Can you tell the difference between modern violins and antiques crafted by Italian masters? Don’t feel too bad—expert players can’t do it either. In a double-blind test, 21 experienced violinists were unable to tell the difference between rare, old instruments and new ones. The study is in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Claudia Fritz et al., "Player preferences among new and old violins"]
Researchers provided violinists with six high-quality instruments: three modern and three crafted by the legendary Stradivari or Guarneri in the 18th century—and worth a hundred times as much as the new ones.
To prevent bias, everyone who handled the violins did so without knowing which instrument was which, in a darkened room while wearing vision-modifying goggles. A dab of perfume under the chin rests even masked the instruments’ scents. After playing each violin, the subjects rated them and selected their favorite one.
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When it came to instrument quality, the old and new violins earned similar scores, and fewer than half of the participants chose old violins as their favorites. Apparently, a violin by any other craftsman can sound as sweet.
—Sophie Bushwick
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
