Yes, this is my experience too. I sold a viola to a quite gifted player from
Kiev, Ukraine, he played a potboiler
and was able to get a good sound from it. He was just accepted to study
with Michael Kugel, in Ghent, Belgium.

www.manfio.com


On 7/7/09, Eric Chapman <chapmanviolins@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> My impression is that until the Russian Revolution in 1917, musicians there
> had access to the same strings as players in western Europe.
>
>
> For my two cents worth of perspective, I had two Russian violin makers work
> for me while in New York. One was an active maker in Moscow who explained
> to me that each time he finished an instrument, he took it to the government
> store which bought it. It didn't seem to matter if the quality was good,
> bad or indifferent. The other maker came from Leningrad Conservatory and
> later trained as a luthier in the US. When some of the Russian orchestras
> would come to New York, his friends from those orchestras would visit the
> shop. It was absolutely amazing how much sound they could get from such
> poor equipment. It wasn't just poor steel strings but instruments that
> hadn't been cared for in years--warped bridges and fingerboards, posts that
> didn't begin to fit, open seams everywhere etc.
>
>
> A few years ago, the violist of Russia's most famous string quartet was
> here to borrow a viola on which he could play a concert at Ravinia. His
> regular viola might have worked for an intermediate rental instrument. The
> experience was a real eye opener.
>
>
> Cheers,
> Eric Chapman
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jul 7, 2009, at 1:30 PM, luis claudio manfio wrote:
>
>
>
> Yes, it may be that metal strings were used first, but I don't think so,
> most
> of strings on that time were made of gut. Of course that concert players
> like
> Oistrack and Rostropovich had access to good strings, but I wonder about
> the
> type
> of strings most musicians used.
>
> My daugther played in a student's audition the other day and I've noticed
> that most of
> the bad sound of most instruments there came from the bad Chinese strings
> on
> them.
>
> What I know about Russian instruments is only what I see played by
> Russian musicians here.
>
> Ciao!
>
> www.manfio.com
>
> On 7/6/09, ivan_ptizelov <ptizelov@... <ptizelov%40hotmail.com>>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > I know of several good Russian makers, but none of them are well known
> (or
> > even known at all) in the West because the Soviet Union made it nearly
> > impossible to export the instruments (and it's still expensive - export
> > duties are ridiculous). So it's a bit hard, from the Western perspective,
> to
> > understand whether there actually was a school, and even harder - unless
> you
> > have a lot of exposure to those instruments, i.e. you spend a lot of time
> in
> > Russia - to judge the quality of those instruments.
> >
> > As for the quality of the strings, the arts were generally well supported
> > in Soviet Russia, but even if that didn't extend to the manufacture
> and/or
> > import of good strings, the musicians at the time would certainly stock
> up
> > while on tour. And if they were forced to obtain strings that way, I
> would
> > suspect that they would prefer metal strings to gut, because metal lasts
> > longer... I can say that in the 1990s it was possible to buy decent
> > Russian-made strings in Russia, although they weren't always easy to
> find.
> >
> > --- In viola@yahoogroups.com <viola%40yahoogroups.com> <viola%
> 40yahoogroups.com>, luis claudio
> > manfio <lmanfio@...> wrote:
> > >
> > > Most probably your instrument was strung with gut strings when it was
> > made.
> > > I wonder
> > > about the quality of the strings because iin 1939 Russia was a Comunist
> > > country, closed
> > > to the good strings made in western Europe.
> > > It's interesting that Russia developed quite a lot in string playing
> and
> > > teaching, but was not
> > > able to develop a good violin making school.
> > > www.manfio.com
> >
> >
> >
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]