Derazey violin (around 1890) with Olaf Grawert sound optimization

Derazey Violin, Mirecourt, c. 1890 — with Olaf Grawert Sound Optimisation

A rich and powerful voice, from the France of the Impressionists.

This is a French violin from the Derazey workshop in Mirecourt, made around 1890 on a Stradivarius model, and brought to its full voice through my own sound optimisation and Master Set-up.

The Derazey name is one of the finest in French violinmaking. Honoré Derazey worked in Paris alongside J.B. Vuillaume, the most celebrated French maker of the nineteenth century, before returning to Mirecourt to build his own award-winning reputation for Stradivari copies. Instruments from this workshop have long been admired for a remarkably powerful, resonant tone, and this one is no exception.

The France it was born into

Picture Montmartre in the 1890s, a hilltop village on the edge of central Paris. Cheap rents, smoky cafés, and cabarets springing up on every corner. The Moulin Rouge had opened in 1889, and by the nineties this was the place to be, with Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Degas among the artists who gave the quarter its life. Working people mixed with bohemians, and illusion, poverty and raw creativity lived side by side. It was not glamorous for most, but it was gloriously alive. This violin was made in that France, in the years when Impressionism was remaking the way the world saw light and colour, and something of that energy lives in its voice.

The sound

This violin has a rich and powerful sound, full-bodied and resonant, with the carrying quality that the best Mirecourt instruments are known for. It rewards a player who wants presence and depth, and it responds beautifully now that it has been set up to sing.

Olaf Grawert Master Set-up

My instruments are easier to play, because I personally do my Master set-up. It is a known fact that many string players fail because the instrument they are playing has not been set up properly and will not do what they need it to do. This can lead to problems with playing in tune and in extreme cases even RSI!  It’s just not worth taking the risk of buying a badly set up instrument.

• Plane the Fingerboard to a professional
  standard. This means that you will have a fingerboard that has the same shape as that of most instruments that you will hear in concert halls around the world
• I will fit a professional quality French bridge crafted by a master violin maker with specialized acoustic knowledge to make the instrument sound the best that it can.
• Fit a professional quality soundpost to really bring out the rich tonal qualities. There is a reason that in many languages the soundpost is called the “Soul”. It takes a master to fit and move the soundpost into the right position to really make the instrument sing.
• I always fit the Instruments with great quality strings for that rich sound.
• Each peg is carefully refitted to make sure that if is very easy to tune the instrument using the pegs.
• The tailpiece is checked and refitted to make sure it is in the best acoustical position
• I check and recheck the string height and spacing to make sure it is absolutely perfect. It is only easy to play the violin when the string height is absolutely right.
• I always play each instrument and adjust it until I’m so happy with it that I want to keep the violin myself. I always try out the instruments far too long, because they are so much fun to play. This way you can be sure that when your instrument leaves my workshop, everything about it is perfect.