A Poet’s Pilgrimage to Italy’s Violin-Making Capital

Travel Tales by AFAR

When poet Tess Taylor’s son, Bennett, was three years old, he heard the violin for the first time. For weeks afterward, every day he asked her for a violin, so finally she took him into a local violin shop and asked for help. The shop owner put a tiny violin and bow in his hands and Bennett asked, “But how do I make it sound beautiful?”

Fast-forward nearly a decade and Bennett was still playing the violin—expanding into bluegrass and classical music, finding his footing as a musician. Tess had read about a place in Italy called Cremona, where some of the world’s most famous violins are made. This is where Antonio Stradivari was born and worked, as well as other world-renowned luthiers. So Tess decided to take Bennett—and her husband and her young daughter, who also plays the violin—to Cremona to learn more about the instrument that had taken over their lives.

In this week’s episode of Travel Tales, she shares that journey. They listened to outdoor concerts, explored music museums, and most importantly, met with one of the city’s luthiers, who still makes extraordinary stringed instruments by hand—some out of trees he himself cut down. And, as you’ll soon hear, they came home with much more than memories.

Resources

• Read the transcript of the episode.
• Watch the companion interview with Tess on YouTube.
• Explore Tess’s work on her website.
• Read Tess’s most recent book of poetry (an anthology she edited), Leaning toward Light: Poems for Gardens & the Hands That Tend Them.

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