Update 3/3/13 — I’ve recently acquired my most favorite 6-string electric fiddle! Check out my new “baby dragon” Aisling!
Due to the recent popularity of the search for Belri violins and customer opinions on their quality and craftsmanship, it’s about high time I updated my original report on my little “fiddle family”! 🙂
Purchasing Flora (my little Belri fiddle) in 2007, I was only in dire need of a decent spare violin at the time, and had no qualms about giving her a try — for the price and her super-great looks, she was a steal, I figured! Well, very soon afterward, I was pretty well forced to use her in an important chamber concert of Stravinsky‘s L’Histoire du Soldat, due to a situation of back-to-back concerts involving gut strings… 😛
I was very apprehensive, concerned that her sound, as much as I enjoyed the ease of playing on her dainty fingerboard and the resonance of her sweet projection of tone, would not equal that of the violin I was used to using — I still resented the fact that she was a “baby American” violin, as opposed to Tommy, my hundred-plus-year-old German violin I’d played on since I was thirteen.
It took James finally sitting me down and confessing to me that he liked Flora’s sound better than Tommy’s, to make me reconsider… 😛 I couldn’t believe him! I mean, isn’t age and country of birth everything?! Well, I just had to do the Stravinsky concert and find out…
After playing L’Histoire… a most interesting thing happened after the concert; I was receiving compliments, not merely on my playing, but on the tone of my instrument!! I was truly impressed, and when I was finally able to lay pride aside, I had to admit (as I always knew) I really liked the feel of my fingers dancing across Flora’s strings. She just seemed to “speak” joyfully and without effort, rather than having me to “force” the notes, like I seemed to have to do more and more with the begrudging old-man Tommy. 🙂
So, to this day, I have been playing on Flora as my main instrument, in all kinds of concerts and styles and venues. I adore her, and am so happy I gave her a chance to shine. 🙂
Additionally, I have been often enjoying the company of the new Nigel since the time he entered my life… You can find him and Flora on stage regularly with Clan Dragonas! 😉
this is good to hear as I just received a Viola for my son from Mary Ann at Belri Music(through ebay) I’m excited to hear it..