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Sustainability
The use of certain materials traditionally employed in violin making is becoming increasingly problematic:
Awareness of the conditions under which ebony and rosewood are harvested and brought to market inevitably raises ethical concerns.
As the sources of the highest-quality ebony (Mauritius and Madagascar) have already been completely exhausted, and the remaining regions face the same fate, a rapid decline in material quality has been evident for many years.
The trade restrictions introduced by CITES impose increasing bureaucratic burdens on both violin makers and musicians, in some cases leading to trade barriers and travel restrictions.
The maple and spruce I use come from locations in Switzerland that I know personally, as the exploitation of the last remaining European primeval forests also makes the use of Balkan maple appear unsustainable to me.
That the historical violin makers of northern Italy sourced their maple through the active trade of Venetian merchants was consistent with the circumstances of their time. Whether the use of maple from different provenances, grown under different climatic conditions, must necessarily result in a loss of quality is a question for today’s craftsmen to refute. Continued reliance on ebony, however, is no longer justifiable from a qualitative standpoint. Sustainable alternatives are preferable in terms of both their working properties and their contribution to the tonal and aesthetic calibration of fingerboards.
In 2022, I came across Ebonprex, which makes it possible to produce fingerboards in larger dimensions with excellent dimensional stability and relative ease.
The European Violin Makers Association (E.I.L.A.) has recognized the urgency of sustainable solutions in violin making and is currently developing a teaching module on working with these new materials, which is intended to be offered at all violin-making schools. I am involved in this initiative through Alliance International.
Since 2016, I have been engaged in the development of violin-making accessories made from Sonowood in collaboration with SwissWoodSolutions. Through workshops at Wilhelm Geigenbau, as well as at the annual international violin-making meetings in Oberlin, USA, and in Brandenburg near Berlin, these materials have by now been introduced to many highly respected colleagues.
Sustainability
The use of certain materials traditionally employed in violin making is becoming increasingly problematic:
Awareness of the conditions under which ebony and rosewood are harvested and brought to market inevitably raises ethical concerns.
As the sources of the highest-quality ebony (Mauritius and Madagascar) have already been completely exhausted, and the remaining regions face the same fate, a rapid decline in material quality has been evident for many years.
The trade restrictions introduced by CITES impose increasing bureaucratic burdens on both violin makers and musicians, in some cases leading to trade barriers and travel restrictions.
The maple and spruce I use come from locations in Switzerland that I know personally, as the exploitation of the last remaining European primeval forests also makes the use of Balkan maple appear unsustainable to me.
That the historical violin makers of northern Italy sourced their maple through the active trade of Venetian merchants was consistent with the circumstances of their time. Whether the use of maple from different provenances, grown under different climatic conditions, must necessarily result in a loss of quality is a question for today’s craftsmen to refute. Continued reliance on ebony, however, is no longer justifiable from a qualitative standpoint. Sustainable alternatives are preferable in terms of both their working properties and their contribution to the tonal and aesthetic calibration of fingerboards.
In 2022, I came across Ebonprex, which makes it possible to produce fingerboards in larger dimensions with excellent dimensional stability and relative ease.
The European Violin Makers Association (E.I.L.A.) has recognized the urgency of sustainable solutions in violin making and is currently developing a teaching module on working with these new materials, which is intended to be offered at all violin-making schools. I am involved in this initiative through Alliance International.
Since 2016, I have been engaged in the development of violin-making accessories made from Sonowood in collaboration with SwissWoodSolutions. Through workshops at Wilhelm Geigenbau, as well as at the annual international violin-making meetings in Oberlin, USA, and in Brandenburg near Berlin, these materials have by now been introduced to many highly respected colleagues.
