Viola by Ulf Kloo, 2011

Ulf Kloo is a Swedish master luthier working from his own workshop in Beziers, in the south of France. He makes violins and violas, and numbers his instruments by opus.

He works both to his own models and from Stradivari's golden period, and chooses wood with unusual care: the maple on one of his violas was cut around 1950, and a recent violin used carefully selected Bosnian bird's eye maple for the back and sides. His violas are designed to make demanding repertoire manageable while keeping an expressive voice, and every instrument leaves the workshop with his own certificate.

His instruments have been exhibited at the Cremona Triennale in 1997 and 2009, at the Royal Academy of Music in London in 2004, at the Concours Etienne Vatelot in Paris in 2011, at the Conservatoire de Paris in 2012, and at the Amati Exhibition in London in 2015. Kloo violins and violas are played in symphony orchestras and opera houses, by section leaders, and by freelance musicians and advanced students.

Ulf combines elegance and creativity to make instruments of very high calibre. The sound has incredible depth and outstanding projection, and the violins respond extremely well to whatever the player gives them, which is why they suit a musician still developing as much as an established one. The violas are the ones we would single out: they sound wonderful in every register and are comfortable enough to make hard repertoire feel less hard.