In Tudor and Stuart times, gifts were given at New Year rather than at Christmas.
Here is a musical New Year's Gift. It's an anonymous 17th Century dance of that name from Thomas Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, or Masque of Heroes, 1619.
From BL Add. 10444
Alison Kinder: bass viol
Tamsin Lewis: violin
Inside a 250-year-old French Violin by Augustin Chappuy.
This violin was just brought to New Zealand and is about to be restored - so I thought I'd do this 'before' photo, and you can all check back in in about a year's time once it's been through the hands of Le Violon Rouge luthiers!
Photographed with a Medical Endoscope and a Lumix G9ii
@otheorange_tag By the way, I was a H.S. student of #violin in the 1970s, didn't touch the instrument until last year when I decided to pick it up again, am now having fun playing simple etudes
The end button of my children's 1/32 #violin brake yesterday. Wasn't ebony. The hardwood I have at home is laburnum, from my parents' garden in France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laburnum_anagyroides
I used it to make a new small end button. Cut with a saw and a scalpel, without a wood lathe, it couldn't be perfect, but I still think it's nicer than the original. Laburnum wood is hard and dark with beautiful gold patterns. #wood#woodworking