Well, I'm back from my big violin-testing round...it was a rather strenuous experience for all involved parties.
I will not bore you with details, I'll just give you the short endresults:
The Violins we compared were my violin, a Rittwagen Guarneri model, Koeberling Guarneri Model, a Dalphin (belonging to a former fellow student), a Lupot (belonging to my teacher, reference instrument) and two Schleske Violins (one Guarneri and one Stradivari model).
Most of the testing was done in my teacher's villa, in different rooms with different acoustics. The Schleske violins were only tested in Mr. Schleskes workshop since we coul dnot take those along.
In the first tests (without the Schlekse instruments) the Rittwagen came out as winner in almost all categories (although it could not beat the Lupot) and the Koeberling was loser in all categories. The Dalphin and my violin came in second-last with some rounds going to the one and some to the other.
We took my violin and the Rittwagen to Mr. Shleske and compared them to his violins. The result was pretty unanimous with the Schlekse Guarneri model winning out quite clearly. The Rittwagen violin is really a nice instrument, especially for it's price, but from the tests so far it looks like the Schleske violins, especially the Guarneri model, have that "little bit extra" that makes the difference between a very good and and outstanding violin.
Now, the Schleske violin would not have been for sale actually and I would have had to wait for up to a year for a newly built model, but Mr. Schleske managed (don't ask for details. i'm not entirely sure myself) that I could get the violin I tried (the one that was supposed to be sold already) by the 21st of May.
While this is indeed a lot better than I had hoped for, it's still far from ideal since I have four auditions upcoming in May...all of them (at least the first rounds) before (or on one occasion on) the 21st of May.
I'll try to rent the Rittwagen violin as an interim solution, I hope that works out, and play my auditions with that one.
In May I'll then visit Mr. Schlesek again and will pick up his violin for a two week trial and then decide whether to put down the 20000 Euro or continue the search.
That's how thigs stand right now, I'll see how the tale continues...
