Jennifer Grucza

Right now I’m trying out a viola made in 1978 by David Wiebe. It’s about 16 3/4″, so not quite as large as the Michele Ashley instrument I was trying before. What a powerful set of lower strings this instrument has! I think it’s even boomier than the Marilyn Wallin viola I tried. I’m not quite sure what I think of it. At first I thought it was nice, but not exactly what I wanted, but the more I play on it, the more things I like about it. Though it’s not quite as easy to play some things as the Ashley was - I’m not sure if the upper bout is wider, but it feels slightly unwieldy on occasion. And it picks up a lot of bow noise. I have orchestra tomorrow, so I can see how it does in that setting (it seems just fine in chamber music). Also I can get someone else to play it for me, so I can hear what it sounds like from a little farther away. It definitely has potential, though like the Ashley viola, it’s on the upper end of the price range I was aiming for.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 at 10:35 pm and is filed under Classical Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.