Violin by Hans Johannsson, Iceland 2024

Hans Johannsson is a master luthier based in Reykjavik, making violins, violas, cellos, double basses and other stringed instruments. His reputation is international and his career now runs past forty years.

His love of the violin began in his grandfather Gudjon Halldorsson's cabinet-making workshop in Reykjavik. He studied with distinction at the Newark School of Violin Making under Maurice Bouette and Glen Collins, completing in 1980, and took a master's diploma from the Icelandic Arts and Crafts Council in 1982. He works to his own models rather than copies, continually evolving his outlines and proportions, on the view that the great makers of the past all established their own styles within a classical theme. He regards imitation as useful for learning and little else.

He has made over three hundred instruments, now spread across the world, and recently marked his career with a two-week festival in Reykjavik in which string ensembles and orchestras performed on his work.

The more we play Hans's instruments, the more we admire his particular way of working. His models share a great deal with the Cremonese masters but the character is entirely his. One recent violin reminded us of a late golden-period Stradivari we played a couple of years ago: electric, alive under the hand, with sound that comes out effortlessly and huge projection, and with an edge that never costs it warmth. The quartet instruments he built from a single piece of wood gave a luminous E string against a sultry lower register. His cellos are powerful and noble, full of overtones, with an immediate response. Soloist-level work from one of the finest makers of his generation.