OBITUARIES

Editor's letter

CHARLOTTE SMITH It’s not often that a child

Contributors

WENJIE CAI (Making Matters, page 70) is a

SOUNDPOST

Letters, emails, online comments

You raise me up

An online community founded by and for women in lutherie has grown in leaps and bounds over the past three years. What are the benefits for the female contingent?

New registry for fine instruments launched

A free, international public registry for fine instruments is

Basic instinct

A violin concerto exploring society’s response to drastic events

COMPETITIONS

1 Natalie Loughran 2 Dmitry Serebrennikov 3

Room for manoeuvre

A new stop designed to offer freedom of movement and reliable stability

GOING STRONG

Pirastro’s Stark G and D double bass strings

SAFETY FIRST

D’Addario has designed a guard to protect rosin

Life lessons

The Argentinian cellist explains why staying true to oneself and constantly evolving make for a fruitful career

LIVE FOR THE MOMENT

Classical musicians and audiences can learn from stand-up comedy shows, where there’s a naturalness and immediacy of interaction between performers and the crowd, writes Rita Fernandes

Hybrid model

The 2021 Princess Astrid International Music Competition worked around the continuing pandemic restrictions with online preliminary rounds followed by a live final on 18 November. Tim Homfray travelled north to witness some compelling performances

DRAMATIC flair

French Baroque violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte has released four albums in a little over a year. He shares with Charlotte Gardner the origins of his dream of uncovering the works of long-forgotten composers – and how that project has come to fruition

SMALL BUT beautiful

In the extensive literature concerning Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, there is very little about one of his more remarkable innovations: a refinement of the bow frog design that can be seen on many examples from his workshop. Michel Samson explains how the so-called ‘Alard’ bow was designed to make life easier for players and makers alike

AGAINST THE ODDS

Pierre Baillot battled against financial hardship and suffered personal tragedy, yet he became a leading exponent of the 19th-century French violin school. Martin Wulfhorst reveals his importance as an instrumentalist, pedagogue and compose

GOOD AS NEW

The second album from the United Strings of Europe features original arrangements of existing works by artistic director Julian Azkoul – but more than this, the works are thematically linked by transformation and loss, as he tells Toby Deller

THE WELL HARMONISED MOULD

The logic governing the structure of Stradivari’s violins remains a mystery. André Theuni s and Alexandre Wajnberg take a fresh look at his moulds to find an intriguing system of proportions, utilising the tools and measuring systems of his day

EVOLUTION OF A PARTNERSHIP

Six years ago, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire head of strings Louise Lansdown established a partnership with a music centre in Soweto to launch the Arco project, providing in-person and online lessons for South African string students. Here she reflects on the importance of the scheme and on how it has developed

SINETHEMBA NGIBA – ARCO VIOLINIST, AGED 21

TOP PHOTO JAN REPKO. BOX OUT PHOTO ARCO

NJABULO NXUMALO – ARCO DOUBLE BASSIST, AGED 21

My love of music started from a very

VIHUELA DE ARCO

A close look at the work

A tool to measure string tension

How luthiers can create a device to find the optimum tension of a string – and a few good reasons to use it

MY SPACE

A peek into lutherie workshops around the world

The price is right

Points of interest to violin and bow makers

BRUCH’S ROMANCE OP.85

Violist and composer Konstantin Boyarsky considers nerves, narrative and the influence of the opera in his discussion of this late Romantic piece

New perspectives on bow curves for double bass

New perspectives on bow curves for double bass

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From the ARCHIVE

Violin pedagogue Percival Hodgson advocates a system of pattern recognition to help young players, rather than the laborious method of learning the names of notes

IN THE NEXT ISSUE

Leonidas Kavakos The violinist discusses his new

PHILIPPE GRAFFIN

For the Elgar Violin Concerto, the French violinist has taken advice from Yehudi Menuhin, Josef Gingold and Roger Norrington – as well as the composer’s original manuscript