I am a violinmaker by profession. I’ve been repairing and making new bowed string musical instruments for more than thirty years. It was much time ago when a number of representatives of the family of noble violins made by me exceeded three hundred. They wander around the world, and I hope they satisfy their owners and numberless listeners a lot. My service record allows me to reason, in qualified way, about the state of things in the field of musical culture.
We live in some amazing times, first of all because of some rabid immorality. If one of our great predecessors had offered me the chance to characterize the present day, I would have answered in the following way: Today every guy who is able to skillfully clatter on a soccer ball with his hooves gets annual remuneration for his skills at tens of times more than Nobel Prize winners in physics—a prize that stands for the grand job of a great scientist’s entire lifetime.
It’s not just financial results that are amazing—it’s the outrageous evidence of the total destruction of our social institutions of moral and honor. We’re all witnesses and, sometimes, active participants in this avalanching downfall of fundamental humanitarian norms of the civilized society. I wouldn’t like to speak about the unpreventable apocalyptic consequences of this wildest Sabbath.
By no means do I intend to speak about the apparent fall of tempers in the establishment of musical life or the depreciation of criteria for contemporary performing mastership. Of course, it takes place. However, I cannot keep silent about troublesome trends appearing in the community of tireless workers in my unquiet workshop. There are more and more frequent attempts to discredit excellent achievements of the violinmakers of the Classical Italian period. This is the subject I wish to address with the magnifying lens of insight.
Instrumental masterpieces made by the efforts of great Italians prove to be an essentially outrageous reproach as well as the greatest irritant for all future generations of makers. Quite often, instead of the deepest acknowledgment and call for their own improvement, Italian monuments cause reactions (not the noblest) among current luminaries of violin craft. We’ve forgotten how to properly appreciate how the real sons of valour have gifted the world by the generosity of their talent, and neither are we willing to give them due respect.
In today’s state of things in the community of violinmakers, the gripe is that about half of my colleagues are blowing out their cheeks to impudently make themselves known, as if they perform within the framework of the technology of ancient Italian makers only. And it seems like it’s not bad at all. But they never trouble themselves regarding the need to explain to the musical community in what way their secret Italianism is expressed. How does it differ from German technology, for example? Seeing their growing success, similar wonderworkers might declare themselves aliens—strangers from Alpha Centauri’s constellation.
In what way must we order to treat these inventions?
Generally, I want, to the point of tears, to see a recognized virtuoso from the cohort of Perelmans or Tsukermans pleasing an enthusiastic audience performing on the contemporary “balalaika” on the scene.
By the way, the second half of homebred bush-league Stradivaris holds absolutely another point of view. These guys affirm, with amazing tranquility, that there are no great secrets in the technology of ancient Italian makers at all. The fine concert properties of Italian monuments coming to us are determined by a time factor, meaning time influenced how they turned into masterpieces.
These makers are quite seriously convinced that their own instruments, in a couple of centuries, will sound not worse than the notorious Paganini’s “Cannon”. The indestructibility of this sweetest position is safely protected by delays in payment. Indeed, just try to deny this kind of the good looker, and prove that his creation in three hundred years will neither pull a stunt nor rub high-handed Italians’ nose in it.
Among different stupidities endlessly spread by contemporary violinmakers, the tale about so-called “revealing experiments” takes the most honorable place. It happens when a cheerful party gathers and a homemade “Stradivarius” is put among newly made instruments listened to incognito.
Then, at last – Eureka, a well-known Italian, to his great shame, occupies the most humiliating last place.
I don’t set out to judge what such comedies have more of—naivety or ignorance—but we witness in all this the greatest denseness of many representatives of the motley violin workshop.
In this regard, I deem it necessary to explain to my colleagues regarding what a classic Italian violin is, and what gap is between it and their own creations.
It was about forty years ago when, for the first time in my life, I heard a real Italian violin; as a matter of fact, it was “Stradivarius”. It happened in the city of Lugansk. The famous Georgian violinist, Nani Iashvili, came to our philharmonic to perform a concert. Of course, I failed to remember and couldn’t catch all the nuances in the sounding of her outstanding instrument but I kept my mind tuned to the incomparable feeling of an infinite musical obsession. Illusion arose as if the presence of the violin sound in an audience hall hadn’t been anywhere related to the instrument playing on the scene. It was as if that sound had existed by itself and fully dominated over listeners. It was hard to believe that the small violin in the performer’s hands was the source of that musical wealth.
I experienced a number of shocks from dealing with Italian instruments in my life but that first impression burned into my memory as high profile, unrivaled perfection.
I think that it’s no use specifying, once again, all the enthusiastic epithets that specialists use to characterize the sound quality of good and well-preserved “Italian”. But I consider it as an essentially important matter to speak about the extremely complicated (and nearly marital) relation between a real musician and a full-blooded Italian violin, as it’s impossible to know the underlying essence of these great pieces of work made by humans without it.
The matter is: to play an original Italian violin is not so easy, and this art requires us to thoughtfully and insistently to learn it. A person who has never played an Italian instrument gets confused when firstly touching it, as a rule. He just denies belief that he has one of the Wonders of the World in his hands. It happens because a special manner of sound production and very specific performance style using a bow, that doesn’t admit any instrument abuse, are required for exacting meaningful voicing from an Italian violin.
A performer accustomed to producing sound from an ordinary violin inevitably will have a score of significant technical difficulties, thus requiring a lot of attempts and time to overcome them. By the way, it’s exactly this reason determining the occurrence of paradoxes according to the results of “revealing listening” so much loved by naïve makers. Indeed, young musicians—more often students who had never had any decent violin —are attracted to this sacred action. It’s the same like to put Chichikov’s horseman Selifan at the wheel of a Mercedes Benz 600.
If you ask me what the main advantage is of an ancient Italian violin, and what way it differs from other geographical origins, I’ll answer without hesitation: the main advantage of a well-preserved instrument of noble Italian blood is in the inexhaustibility of its musical stock. An Italian is always ready to answer and reproduce any emotional message for you. Any other non-Italian violin, even quite a decent one, unavoidably bears the sign of original static character.
It’s precisely this kind, and no other is like it. An Italian instrument is always ready to manifest whatever variations as a performer’s talent and mastership can reach. No matter how much some musician can grow and improve, an Italian violin permanently keeps corresponding to his mastership and is able to subtly reproduce the most enthusiastic and exciting nuances of a confessing soul without any burst. It can be compared with Bible reading. No matter how much wiser you can become over years or how much you improve, a great book will always correspond to your development level and will provide the gift of consolation and a comprehensive answer to any of your questions.
To be consistent till the end, I can’t help saying that the type and quality of an instrument dictates the fate of a professional musician. When we deal with an Italian, it happens nearly always that the grade of eagerness and talent given while making a violin exceeds that of the musician who possesses this instrument. A violin becomes a reliable partner, and even trainer, inspiring and bringing a performer after it—not letting him fall to the level of art-indifference.
A violin, being less talented that a musician, automatically leads to emotional indifference because it’s like a completely known woman no longer exciting a man as the magic of attraction is lost at some moment. In this respect, the artistic fate of violist Bashmet is very significant. To the best of my knowledge, he has been one of the most talented musicians of modern times. The fact of his not having a really great instrument prevented him from fulfilling the full perspective of his performing talent. Yuri Bashmet plays a well-preserved Italian instrument from a well-known maker, Testore. To say it right, this one is not the most special of the first league.
There’s no doubt that some crucial situation arose in the art biography of violist, Bashmet, when the grade of his huge talent transcended violinmaker Testore’s grade of talent. It would have been optimal and necessary, cost what it may, to take a more perfect instrument, like the works of Stradivari.
Vast new horizons would, in this case, be opened before Bashmet and then the musical world could have a really great painter (and I am not mistaken to say painter) of the Oistrakh or Menuhin level.
In fact, the secret of creative longevity for all greatest virtuosos is in the genius of their instruments. Probably, only Paganini could exhaust the genius of Guarneri del Gesù till the end. Most unfortunately, nothing of this kind happened to Bashmet because of various reasons, and then other events inevitably followed as a consequence of his creative dissatisfaction.
Maybe it’s time to remember that I’m just a violinmaker. That’s why I propose to now address my thoughts directly to my favorite craft. Other enthusiastic seekers for secrets of the Stradivari, in their innocence naivety, believe that ancient Italians knew some formula for a magic elixir potent enough just to sprinkle a plain violin to enable it, like a fairytale frog, to turn it into a beautiful tsarevna. Straight away, I’m forced to disappoint you. Growing a real Italian type is quite a difficult matter, as it requires much effort, an inquiring mind and a firm spirit.
The unique acoustical abilities of ancient Italian instruments and the inexhaustibility of their musical stock combine a number of brilliant and unusually witty processing methods. These are exactly the processing tricks I’m going to share with contemporary violinmakers.
Besides, I’m immediately making a reservation that I don’t do it for the sake of mercy or compassion for contemporary makers but for the sake of love towards the majesty of Music. I do hope that violinmakers will be able to arrange their creative process and significantly increase their qualification level in the right way by arming themselves with my recommendation.
According to my long-term observations regarding the acoustic quality of an instrument-to-be, thirty percent depends on the expert performance of its woodwork. This requires a thorough adjustment of all parts of a violin: the forming of arches, choosing thicknesses and, of course, the glued assembly. Sixty percent of an instrument’s sound quality will depend on the impregnation coat applied by a maker. It’s the most important and sacramental operation—the quintessence of all creative process. Should quite an ordinary violin be impregnated with the right coat, it would not sound bad from the point of view of its woodwork performance. And if you have some woodwork of high quality without a coat, you’ll get a poor and outbred creation. The last ten percent I attribute to the skills of preparing some special varnish and performing the proper coating. So, in this above-mentioned sequence, I try to reasonably state what classical Italian technology consists of.
Now, let’s get down to woodwork operations. Usually, a maker uses an additional violin frog where a frame mount of an instrument-to-be is formed. He glues four corners, and the two right (top and bottom) blocks on a frog. Then he takes thin slices of maple as molds for ribs and starts curving them on a hot piece of iron after preparatory watering. This way, a strict correspondence between forms of ribs and external outline of additional violin frog is achieved.
Immediately on this operation being performed, a contemporary maker irrevocably destroys an instrument-to-be. Actually, after bending ribs on a heated piece of iron, it’s absolutely no use to keep on making a violin any longer, as this instrument will never sound in a proper way. The matter is: great Italians have never in their lives bent ribs the way contemporary makers do. They haven’t performed a heated curve of ribs around all the contour of an additional frog. They do it in the following extremely witty way:
First of all, an Italian bends two small molds for bouts and glues them at once between corner blocks. After drying, a maker forms and achieves the right sharpness for corners adjoining to bouts. Then he takes two long molds for ribs edging the top and bottom and bends places for adjoining ribs to corner blocks only on a hot piece of iron (I beg your attention). It means that all the slices keep on being right and are limited to extreme zones only, so the repeated radius of corner blocks would be subject to curving.
After this preparatory operation, a maker will glue the mold of some future top to the upper block. Then he will wait till the glue dries well and, after that, with effort and without any watering or heating, he pulls the bent edge of the right rib to the corner block. He glues the pulled end with a clamp until he is confident that this rib would forever keep on functioning in a violin-to-be as a kind of acoustic spring. By this extraordinary way, the entire violin is framed.
Unlike contemporary ribs getting deformed with hot heating, Italian violin frames are full of internal energy from their very creation, and the option to perform a very important function of assisting springs to enrich the sound palette of an instrument-to-be is included in them. By the way, well-seasoned maple has good structural memory. There was a time when springs made of maple were put even in clock movements.
It remains for me only to congratulate all violinmakers that they have become one step closer to Italian luminaries. As a matter of fact, I’m not inclined to praise the merits of Antonio Stradivari before the musical world so recklessly. We should be aware that, at a young age, Antonio received, from his teachers, sacred Italian technology that was absolutely complete.
Should any contemporary violinmaker be in his place, he would be likely to produce works of the same caliber as the famous Stradivari. It’s impossible to overestimate the merits of the Italian violin school before the world art. If there had not been Italian timbre, all composer compositions would have developed more primitively. Yet it’s not the merit of some separate persons, even very talented, but all from the Italian violin school.
I have the clear understanding that Antonio Stradivari had two serious achievements requiring some separate consideration, besides having skills of a great carver. He was the first to decisively refuse rib molds in the form of thin slices. Of course, I do the same way. Stradivari and I make molds for ribs of a special trough-like form, namely, with little radius.
That’s why it’s always possible to find some bulge on the top and bottom and apparent non-curviness of bouts on instruments of both the Golden Period of Stradivari and mine.
Trough-like ribs are much more springy than flat ones and they have the additional dynamic reserve notably affecting acoustics of an instrument-to-be.
In addition, trough-like ribs provide a spring connection between top and back plates, unlike the rough perpendicular connection of a flat maple rib. They contribute to a moneybox full of the general advantages of Italian instruments. I refer to the adjustment of upper and lower areas of plates where blocks are fixed as the second successful contribution of Antonio Stradivari to the art of violin making.
Using this method, a maker flattens the frontal line for active distribution of wave oscillations along violin plates between top and bottom blocks. It increases the resonating response of an instrument a lot. It should be kept in mind that any curve across the distribution area of wave oscillations, according to laws of physics, leads to their diffusion and attenuation.
In other issues, Stradivari followed the common technology for Italian violinmakers of that period. It was more artistically sophisticated. The traditional mistake of all contemporary violinmakers, without exception, is in the absolutely groundless idea as if the main requirement during the performance of woodwork is to avoid internal pressures in a violin body, as if those pressures had some automatic negative performance on the acoustics of an instrument-to-be.
At the same time, great Italians resolved acoustic problems of a violin in an opposite way, by giving right pressures exactly, as they transmitted fantastic reactivity to their instruments with the readiness to immediately respond to any, even the shyest touch, of a bow.
On the whole, I think that the deceased can have no pressures only. That’s why I rank all creations of contemporary violinmakers, without exclusion, to the dead-born.
My first advice: look for and put right pressures in your instruments. Do it during any woodwork operation, as while making a violin there are enough such options.
Once upon a time, one of the smartest Russian writers fairly noted: “It’s easy and pleasant to tell the truth.” That’s why I can inform all violinmakers, with the greatest easiness and pleasure, that the famous Italian coat is just ordinary liquid marble. As a little addition, I’d like to say that it took me twenty years of long and painful searches to find my own way to that liquid marble.
The problem of an Italian violin coat is the greatest secret in the history of instrument designing. Fundamentally, there are not any satisfying theoretical generalizations regarding this secret, and that’s why I cannot refer to competent sources so much. Please take all that I’m going to write about Italian coat as a result of my own observations and conclusions.
Since ancient times, marble has been occupying an exceptionally honorable place in the life of Italians as a key material used in both art and building. They have been trying to get liquid marble since these ancient times. They were willing to learn to coat earthenware and wooden home furniture for a better look and firmness. It was required to be able to firmly and invisibly glue with liquid marble pieces of material that had unfortunately fallen away when building ancient temples.
As it’s known: “Practice makes perfect”. Of course, Italians achieved something. The thing we sometimes scornfully call alchemy indeed was a developed science some time ago, with a full complex knowledge gathered within centuries, though some part of them was irrevocably lost for us. Most things forgotten alchemists virtuously did still fail to repeat, like getting a good violin coat or varnish.
In my workshop I always have a copy of the outstanding picture “The Alchemist discovering phosphorus” as a token of appreciation.
If you thoroughly read the book by Simone Sacconi, “The Secrets of Stradivari”, pay attention, without fail, to the place where he describes coating of a monumental cabinet and covering on galleries of an ancient cathedral of the Renaissance era before the violin period. After researching thoroughly, Sacconi came to a firm conclusion that the coat of furniture of the fifteenth century consisted of the same patterns, and later, brilliant classical violinmakers used it.
It’s hardly possible to dispute the conclusions of Sacconi. He was a specialist with a perfect reputation and the unrivaled experience of dealing with unique Italian instruments. It inevitably results in that violinmakers don’t have anything to do directly with the discovery of liquid marble getting. They just used skillfully what their alchemist predecessors had tirelessly developed.
In fact, it’s not so important to know who was the first to learn how to get liquid marble. It’s more interesting for us to find out whether violinmakers could make instrument coat by themselves or get it manufactured. I suppose that no violinmaker could ever prepare liquid marble and could hardly know about that extraordinary action. These objective facts bear witness to it.
Firstly, it should be taken into account that experience with using marble patterns fell from Italian violin making technology nearly in an instant in the second half of the eighteenth century, when a firm border between the Classical Period and all further culture in the of making musical instruments all over the world is known to be. The collapse of quality and the complete degradation of acoustic parameters for the violin were caused primarily by the absence of the Italian coat.
It can’t be ignored that in the second half of the eighteenth century hundreds of musical workshops operated in Italy and a huge number of makers made their products, and they all, without any exclusion, used liquid marble for instrument coats. A fair question is raised: what prompted all makers at the same time to reject coating with liquid marble if that method had been definitely successful in their technology?
Taking into consideration how total dynasties of violinmakers worked in most workshops, we must admit this to be something as impossible as if fathers had refused to pass on the secrets of their mastership to their children. All this convinces us that violinmakers didn’t directly know the secret of getting liquid marble but had gotten it performed by third persons. Indeed, fathers didn’t have sacred knowledge, and they had nothing to pass on to their children, and that’s why, at the end of eighteenth century, the prominent period for the great Italian violin finished.
Secondly, we should be aware that the technology of getting liquid marble is extremely complicated. It’s enough to say that even contemporary academic science cannot reproduce Italian coat, though a lot of attempts have been taken—and all proved to be ineffective. If a contemporary scientist is unable to do it in his laboratory, it’s fair to have doubts that each violinmaker working in medieval Italy had the necessary knowledge or technical tools to carry out the full circle of required chemical reactions.
As a person overcoming all multiple ways of getting liquid marble, I don’t strongly admit an option of making coat by violinmakers themselves. Nevertheless, someone made liquid marble for the needs of violin making in Italy.
Of course, one did it and it’s my version.
During Soviet times, the famous magazine, “Knowledge is Power”, was widely popular in our country. Earlier, the Roman Catholic Church was governed by this rule in the most consecutive way. The Roman See didn’t despise to defend its monopoly on knowledge even with bonfires of inquisition. It’s nothing to speak about, as before the Great Reformation, even Bible reading was strictly prohibited for ordinary citizens. There shouldn’t be any doubts that all sacred technological knowledge, including getting liquid marble, was under tireless Catholic scrutiny and protection.
Now the moment of truth comes. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries violins were made in a scale of developed industry in Italy followed by significant financial turnovers. The Church has always distinguished this as not having much difference in relation than the golden calf. Possessing humans’ souls is certainly pleasant but it’s two times more pleasant being completely satisfied with enough luxury. Hierarchies concentrated a closed manufacturing of liquid marble in their monasteries and provided violinmakers with it, without any problems, for some good reward.
The fair balance in nature was restored by this simple way since there were both papal indulgences and peculiar income taxes in favor of saint see. The technology of making liquid marble is quite multileveled, and that’s why all that process was carried to monasteries and only a limited circle of persons was fully aware of all the various chemical transformations.
All that ensured the monopoly had safe protection and a nice income. The fruitful cooperation between violinmakers and the Catholic Church went on till the second half of the eighteenth century, and author labels on violins of great Italian makers bear witness to it.
If you’re curious, you’ll find all signs of Catholic will on labels of Guarneri and Stradivari. It means that the Church didn’t hide its participation in making the Italian violin but openly displaying it in the printing impression.
Starting from the middle of the eighteenth century, enlightened Europe became swamped with troublesome waves of bourgeois revolutions caused by a need for reforming civil society. Violinmakers, inspired by the coming social changes as well as workshop solidarity, started to refuse to pay the Church excessive taxes on their incomes through buying liquid marble.
Most likely, at the beginning they tried to trade, motioning it that the lion’s share of labor was on their shoulders, and consequently, the main merit for the triumphant progress of the Italian violin belonged to them.
For its part, the Church believed that the Italian violin cost nothing without its priceless knowledge and secret technologies. By the way, it believed so quite reasonably. The Church is a kind of institution that by definition is not entitled to give in. That’s why the soulful union between violinmakers and Catholic celestial beings broke up. And there the great era of the unrivaled Italian violin finished.
I’m convinced that the first violinmakers, having used liquid marble as coat on their instruments, could hardly rely on that fantastic effect. They did it following traditional furniture technologies. We’re extremely lucky that marble has transformed the acoustics of the violin so successfully.
Dry and well-seasoned wood absorbs liquid marble with fantastic hunger. It’s enough to say that a ready maple plate absorbed with liquid marble becomes 10-15 mm wider in the bottom part of a violin, depending on the kind of material used. As far as a plate dries, of course, it settles but it never gets to its previous parameters. Always two or three millimeters fall short, and this reveals the very powerful forces within wood’s structure.
Marble installed in a violin plate somehow enlarges it inside, sending an instrument-to-be unique Italian reactivity. Internal energy brought with assistance of coat turns out to be so impulsive that a plate after some slightest excitement flames in an assembled instrument. My following advice is obligatory for all violinmakers: please coat your instruments with liquid marble. Don’t fear for oversaturation since “You can never have too much of a good thing”.
What else can I add? For those who will want to prepare violin coat by themselves, relying on my recommendations, an attempt to dissolve a bit of marble will be the most natural first step. The easiest way to do it is to use acetic acid. After some chemical reaction, you’ll be able to get calcium carbonate acetate, which is generally not so complicated to treat wood with. But don’t be in a hurry to celebrate your victory. Be aware that my twenty years’ search was from calcium carbonate acetate to liquid marble.
I have been watching the silliest dispute waging for more than two hundred years already, with a large internal irony regarding whether Italian violin varnish is a spirit or oil-based one. The issue with this is that this statement has nothing at all to do with the problem of ancient Italian varnish. Italians could have used whatever varnish, whether either spirit or oil-based. All unique properties of the varnish that classical Italian instruments are covered with are stipulated with its compositeness and nothing else.
The difference between ordinary varnish and the varnish of great Italians can be obviously illustrated on the example of diversity between building mortar and structural concrete. As it’s known that structural concrete is always composite because, besides mortar, it includes crushed stones—namely, insoluble fractions. In the same way, Italian violin varnish, whether spirit or oil-based, is full of insoluble crystals. If varnish is colorless, then crystals are colorless, and if varnish is color, then crystals have intensive coloring.
Remember, Sacconi declared quite clearly that an Italian plate wiped with a sponge moistened in spirit could cause a rough surface subject to easy pollution. It’s a direct proof of insoluble fractions available in Italian varnish. The idea of compositeness of violin varnish itself is not so new. Mentions about formulas of these mixtures can be met, for example, in the works of Davidson and Meckel. They provide exact contents of spirit-based varnishes containing a large amount of crushed glass, up to thirty percent. Specialists know the critical reasons of Charles Reed’s “about glass powder” in Cremonese varnish of Davidson well.
It’s curious that Charles Reed himself, as I can see, carried out surprisingly accurate observations over Italian varnish, confirming its compositeness so certainly. Charles writes that when studying Italian covers we get a feeling as if we looked at the texture of a violin plate through a color magnifying glass. This extremely delicate and right study should be considered as a double refraction effect from the point of view of physics.
The performance of Iceland spar effect provides optical magnification upon a flat surface. Diachronism, which can be seen in the best classical instruments, points to double refraction of Italian varnish. It happens when the color palette significantly changes depending on outdoor lighting.
Once again, from the point of physics, a homogenous environment never assures a double refraction effect, as composite conglomerates where their structure has elements with different angle of refraction are required. Thus, the secret of Italian varnish is quite simple, as it’s stipulated with its compositeness and when choosing the formula content double refraction effect should be followed.
I’d like to confess that I’ve never personally tried to prepare varnish under the recommendations of Davidson and Meckel since ordinary glass cannot reproduce double refraction effect. I’ve always understood that, for this purpose, one should learn to artificially grow special crystals that can provide proper optical effect combining with varnish mixture.
I did learn to grow these crystals. Simone Fernando Sacconi provided me with invaluable assistance in my search for technologies of growing both colorless and painted crystals. He pointed to initial ingredients for growing them very precisely: calcium carbonate, potash and aluminum potassium sulfates. However, Sacconi didn’t manage to restore the full Italian technology, of course. Nevertheless, my third advice is to be on friendly terms with Sacconi, as he was an expert.
I don’t think that Italian violinmakers could grow crystals of various colorings for their composite varnishes by themselves. The technology for getting this product is very complicated. Most likely, the same system as liquid marble delivery was used here. In general, this job probably had some succession.
In medieval Italy painters used special pigments to rub unrivaled Venetian oil-based paints. The secret of preparing these paints was lost long ago. But the connection between Venetian paints and ancient Italian varnish exists, without doubt, and it can be even visually tracked.
My real assistance in matters regarding Italian varnish is that I’m ready to send any violinmaker samples of intensively painted composite crystals, which I get artificially. These crystals perfectly color any varnish and provide perfect optical effects.
I’m always ready to answer some serious request.
Boris Dmitriev.
