Whilst models and styles of bows certainly reflect and represent national styles and the changing aesthetics and fashions in music, they are difficult to catagorise deffinatively due partly to the international nature of music and musicians. Example bows are examples only, and represent an overview of a selection of models and styles which are here grouped together in a convenient manner. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your personal specialist requirements, which may include earlier Renaissance or Baroque models.

A-minus

Early Baroque Bows – Early Seventeenth Century

Designs for Florentine Camerata repertoire. Perfect for Monteverdi, Caccini etc. Highly responsive models for both dance and virtuosic repertoire with unique clip-in frog designs.

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A

Baroque Bows – Late Seventeenth / Early Eighteenth Century

Designs for late seventeenth century Italian repertoire such as Corelli, and German repertoire such as Buxtehude, Biber through to Bach. Owing much to dance and speech rhythms, and rhetorical ideas and forms, for which they were originally designed to convey, these convex styles of bows give a clear, varied, full, round, voluptuous, sensual sound and articulation (perfect for heavy Italian and medium-heavy Germanic mid to late Baroque stringing), giving optimal simultaneous note shape and string contact.

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B

Bows - Early Eighteenth Century

Italian and Germanicised-Italian style bows which offer earlier Baroque traits (as above) combined with an aesthetic that is in a slightly more gallant direction. These extremely useful bows offer great versatility and are suitable for the repertoire period represented by early Handel, early Telemann, Veracini, and Vivaldi.

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C

Bows - mid - Eighteenth Century

Gallant Italian and Italianised-French Roccoco style bows (circa 1720 – 1740’s) facilitating lighter articulation and sound associated with the changing fashions and aesthetics of the post-Baroque/pre-Classical period. Highly suitable, for example, for mid to late Telemann and Rameau, the early French symphonic school, and early Mannheim repertoire.

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D

Bows - mid - and later Eighteenth Century

Early Dodd-style and father Tourte influenced bows (circa 1750’s - 1770’s) offering light but full, buoyant, and sparkling early classical articulations (balanced with good sustain). Suitable for mid-Mannheim repertoire, Paris Salon repertoire, mid-Haydn, early Mozart etc.

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E

Bows - Later Eighteenth Century

Cramer style hammerhead bows. Superbly crisp, precise and virtuosic articulation particularly in combination with an appropriate late 18th century historical unequal-tension stringing. Suitable for late Mannheim, later Mozart, and other late 18th century Paris, London and Viennese repertoires.

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F

Bows - Later Eighteenth / Early Nineteenth Century

Post-revolution styles with both open and closed frogs, offering specialist choice suitable for Beethoven, Hummel and Schubert period solo, chamber and symphonic repertoire. Available in various weights and styles to suit differing historical stringings and instrument set ups.

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G

Bows - Nineteenth Century

Contemporary bows from 1820 onwards.

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