Hello, Daniela here.
Today, at lunch with other fellow luthiers, we were talking about our marketing efforts and different activities, how much time you spend on socials, how often you post…, and I mentioned the fact that I write a newsletter every Friday. “About you and what’s going on in your workshop?” Not really -I answered-, I try to give a small piece of research every week because I think it’s essential to keep the interest and discussion about Violoncello da Spalla running, and also because this way while doing my “weekly duty”, I also take the time to do a bit of research for myself. It’s one of those things that would get postponed if there was no regular deadline (and, you dear reader know, sometimes it does anyway).
Actually, often I forget that we are running a business, and I started to link our website here after more than one year of newsletter!
So, I hope you will forgive me if this time it’s a little (but just a little) more about what’s going on here and those business sort of things.
We will speak about:
Instrument for sale
What’s going on here
A brief note about Telemann
Violoncello da Spalla for sale:
In the video above, I’m playing Alessandro’s latest instrument with a new bridge we are happy about. It’s now settled in all gut (first two Aquila, three basses in gut and silver by Eliakim Boussoir), it’s easy to play with and beautifully rich and resonant.
This instrument is for sale now, and If you’d like to have a chance to try it, get in touch.
On our website, you can see our other instruments and download our price list.
What’s going on here:
I’m recovering from my surgery, but I’m still taking it easy. This week, I dedicated some time to my own bows. For long, my viola bow needed a rehair and a new grip, so I took the occasion to try a new supply of hairs and the fabulous green trout leather in the picture for the new grip. Yes, fish leather: it’s beautiful, strong, easy to work with. They come from France from a tannery that uses leather initially destined for destruction, coming from food production chain.
I also tried, out of curiosity and because I wanted to exercise myself in silk wrapping, a silk grip for my Violoncello da Spalla bow. I still do not have an opinion to share about its use, but I enjoyed doing it.
Today and tomorrow (Friday and Saturday), I am attending a seminar on acoustic. I still don’t know if it will have a practical outcome on our instruments, but learning and opening our minds is always a good thing.
Alessandro made a new bridge for his cello, and then we played together a bit to hear it, and from that, the video opening this newsletter. We are just reading music and seeing if there’s something we would like to practice together, and I think we both like this Telemann sonata.
Alessandro is also going on with his “big” cello.
A brief note about Telemann
I’m not going to write here about Georg Philip Telemann’s role in music history, but it’s a fact that he’s one of the very few composers to have expressly written music for viola pomposa. In his Der getreue musik Meister (the first music publication in history, subscribers received 4 pages of music every two weeks), you can find four movements for transverse flute and viola pomposa that were lately joined together and published as a sonata, with the TWV 40:111.
Telemann’s viola pomposa seems to be tuned like a violin one octave below. He doesn’t use the C string at all. However, there’s much more that you can play with the Violoncello da Spalla, as many duets for flutes or other instruments and other sonatas offer a violin part which is beautiful on the Violoncello da Spalla. We are playing above the first movement of the Second Sonata from the Six Sonatas for two flutes or two violins, published in 1727 and very famous at his times. I like it because it’s not as simple as the viola pomposa sonata, it has a variety of colours, and I think it’s very Italian style. I think it’s worth practicing it!
So that’s it for this week, thanks for reading and I hope you found value here even in this slightly different format.
Some Telemann and what’s on here