The Lipinski Stradivarius Violin- A Devil of an Instrument

By Andy Fein, luthier at Fein Violins
and Violinist Joe Peterson

Let's say you're a great violinist in the early 1700s. The repertoire is getting old and is really holding you back (typical). So what do you do to make a huge leap in musicality? You could jot some notes down as you're noodling around on your fiddle or.... you could go to sleep and wait for the Devil to come visit you.

Ida Haendel, A Century (Almost!) of Violin

by Andy Fein and Joe Peterson

Very few people have a playing life that encompasses the first Wienawski competition (1935) to the present day. Ida (pronounced Eedah) Haendel is one of the few. I wonder what she eats for breakfast? Playing recitals, solos and winning competitions since 1935, Ida is valued as a teacher and player with a treasure trove of musical experience.

A Sister Act, Circa 1850

By Andy Fein, luthier at Fein Violins
 and Joe Peterson

 

We often think of the great violin virtuosos of the nineteenth century as being all male. That's far from the truth! There were great female violinists then as much as there are today. We bring you the life of the Milanollo sisters. Great violinists of the late nineteenth century. 

Mozart's Instruments

By Andy Fein, Luthier at Fein Violins

Ever wonder what your favorite composer would have sounded like back in the day? What the keyboard that first played the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony sounded like (though it probably wasn't very good, given he never tuned the thing)? What the violin that first played Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" sounded like, or the Harpsichord that Ligeti wrote Hungarian Rock with in mind (Check it out). With the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, we do have access to his violin and a viola, thanks in large part to the Salzburg's Mozarteum Foundation. The violin is not a super powered Stradivarius, but a mellow and intimate sounding Klotz family instrument made circa 1650.  The viola, a dark sounding and very small (hardly larger than a violin) instrument, was likely made by Giovanni Paulo Maggini in 1615.

Mozart's violin

A Violinist on Vibrato

Written by Joe Peterson of Fein Violins

According to Leopold Auer, the OG of the Russian school of violin playing, "The vibrato is primarily a means to heighten effect, to embellish and beautify a singing passage or tone. Unfortunately ... players of stringed instruments frequently abuse this effect ... by doing so, they have called into being a plague of the most inartistic nature." The Black Death of stringed instrument playing!  Oddly, any student of his off the top of my head, let's say Heifetz, Zimbalist, or Elman, had a constant vibrato. But I believe he did have a point, as a phrase cannot have a proper shape when there is something static about it. Leopold Mozart has a similar comparison as Auer's to a physical illness: As he delicately puts it,