About The Blue Violin
The Story Of The Blue Violin
Where did the blue violin come from?
“Well, this was completely my idea! It came about when the great violin-maker, my friend Jan Špidlen, invited me along to a meeting of the seven best violin-makers in the world in Amiata, Italy.
“At this remarkable event, I had a glass of wine with Jan, we chatted and the conversation reached a point where I realised that I really wanted him to build me a differently-colored violin. He said, ‘That’s good. If you want, I have a concept violin in my drawer that has all sorts of tweaks and little changes, like a slightly modified body construction. If we agree, I’ll build you a violin based on that concept. And then we started working on the color. How do you want the violin colored?’ I replied, ‘I don’t know. The usual color of a violin is yellow, red and brown. So we don’t have many colors remaining. We’re left with black, blue and green.’ And Jan said, ‘I’m not going to do black, because you can’t see the grain of the wood.’ So, there was now green or blue. I decided to go for blue, because I like blue, and I have blue eyes!
“I just said, ‘Make me a blue violin.’ And he went for it. And thank God it was Jan Spidlen. He is a superb violin-maker, and comes from a family where the art of violin-building has been handed down from generation to generation, since his great-grandfather. Four generations! There was no-one better.
“Jan started building a blue violin. I gave him full freedom to create whatever he imagined, until one day in 2005 he called me and said he was almost finished, and asked me to come and see it. And that if I didn’t come immediately, he would give them to Mr. Suk, who was very interested!
“At first glance, apart from the colour, you can’t tell that this violin is a bit different. It has a slightly altered body, and the f-holes, that is, the holes next to the ///??locust???///, are cut differently. The headstock, the snail, is very interesting. It’s carved differently, almost artistically, and you can look through it. Whereas a traditional snail is solid, without a hole. This snail, because it’s more carved, has less weight. The weight of the snail is important to the sound of the instrument. If it’s not heavy enough, the violin barely plays. Or they sound like they have a choke ///IS THAT THE RIGHT PHRASE IN ENGLISH???///. When Jan and I put some weight on the snail, and it was too heavy, the violin sounded like a trumpet. So we searched until we found the right measure. Jan added a lead weight to one of the holes.
“We did some other magic tricks. Like with the varnish. When a violin is built, before it’s varnished, the wood has to be sealed, so to speak. That’s done with a basic clear varnish. It closes the pores and the violin stays naturally the colour of the wood, yellow in fact. Then the paint is applied. Of course, blue is not a natural colour for a violin maker, so Jan worked hard to find a way to create it. He somehow managed to do it using artificial dye, which he used to paint the violin. But when you put blue on yellow, you get green. So when he first painted the violin, it was green. So he took a sponge and washed the paint off. Then he did another blue and it was a different green! He wiped it off again. And if I’m not mistaken, there’s a third coat on my violin now. I liked that one, and I said, ‘Jan! Don’t mess with it anymore. That’s a good blue.’ But the truth is, when the spotlight shines yellow on me at concerts, people come up to me and ask why my violin is green.”
Source:
Excerpted from Pavel Sporcl’s book, My Life (Not Only) With Violin.
https://www.pavelsporcl.com/en/pavel/blue-violin/