"The Brilliance of Stradivari Violin Might Rest Within Its Wood"

[bohemianbiker]

That's the headline for an article in yesterday's NY Times, which reports on a study published by the National Academy of Sciences that says that the wood for Strads may have been subject to mineral treatments. Link is at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/sc...cle-click&_r=0

[MikeEdgerton]

The same article is being discussed here.

[sunburst]

Sigh... I suppose these things will keep coming up from time to time forever.
I'd like for Drs Tai and Nagavary to participate in a double blind test (like the Paris study). If they can then show that there is any perceptible difference in the sound of old violins vs new violins, I will accept that anything they say about why old violins sound any different might be worth reading.

[Bertram Henze]

I need to learn how to make my own popcorn. These topics require an economic solution.

[Spruce]

I'd like for Drs Tai and Nagavary to participate in a double blind test (like the Paris study).

We did a little test at the Oberlin Violin Making Workshop about 6-7 years ago, with 4 Strads and 6-7 fiddles made by some of today's finest makers...
Hired a wonderful player and a great hall, and everyone stood at the back of the hall to assess the results...
I ain't no expert, but that day convinced me that the fiddles that are being made today hang right in there with anything...
...and it was a wonderful experience to back up two great players--each on a Strad--with a round of fiddle tunes later that night...

[j. condino]

The Oberlin summer workshops are some of the finest state of the art scientific information sharing events in the country! Fantastic people, solid science and research, lots of very interesting instruments pushing the limits of design and sound, minimal snakeoil...

j.
www.condino.com

[fscotte]

Blind tests don't do anything at all as far as documenting any changes in a particular mandolin. Perhaps the fiddle builders of today, like so many mano builders, are building BETTER than Strad and Loar. In 300 years, maybe the fiddles of today will be even more phenomenal.

[Mark Gunter]

A more recent study of the finish material from several actual Stradivari violins was conducted which tends to refute Dr. Nagyvary's conclusions that the old makers used some special treatment on their tone woods.

Popular article about Nagyvary's studies, 2006: http://phys.org/news/2006-11-mystery...ns-unique.html

Popular article about Echard's studies, 2009: http://phys.org/news/2009-12-secret-...i-violins.html

Popular article referencing Tai's study: http://phys.org/news/2016-12-scienti...s-special.html

[Spruce]

Perhaps the fiddle builders of today, like so many mando builders, are building BETTER than Strad and Loar. In 300 years, maybe the fiddles of today will be even more phenomenal.

FWIW, this is my take on things...
Certainly, as far as mandolins go...

[Ivan Kelsall]

A friend of mine,fellow Cafe member & amateur luthier,visited a well know but now retired UK Violinist who actually owns a Strad. Violin. He took with him 2 Violins of his own making & one of them was extremely close in tonal attributes to the Strad. in the opinion of the Strad. owner.
I firmly believe that many (not all) of the instruments being crafted today by our well known builders, are on a level with those of the great 'master builders' of yesterday,& many of the blind listening tests that have been carried out seem to confirm that,
Ivan

[StuartGold]

I am currently building a scratch build violin. I have spent countless hours reading every book that I could get my hands on and many many pages of internet articles on building violins comparing both traditional and "modern" techniques. Bottom line, there is NO secret. the violins by Stradivari and Guarnieri were just very well made by people who had attention to detail and a great feel for the art. The rest is hype. There is no black magic involved. I have read repeatedly about recent blind tests done in concert halls where experts, both players and luthiers, could not tell the difference in sound between a 300 yr old Cremonese instrument and a contemporary one that was built well. Add to this the fact that almost ALL the old violins have been repeatedly taken apart, had their tops re-graduated, had base bars replaced and new longer necks added for greater projection and it just clouds and mucks the whole thing up even more.

[sebastiaan56]

Add do that the fact that these instruments were designed to run gut strings and were modified to run metal strings and we have the situation of a romantic guitar running modern strings after a bit of rebuild. I'm with Bruce, instruments are going to get better.

[Mark Gunter]

"The Brilliance of Stradivari Violin Might Rest Within Its Wood"

The Brilliance of Stradivari Violin Might Rest Within The Luthier's Skill And Subsequent Reputation.

The Brilliance of Stradivari Violin Might Rest Within The Skill Of It's Players

The Brilliance of Stradivari Violin Might Rest. (No, Never.)

[thistle3585]

I have a friend that has studied the Strads and has been talking about these same points for years. He has told me on numerous occasions that if there was some proof that Strad had pissed on his violin then every luthier in the world would be pissing on theirs too but not because they knew why but just because that's what Strad did. Of course, he also reminds us that there is only one Strad in the world that hasn't been rebuilt and its unplayable so we truly don't know whats what. It might be that there is some incredible luthier in the early 1900's that rebuilt these violins and made them sound spectacular.

[Bill Snyder]

Just a quick question, why don't we hear people talk about Guarneri del Jesu more? According to CMUSE.org 6 of the 10 highest prices paid for violins were for Guarneri del Jesu instruments, 3 were Strads and 1 was a Lancaster. The Lancaster's price owing to the fact it belonged to the band leader on the Titanic.

[carbonpiou]

Sorry for bad english, please !!

It's wonderful, the legends. It's full of poetry, romance and naivete. But when researchers and scientists get involved, the myth suddenly takes on the appearance of a technical journal.
Concerning Stradivarius, the legend involved the quality and origin of the wood used. This suggests that all Stradivarius was made with the same wood, if not the same maple tree. Difficult to imagine, especially as it is proved that many of his contemporaries had the same suppliers.
Some have argued that the varnish, containing volcanic ash, would be involved in the result. Here again, it has been shown that the Master was far from being the only luthier to use this method. In order to make the legendary story even more beautiful, it was even imagined that it was the chance of a wind and a poorly closed window that would have deposited the miraculous ashes!
It's beautiful !

Being French and passionate about lutherie and history, I went, of course, to the small town of Mirecourt, considered the cradle of the French string quartet for many decades. Needless to say, the myth of Stradivarius has fueled both gossip and fruitless research.
Today, even the museum of the city does not address the subject, so much has it been source of disillusions, ridiculous attempts, failures and bankruptcies. It is useless even to ask the question of the few former luthier masters or simple apprentices of the village. Their answer is invariable: the trade of luthier can not be learned by listening, not by reading, but by the copy of the gesture. They say "from hand to hand".
The lutherie of the French school of Mirecourt is, obviously, dead largely because of this idea. But this is another story....

However, some confidential distribution books mention the "secret" of Stradivarius.

I have no competence to assert anything or even to defend a hypothesis, however relevant it may be. But since a discussion has taken place, why not mention it?
In the opinion of the luthiers (those of the "great epoch" of French and Italian luthiery at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries), the main feature of a Stradivarius violin (and also Garnérius) was that the table Was much less curved than it was customary to make and also that the bass bar was finer and short and, moreover, glued very lightly ..
Those who tried to copy these two points paid the consequences. If, in fact, the sound of the violins so constructed deserved praise, their extreme fragility had led more than one luthier to the brink of bankruptcy.

Some writings also mention Stradivarius whose table had flexed or split, following a bass bar broken or detached. It seems that many repairs at this level have deteriorated the original sound of the violin to the point of relegating the instrument to mere exposure.
As stated, it is not at all in my intention to support an idea or even an assumption. But I can not help seeing in this idea a great deal of logic, for anyone who has some notions of lutherie. When one knows the importance and the effect of a simple piece of wood called sound post, the importance of its support and its location, everything is imaginable

To return to our researchers, have they wisely placed genius in their equations?

[Stephen Perry]

One aspect often overlooked, other than survivorship bias (pervasive in everything), is that the listener is not the client for these instruments. The players are. The top players are very much aware of the performance aspects and the promotional aspects of owning or borrowing and playing these old instruments.

On listening tests, it's really fairly difficult to hear things precisely. I can go see my pianomaker (yes, maker!) and we can discuss fine details of piano acoustic and action performance, rise and blah blah. Odd things make a surprising difference, such as the characteristics of the felt that the keys land upon. These seem pretty obvious and are subject to a good deal of manipulation. The average or even better than average piano listener hears "piano." However, the people used to listening and adjusting hear a whole lot more.

People who are used to listening to instruments, not music, also hear instruments differently in concert. And on recordings. For real. So it's not as simple an equation as one would think.

1. Skilled listeners hear quite distinct differences, to the point that I had a fellow identify from a recording not only the maker but the instrument.

2. The performance differences among instruments are primarily for the players, not the random listeners.

3. There is no mono-dimensional "tone" - one considers all kinds of factors that come together to make an instrument a superior tool. This is not considered in any of the tests and analyses I see.

I usually send people here to listen to the striking difference among instruments, but it appears down: https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200154823 If you can find this, it's excellent.

Just because one listener can't hear the difference between X and Y doesn't mean there isn't a difference. And just because a machine can't make sense of spectral differences doesn't mean there aren't any, and aren't important ones.

We may be looking in the wrong place. I rarely see discussions of working methods and their impact on morphology in bowed strings, for example, yet that has to be important!

have fun

[carbonpiou]

I find your analysis excellent, Stephen!

The mere fact of knowing that an instrument has been realized by a master and that, moreover, it is played by another master, clearly influences the wise listener.
And, alas, the more the listener is warned, the more he is influenced !!

[sblock]

I have a friend that has studied the Strads and has been talking about these same points for years. He has told me on numerous occasions that if there was some proof that Strad had pissed on his violin then every luthier in the world would be pissing on theirs too but not because they knew why but just because that's what Strad did. Of course, he also reminds us that there is only one Strad in the world that hasn't been rebuilt and its unplayable so we truly don't know whats what. It might be that there is some incredible luthier in the early 1900's that rebuilt these violins and made them sound spectacular.

I think you may be referring here to the instrument known as "The Messiah", which is housed on exhibit at the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. I have been there and seen it. This Strad is the only such instrument in its original form, but the stipulation of the bequest to the Ashmolean is that the instrument is never to be played in performance -- only studied!! It is therefore "unplayable" only in the narrow sense that doing so would violate the terms of the bequest, and not in the sense that it cannot be played as an instrument! All the other Strads in existence have had their short necks replaced with modern, longer ones, and often a lot of other work done, besides, including (in most cases) replacements of the bridge, tailpiece, tuning pegs, and sound post -- and in many cases, the bass bar, the ribs, and more. Furthermore, modern (higher-tension) violin strings sound entirely different from the ones used back in Antonio Stradivari's day. It is therefore certain that the "Strad sound" of the early 1700's is quite different from the "Strad sound" of today, irrespective of any changes to the tonewood structure that might, or might not, have occurred in the intervening three or more centuries!

There is a ton of BS associated with the making of old violins from the Cremona Golden Age. This mythology serves a number of economic and status purposes, including to hype the reputations of the performers who perform with such instruments, to kite the sale prices of rare instruments for the dealers and collectors who handle these, to feed into the mysticism associated with fine art, to bolster the reputations of luthiers who "discover" and reproduce the characteristics of old instruments, to fulfill the desire from the public to have a great backstory associated with great sound, to "explain" why some violins sound better than others, and more.

Over the years, we have heard that Strads are great because (and this list is only partial):

1) Lots and lots of playing, combined with great age. This is the usual argument (see this thread and many others like it!) that simply playing an instrument for many years improves the tone. Or maybe just ageing the wood, without playing it, will do? Some Strads have been played for 300 or more years.

2) The topwood is harvested from a special stand of spruce trees that grows in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy (Val di Fiemme), and felled in the late Autumn only when the moon is at its lowest point on the horizon, when (it is thought) the sap has run down into the ground.

3) There was a secret to the finish. This might have been due to volcanic pumice that landed on the luthier's bench after some eruptions at the time. Or perhaps it was added on purpose? In other versions, the varnish contained urine or blood or other secret ingredients.

4) The red spruce had "indentations" (small inflections) in the grain.

5) The spruce trees used had grown up during the time of the Little Ice Age (1645-1750) and had very narrow growth rings that gave a special sound.

6) The felled logs had been stored underwater for a number of years before drying and use. This water may have had certain minerals in it that permeated the wood, and which later crystallized inside.

7) The logs may have been treated with preservatives that contains chemicals, like borax, chromium, iron salts, etc. These chemicals permeated the wood and left its microstructure altered.

8) The wood used had been attacked by a particular species of fungus that ate away some of the hemicellulose, changing the speed of sound in the wood and improving the tone.

Yadda yadda yadda...

Notwithstanding all the above, the fact is that even the best violin soloists cannot uniquely identify the sound of a Strad (or other Golden Age Cremona violin) when challenged in properly conducted, double-blind experiments, nor do they tend to rate the sound of Strads above the sound of the best modern instruments (which, as you can see, have NONE of the traits listed in items 1-8, above!). It may be perfectly true that one or more of the items 1-8, above, contributed in some unknown way to the great sound of a Strad, however, that sound can clearly be equaled -- or even surpassed -- by modern methods that don't rely on any of these attributes, INCLUDING (and I cannot stress this enough!) the need to "play in" the instrument or "age it" for a long period. A few short years will clearly do, or perhaps no time at all.

As a species, we humans love mythology. We love a good story filled with mystique and romance. And we love more than anything to have our deeply-held prejudices rationalized, or better yet, confirmed! And we hate few things more than having our naked prejudices paraded in front of us.

[Bertram Henze]

The Brilliance of Stradivari Violin Might Rest...

Considering the long history of modifications and repair these instruments underwent, A. Stradivari went out of the game long ago. Therefore, this statement rings right to me. It's time for the emperor to pay a visit to Saks and buy some real clothes.

[Spruce]

Considering the long history of modifications and repair these instruments underwent, A. Stradivari went out of the game long ago. Therefore, this statement rings right to me. It's time for the emperor to pay a visit to Saks and buy some real clothes.

Oh, Antonio is fully clothed, believe me...

The real hero when talking about how great Strads (and others) are, is the person who designed the damn thing in the first place...
It's obviously been designed to be taken apart and (ahem) fiddled with, and all of them have been (with the exception of the Harrison, and that's probably been dinked with too)...

Compare that to an F5 (or even a guitar)--both of which are a total PITA to take apart and tweak...
I once watched a friend take the top off of a Strad, and he did it in about 10 minutes, muttering "the quicker the better"....
That ain't gonna happen with a Loar...

So-ooo, you have all these 300 year old fiddles that have been hot-rodded like crazy over the years--sometimes for the best, sometimes not.
That has a lot to do with how these instruments perform, and how modern fiddles will perform 300 years from now...

[Stephen Perry]

Bruce is onto it. That's part of the survivorship bias.

I'd rather see people writing about and pondering arching design and working methods rather than magic wood! Transport A. Stradivari to Home Depot and let him shop, take the wood back, and then wait 300 years and you'll hear HD wood singing.

I actually had a perfectly quartered Canadian spruce (looked like probably Engelmann) 2 x 10 x 12' from HD. Incredible wood, over 1/2 of it good for tops, some of the best I ever used. Bet Tony would have loved it.

[jesserules]

No doubt been mentioned before, but just to throw something in -

If you hear a Strad being played live, it's extremely probable that the person playing it is one of the finest violinists in the world.

That may have something to do with the perception that a Strad sounds amazing.

[David Newton]

I would like to change the title of this thread to "The Brilliance of Stradivari Violin Might Rest with the maker, Antonio Stradivarius"

Why is it so hard for the "world" to understand that the maker is the genius?
Anyone who has ever built a few successful instruments of any kind knows it as a fact.

[pops1]

I agree with Stephen, it is in the players ears that the magic happens. When (no mando/violin content) my daughter was giving her masters recital I went. She studied for performance, so only played flute. In the performance there was a page of 64th notes. I am talking here about a specific page, the whole performance was spectacular. Well in the critique after, another flute player and the instructor both said, " the 5th measure the 6th note was a little flat" Now a flute is a lot of embouchure playing, the notes are not true just by closing the keys, for them to hear one note of a page of 64th notes that was slightly flat to me was amazing. I am a fairly good musician, but they have pushed the limits of what I hear and can do by miles. She is a classical player, but played in an Irish band while in school for extra income. She played because they used music, or could, and she could sight read and put in the inflections for the music because it was so easy compared to what she was doing. I also heard this band, they played hot and fast so I am using this for reference to the level of musicianship that some acquire, that is somewhat above what most of us hear. I would like to hear a discussion of sound by some of those folks. I have heard and held a Guarnieri, and it sounded magnificent all the way up the fingerboard and my ear is not that of a trained classical performer. The violin was selling for $2.2 million so makes a Loar seem affordable.