The Idea

Over the course of the past 30 years in violin making and restoration I have come across a large number of pre-18th-century violins, violas and celli that did not abide by the modern standard of stop length and neck length, which in combination determine the playing string length of a given instrument.

The older the instruments and the more prominent the maker, the more arbitrary the string length seemed to be.

Looking at the Brescian makers and specifically at the viola, I have seen vastly different sizes, yet one thing many Brescian violas have in common is a fairly short string length. This makes those instruments much easier to play since the spread of 1st to 4th finger is not as large as it would be with a longer string length. Of course, the larger the musicians hand, the more comfortable that musician will be with a longer string length and vice versa; the famous American violist Lillian Fuchs had a different need in string length than William Primrose.

After analyzing several violas for string length, my colleagues at Voss Violins and I have always designed and made violas with a relatively short string length for our custom made violas. Ease of playing is one of our main goals, besides, naturally, the best possible sound. We have also partnered with a workshop in Germany to make our Voss Violins workshop model 16” viola for our clients that are not able to afford a custom made instrument.

While making a copy of a 1595 contralto viola by Maggini with an unusually short string length, I had a thought: why don’t we reduce the string length any further?

It should be noted that just moving the bridge north is not the best answer as there is a musical center that combines the lower bout corners and f-hole location. To move the bridge out of that center would be a cheap move that does not work well acoustically. In addition, the important relationship between the neck length and the string length would be destroyed.

The result is the Scala Corta viola, the shortest string length on any 16” commercial made viola world wide.

Stephanie Voss, Geigenbaumeisterin