Sebastian Mende

Since building my first baroque bass violin (see Violone), I have increasingly engaged with works by the Venetian master. For this violin, I chose a long model from around 1700 from his extensive productrange as a model.

My first independently constructed historically authentic violin, based on a model from the Berlin Musical Instrument Museum, which for over 10 years has been successfully played by my wife, Claudia Mende.

This was based on the model of a 40 cm viola from the Vogtland region, which I had already explored during my studies. Built using the historical Vogtland method (without an internal form, with a freely assembled rib band on the bottom, without corner blocks, and with an integrated neck), I attempted to further bring out the original Stainer model—endorsed by the original violin maker Pfretzschner—and to place the entire instrument in the early period of Vogtland violin making around 1700.

For a long time, I pondered how to create a historically authentic da braccio instrument that might also be suitable for children. In Thomas Drescher’s 2004 studies “Spielmännische Traditionen und höfische Virtuosität”, I found the article “For the continuation of an old tradition: The Rebec in sources from the 16th and 17th centuries”. This inspired me to build a three-stringed octave violin in the form of a Rebec, based on the described historical sources and illustrations.

Coming soon.

Most viewers might raise an eyebrow at the term “Violone”, but Johannes Löschers’ explanations convinced me that the term “Violoncello” is etymologically the diminutive form of “Violone” (due to the Italian diminutive suffix “-cello”). And since my instrument is a large bass violin with a body size of 78.5 cm and a scale length of 76 cm, it represents for me an undiminished archetype of the Violoncello—a Violone. Nowadays, this term is mostly associated with contrabass gambas. The book by a contrabassist, who used it as the titular battle cry for “his” instrument, is probably not blameless in this regard; hence, people also tend to use the French term “Bas de violon”—which is not incorrect, but Goffriller was a South Tyrolean in Venice. In building this instrument, I attempted to reconstruct the upper bout area—which had been subsequently reduced in the model—and for the neck, I used the template remaining from the Stradivari workshop designated as “Violoncello veneziano” (also a possible name for this instrument), in order to achieve a convincing continuo instrument.

Coming soon.

Coming soon.

Coming soon.

Coming soon.

The request from a musician friend for a treble gamba led me, in my search for a model, to the Musical Instrument Museum in Markneukirchen. There, I “discovered” an instrument which had been converted into a viola in the 19th century and may have previously been a Viola d’amore for some time. In my opinion, however, the soundboard originates from a treble gamba, probably even from the early 17th century in Italy or England. The enthusiasm for this “find” was so great that, together with the musician, it was decided to reconstruct an instrument based on this soundboard with English influences.

This served as the practical part of my diploma thesis—the final instrument of my studies and thus also my master instrument. The model, one of the very rare specimens of such old string instruments that have survived almost unchanged—even up to the bridge—is housed in the city palace in Weimar. It has naturally been featured in the monographs on Tielke by Günter Hellwig and Friedemann Hellwig and is also described in the theoretical part of my diploma thesis.

Every now and then, I also enjoy crafting bows from the early periods of string instrument performance.