Visintini Gaidano Violoncello da Spalla Makers

09/09/2026

We are on a very brief holiday in Croatia, near P**a. …and we visited the facilities of A-case!! We met not only with Milan, an old friend from many shows now, but also with chief of production Toc and owner Robert. We went there to pick up Daniela’s new viola da gamba case. As a totally unexpected surprise, we also met Simon, who is a Violoncello da Spalla player and was there to order his case! It is always a cool event to meet other Violoncello da Spalla players and share experiences and techniques! There was also this super-cool pink case, like a Barbapapà (how was this cartoon called in US?)

05/09/2026

It started with a nice surprise, an unexpected frühshoppen (morning gathering with weisswurst, sweet mustard and Lauren bread) right on our morning walk way. Then, I stayed all day at the tablet with various burocracy things, also unexpected (in the sense I expected to do them in one hour, not four…).

Here is how I feel now… I’d better go to practice a bit on my viol…

Pics from Berlin’s instruments museum

01/09/2026

https://violoncellodaspalla.substack.com/p/two-cool-iconographies-we-were-not?r=cc4x9&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

…and where to find us in October: it exhibitions time again!

01/09/2026

Two super-cool iconographies we were not aware of: want to know more? It’s on our substack, link in bio or in the first comment!

30/08/2026

We’re home!!

In 13 days we drove 3494 km, had meetings with 19 people, visited 3 music instruments museum, studied and measured 6 original piccolo cellos or da spalla cellos, visited several art museums and cathedrals… we feel overwhelmed (in a good sense) by the warm welcomes, the generosity, the beauty of arts and architectures, the interesting ideas we got from original instruments and from talking with colleagues luthiers and musicians… there’s really a lot to process! We’ll go on sharing here and in our newsletter the outcome of our two trips of this summer, so keep following, thank you!

Yesterday we we far too early to pick up our dogs at their pension, so we made a stop close to Bregenz, on the Konstanz lake. There’s a bit of a wetland with storks, a nice relaxing spot.

29/08/2026

Yesterday, last day of the trip, we had a meeting with Wenhan Jiang in the beautiful (but stormy) Swiss Alps, as he is on tour with Royal Philharmonic Orchestra plying at the Menuhin Fedtival in Gstaad. He had back his Violoncello da Spalla with a new solid Sonowood fingerboard and I picked up the one he used in his Chinese tour in June and July. That instrument is now for sale and will be exhibited in Cremona, 2 to 4 of October.

Wenhan also introduced us with his colleague Eriko Nagayama, baroque violinist student of Ryo Terakado (the Violoncello da Spalla was not a novelty for her!)

After that, we had one last meeting of this trip, not belonging to the Violoncello da Spalla world this time: somebody may know that Daniela was a ukulele lady years ago: running a distributor for Europe, managing a brand, organizing festivals… so now we had a brief jump in that world, meeting with Wayne at the Charlie Chaplin’s home in Montreux. Unfortunately we didn’t have the time to go and visit the museum, we were stuck in a bar kiosk under, again another storm… Wayne bought one of Daniela’s beautiful ukuleles, a Kanile’a soprano from 2008. His first comment was: it’s like playing on a Strad! We’re so happy as it was really a pity that such a gem remained silent, closed in a drawer!

…and now, finally, it’s only a drive home!

28/08/2026

Yesterday we drove from Brussels to Basel, where we visited my old friend Fiorenza. Fiorenza and I (Daniela) played together when we were kids! Her family moved when we were 14 and since then we met only 4 or 5 times, but it’s one of those friendships that stay. We can start chatting about also personal things like we stopped just the day before.

Fiorenza and her husband Claudio are not musicians by profession but their heart is in music and they feed their passion constantly. It was a pleasure to play for them and an honor to listen to their music.

26/08/2026

Today we enjoyed a visit to Antwerpen, and we loved it! Special music iconography there, the famous Memling! It’s huge, full of colors, light, and great details! It will deserve more attention on later posts.

In the evening we had dinner with Els and Albert, and their friend Katja, baroque violinist, (now slightly interested in Violoncello da Spalla after yesterday she tried the Wagner model with the super short neck 😬😜) who showed us her beautiful old Italian violin.

25/08/2026

Today, after a morning walk in the center of Brussels (no pics because it was not sunny and gorgeous as yesterday), we visited our customer Els. We had a great time playing together on many da spalla cellos. It was a special experience having two instruments made by me playing together and hearing the nouances of their matching voices!