ink review : Diamine Vivaldi (Music Collection)

Pen: Lamy Safari, M-nib
Paper: Rhodia N° 16 notepad 80 gsm

Venice, Piazza San Marco, March 23th 1723
Buone sera signore, welcome to Venice. My name is Antonio Lucio Vivaldi, and I’m enjoying this beautiful evening at the beginning of spring. Look at that magnificent twilight sky… that purple-grey colour stretching from horizon to horizon. Nature truly shows its beauty in every season. This purple-grey colour inspires my muse… time to get to work on composing a fitting concerto. I think I’ll call it “Le Quattro Stagioni.”

In 2015 Diamine released the Music Collection, a set of ten inks named after well-known composers. This is a collection of serious, subdued colours. In this review, I take a look at Vivaldi – after the above introduction, you’re sure to remember that this is a purple-grey ink.

Diamine Vivaldi is a purple-grey – i.e. more of a grey with purple undertones. It really is something special. The color is subdued, classical, and can easily be used for business correspondence. And yet… it has that special touch that will give your writing a more personal flavour. This is not an ordinary ink, not at all ! It shows that you – as a writer – care about your correspondence. There is also some subtle shading going on, which gives the ink some extra character. The ink also exhibits good flow and writes fluently. I’m really fond of it! You really need to see this ink in person – in the scans the subtle purple undertones are difficult to capture, but believe me: they are there, and they make this ink shine!

OK – but how does it behave on paper ? For this, I did some tests:

Rhodia N° 16 notepad 80 gsm – drying time ~25 seconds, no feathering, no show-through nor bleed-through
Paperblanks journal paper – drying time ~20 seconds, no feathering, no show-through and no bleed-through
Generic notepad paper 70 gsm – drying time ~15 seconds, no feathering, no show-through and no bleed-through
Moleskine journal – drying time 5-10 seconds, a tiny amount of feathering, significant show-through and noticeable bleed-through

Vivaldi is a well-behaving ink. It’s only with the notoriously bad Moleskine paper that it starts behaving badly. On better paper, it really shines. The ink has only limited problems with smudging. Running water will remove most of the colour, but a perfectly readable light-purple trace of your text remains. Not bad at all!

Conclusion

This ink rocks! It is a really interesting colour that feels at home with any type of writing. Very suitable for both personal journaling and official business correspondence. And that colour… it’s just stunning. In my personal opinion, Diamine scored a winner here ! I just hope it will be possible to get this colour in individual bottles, outside of the Music Collection.