Arrival of the wood ...

The Californian poppies are out in full bloom and my long awaited wood has finally arrived after a few interesting and amusing language problems with my supplier in Italy - instead of receiving a ‘Pro forma’ invoice as requested I received a ‘performing invoice’ which was hopefully appropriate!

As to the wood .... it almost seems as if a silent bond has been made between me and the seedling.  It is a great honor to be a small part in its life, acting as an intermediary from the forest to the making of music.

The wood for the back and sides is European maple.  Having counted the year lines of the wood for the cello back I see that it dates back to 1844, that being the oldest piece in the set.  It also coincides with the year Mendelssohn wrote his famous violin concerto!  

These maple backs are for me the foundation of a string instrument, they support the free flowing other parts. For the fronts I have chosen wood best suited to the type of timbre I am striving to achieve. Hazel or bear claw spruce for the viola and cello, being a more complex structure it tends to have a slightly darker sound and for the violins I am using this flexible spruce from Northern Italy which is ideally suited to chamber music playing as with the extra flexibility the sweetness is more pronounced.

My focus has always been on achieving a sound similar to those 1950 romantic movies where thick honey flows from the violins.   Recalling also a really old recording I heard soon after I began my violin making career of Mischa Elman in tandem with Caruso both interweaving where it is difficult to tell the violin from the voice!

This huge box was delivered a few days ago much to the delight of my two cats Jessica and Jasmine (mother and daughter) who were fascinated by its arrival, as can be seen on the video below. (Please note that the video can be viewed full screen in HD (high definition) by clicking on the HD and full screen symbols.) 

For email subscribers the video can be viewed by clicking here: Arriving of wood video


The maple figure (curl or grain) is of medium width, lovely and deep giving an appearance similar to that of a tiger’s eye gemstone, changing from light to dark depending on the angle of light.  Below is a photograph of a side of the maple that water was applied to, to show off this effect as well as a photo of the wood acclimatizing to its new environment in the hot African sun.  This will also help stabilize the wood before joining the pieces together.