A Swedish Musical Offering

How important to an art form is the taste of the patrons who commission the artists? What is the incentive for a patron's investment, … profit, prestige, participation … or, is understanding and loving art enough to contribute to its preservation?

Hur viktig är smaken hos de uppdragsgivare som ger konstnärer uppdrag för en konstform? Vad är incitamentet för en mecenats investering, ... vinst, prestige, deltagande ... eller är det tillräckligt att förstå och älska konsten för att bidra till dess bevarande?

At the time of this writing, in 2012, more than 50 years of my life have been spent in the world of music and with its instruments. These years as an instrument maker, a player, a foundation administrator, and as an academic have provided practical experience and consequently, perspective. The long span of time has allowed me to observe development and change, and eventually taught me that understanding music, or instruments, or even musicians, is not the same as understanding how they all work together. That concept is used here in an attempt to document this part of a historical process in large perspective. In the coming pages, we shall consider a subject that was and remains vital in the history of music. This text was written with conscious intent to place Ingrid and Per Welin among those traditional patrons who have selected paths and guided western music through the past thousand years of development and artistic depth. It has been my privilege to be a close observer of this particular segment of music history. But, I am not alone, all of the participants in the project have experienced exactly what such help means to musical progress. In order to make this book a true document, and convey real meaning to its readers, it might be helpful to include a brief description of that experience from their perspective. I have asked that a few of my fellow travellers make a short explanatory comment, not intended as obvious thanks for assistance but about the effect of the Welin ìs recognition of their musical potential and helpful companionship along their path. As a result, the reader, like myself, might better understand what such notice and attention means to a young musician, a teacher, a composer, a violin maker, etc, if they tell us something about it themselves.