JAVS Fall 2011

M ODERN M AKERS R AY M ELANSON : A RTIST B UT N OT A C OPYIST

by Eric Chapman

For noted violin maker Ray Melanson, the maker’s creed he adopted long ago is quite elegant and simple: never bench copy an instrument and become driven to repeat its character as its original maker would have. Think for a moment about the superb work of Ferdinand Sacconi who shared a bench at Wurlitzer’s in New york with Dario D’Attili. Once Sacconi sur rounded himself with Stradivari instruments, copying the great est master became his only goal. At some point in the 1960s, D’Attili, who by this time had become quite agitated with Sacconi’s sameness of style, told his friend he was sorry that Sacconi had ever seen a Strad, because he had become a slave to the models of his master. This is a trap that never captured Melanson. A violist playing a Melanson instrument benefits from the indi viduality of body and soul inherent in each of the maker’s instruments. The Melanson creed is well illustrated in a story told to me by Oscar Shumsky, one of the greatest violinists of the twentieth century. As a young boy at Curtis, Shumsky discovered a weekend treasure of concert tickets— one to hear heifetz and one for Kreisler. heifetz performed on Friday evening followed by Kreisler on Saturday. By Sunday eve, Shumsky recalled the heifetz presentation with great difficulty. The more heifetz played, the colder the interpretations became. On the

other hand, the warmth of Kreisler’s playing was vivid in Shumsky’s mind. he could recall and hum every note Kreisler had played. The intonation of heifetz was unmatched, whereas Kreisler connected the entire piece with the audience. having the maker’s individ uality support the player’s wants and needs certainly offers security during any performance. Think now of the one hundred violas on the tables of the Violin Society’s International Competition at Cleveland this past November. There are many well-conceived instruments. Scrolls are structurally beautiful. Purfling is beautifully inlaid, f-holes are exact and symmet rical, and varnish is transparent and attractive. At right: the captivating Melanson viola

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