Tokyo Quartet recap

A great evening. Turns out that our seats were exact center and 4th row up, which meant that we were at the same level as the musicians, and the Stradivaris sounded great. During the pre-concert talk, I asked about the differences in the two violins, since they were from such different points in Strad's career. "Full disclosure, the second violin of the Paganini quartet (1680) has been in the shop for the last 9 months, and it will probably take a full year until the repairs are completed." (I immediately logged that bit of data in my brain, to pull out gingerly when a customer is anxious to get a fully repaired violin back from me in 2 weeks...:) So the second violinist was playing the 1708 Huggins Strad instead, quite a nice loaner while he waits for the other to be finished.

The other 3 instruments in the Paganini quartet of Stradivaris :
1st violin-- 1727 Comte Cozio di Salabue
viola-- 1731 Mendelssohn
cello-- 1736 Ladenburg

The concert was inspiring and refreshing,  and reminded me of how much I love string quartets. We don't get a chance to hear a live quartet play very often around here. And in fact, I was chuckling because much of the audience faithfully clapped between every movement of each piece -- an indication that we aren't exposed to Classical music and its etiquette too much around here. Later on I asked the cellist about his reaction to such frequent and enthusiastic clapping, and he said that it was "refreshing" to be in a place that was so forthcoming with appreciation. I imagine that this quartet plays in some stuffy venues, and this was definitely not one of them !

On the program was: the "Lobkowitz" Quartet in G Major, Op. 77 by Hadyn, Quartet No. 1 in C Major, Op. 37 by Szymanowski, and Quartet in A minor, Op. 41, No. 1 by Schumann. I especially enjoyed the first piece when the full impact of hearing 4 Strads was fresh to my ears.

After the concert, I attended a very small reception with the musicians, and the first violinist recognized me as a violin maker from my earlier question about the instruments -- which was fortunate, because he offered his instrument to me for a few minutes of checking it out. Very nice treat. My quick impressions were that the top of the violin was classic Strad -- flat long arch, beautiful recurve along the edges, classic ff holes, etc. The back struck me as a bit flatter than most, almost as if someone had reshaped the arching in the center there, maybe as a result of the center seam coming open and becoming misaligned at some point. The varnish too, on the back, was less transparent than I was expecting. Nice scroll, of course -- maybe a little less graceful than his Golden Period violins, but still with the amazing aura of true proportions and fluting done to perfection. I felt very fortunate to be able to handle the violin, to say the least.

So Stradivari was 82 when he built the 1st violin, 86 when he built the viola, and 91 when he built the cello. This, after having already built 1000 or so instruments in his lifetime. Pretty amazing. I better get back to work now...