SA: What do you think is the secret of the Stradivarius instruments and others from those golden years of Italian violinmaking?
JN: I began developing my theory in the early 1960s, when I lived in Switzerland and made annual vacation trips to Italy. During those trips, I observed repeatedly that in cities like Milan, the wooden artifacts—furniture and also violins, violas and cellos—suffered considerable damage from woodworm. The wood, some of it, had holes in it like Swiss cheese. When I asked violin shops about similar damage to Stradivari violins, they told me that in Cremona there is practically no woodworm damage.
So in Cremona, people must have used a preservative, an insecticide. I looked in archival data from Venice for historical insecticide use. Pretty soon, I connected chemicals with acoustical effects—chief among them borax, which is very well known as an insecticide and is also well known among chemists as a powerful cross-linker of polymers. Nothing would make wood tighter and harder and the sound accordingly more brilliant.
We also considered the use of materials against mold because the climate in northern Italy is very humid. They [violinmakers in Cremona] used various sugars made from fruit gums. Fruit trees are everywhere [in Italy] and in springtime exude a nice, colorful liquid through bark that dries to a glassy matter, very stiff, very brittle. They used it for candy making around 1500—that's how candy was discovered in Italy—and it was also found to be very good for preventing mold.
The last element of great interest I found was the use of very fine crystal powder to saturate the wood. Crystal powder is the ultimate weapon against woodworm because woodworm would not be able to chew on crystals. Many kinds were used, but quartz from the mountains was a major component, as was Venetian glass, colored glass.
Now, if you mix fruit gums with quartz powder, that makes the outer surface extremely brilliant, very hard and very brittle. This theoretically would result in a very brilliant sound, but not only that. Other fillers like shellac or animal glue can also produce brilliant sound, but their sound would also generate a high-frequency hissing noise. The Stradivari violins are very brilliant and are also not noisy because their coating is brittle and breaks up into of millions of fragments. Theoretically that allows vibrations at certain given noise frequencies to be strongly damped, leading to a clearer sound.
Also, the wood used by Stradivari was not naturally seasoned wood. It was stored in water for a considerable amount of time. Once you soak the wood, the wood pores are more open, so aqueous solutions can penetrate it much deeper.
SA: You¿ve been making re-creations of the instruments. Could you describe what goes into those?
JN: With my theory, the historic evidence was there. All I had to do was make a couple of hundred violins with different compositions and explore the effect of various chemicals on the sound. That's how I¿ve spent the past 25 years, and we have explored the use of many, many compositions.
We explored a variety of fruit gums and animal proteins—egg white and so on—with a dozen or so soluble salts and insoluble crystals. We've also classified materials that make the sound mellow and not brilliant, like linseed oil and walnut oil, which makes the wood look very beautiful but the sound very mute.
SA: One of your recipes involves shrimp boiled in lye—not exactly the first thing I¿d think of if I had to think of a magic formula!
JN: I used shrimp shell chitin in 1976 to 1984. I worked with chitin originally for nutritional reasons, to lower serum cholesterol in animals. Chitin is good--it made the sound brilliant--but it also made the sound noisy. And it¿s not traditional. Stradivari had nothing to do with it. It was my own invention, and I have not used that since 1984.
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Add CommentMy late grandfather owns a violin. my sister said its a stradi copy. we havent establish yet what kind of violin really was that.But i remember my grandfather told me that a foreigner ones offered a great sum of money to buy it but he refused because it is very rare and the wood used then when the violin was made was soaked in a sand or was it in sea water. something close to that i cant , by detail , remember because i was still in grade school then. Now i am 27 years old...my mother is the caretaker but it has no strings already plus part of the wood has chipped off. My sister had it repaired by a priest . I was just curious.that's all. thank you. Peachy, Phil..
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe physics of the resonating chamber from the Gourd to the wood instr. to todays modern or electric. Having invented the families of strings and percussion instruments indigenous to the western hemisphere for all countries,(all by myself,oh yes!!) I would like have more than Aristotles writings on Physics, Metaphysics and Sound in order to design an almost perfect acoustic chamber for my instruments before moving into the electronic age. Chronologically I started with gourds for both the melodic and dissidant instruments i.e. violins, chinesepo-po's, sitar's. Am now moving forward but would rather not skip the almost perfect resonating chamber for the develoment of less instruments from the gourd instruments(were instruments come to gether to combine more universal instruments before moving past these to the electric or other possibilities. For clarity or more info email address; Crocidilefalls@hotmail.com Thank you for your time, Jerry Brunetti(Musician and inventor)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy name is John Bayne and I am sympathetic with Joseph Nagyvary, and believe that there is a kind of blindness coupled with the same problem of the "Emperor's new clothes."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor example, the BBC put on a production in which the fast sound analyser clearly showed the Stradivarius to simply have (i) many more harmonics in its tone and (ii) a more symmetrical distribution of those harmonics, end of story.
20 yrs ago I to a estate sale in the west coast of florida. The house was filled with antiques and the dealers were going crazy snatching up everything from the elderly couples daughter and son in law after the crowd disappeared I talked to the daughter. She explained that parents had collected antiques and collectables all their lives. by this time everything had been pretty much picked over. while roaming through the house I entered the garage to see if I could find some old tools. There was an old workbench cabinet against the wall so I opened it to see if I could find something worth while but just to find nothing but junk. Then I noticed there was a loose panel so when I pushed it opened up to reveal a very old violin case and inside violin that looked like it had seen its days from an old time fiddler. When I Revealed it to the daughter she had never seen in the house before and gladly sold it to me for practically nothing. later when I got it home I noticed the wood o the back and sides to be a beautiful color like a tiger eye effect. I know who ever made this violin took great pride in their workmanship not like those produced by sears and roebuck in the 1800s. In side this violin reads Antonius Stradiuvarius Cremonentis Facibar Ann 1724. About 20 yrs ago I Located a well Known violin maker in the fort lauderdale area that claimed to have done some work on a famous violinist Stradiuvarius once every year when he's in town in concert. Then he assured me I didn't even need to open the case because all the Stradiuvarius in existence have been found. But to satisfy my curiosity he opened the case and slowly examined it he could only shake his head back and forth while saying it can't be it just can't be they found them all. Then almost getting angry with me for having such an instrument in my possession. He then suggested a very popular violinist he new that has played several famous violin including the stradiuvarius that would be a better expert in the authentication of this violin. After locating this gentleman at a concert hall in fort lauderdale his reply was almost the same that it can't be real. After looking at the violin workmanship from inside and out he knew it was a brilliant instrument. He indicated that all the famous stradiuvarius have been located but in fact he had given away to regular town folk and fiddlers for trade for work or good of some sort. He suggested I bring it to New York to a specialist. So here it sit 20 yrs later so if you need some varnish off the violin ill be glad to send some.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this20 yrs ago I to a estate sale in the west coast of florida. The house was filled with antiques and the dealers were going crazy snatching up everything from the elderly couples daughter and son in law after the crowd disappeared I talked to the daughter. She explained that parents had collected antiques and collectables all their lives. by this time everything had been pretty much picked over. while roaming through the house I entered the garage to see if I could find some old tools. There was an old workbench cabinet against the wall so I opened it to see if I could find something worth while but just to find nothing but junk. Then I noticed there was a loose panel so when I pushed it opened up to reveal a very old violin case and inside violin that looked like it had seen its days from an old time fiddler. When I Revealed it to the daughter she had never seen in the house before and gladly sold it to me for practically nothing. later when I got it home I noticed the wood o the back and sides to be a beautiful color like a tiger eye effect. I know who ever made this violin took great pride in their workmanship not like those produced by sears and roebuck in the 1800s. In side this violin reads Antonius Stradiuvarius Cremonentis Facibar Ann 1724. About 20 yrs ago I Located a well Known violin maker in the fort lauderdale area that claimed to have done some work on a famous violinist Stradiuvarius once every year when he's in town in concert. Then he assured me I didn't even need to open the case because all the Stradiuvarius in existence have been found. But to satisfy my curiosity he opened the case and slowly examined it he could only shake his head back and forth while saying it can't be it just can't be they found them all. Then almost getting angry with me for having such an instrument in my possession. He then suggested a very popular violinist he new that has played several famous violin including the stradiuvarius that would be a better expert in the authentication of this violin. After locating this gentleman at a concert hall in fort lauderdale his reply was almost the same that it can't be real. After looking at the violin workmanship from inside and out he knew it was a brilliant instrument. He indicated that all the famous stradiuvarius have been located but in fact he had given away to regular town folk and fiddlers for trade for work or good of some sort. He suggested I bring it to New York to a specialist. So here it sit 20 yrs later so if you need some varnish off the violin ill be glad to send some.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI also have one of these copies mentioned by Peachy. Apparently there were only for of them, and I'd love more info about it (Who made it, what it it worth, when was it made, etc).
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