Learning new things

The violin is not my favorite instrument but these past few weeks of listening to the Queen Elisabeth Competition have changed that drastically.
By the way a Belgian made it to the Finals next week: Lorenzo Gatto, 22.

And so did the American violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley, 24.
My favorite is Nikita Borisoglebsky, 23 of Russia, however.
We will see what they do next week. They are all 12 very good, that's for sure!

At first I was disappointed to only be able to listen to the Musiq'3RTBF broadcast but when Belgacom opened the video broadcast I found myself switching back to Musi'3 as the pauses went on for ever.

Musiq'3 broadcasted interviews in between performances and one such interview really caught my interest. Matthieu Devuyst is a Belgian violin maker. He reminded me of "Antonietta", story written by John Hersey, about Antonio Stradivarius and the violin he is inspired to built when he sees his eventual second wife. The more I heard him talk the more I thought of Harry Potter's wand. It's as though the violin and the bow, too, choose the violinist to give them a soul.

I learned that not all Stradivarius have the same sound quality. The good ones are great but the bad ones are bad...

Matthieu Devuyst attends concerts and competitions regularly because he said it helps him know what the violinists need. His work has already been noticed by jurors at major violin competitions who are amazed that a 2008 violin can produce the sound that only old ones can. Yes, he is turning heads and who knows? maybe in 500 years, they will be talking about the Belgian Stradivarius, Matthieu Devuyst...

Thanks to these podcasts I have learned a lot about violin and bow making. It seems there is a bit of a crisis because the wood used to make bows has become practically non-existent and it will be 50 years before the Brazilian trees will be ready to use.

I about died when I heard the price for a good bow: 4,000 euros!!! and that's not counting the violin... And they are going to increase in price due to the scarcity of the wood. Making bows is as much a craft as making violins.

They explained that most soloists prefer using the old violins but these are either in museums, under glass - from which they would like to remove them as they were not meant to be looked at but rather be heard - or are so expensive, they can only be loaned out until the musician can find a newer one. Another argument is that these old violins have been tweaked so much that little is left of the original instrument and so those advocate leaving them in museums or using them only for period pieces.
They say the music created after their time is impossible to play on instruments that were not 'improved' upon. I don't know wnough to have an opinion but it sure makes sense either way.
Violins are made to make music not lay quietly in a case, but do they lose something and are they no longer true Strads or Gaglianos or, or, or... Good point...
But does that really matter?

The interviewer Elsa De LaCerda said that one important component in playing a violin is to be at ease with it so that the musician can concentrate on the music and not on figuring out how to make the instrument sing. That was a quality found in the Devuyst instrument also.

I have gained a greater appreciation for the violin and am thoroughly enjoying the competition. Lorenzo Gatto plays on a Jean Baptiste Vuillaume violin. A violinist who played on a Matthieu Devuyst, Dalibor Karvay, who didn't make it out of the Semi-Finals.

Keep a look-out for the name Devuyst in the future...
http://www.matthieudevuyst.com/EN/menu.html