Na Wei
This is a great advantage because the maker must develop an ear for music.
“It is necessary to play well enough to make and hear subtle tonal adjustments. One must have the player’s perspective to achieve proper setup and adjustment of the neck, fingerboard, strings, pegs, bridge, etc. — the parts of an instrument with which the player has the closest involvement,” he explained.
Na uses spruce and maple from Sichuan, Tibet and Yunnan for the plates and ribs of his violins. Pernambuco for the bow is imported from Brazil, and horse tail is purchased from Inner Mongolia.
“The wood (from within China) is as good as that grown in the Alps, and of the quality of a violin, 90 percent is decided by the craftmanship,” he said.
Among Na’s clients are Hong Kong violinist Li Chuanyun and Eric Shumsky, son of the late American violinist Oscar Shumksy.
“I make at most a dozen violins each year, because it takes more than one month to make one and another few months to wait for the varnish to dry and the instrument to be ready for the final tuning,” he said.
Most of his clients are friends, but some are shrewd dealers.
“I sold one Stradivari copy to a Hong Kong collector surnamed Chen many years ago, for 5,000 yuan (US$670), which was resold to a violinist in Kaohsiung, who paid nearly 300,000 Taiwan dollars (US$8,000) for it, believing it to be an Italian piece. An SSO colleague recognized it during the intermission of a concert we performed with the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra in 2000. That man didn’t believe my colleague until I showed him my signature and label.”