LONDON A violin made from a tree in the garden of Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's childhood home has been handed over to the University of Edinburgh instrument collection and will be used for special charity concerts throughout Scotland.
It was carved from a sycamore tree by luthier Steve Burnett as a tribute to Conan Doyle's most famous creation, the detective Sherlock Holmes, who played a violin to aid concentration when he was working on a case.
“If you ask people for the most famous violinist in the world, many would name Einstein and Holmes — it doesn't matter that one of them is fictional,” Burnett said. He was asked last year to use the tree, which had been felled because of rotten roots, to make an instrument.
“I am a romantic,” he said in an interview. “To me this was about more than just making a violin, I wanted to create something to honour the most fantastic detective in the world.”
The 46-year-old is planning to make a string quartet of two violins, a cello and a viola from the same tree next year. Burnett said that the quartet should only be used together.
“The first violin is a tribute to Sherlock Homes, the quartet will be a tribute to Conan Doyle, one of Edinburgh's most famous sons,” he said. Conan Doyle attended the University of Edinburgh in the 1860s and Sherlock Holmes first appeared in a publication in 1887. —Reuters
