Mozart's Violin...it's alive!!!

[Rue]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/09/mozart-violion-bring-instrument-back-to-life-christoph-koncz

So Mozart played a Markie? Or better to call it a Waldie?

[jacobsaunders]

There are various legends. That he played a Klotz with an apocryphal Stainer label, or a Dalla Costa, no sign of a “Markie”. (I wonder if he had one that got sunk on the Titanic, perhaps that was the "Markie") As a child he had a Ferdinand Andreas Mayr violin, who his father would have known from the Orchestra there.

[PhilipKT]

Ah, but what about his viola??

[jacobsaunders]

4 minutes ago, PhilipKT said:

Ah, but what about his viola??

I have 9 of those in my front room

[deans]

48 minutes ago, PhilipKT said:

Ah, but what about his viola??

Maybe he smashed it over the head of Sussmayer

[Violadamore]

4 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

There are various legends. That he played a Klotz with an apocryphal Stainer label..............

Oh, really?   Jacob, that legend I'd enjoy hearing a little more about. 

[Rue]

Quote

The instrument, likely the first full-sized violin to be owned by Mozart, was probably given to him by his father, Leopold, his sole violin tutor. It was built in the mid 18th century in Mittenwald in Bavaria, a town still famous for its violin making. Mozart would have played on it when he became concert master at the Salzburg Hofkapelle at the age of 13. While on tour in his father’s native Augsburg in 1777, he wrote to him of when he had played his second concerto on the violin, “everyone praised my beautiful, pure tone”. In Munich, later that month, an audience had “stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. I played as if I were the greatest fiddler in all Europe.”

So...it's a 'fake Mozart's violin'?

Is this just a ploy by hoarders of Waldies to up the ante?  Drive the market for any Waldie?

[PhilipKT]

AndLeupold Was a court official, and wouldn’t the court have had a collection of in-house instruments of their own? Either Italian, if they were snobs, or somebody local if they were partisan.

Bach’s estate included “Two Stainer violins, one in bad condition,” So he at least kept the home fires burning, And those violins were esteemed highly enough that they were mentioned by name, so one would expect Mozart’s instruments, and Haydn’s violin too for that matter, To have been mentioned by name.
hmmm what did Salomon play? Or Mendelssohn? 

It is an interesting factoid that Franchomme, Dedicated Frenchman that he was, nonetheless played a William Forster cello.

[martin swan]

4 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

 As a child he had a Ferdinand Andreas Mayr violin, who his father would have known from the Orchestra there.

You're not trying to tell us that Mozart played on a violin by a contemporary maker ... like a NEW violin? I don't believe it.

[jacobsaunders]

19 minutes ago, martin swan said:

You're not trying to tell us that Mozart played on a violin by a contemporary maker ... like a NEW violin? I don't believe it.

Shush, don't get David started

[martin swan]

But when Mozart's father got it from Mayr it would have been antiqued ... right?

[PhilipKT]

2 hours ago, jacobsaunders said:

I have 9 of those in my front room

There’s a joke running around locally:

”There are only six Strad violas left in the world... and 16 of them are in the Dallas area.”

[Craig Cowing]

But would it sound the same as it did in Mozart's time?

[sospiri]

22 hours ago, Rue said:

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/09/mozart-violion-bring-instrument-back-to-life-christoph-koncz

So Mozart played a Markie? Or better to call it a Waldie?

So I searched for "Waldie" and all that came up was this thread. So the sole purpose of starting this thread was to coin a new name to match Markie? But will it stick I wonder? Will it catch on in the violin world?

[Stringy]

I took this last year in Vienna, it’s supposedly the violin which belonged to Mozart’s father, Kunsthistorisches museum.

[Rue]

3 hours ago, sospiri said:

So I searched for "Waldie" and all that came up was this thread. So the sole purpose of starting this thread was to coin a new name to match Markie? But will it stick I wonder? Will it catch on in the violin world?

No. There are other mentions of "Waldie".  I've been pushing it for a while now. 

I didn't even think of it when I started this thread - the point of which was to discuss Mozart's violin. 

Plus, a Waldie ISN'T a replacement term for Markie ...it's an umbrella term for any violin made in a "wald"...Mittenwald, etc...

[sospiri]

11 minutes ago, Rue said:

No. There are other mentions of "Waldie".  I've been pushing it for a while now. 

I didn't even think of it when I started this thread - the point of which was to discuss Mozart's violin. 

Plus, a Waldie ISN'T a replacement term for Markie ...it's an umbrella term for any violin made in a "wald"...Mittenwald, etc...

I know what a Waldie is, you already told us.

You just wanna be famous the easy way.

Well go ahead and start your own wikipedia page, see if I care.

[Rue]

Well fine then! Maybe I will! *pffrrttt*

[Violadamore]

5 hours ago, Stringy said:

I took this last year in Vienna, it’s supposedly the violin which belonged to Mozart’s father, Kunsthistorisches museum.

 

Oh, looky!  That one's not a Waldie. 

[sospiri]

They aren't Waldies, they are Mitties. 

[Rue]

1 minute ago, sospiri said:

They aren't Waldies, they are Mitties. 

MittenWALD...

[Michael Appleman]

I guess if this sort of fetish-ism can get people to buy tickets and recordings, why not. It is all a bit silly, though don't you think?

A while back, a record producer asked me what I thought about a project to record Chopin's works on a tiny old spinet he used to practice on while he was on holiday in France, so we could "hear what Chopin heard..." The piano was a piece of junk and sounded like crap. I told him I had another proposition. For years I used to host a rather famous russian pianist when he was passing through Paris, and he used to practice all day and night on my Clavinova. I suggested we wait a few years for this pianist to pass away and become a legend, then record his repertoire on the Clavinova to get a sense of what he was "authentically hearing!"

[l33tplaya]

So many violins that were M.'s?!

An acquaintance of mine has/had? a Ruggeri that was owned by Mozart's father - there's a painting of Leopold with a violin that has distinctive scars that match exactly. It sounds like--one of the best violins I have ever heard, as well as being extremely easy to play on.  The story is that the "waldie" was not what M. played on mostly, and M., later in life used the Ruggeri.  The balance across strings and the overtones were magical, at least to my ears. Maatches some of the best Strads and del Gesus (imho), and better than any other Ruggeri, though i have only heard 2 others. Unfortunately, everyone involved wanted beaucoup dinero for it, because of the supposed history, never mind that Ruggeris are completely out of my range anyway....

[Michael Appleman]

It can be interesting to play on famous violinists' "spare instruments," besides their well known and documented "top dog" Strads and Del Gesus. It can give an insight into what they considered important for sound and playability, and often one runs across interesting examples of makers that aren't always the most sought after. I can remember a Balestrieri that belonged to Grumiaux, and a Pique that belonged to Ysaye and Thibault that were remarkable fiddles, up there with the best concert violins I've ever played. There is also a Hel that was specially made for Ysaye that wasn't anything special, but that might be a case of accepting a gift or keeping a commission without it having been picked out by the player himself for its qualities. Of course, these being more recent violinists, the evidence trail is irrefutable, but when we start going back to the Mozarts (and Beethoven, for that matter), evidence gets a lot more tenuous, and there is often a "leap of faith" involved, not to mention that in the case of this unidentified Mittenwald violin, if it is the one Mozart passed to his sister, it is then the one he didn't want to play on, so we should keep that in mind before we light incence and make animal sacrifices to it.