The following is part of the article "Not just a load of 'Ole Bull'"  which was published in the Strad magazine, February 2010. (Strad Vol.121 NO.1438). Ariane Todes speaks with makers who copied the 'Ole Bull' Del Gesù violin, as part of this year's festivities in Norway.

Florian Leonhard and his workshop team, UK      

           Our philosophy is to capture the sound, spirit, looks and imperfections of a ‘del Gesù’ instrument. A copy won’t necessarily have the same imperfections as the original since every piece of wood provides different challenges. You can see that ‘del Gesù’ lost no time in executing his work on the ‘Ole Bull’. Fast execution when copying leads to imperfections that may vary slightly from the original. A good example of this can be seen in the purfling, especially around the close bends in the C-bouts where ‘del Gesù’  often breaks the materials. In keeping with his style, we didn’t pre-bend the purfling wood before inserting it. We are copying his method, which means that the white central purfling strip will break in places as it is fitted.            When one copies so-called ‘mistakes’ and ‘oversights’, such as a kink in a curve of the purfling channel, for example, one must remember that these things happened to the maker accidentally, not being purposeful errors. If we copy this while working at a low speed, the results will never look natural, which is why we prefer to mimic the speed and direction, and in this way commit similar accidents. But to stay true to the original, we tried to let the mistakes happen in the same places. The greatest challenge was matching the working speed that is evident in the instruments of ‘del Gesù’ , yet at the same time focusing this towards understanding the spirit of his character. In other words, we always had to bear in mind that we were making the violin in a short time, but we could never allow ourselves to lose sight of his intentions.             

            In order to work with the required speed, mental preparation for the work is paramount. Every time one analyses an instrument closely, one is able to slip deeper into the mindset of the maker and establish a more thorough knowledge of their work and style of working. Copying an instrument allows a maker to challenge themselves by working in ways that they would perhaps not normally use. Guarneri’s fast approach certainly streches one always to keep in mind the bigger picture while quickly bringing the instrument into shape.