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When people talk about the differences between the modern and baroque violins they usually talk about the difference of a few millimetres here and there - shorter bass-bar, shorter fingerboard etc. This is true and is not true at the same time. I think, I would have never understood this had I not been in the most idea-fertile milieu of “baroque” musicians for some 12 years. Actually, I even played concerts with some of them, such as La Petite Bande, and recorded a few dozens of CDs over the course of 12 years, usually taking short musical breaks between making violins. So, I am a violin-maker who knows how to play and what music is about.

A question. Would you agree - if you are a Baroque player - that the difference between the historically informed and the standard modern-violin playing is just a few Hz lower, less vibrato, and a swell on each note? (ouch... how wrong this sounds! Trust me, I know perfectly what I am talking about!). When a modern player takes up a baroque violin and plays without vibrato or less vibrato and makes a swell here and there his or her playing does perhaps become “historically inspired” but is that all? Is it then the same as that of the forerunners or “better”? Is it “baroque”? So, what is this thing that we call “baroque” and sometimes get so emotional about? Is it not possible to put this into words?

So some say, “talking about music is like dancing about architecture”. I don’t agree. I can talk hours and days and the life-time about music and, of course, about violins. Which means, I can’t explain this to you in 15 seconds or as long as a match is burning in my hand (by the time you are reading this line, 100 people already left the site).

The original intention of “Baroque” was to overwhelm, to impress, to move, to educate, to persuade, to appeal to one’s senses and move one’s emotions in a direct manner. It would be difficult if not impossible to achieve this goal by copying the art already created, hence the difference between the Renaissance style and the Baroque. The  baroque was utterly creative and innovative, if not to say daring. It still is. Plus there is that cultural dimension. It may seem unimportant or even irrelevant for the majority of locations in our globalised world, but it is important and it is relevant for the place where everything Baroque was born.

Visualise the time when the somber and clear lines of the renaissance broke into the curved and overwhelming lines of the baroque, when the antique canons of using colour and composition were uprooted for the sake of expression, when the music became the servant of the word. It was also the time when the strict lines of the earlier instruments with their c-holes and roses and relatively flat arches were replaced with f-holes and gorgeously arched bellies and backs adorned with corners and the whole structure was rethought for the sake of expression and power, for the sake of a carefully calculated emotional effect - through the acoustic/musical and visual impact. This is the nature of the violin. In this sense, there is no difference between the modern and baroque violins if both are built with the same attitude, out of one’s knowledge and heart, rather than a copy, a following in the footprints of the ancestors.

Sigiswald Kuijken loves to repeat, “Don’t follow! Be!” I think, he would enjoy a glass of wine with Leonardo da Vinci or a cup of sake with Kukai: "Do not try to find the footprints of the ancestors, search for what they were searching for" - Nanzan Taishi (Kukai, 774-835)

Badiarov players

Some of my clients are Aaron Westman, Akio Obuchi, Ataúlfo Antón, Blai Justo, Carlos Albuisech, Cristobal Urrutia del Rio, Diana Roche, François Fernandez, Géraldine Roux, Hatano Masayuki, Hisashi Ono, Harumi Koijke Izumi Sato, Jamie Hey, Jesenka Balic Zunic, Johan van Aken, Kaoru Ouchiyama, Luis Otávio Santos, Madoka Nakamaru, Miwa Ogino, Mikio Tsunoda, Mika Akiha, Maartje Geris, Noois Stryncks, Natsumi Wakamatsu, Paolo Cantamessa, Ritsu Kotake, Rainer Arndt, Ryo Terakado, Sigiswald Kuijken, Sergey Malov, Sara Kuijken, Samantha Montgomery, SeungRock Baek, Vincent Lesage, Yasue Higuchi, Yuki Koike, Yukie Yamaguchi and many others.