Craft & Patience
The Art of Making Violins
Violin Maker Christophe Landon adjusts a violin by the French master Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume. The body of a 1714 Stradivarius, with the face removed, sits in the foreground.
When visiting a craftsman's home, one expects to find a complicated studio filled to bursting with tools and supplies. But upon entering the home of master violin maker Christophe Landon, one finds only a humble work table out on the balcony, a scattering of sawdust on the dining room table, a book on Antonio Stradivarius — and violins and violin parts drying everywhere. Such simplicity is the result of violin making's most important tool, patience. For fine violins are created over decades and centuries, by the hands of the craftsmen and the fingers of time. Landon is a master of his art because he has both the skill of a craftsman and the knowledge and patience of time.
“It's about culture, making the violin”, said Landon. “You have to understand all the instruments behind you”. And Landon ventures deep into the realms of understanding. Repairing, restoring, buying and selling Golden Age violins from his shops in New York and Aspen, he knows the creations of music history's greatest craftsmen inside and out. As evidence, on a recent day, a Stradivarius from 1714, with its front entirely removed, rested on the dining room table.
But Landon has gone further, developing an understanding of the history of violin making. He is currently writing a book on two 19th century Italian violin makers from Turin: Pressenda and Joseph Rocca.
Such an intimate knowledge of the roots of the stringed instruments goes to the heart of this art. For in the world of violin makers, there is no such thing as “progress”. They do not move ahead, they work to move back, deeper and deeper into history.
As Landon explains, the pinnacle of violin making was reached centuries ago, in the late 17th and early 18th century, in the northern Italian province of Cremona, by the master craftsman, Antonio Stradivarius, followed closely by Giuseppi Del Gesu and a handful of others. They essentially created and perfected the modern violin. Since then, the history of violin making has been an endless effort to recreate these originals.
And then, perhaps, perhaps once they are equalled, they might be surpassed. “We have a goal in life”, says Landon. “The ideal to each would be to make a violin that is better than the best violin.”
Makers can not stray far from this classic model, says Landon. Thus, starting from an original, Landon carefully takes measurements of every detail. Then with stencils and molds in hand, he begins to carve.
Landon's career began early. He played the classical guitar and, when he was 15, his teacher sent him away on holidays to study instrument making. His first summer he made a violin and a guitar. That first violin he appropriately gave to his mother. By the time he was 18, he had already built 10 violins.
The next step was to become an apprentice to a master violin maker. “When you are an apprentice in France, you just sit down and make a violin”, explained Landon. “Most kids, they go to college. When I was 17 and a half I was living by myself in an apartment in a beautiful little town. I jumped into real life immediately.”
After four years as an apprentice, the young craftsman worked four years in Amsterdam, making instruments for Max Möller. That was followed by two years in New York, working under Jacques Français. For the past 10 years, he has had his own shop, also in New York.
Landon arrived in Aspen five summers ago for a quick trip to hear one of his instruments being played in the Music Festival. The short trip quickly turned into weeks as Landon found himself drawn to the festival and the valley's natural wonders. He now comes here every summer to attend numerous concerts and build numerous violins.
He also pursues two other major interests in Aspen. He is an avid fly fisherman, who can reel off a list of area lakes rated by the size of their fish. And, in his second year here he stumbled across a polo match at the Roaring Fork Polo Club and was instantly hooked on the game.
Growing up in Fontainebleau, France, with a veterinarian father, Landon knew horses well and asked polo club professional Barry Stout if he could give it a try. Four summers later, living with his wife and two sons in Snowmass near the polo field at Cozy Point, he hasn't stopped playing. Nearly every morning Landon saddles up one of his horses and plays, only returning home to take a seat at his work table.
In the 16 years since he completed his apprenticeship, as he dutifully reproduces every detail of the masters' originals, down to the smallest imperfection, Landon's instruments have grown closer and closer to his goal of creating a great violin. He feels he is getting close. “I could see it in 10 years and think it's a Stradivarius”, he says of one of his new violins.
The keys to this success — in addition to Landon's own skills and fiercely focused attention — are in the wood and the varnish.
When wood ages, it dries and becomes more and more dense, enhancing the instrument's resonance. In addition to using wood from slow-growing dense trees, violin makers are always searching for old wood. When Landon was 18 and an apprentice in Mirecort, France, he had fortunate foresight. “I was working all night to buy wood”, recalls Landon. “I have piles and piles of it at home.” The wood he stored away was then already more than a hundred years old, giving his instruments a head start toward greatness.
Since good wood for instruments can come from the most unexpected places, Landon always travels with his eyes open. A few years ago while salmon fishing in Alaska he discovered a 150-year-old oak table. He took it apart right there in the shop. With the wood he made three instruments — all of which are now in the Berlin Philharmonic.
In addition to finding and using antique wood, Landon ages every piece he makes. In his Snowmass home, freshly carved fronts and backs for future violins lie on the porch ledge and in the windows, drying in the sun. He'll dry them like this off and on for a year, giving the wood an aesthetic tan and increasing the density.
“I prepare everything here and then I finish them during the year”, said Landon, who hopes to have enough violin fronts and backs to stretch around the entire porch ledge by summer's end. “And the great thing about being here in Aspen is forcing myself to make violins in the summer. In New York, my shop is like the subway. Here the inspiration is great. You have the mountains, the music festival and peace and quiet.”
After the instrument is finally assembled, Landon continues the aging process by lending out some of his violins. As it turns out, wear is actually beneficial for the instruments. As Landon explains, one of the ingredients to a great violin is years and years of regular use. Playing causes the wood to vibrate, which increases the wood's flexibility, thereby improving the sound.
The next critical factor is the varnish that coats the carefully aged wood. And that varnish is also affected positively by decades of use.
Many people believe that Antonio Stradivarius made such extraordinary instruments because he had some sort of magic varnish. Certainly, Stradavarius made magnificent violins, but, “the secret”, says Landon, debunking the myth, “is that there is no more varnish on them. It's much more flexible and warm when most of the varnish is gone. ” As a result Landon works hard to make the varnish on his violins mimic the natural deterioration of older instruments.
A few years ago, the violin maker fell in love with a Guarneri violin named the Lord Coke. “I committed myself to buying it for two years. So I could have it and copy it”, says Landon, who has two of these copies on hand. One is covered with a full, smooth coat of varnish. For the other, he explains, “I did all kinds of things to imitate the nicks on the varnish.” The difference in sound is uncanny. The well-varnished instrument has a slightly muffled sound, while with the antiqued version, each note contains countless colors.
“The violin is a very empirical instrument. It's not scientific at all”, he says. “People pretend it has something to do with the golden number, but really it's just that the violin is very harmoniously designed. Basically it's very easy to make a clean-looking violin. If you come down to the essence of things, it's not that complicated; it's just wood.”
True, the violin is nothing more than wood, but nowhere on Earth is wood cared for with such skill, knowledge and patience.
Most of Landon's colleagues don't make instruments anymore. Instead they devote their time to repair and restoration. While Landon also repairs instruments, his passion is to build them, to create an instrument from scratch. “More and more, I like my instruments more than the great instruments I'm surrounded with”, he confesses. “It's really great to hear my instruments in concert. If you see your instruments are someday played, it's the greatest pleasure, because it's your child.”
The beginnings of violin maker Christophe Landon's re-creation of a 1744 violin by the Italian master Guarnerius Del Gesu rest on top of photographs of the original.