work of art of carving. It doesn't affect the tone of the violin, but it has a lovely dark red varnish, and a pleasing shape. I also said that it is a hard instrument to play on, it does not have an instant sweet tone, you have to work to get a good sound, but the sound is powerful and capable of a range of colours. I should have shown more respect. This violin has been a companion right through my adult life.. It travelled with me when I travelled the length of the country, it kept me company on long solitary evenings. I played on it in just about every amateur orchestra in Wellington and the Hutt Valley, the Hutt Valley High School evening orchestra under Graham Lillie, the Wellington Chamber Orchestra under Bill Walden-Mills, the Orphans Orchestra, Victor Latyshev's Chamber Orchestra in Petone, not to mention Sam Gezentsvey's Jewish orchestra playing Sam's arrangements. I was never much good, but they tolerated me at the back of the second violins. I was a late started. After trying my hand at piano, piano accordion and recorder, I decided that I wanted to learn the violin. My ambitions were limited, I wanted to be good enough to play second violin in a Haydn String Quartet, and in my hay days I could have coped with this. In the event I seldom played chamber music. I never had the right friends who played at my level and whose companionship I enjoyed. Music making is a competitive business. Even professional string quartets who tour the world together avoid each other's company when not working together. The image of four good friends getting together to play exquisite music is a myth. And of late I thought that my old companion, my violin, was letting me down. It didn't sing as I would have liked it to sing. The music didn't speak to me. Yet yesterday I gave it another chance. I tuned it, and started revisiting some of the easy music that I had played previously. And the fiddle sounded all right. So I will go back to it, play a little every day, get back into playing, nothing too hard, nothing ambitious, but pieces I feel comfortable with. A recent article I read said among other things, that that music may hold off the onset of dementia.