Ep 1. The master craftsman: Gasparo Da Salo and his violins.

Join me as I explore the life and craftsmanship of Gasparo da Salò, a master luthier whose contributions shaped the course of violin making history. From his early beginnings in Brescia, Italy, we uncover the secrets behind his distinctive style and celebrated instruments.

Discover the allure of Gasparo da Salò's double basses, renowned for their robust tone and striking aesthetics. In this episode I speak to Violin maker and expert John Dilworth as we delve into the techniques and innovations that set his instruments apart, captivating the ears and hearts of musicians across generations.

Through expert insights and captivating anecdotes, we unravel the legacy of Gasparo da Salò and the profound impact his creations have had on the violin-making tradition. Explore the stories behind his violins, viola and cellos in The Violin Chronicles Podcast.

 

Music you have heard in this episode is by

Bloom - Roo Walker, Szeptuchy part 2 - Maciej Sadowski , Brandenburg Concerto No 4 – Kevin Macleod, The penny drops – Ben McElroy, Frost waltz- Kevin Macleod, The waltz from beyond – Albert Behar, Wandering Knight – Giulio Fazio, Telemann Sonata in D maj for viola da gamba – Daniel Yeadon, Budapest – Christian Larssen, Unfamiliar faces – All good folks.

 

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Violin Chronicles, a podcast in which I will attempt to bring to life the story surrounding the famous. infamous or just not very well known, but interesting violin makers of history.  My name is Linda Lespe. I'm a violin maker and restorer. I graduated from the French violin making school some years ago now.

In this episode we will be looking at one of the very first violin makers known to us. His name is Gasparo Da Salo. Gasparo Bertolotti is confusingly known as Da Salo because of the town he came from, called Salo.  He is perhaps best well known for his basses.

 I'm Maxime Bibaud, I'm the principal bass of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. I have the pleasure of playing a bass by Gasparo Da Salo for the last eight years.

Gasparo Da Salo, maker of the double bass that I get to play every day, was born in the mid 1500s, past early 1600s.  He is known to be the first maker of double basses, if not the first. Very close to being the first. We believe there are no more than ten of his instruments surviving these days.

And I’m one of the lucky ones that gets to play one of those. I should also say about Salo that, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but he was known to have created the modern violin. 

Ooh, it's a touchy subject.

Okay, I will stay out of it.

To answer some of my questions about Gasparo de Salo, I had a chat with John Dilworth, a violin maker and restorer in England. He is one of the people who literally wrote the book on Brescian violin makers called Lutai in Brescia. Here he is. 

Well, there's two people at the beginning of the violin, Gaspar de Salo and Andrea Amati in Cremona. And it's still very moot which of them made the first violin. Nobody really knows.  Gaspar, in all the old literature they all say, without any doubt, that  Gaspar invented the violin. But, you know, subsequent research finds that Amati and  Gaspar were  virtually, they were working at the same date, and the big problem is that, uh, in Brescia, the whole...All the violin makers in Brescia, they never put a date on their label, which is really annoying.  So we don't actually know when any of them were made, whereas in Cremona, right from the get go, Andrea Amati was always very careful to sign and date  his labels, so we know where we are with those. 

The jury is still out as to the birthplace of the violin.Was it Brescia? Or a small town 40 kilometers south, in Cremona? We don't quite know, and as John Dilworth explained, the fact that the Brescian makers didn't date their instruments also adds to the confusion, or creates it.  You see, most, but not all, violins have a label on the inside, glued to the back.  In Cremona, for example, Andrea Amati would have on his label made by Andrea Amati of Cremona in the year 1560, for example. But in Brescia, these labels would have “Gaspar Da Salo in Brescia” with no date. A lot of these labels were printed and the date filled in by hand. You see the printing press came at about more or less the same time as the violin, and I imagine that it would've been terribly modern of them. And a question of pride to have a printed label. So herein lies the conundrum. One group dated their instruments  and the others didn't.  But then again, why would you? Artists at that time didn't necessarily date their paintings.  And perhaps Gasparo de Salo identified more with the painters in his city than anyone else.  Who knows?

The year is 1585 in the northern Italian region of Lombardy. At the feet of the Alps lies the ancient city of Brescia.  The city is a hive of activity, full of wealthy merch