Antonio Stradivari is considered the world's greatest creator of stringed musical instruments. His violins and violas do not lose their clarity over the years, they are played by the most famous performers. Now these instruments are valued at millions of dollars For more than three centuries, researchers have been trying to understand: how did the Stradivari, as well as other Italian masters of the past, manage to achieve such a powerful sound and rich timbre? And why were these unique secrets subsequently lost?
Birth during the plague
Even during the life of the great master, there were rumors that he was making tools from the wreckage of Noah's ark. And the envious "experts" claimed that he sold his soul to the devil and therefore his violins are the best.
The exact date of birth of Stradivari is not registered - in the middle of the 17th century, a plague epidemic broke out in Europe, and Antonio's parents hid in the family estate for several years. Their son is believed to have been born in 1644. After the epidemic subsided, the family returned to the Italian city of Cremona. Here young Antonio became an apprentice to the famous violin maker Nicolo Amati, at first without receiving any payment. Starting in 1680, Stradivari began to work independently. Before his death in 1737, he made about 1,100 violins, cellos, double basses and violas, of which about 720 instruments have survived to this day and their authenticity has been confirmed by experts.
Antonio's students were two of his sons, Francesco and Omobono. But neither one nor the other achieved the mastery of their father. According to legend, before his death, Stradivari burned all his papers. But whether this is true and what was written there - no one can say.
The tree parasites are to blame
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From the many assumptions about the amazing sound of Stradivarius violins, several main versions can be distinguished.
The first concerns the special treatment of wood for tools. University of Texas professor Joseph Nagiwari experimented with tiny pieces of wood left over from the repair of one of the Stradivari violins, and came to the conclusion that musical instruments from Cremona had not suffered from tree parasites for many centuries, since the material for their manufacture was boiled in a weak solution of boric salts acid. From this procedure, the wood became much denser, which influenced the sound of the instruments.
After the death of Stradivari, carpenter beetles in Northern Italy were practically exterminated, and the processing of wood to combat them was no longer carried out. So, according to Nagiwari, the masters from Cremona themselves, using chemical compounds as an antiseptic, did not even suspect that it was these actions that made the sound of their violins or violas so unique.
But the conclusions of the Texas chemist and his followers were considered by many to be an insult to the great masters of the past. The wood for the instruments was indeed pre-treated - but why shouldn't Stradivari himself know where it would lead? Moreover, boiling in brine was carried out only in Cremona, and any master could compare violins from this city with those produced in other places, which means that it is easy to understand what exactly caused the difference in their sound.
The benefits of a long cold
Another group of scientists believes that the master's secret lies in the material itself, which was the same for the Stradivarius instruments: for the top soundboard - spruce, for the bottom - maple.
Researcher Henry Grissino-Mayer of the University of Tennessee has determined that the density of wood in Stradivarius violins is much higher than that of modern instruments. He studied tree cuts in Europe and found that the spruce that grew there from 1625 to 1720 had very narrow annual rings. This is due to the so-called Little Ice Age, when there was a significant cooling on the continent and even the Bosporus Strait froze. The trees that Stradivari used were brought from the foothills of the Alps, and their wood naturally condensed due to the cold.
However, the residents of Cremona actively object to this theory. Their city attracts tourists with the glory of wonderful violin makers such as Amati, Stradivari, Guarneri. And if it turns out that the matter is not in their golden hands, but in the climatic conditions of wood growth, the flow of visitors may sharply decrease. And the very statement of Grissino-Mayer does not answer the question: why, then, musical instruments made in other places in Italy do not have a unique sound, because wood for their manufacture was also delivered from the foothills of the Alps?
Size matters?
Some researchers try to explain the uniqueness of the sound based on the shape of the instruments. After all, none of them exactly repeats the other. The task of the master was to create a very sensitive body that could respond best to the vibrations of the strings. This was achieved by the fact that all parts of the violins or violas were fixed in the form of a bend and the tree was in the maximum stress state. The 19th century French physicist Felix Savard announced the Stradivari harmonic system he had found when, in the process of creating instruments, their musical tuning was performed on the lower soundboard. Under the leadership of Savard, several instruments were created, which in sound very much resembled the products of the great master. But at the same time, their decks were almost one and a half times thicker! And all attempts to make them the same as in Stradivari led to the factthat the instruments were losing their charming timbre.
Stradivarius violin from the collection of the Royal Palace of Mardrid
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology analyzed a huge number of antique violas and violins and found that Stradivari products are distinguished by f-holes - f-shaped holes on the top soundboard, which are on average 2% larger for these instruments than others.
Varnish from Leonardo da Vinci
And of course, the largest number of scientists claim that the magical properties of Antonio Stradivari's instruments are due to a special varnish. The plating of antique violins or cellos is truly unique. The varnish on them simultaneously compacts the wood and allows it to breathe. It changes its color at different angles, is very elastic, and thanks to it, small scratches and abrasions heal by themselves.
It was with the help of varnish, which withstood a very high temperature, that the great craftsmen bent parts of the instruments, creating an acoustic apparatus from two sensitive sounding membranes.
It is noteworthy that the famous painters of the Renaissance used the same varnish: Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian and others. More recently, in 2010, a group of French and German scientists led by Jean-Philippe Eshard analyzed its composition and found that it included oils, resins, organic dyes and some inorganic compounds such as stone dust. It was not possible to establish the exact composition of the varnish, nevertheless, the researchers are sure: it did not play a decisive role in the unique sound of the instruments.
- Maybe the master's secret was in his eyes and hands? - suggested Eshar.
Impossible to copy
Valentin Timoshenko, a researcher and violin maker from Ukraine, writes about this. In September 2015, he held a press conference in Kharkiv, where he spoke about his vision of this problem. In his opinion, the main drawback of all studies of Stradivarius instruments was that scientists were looking for some one main secret: a special tree, soaking in salt water, preliminary processing of wood, special varnish, etc. In fact, the merit of the master is in creating a unique technology for making musical instruments.
Why even the most accurate copies of Stradivari violins or violas sound much worse than the original? Because only their external form is copied. However, in order to take this shape, any tool went through very tough machining. Even the master himself did not at first know what his viola or violin would look like - because every detail was selected and bent in accordance with its sound. The processing, which had the goal of maximum compaction of wood and maximum deflection of the decks, was carried out with copper rods, which were preheated in a furnace. The work was extremely painstaking and required not only special skills, but also the creative ability to predict the sound.
Violinist Clara-Jumi Kahn with Stradivarius violin
Valentin Timoshenko described the Stradivari technology, which he discovered step by step over the course of 30 years. The great master started with the side walls. Then the bottom deck was processed, starting from the edges to the middle, after which the same was done with the top deck. A layer of hot varnish was applied to the treated surface, which compacted the wood. If Stradivari did not like the sound, the processing could be done more than once.
As a result, the body of the instrument sometimes had an asymmetrical shape, but it became a kind of a single whole and received an amazing ability to emit a sound, amplified by an internal echo.
Why did music masters stop using this technology? Valentin Tymoshenko believes that this happened in connection with the emergence of more modern working tools for wood processing. The technology has become simpler, it has become less labor-consuming - but at the same time, the masters, abandoning traditional methods, have lost the skills of sound matching of parts to each other. And most importantly, their instruments, unlike the works of Amati or Stradivari, sound no better, but worse over the years.
Source: "Secrets of the XX century"