Italian violin by Enrico Melegari Clodoveo from Turin

A few years before his death, Italian violin maker Enrico Melegari  (*1835 Parma - 1888 Turin) created this excellent Italian soloist violin which perfectly expressed his personal style, an approach completely divorced from every violin making school of his time. With its carrying voice featuring a radiantly bright and unmistakably Italian acoustic profile, this instrument is justified in being ranked among top-tier violins. It invites professional musicians to discover its maker, a master who has been largely unexamined by musical history.

A late piece by Enrico Melegari, this violin is a rather slender and somewhat elongated model which communicates style with an eloquence which allows us to draw interesting conclusions about its creator’s work. Around 1860, Enrico and and his brother Pietro opened their joint workshop “Fratelli Melegari“ near Genoa’s wharf – a location that was at a significant remove from the mainstream violin making culture of the day, far afield from Italy’s time-honoured traditional violin cities. Some 10 years later, the two moved to Turin, where Pietro died in 1874. Within the course of their comparatively short careers, the Melegari brothers established a remarkably large clientele, as can be seen by the many violins with their joint label which have survived. This violin illustrates that their success was predominantly due to the artisanal achievements of Enrico Melegari, who crafted his finest and most beautiful-sounding instruments in the years before his death in 1895. A refined orange-brown oil varnish against a light base creates a highly transparent accent to the broad flames of the two-piece maple back and the magnificently dynamic lines of the spruce top’s striking grain. There are defining characteristics which harken back to Enrico Melegari’s earlier work and express the stylistic consistency of his oeuvre, such as the narrow profile of the instrument’s slightly lengthened contours and the pronounced fluting. There are a few carefully repaired wormholes in the lower left of the back – a common phenomenon amongst premium Italian instruments of this age – but they have no effect whatsoever on the stability and sound of the violin. Its scroll was grafted on, perhaps at a later date. After having been carefully set up by the specialists in our workshop, this violin, which has been kept in outstanding condition, is now ready to play. Exceptionally comfortable and easy to play, its radiantly lovely sound is rich in timbre and supported by a powerful depth, opening up the full breadth of its nuances effortlessly. This Enrico Melegari violin merges Italian melting with an extremely interesting and unconventional tonal character, making it a true musical discovery for soloists.