To mark the UK's National Poetry Day, 8th October, here's George Eliot's great poem about violin making and the obsession with which...

As some of the world's finest violin makers gather in the small university town of Oberlin, Ohio, to share their knowledge at the annual...

The Elbow Music social media campaign puts modern instruments in the spotlight My recent article about Frank Peter Zimmermann’s dilemma...

A new collection of specially commissioned unantiqued instruments offers hope of a new Zeitgeist around modern violins. Will top soloists...

Coffee experts and barristas have a whole language for describing their craft. Can it help violin makers? I visited the London Coffee...

Donna Tartt's brilliant novel The Goldfinch contains insights into the antiques business that might apply to the violin business too I’ve...

I'm currently reading this charming book about Guarneri 'del Gesù', written in 1974 by Leonard Wibberley. I found it on a bookshelf and...

Whether you're a maker or a player, or just worried about getting old, you should see the Matisse cut-outs exhibition The Matisse...

There are many different tribes of violin makers, in my experience. Conservatives, Futurists, Archivists, Geometrists, Philosophers,...

I had a lovely morning yesterday talking to cellist Natalie Clein for two forthcoming articles – about her new Saint-Saëns disc, for...

My latest interview for Cozio, with violinist James Ehnes, has just gone live, so please go and visit. He had so much to say about his...

I just came across this delightful footage on the British Pathé YouTube channel. It shows a class of 'budding Kreislers' from 1940...

At first I thought this New Yorker article about the Carpenter family by Rebecca Mead was going to be a puff piece, but it turns out to...

A really interesting article about wine in the New Yorker suggests striking parallels between how we choose wine and our attitudes to...

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Arnold Steinhardt, leader of the Guarneri Quartet for 40 years, for the Cozio website. Steinhardt is...

I discovered this tirade in a seminal string pedagogical work: 'It is most regrettable that our present-day instrument-makers take so...