Edda Starck

My research investigates the intersections between the heritage craft of violin making and forested landscapes. The landscapes surrounding the German violin-making town of Mittenwald have been strongly shaped by and for the making of bowed string instruments (violin, viola, cello). Over centuries, trees have been cultivated here, whose wood has particularly potent resonating qualities: European Spruce (Picea abies) for the instruments’ top plates and Sycamore Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus) for the sides and backs. Unique forested landscapes have thus developed alongside the local violin building heritage. 

Simultaneously, this heritage is also linked to colonial ecologies. The preferred wood for violin bows is Pernambuco (Paubrasilia echinate), endemic to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. After centuries of colonial exploitation, the Atlantic Forest is now a threatened habitat, and Pernambuco an endangered species protected under the CITES treaty. 

The production of bows has become a contested ground, on which the cultural heritage of European instrument makers collides with decolonial and environmental conservation efforts in Brazil. Situated within environmental anthropology and musicology, this research follows these three music trees from their site of growth to the workbench and into performance spaces. Utilising multispecies ethnographic research methods, it investigates the environmental, social, economic, and political roles these trees play for music.