Salvatore Lombardi Viola

Now the Beautiful Feel, Sound and Look of the Old handmade Italian Master Viola can be in your hands for the price of a good quality student instrument.

A couple of years ago I was unhappy with the violas you could get, so I set out to travel the world and find a viola workshop that could produce a really high quality instrument at a reasonable price. After looking at the work of hundreds of different makers I finally came across a small family of luthiers that made beautiful instruments that met my fussy expectations. I worked together with them to make a special model of violas  exactly to my specifications.

There are so many Chinese makers flooding the market with cheap to average instruments, that the really good makers often get overlooked.

But quite a few makers there have won International violin-making awards in Europe, the US and Asian countries, so there are definitely makers of quality… Why China? I did also find some good European makers that made similar quality… BUT THEY WERE 3 TO 4 TIMES THE PRICE FOR EXACTLY THE SAME QUALITY OF WORK AND MATERIALS! That really didn’t seem like good value to me! This maker I found really takes his art seriously… he would carefully choose timers of great quality and beauty and hand craft instruments that not only sound great and are easy to play. His wife makes the varnish. When I last went there, she had lots of bottles of fine Italian recipe varnish curing in the sun on the roof of the workshop.

The great thing is: They look like a really beautiful antique instrument!

• The Lombardi viola is easier to play, because I personally do my Master set-up and the amazing sound. 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.
• The Salvatore Lombardi viola is designed by me
• the viola has been lovingly handcrafted using only the best quality materials. Everywhere you look on the viola you see perfection. From the masterly handcrafted scroll to the beautifully antiqued varnish after the recipe of the great Italian masters.

• Once you play your Salvatore Lombardi viola you will find out why most people can’t make their viola sound good… The Lombardi viola makes a much better sound than most instrument 3 times the price!
• The instrument has  antique marks to celebrate the age old tradition of violin making by giving the instruments an authentically older look.

• Impress the other string players in the Orchestra:  The Salvatore Lombardi just looks like a famous old viola . It is authentically antiqued, which makes it look like you are actually playing a 150 to 250 year old viola.

Over the years I have seen people make the wrong decision and be stuck with just awful sounding instruments or instrument that needed to have hundreds of Dollars of work done before you could even play them! When I finally found the violin-maker that makes the Salvatore Lombardi viola, I could not believe my luck… after looking at the work of literally hundreds of violin-makers, I finally found one that made exceptional quality and beautiful instruments out of great quality timber! I picked up one of the violas that he just makes and drew a bow across the strings and it just produced the most beautiful rich tone. This is before I even got around to getting him to make my model, setting it up to my standards, and it was already producing a great tone. When I got back to Australia I got to work on the instrument and brought every aspect of the up to professional standard and the result was just astounding! The viola just sang!! I immediately realized that this would be a perfect instrument for a lot of string players! I knew I had to do everything in my power to get some more of these instruments back to my studio in so more people could get to play them.

• The Lombardi viola is easier to play that most other instruments under $10,000… in my opinion this is the best sounding viola under $10,000 for a third of the price
• It will take you to the next level of playing
• The Lombardi will allow you to really move ahead

It is made to my specifications from all the right timbers in the traditional way that has been used since the 16^th century in Italy. It uses the old Italian varnish recipe that has been antiqued to give you the feel of a real antique Italian instrument. Quick preview of what you will get:

• You will get a masterly hand crafted sound optimized Salvatore Lombardi viola.
  
• Case
• Good quality bow

Olaf Grawert Master Set-up

The viola is 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.  I often come across Instruments sold through shops that need to have up to and over $385 of work done just to be playable!! That is a risk not worth taking. Our instruments may cost slightly more than at other music shops, but you get hundreds of dollars extra value and the assurance that each instrument has been set up, played and fully inspected by a fully trained violinmaker.  At Olaf Grawert Violin Studio we make sure that absolutely every instrument that is sold is fully set up and carefully checked before it leaves the shop. Here is what is included in my Master Set-up:

• 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 viola 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 viola 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.

When the first customised instrument finally arrived in my studio, it really amazed me. Firstly the unmistakably beautiful finish that just makes it look quite expensive and very special. A lot of people would not be able to tell that it is a new instrument