Playing (the bass) from an height!
Violinist Juliane Oberegger on her month playing on “the Wagner” Violoncello da Spalla
In September, violinist Juliane Oberegger from Graz rented our Violoncello da Spalla made after Johann Wagner for a project that was held in Innsbruck at the Hofkirche. This was made possible by the invaluable support of organist and conductor Marian Polin and the Tiroler Landesmuseen.
She threw herself into studying this instrument with remarkable dedication and fervour, and also gave a concise introductory talk before the concert. I will let her words speak for themselves about her experience. This is the Facebook post that she wrote, and here are her pictures.
Last weeks special companion really deserves a spot on the grid (as the cool kids call it 😎). I had the immense pleasure to play a Viola da Spalla (aka Fagottgeige, Handbaßel, Viola pomposa or Möchtegerncello) in the latest Concert of @innsbrucker_hofmusik in the stunning ambiance of the Innsbruck Hofkirche.
It is a fascinating instrument that really requires us to combine written sources, iconography and surviving instruments even more than others. I naturally went into full nerd-mode and read everything there is, played a lot of the music that is (supposedly) for this instrument and tried to embrace the ambiguity that surrounds it. It taught me a lot of things, also ones I didn’t anticipate and made me have conversations with perfect strangers purely because I carried a case that said „…da Spalla!“ on it. In the end this seems to be a Marmite-Instrument: Either you love it, you hate it, or you never tried it, but everyone has very strong opinions about it. 😃
Thank you to @marianpolin_musica for beeing crazy enough to try this, to Franz Gratl for making it possible and to @danielagaidano / @violoncellodaspalla for building these instruments and sharing your knowledge and passion with me!
News from da Spalla world
Update from the Warchal strings project:
After we published the last update, in one night we received 8 pledges, so all the rewards are gone, and we had to close them!
We have to keep a few in case one gets lost in the Mail, so it may happen that there will be a very few available later. If you are interested, please subscribe to the waiting list at this link:
https://www.subscribepage.com/warchaldaspalla
We are now ordering packages to get your strings to you safely.
Thank you for your support!!
Updates from our workshop
Two new spallas on the bench… almost 😅 .
They will take a bit more time than usual because we also have other projects to fulfill for 2025, but here they are!
Featured video of the week
This is a quite dated video, but the message is always valid and strong.
