A432

The head/scroll are almost exactly right for Matthias, except for the forehead being just enough flat to notice, like the guy ran out of wood there from trying to get by with a marginally too-small blank. If everything else were right about it though, it would pass muster as a MA 8n exceptional conditi9n, with no problem (from what the oicture shows). The f-holes kill it as an Anybody Alban though, without needing to look further. I suspect, FWIW, that it's a composite (head not original to the body). YMMV.

Both Roisman's (Budapest Quartet) A. Gagliano cello and the GdG Silverstein (Boston) played have poplar backs. Both have (had) unusually warm, full voices but lack (lacked -- modern strings might change that) the focused projection needed to be soloist war horses. This is par for the course with non-maple backs/ribs.

The FB's thicker on the treble side -- not humped in the middle.

That kind of abrasion wear, parallel to the fingerboard, is from the fiddle rattling around in a one-size-fits-all-case, hitting and rubbing back and forrh against the (often much too heavily) rosined hair of the bow a few inches above it. Nobody completely misses the fingerboard with the left hand fingers while trying to play unless too drunk to manage the bow either, and pizzicato doesn't require r.h. contact with anything but the tip of one finger with the string it plucks (while holding the bow, usually). FWIW

The f-holes aren't different. The waynthe top has disrorted on the treble side together with the slanting camera angle that accentuates this makes the treble f appear narrower. FWIW

Looks like somebody put some proprietery "violin polish" on unsealed scratches, soaking into (and eventually discoloring) the unsealed (exposed) wood. FWIW

Nice overview with illustration: www.darntonhersh.com/brothersamativiolin

Plain gut strings are not less responsive than wound gut strings are -- they are differently responsive. They speak a milisecond slower, which is an easy compensation to make, so no net loss. They also allow (or require if you like) more bow pressure, which makes for easier control of fine detais without squashing or choking.

May we see the head as well ?

When you have it stained (by whatever method) as black as you want it (or can get it), paint it with thin cyanoacrylic glue. When dry, 3,200 grit micromesh and repeat (don't tack it between coats -- you want the dust in the pores). Once it looks like shiny plastic, the surface is sealed. Final 3,200 grit for a matte surface, and there you are. FWIW

Tone color and playing characteristics are all very well in isolation (whether in a room or in a hall). But for people like the Poggi owner A-listers, the acid test is the way a fiddle cuts through a wall of piano/orchestral " support." That one characteristic that makes or breaks a soloist's spare instrument is, not surprisingly, getting ignored. (How often is it considered as a specific characteristic ?) Arguably, the most gorgeous sound in the violin world is that of an A&H Amati. (It is for me, anyway. De gustibus non disputandem). But nobody would choose one as a recital/concerto instrument. The first 30 seconds, people hear (and register) the voice quality of the violin being played. After that they hear the music, with the voice just being what's delivering it.

Aaron Rosand played his Poggi after he sold the Kochansky GdG and nobody complained. Nathan Milstein's Poggi was recently on offer. Poggi had an impressive A-list client roster (Oistrakh, Stern et al). FWIW

Happy Easter indeed !

The violin in the video doesn't look as elongated as those illustrated as typical, "long Strad model" Buchstetters. Trick of perspective ?

Bill Salchow's practive, which he learned in Mirecourt, was to dribble some alcohol on the head end of the blank, looking for bubbles, before doing anything with it. Bubbles indicate a shake/incipient crack. No bubbling = a (presumably) sound head area. FWIW.