Gliga violins and other stringed instruments are made in Romania in the town of Reghin which is at the edge of the Carpathian Mountains from where Gliga obtain spruce wood as it is believed Stradivarius himself did.
There are, Gliga says, 200 steps involved in producing high-quality violins. Apart from the initial millwork, Gliga violins are handmade with tools often fashioned by the artisans themselves for the delicate shaping and carving of the instrument.
Vasile Gliga has come a long way since his first, illicit foray into business. While employed by Reghin's state-owned violin factory in the 1980s, he secretly made an instrument for himself at home. In 1990, following the Romanian revolution, he sold it to a dealer in the West. The $2,000 price, an undreamed-of fortune, not only bought him a secondhand auto, it also prompted a decision. Frustrated by what he calls the "old-style communist-worker mentality" ingrained in his factory colleagues, he quit his job, calculating that he and his wife, working from home, could build two Strad-style violins a month and support their family. A year later he began setting up his own factory.
While most of the best players will use only an original Cremonese masterpiece, at least one world-famous violinist was impressed by a Gliga instrument. In a 1995 letter to Gliga, Yehudi Menuhin wrote, "Dear and very fine craftsman ... I shall treasure the instrument you made ..." |
|
