Magnus Nedregard

Oh my, am I looking forward to this! Going in a months time, hope they won't be out of catalogues by then... What's the matter with the hotels in the Oxford area? 

I just love Vulpex too... Combined with water it is useful for cleaning cracks too, at different ratios. I've found an "odorless" variety of white Spirit sold in art shops that works very well for this purpose. Actually Vulpex + disitilled water appears to be far more "dangerous" on varnish surfaces than the White Spirit solution. But even with WS, cleaning with this solution tends to leave some residue on the surface, that one must pay close attention to, and remove, for example with a little bit of light mineral oil on cotton wool.

Isn't it odd, how all strings on the market have "unparalleled bow response" and usually loads of warmth and clarity throughout the spectrum too! I might be a cynic, but I find them rather silly, these attempts to describe "the sound" of a string brand. 

 

A string has different characteristics on different instruments, they are always in relation to the instrument, bow and player. So any string might have almost any sound. Quite a few instruments I know of only "work" with a certain setup of strings. That doesn't mean that those strings are especially bad or good, they just happen to work on that instrument. Tension, which is a useful information is often not so clearly communicated, material is also another key issue. The "unparalleled bow response" doesn't really come from the strings, to my knowledge, although they might be part of it. 

Bass bars are normally made parallel, 5,5 is fine. I know of no-one who tapers the bar length-wise?

Some years ago  I heard the Cannon played by one of the winners of the Paganini competition, Natalia Lomeiko. I sat at the very back and just beneath the roof of the Cremona theatre, from there the sound was unforgettable. Clear and crisp, but never shrill. Not "big" sound in a broad and pushy way, but precise, ringing and warm. I can't says it comes through sound-wise so well in this you-tube thing, but there's a recording where Accardo plays on it, where it is recognizable- (Which recording? Oh, it is sort of blueish-green on the cover, and there's a portrait of Pag on it too! Good luck!) 

 

I wonder what it sounds like with the historically correct set up, wouldn't it be a treat if Bruce could comment on that!!