By Megan Westberg | From the September-October issue of Strings Magazine
As seems to be the trend these days (and a useful one at that), Larsen Strings provides a “sound map” on its website upon which it designates the tonal qualities of each of its offerings for violin. A horizontal axis runs from broad to focused as its intersecting vertical counterpart stretches from warm to brilliant. The company’s Aurora (Medium) violin strings sit at the very center, exactly halfway between these four telling adjectives. And all of the strings presented to their right (toward the focused end of the sound spectrum) have one thing in common: the label Il Cannone.
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Larsen Strings’ Il Cannone line (Medium, Soloist, and Gold Soloist) has recently added the new Direct & Focused (D&F) sets, available in Medium and Soloist tensions. They were developed to provide players with “a silvery and lustrous quality of sound,” and are thus decidedly in the “focused” category (the D&F Soloist more so than the D&F Medium). While the D&F Medium leans in the direction of brilliant rather than warm, the D&F Soloist takes a leap to the top of the category, representing the company’s most “brilliant” offering.
These sets include an E string of carbon steel and A, D, and G strings made of a new synthetic core wound using a new process: the A in aluminum flat wire and the D and G in silver. Both also come with two bonus strings—a .028 gauge E and a “warm/broad” A—for comparison purposes. Larsen Strings describes the players who might benefit most from these strings as “leading professionals and soloists” in addition to students and amateurs. So, everyone really.
Il Cannone Direct & Focused Strings
- Available in Medium and Soloist tensions
- E string: carbon steel—sets include a bonus .028 gauge E string; A string: synthetic core wound in aluminum—sets include a bonus “warm/broad” string; D and G strings: synthetic core wound in silver
- Developed to provide a “silvery and lustrous clarity of sound”
- Sold in sets and individually
- $99 (Soloist and Medium sets, street)
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