Completed November 2020
Named for Davide Sora, master violin maker from Cremona, Italy, home of Stradivari, Guarneri, Amati, and many other “old masters.” Davide started making violins in 1978 at the age of 14, and in 2011 began producing detailed videos documenting every step of his meticulous violin-building process. He was nearly finished with the project when I discovered his videos on YouTube, shortly after I’d made a mess of “Abomination.” Learning from his videos felt even better than an in-person apprenticeship, as I could watch everything this master craftsman was doing from inches away from his hands, and he never got annoyed with me for asking him to do it just one more time.
At the time, Davide had not yet posted his varnishing videos, so I was on my own while finishing his namesake violin. I put a dark stain on the top plate without sealing the wood, and the end grain sucked up way more color than it was supposed to. The result was dark and blotchy, making the violin look like it had been saved from a fire. “Live and learn,” I said, and varnished it anyway. But when I was refitting Davide, I knew that Davide Sora, the master luthier, would not be happy to have his name on the instrument the way it was. So I stripped it, removed the top to fix the overhang, re-carved the fingerboard, and re-varnished from the ground up. Davide still wouldn’t be happy, but I am!
