The 2025 Boston Early Music Festival
Dipper Restorations is looking forward to the 2025 Boston Early Music Festival this June 11-14. Andrew Dipper will be bringing a variety of rare and new historical bow models and Baroque instruments for sale. We encourage all interested parties to contact Andrew as soon as possible to let him know of your interest in a particular instrument or bow. Read on to learn about where to find us at the exhibit and for a sneak peek at the instruments and bows for sale. Click here to be added to our BEMF mailing list to stay in the loop!
About BEMF | Early Bows | Early Instruments | About Andrew Dipper |
BEMF 2023 Master price list | Dipper Restorations Bow Brochure
Where to Find Us!
June 11-14, 2025
Hours: 10:00am-5:00pm
This year’s exhibit will take place at The Colonnade Hotel in the historic Back Bay neighborhood. You will find us at Booth 8, along the back wall across from the main entrance of the exhibit. We’re looking forward to seeing you there!
Click here to learn more about the 2025 Festival
AT THE EXHIBITION
Each bow model draws inspiration from pioneering makers, composers and players and is carefully designed after existing examples of historical bows found in public and private collections.
Bow Models by Andrew Dipper
CLASSICAL VIOLIN BOW: VIOTTI MODEL
The Italian virtuoso Giovanni Battista Viotti (12 May 1755 – 3 March 1824) is renowned in the world of violinists for the reports of his exceptional power and tone. He was originally from Turin and later was active both in Paris and London. He wrote a short and incomplete treatise on his method of playing the violin. It is unfortunate that the chapter on the violin bow is lost. Viotti’s career covered the period in which the design and construction of the violin bow saw many novel forms as it transitioned from the early baroque style to the modern designs of the Tourte family.
No portrait of the virtuoso exists with enough detail to determine what kind of bow Viotti used, but we can achieve an idea from the examples that were in widespread use in London and Paris. Andrew identified a bow, now in the National Music Museum, as a possible candidate for a Viotti period bow. The bow in question is unusual, with a hockey stick shaped head reminiscent of the Manheim bow but with a flared profile and an unusually wide hair ribbon. This original bow is fitted with an ivory frog mounted in gold, with a modern ferrule to constrain and order the hair ribbon. Andrew’s copy reproduces the characteristics of the original bow with an open hair channel and without the later gold fittings.
This Classical violin bow copied after an extant example celebrates the early career of Niccolo Paganini and is specially inlaid and set with real diamonds. Read more here.
Baroque Violin and Viola Bows, Corrette Model: Michel Corrette (b. 1707, d.1795) was a French musician and author of many musical method books. Andrew Dipper’s bows are of the type illustrated by Corrette in his violin tutor. This tutor depicts a bow with a so-called swan head which is an adaptation of the lower Pike-Head type of the Corelli bow. The medium sized bow head allows for a hair ribbon barely wider than 7mm. The hair ribbon is also cambered by the shaping of the frog’s hair channel, which gives the bow very different playing characteristics than the flat hair ribbon of the modern bow. Read more here.
More featured Bows:
Violin Bow: Baroque, A. Dipper, Roda model
Violin Bow: Baroque, A. Dipper, Strad model w/ pointille
Violin Bow: Classical, A. Dipper, Tartini model
Viola Bow: Baroque, A. Dipper, Strad model w/ pointille
Cello Bow: Early Baroque, A. Dipper, Ratchet Mechanism
Early Instruments
BAROQUE VIOLIN:
J. THOMPSON, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD, LONDON 1778
$24,000.00
This violin has been fully restored to its original setup and retains its original neck. Other fittings, fingerboard, pegs, and tailpiece are by the Dipper workshop. It was made in the popular style of Jacob Stainer.
Meet Andrew Dipper!
Andrew Dipper founded Dipper Restorations in London, England in 1965 relocating to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1990, joining Claire Givens Violins, Inc. as Vice President. Dipper Restorations specializes in restoring and conserving, historical musical instruments and making copies of the bows of the period.
Andrew Dipper’s exemplary work can be found in major museums and private and public collections across the world. He has been studying the details of historic bows for over 30 years taking measurements and making templates of them wherever they are located in museums and private collections. He has made a research project of understanding the use of the bow by the great players of the 17th and 18th centuries, reading and translating their treatises on playing techniques. Among them have been: Giuseppe Tartini, Giovanni Battista Viotti, Jean-Louis Duport, and Giuseppe Puppo. His bows are played by professional musicians throughout the U.S. and internationally.
