Georg Klotz circa 1790: fine violin from the Yehudi Menuhin collection

This fine master violin by Georg Klotz, also known as Georg Carl Klotz, is one of the finest works of this historic Mittenwald luthier we have ever seen at our workshop. It is an instrument which belonged to Yehudi Menuhin’s famous collection, a honour which indicates its historical and musical magnitude. A few years before his death, Georg Klotz captured the entirety of his personal style in this instrument, a style which follows in the footsteps of his father Sebastian Klotz and assumes a very unique position between the works of Stainer and Amati. bastian Klotz and assumes a very unique position between the works of Stainer and Amati. With this violin and another Klotz violin in our catalog, Georg Klotz clearly demonstrated that even in his seventies, he was very much still able to add innovative accents to the family violin model, a pattern which was not only influential but epoch-defining. Whereas the tenderly shaped sound holes lend the violin a Baroque spirit, the striking bee-sting corners were crafted with an obvious love of exquisite nuance, as is also evident in the broad purfling. The scroll is an expressive and masterful carving with mature and harmonious proportions, and the refined choice of premium tone woods reflect this as well. Under a golden-brown varnish, the finely-grained spruce of a quality that is rarely found and tightly flamed maple not only define the well-balanced aesthetic of this instrument, they also give it its outstanding tonal properties. The violin’s exceptionally good response allows musicians to play nuanced interpretations, and its lightness will intuitively lead them towards the fully realized strength, radiant heights, and warm depths of the clear, mature, precise voice of this instrument. It has been kept in excellent and practically crack-free condition. Its authenticity is confirmed by a certificate issued by the highly esteemed expert Hieronymus Köstler in Stuttgart.

 

 

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