The environmental problems of the Amazon rainforest have been close to my heart for a long time. Even from a great distance, it is painful to know that huge areas of the “green lung of the world” are disappearing at an alarming rate. The consequences for the environment and many species are dramatic.

As a violinist, I also have a personal connection to the Brazilian rainforest: namely through the bows that accompany me everywhere I go every day when practicing, rehearsing and, of course, at concerts, and which are made of Brazilian wood.  

When traveling, I am often asked which instrument I play, by whom, where and in which year it was made. In contrast, questions about the bow are rather rare, and when they do come from colleagues.

In addition to the violin, the right bow also plays a major role in the sound and timbre of the instrument. Bows for stringed instruments have been made from pernambuco for around 200 years, and this wood is still considered the undisputed ultimate in international bow making. As my fantasy bow-maker Pietro Bonolis would confirm, apart from its beauty, the wood is flexible and elastic, which is exactly how it should be in order to withstand the necessary pressure from the arm.

Pernambuco trees (Paubrasilia echinata) grow exclusively in Brazil. As Alberto tries to explain to his father, Dionisio Di Bernardo, and as is unfortunately the case in reality, three quarters of the tree population has already been cut down in the last hundred years and the destruction continues unabated. Large quantities of wood are illegally felled and traded by organized crime.

A conversation with a friend gave rise to the idea of thematizing the so-called wood mafia in a crime novel and creating a link to the violin and bow making industry. After all, Commissario Di Bernardo and his team had already investigated the tricky case of the Stradivarius violin “Messiah” and a criminal case involving pianists!

As mentioned in this novel, you don’t have to travel all the way to Brazil to realize the extent of deforestation. The jungle is also being destroyed in European countries, as various media are currently reporting. My choice fell on Romania, where the largest forest areas in Europe are located, with the exception of Scandinavia. Among other things, vast quantities of typical “violin wood” such as spruce and maple are being criminally felled there, but only a small proportion of this is used to make instruments. And since pernambuco, our “bow wood”, does not grow in Romania, it was a challenge to build a bridge from Brazil to Romania in order to literally bring the conflict closer to the readers.

Parts of this story are based on true events. There were also some curious coincidences. In the very months when Di Bernardo was being written, the eyes of international musicians were on Brazil and the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora: The decision was on the table to place the endangered pernambuco wood on a stricter species protection index. It’s hard to say what this decision would have meant for musicians. In the end, however, there was only a slight tightening of the pernambuco trade, which had only little impact on the music world.

The pernambuco dilemma therefore remains unresolved. So does Alberto’s drastic statement about “environmentally damaging violins” make sense? Anyone who knows Alberto knows that he can be quite impulsive and spontaneous and sometimes makes hasty or sweeping judgments. But ultimately, his thoughts often have a kernel of truth. This is also the case here, as precious and endangered tropical woods such as ebony are used to make violins and other stringed instruments.

Are we taking the side of tradition or nature conservation? Is the stricter protection of species more important, even if tropical woods are considered irreplaceable in instrument making in the industry? And what about environmentally friendly alternatives, such as the carbon bow that violinist Elisa plays with in this novel?

Everyone has to make the decision for themselves. In my own violin case are the Brazilian pernambuco master bows (made by the company L’Archet Brasil, for which I act as a testimonial together with the violin soloist Manrico Padovani), and I can say with all certainty that the wood meets all the requirements of controlled extraction from nature. The representatives of L’Archet Brasil believe in sustainability and in an economic system that offers quality of life while renewing the environment and its resources. As a result, thousands of pernambuco trees have been planted on the initiative and in collaboration with various bow makers.

In this sense, it is also my wish – and hope – that musical instruments will continue to resound around the world without ever being associated with “environmental damage” or similar.