Viola by Stephan von Baehr, Paris 2009

Stephan von Baehr is a German luthier working in Paris and one of the most respected violin makers in the world. He makes violins, violas and cellos, and is particularly well known for his violas.

He entered violin making in 1988 under Reinhard Bonsch in Germany, then moved to Paris in 1993 to join the Sabatier workshop, specialising in the restoration of antique instruments, while also apprenticing in sculpture with Jochen Heinzmann. He was awarded the Meisterbrief in 1995 and took top honours at international competitions between 1998 and 2012 for both individual instruments and quartets. He works from Guarneri del Gesu, and his violas draw on a Guarneri-Amati blend that balances size against sound and comfort.

The list of artists playing his instruments is formidable: Isabelle Faust, Ning Feng, Myung-Whun Chung, Anastasia Kobekina, Albena Danailova, Rainer Honeck and Giovanni Guzzo among them. Instruments of his sit in the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben collection and are supported by Societe Generale for young French musicians. In 2021 a violin he made for Isabelle Faust broke the world auction record for a living maker.

Von Baehr needs no introduction from us, but the instruments still surprise. We were fortunate enough to offer a violin Isabelle Faust herself owned, and the depth and richness of its sound were genuinely unusual, with a colour range wide enough to keep revealing new things. The violas are the standout. The Guarneri-Amati model achieves an ideal balance between size, sound and playability, noble and powerful especially at the low end, and the indent in the top saddle for a slightly shorter stop makes it sit comfortably under the hand without costing anything tonally.