Made in Cremona

[Rue]

An article on modern Cremonese instruments.

Nicely written! 

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-violin-makers-tune-tradition-stradivarius-italy.amp

[Violadamore]

Very cool.  Thanks, @Rue. 

[Rue]

Any time! 

I thought it answered some of the questions that have popped up on the forum, regarding "Cremonese" instruments.

[David Burgess]

22 hours ago, Rue said:

An article on modern Cremonese instruments.

Nicely written! 

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-violin-makers-tune-tradition-stradivarius-italy.amp

Except that I don't know of any evidence that Antonio Stradivari was born in Cremona.

[PhilipKT]

23 hours ago, Rue said:

An article on modern Cremonese instruments.

Nicely written! 

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-violin-makers-tune-tradition-stradivarius-italy.amp

It was interesting but not really nicely written. It stopped so abruptly I thought there was a missing page.

 

[Rue]

Okay then...let's go with "easy to read" ...

...and with possible historical inaccuracies...

[Michael_Molnar]

@Davide Sora was born in Cremona.

[FenwickG]

There is a village in Alberta, Canada north of Calgary that is named Cremona. A perfect place for a maker to make genuine Cremonese violins

[David Burgess]

4 hours ago, Michael_Molnar said:

@Davide Sora was born in Cremona.

My Dad always called the city "Cremora" (like the powdered coffee creamer). I corrected him numerous times, but it was to no avail. 

[Michael_Molnar]

1 hour ago, David Burgess said:

My Dad always called the city "Cremora" (like the powdered coffee creamer). I corrected him numerous times, but it was to no avail. 

Hmm. What did he call the Mona Lisa?  

[MTG]

 

On 6/20/2020 at 11:10 AM, FenwickG said:

There is a village in Alberta, Canada north of Calgary that is named Cremona. A perfect place for a maker to make genuine Cremonese violins

  

[TimRobinson]

There's a Cremona Downs station in outback Queensland in Oz, I guess they run cattle.  Looks pretty remote and the Julia Creek area suffered in the floods of 2019.  The maps shows there are quite a few bores in the area.

Tim

[MTG]

On 6/21/2020 at 1:20 AM, TimRobinson said:

   The maps shows there are quite a few bores in the area.

 

  

[MTG]

On 6/19/2020 at 7:29 AM, Rue said:

An article on modern Cremonese instruments.

Nicely written! 

 

[Davide Sora]

I would have liked to answer earlier, but, sorry, I had better things to do, being around the woods of Tuscany for a week of vacation after they finally unlocked the regional borders.

Honestly, the article doesn't seem very accurate to me. Especially the statements of a consortium president (of which all the luthiers interviewed are part) who says that here in Cremona we suffer from competition from China when instead the vast majority of luthiers make a living thanks to Chinese dealers, it is at least inappropriate. Then, when he refers to the prices and hours of work for a "master violin" and puts them in competition with Chinese serial instruments, it is something that doesn't sound good to my ears and that doesn't make much sense. He forgets to say that in fact the situation of prices and hours of work is very different here in Cremona if you had to make an average among all the luthiers, and unfortunately and blindly many put themselves in direct competition with the serial Chinese violins and it is precisely for the latter that we can speak of crisis. Maybe they should realize that you can't beat the Chinese on their favored ground, and only taking care of the quality and aiming at a "high market" would exceed the supposed crisis they go babbling.

Unfortunately, many young makers are strangled by these "experts makers" who spoil the market and make extremely difficult to emerge, since they occupy the low price ranges that should allow young people to enter the market at the beginning of their career. And I'm talking about price ranges around 5000 or 6000 euros, certainly not 10000 or 15000 euros...unfortunately the 25000 euros he talks about as if it were a consolidated price, is true for a really too small number of luthiers here in Cremona, despite this prestigious name that everyone is waving.

[David Burgess]

1 hour ago, Davide Sora said:

I would have liked to answer earlier, but, sorry, I had better things to do, being around the woods of Tuscany for a week of vacation after they finally unlocked the regional borders.

Was it better than sex?

[PhilipKT]

1 hour ago, Davide Sora said:

I would have liked to answer earlier, but, sorry, I had better things to do, being around the woods of Tuscany for a week of vacation after they finally unlocked the regional borders.

Honestly, the article doesn't seem very accurate to me. Especially the statements of a consortium president (of which all the luthiers interviewed are part) who says that here in Cremona we suffer from competition from China when instead the vast majority of luthiers make a living thanks to Chinese dealers, it is at least inappropriate. Then, when he refers to the prices and hours of work for a "master violin" and puts them in competition with Chinese serial instruments, it is something that doesn't sound good to my ears and that doesn't make much sense. He forgets to say that in fact the situation of prices and hours of work is very different here in Cremona if you had to make an average among all the luthiers, and unfortunately and blindly many put themselves in direct competition with the serial Chinese violins and it is precisely for the latter that we can speak of crisis. Maybe they should realize that you can't beat the Chinese on their favored ground, and only taking care of the quality and aiming at a "high market" would exceed the supposed crisis they go babbling.

Unfortunately, many young makers are strangled by these "experts makers" who spoil the market and make extremely difficult to emerge, since they occupy the low price ranges that should allow young people to enter the market at the beginning of their career. And I'm talking about price ranges around 5000 or 6000 euros, certainly not 10000 or 15000 euros...unfortunately the 25000 euros he talks about as if it were a consolidated price, is true for a really too small number of luthiers here in Cremona, despite this prestigious name that everyone is waving.

Thank you!

 

[Davide Sora]

1 hour ago, David Burgess said:

Was it better than sex?

Well, one thing does not exclude the other...

[Rue]

Thanks for weighing in!  Always good to get feed-back from bona fide Cremonite! 

[Bill Merkel]

On 6/20/2020 at 9:12 PM, Michael_Molnar said:

Hmm. What did he call the Mona Lisa?  

Money Lisa

[MikeC]

On 6/20/2020 at 5:12 PM, Michael_Molnar said:

Hmm. What did he call the Mona Lisa?  

Dad used to say "just a durned old picture hangin there on the wall"   I think that was a parody of some song.    

[MikeC]

On 6/21/2020 at 1:12 AM, SLF said:

 

There is a small town in Utah named Mantua.   This Mantua is not famous because Pietro Guarneri lived there, but is infamous for its speed trap.  I used to pass through it (very slowly and carefully).   

On the rare occasion when I've gotten a speeding ticket I usually tell the cop to give me two of them,  Why?  because I'll be back through here in a little while.   

[Rue]

...so what they say about a fool  man and his money IS true! 

[Dimitri Musafia]

17 hours ago, Davide Sora said:

Honestly, the article doesn't seem very accurate to me. [...]

I second Davide's opinion, I believe this to be a poorly written and researched article, with a number of misleading statements starting from the first paragraph.