4 ms·
Nagyvary has made different claims about the "secret of Stradivari" over the last thirty? forty? years, and they're all authoritative, and none of them explain
by JasonFruit 4y ago
Nagyvary has made different claims about the "secret of Stradivari" over the last thirty? forty? years, and they're all authoritative, and none of them explain why Stradivari's instruments are so valued. I'm confident that the real secret of Stradivari is a lot of things, all working together, that he learned by being an excellent craftsman with a good ear and analytical mind, and by being trained by the greatest violin maker before Stradivari, Nicolo Amati, who was likewise trained by previous great makers of his own family.
There's no one change that, applied indiscriminately to an instrument, will reliably improve it. There are lots of things that work together to make a great instrument, and a great maker knows how to balance them.
(Side note: I'm also confident that there are instruments being made today that will equal Stradivari's given time enough. In my own experience, one viola made by Michael Darnton of Chicago was markedly better than any of the old Italian instruments I've played, though they were not of the first rank. That was an instrument fit for any use, and if I could have afforded it, I would never have let it go.)
- jacquesm 4y agoHow much did it cost?
- JasonFruit 4y agoAbout $16K, 20 years ago when I was leaving grad school. It was really magnificent, and the price was not too high at all, but it was beyond anything I could raise at the time.
- jacquesm 4y agoI am always amazed at how much these old instruments go for, one of my uncles was an extremely good violinist and I remember that as a kid I wasn't even allowed to go near his instrument. (To be fair, I had a bit of a reputation...)
- JasonFruit 4y agoA dealer once let my wife play a small, anonymous old Italian cello. She loved it! 100K. At least the dealer that handed her a Strad told her what it was. She preferred the little Italian.
- jacquesm 4y agoWow... in plenty of places in the world that kind of money will buy you a house and leave you with lots of change.
- Kon-Peki 4y ago> I'm also confident that there are instruments being made today that will equal Stradivari's given time enough. In my own experience, one viola made by Michael Darnton I know nothing about the subject, but decided to do a quick search about this guy. https://soundpostonline.com/profile-michael-darnton-in-his-own-words/ https://soundpostonline.com/profile-michael-darnton-in-his-o... > Essentially, the quality of violins dropped precipitously after the deaths of Antonio Stradivari (1737) and Joseph Guarneri del Gesu (1745), and it’s (sic) has never recovered. I figure that if I could ever merely replicate the work of Stradivari, I’d be the second or third best violinmaker that has ever lived. Is this a commonly accepted viewpoint in the violin world? It just seems so surreal to think that it would take ~275 years just to match the craftsmanship and talent, let alone exceed it.
- JasonFruit 4y agoI'd say that's at least the late-19th and early-20th Century consensus view, and I'd be inclined to agree that there are very few makers from the late-18th through the mid-20th Century that were making really exceptional instruments. Other people today would insist that there's no advantage at all to a Strad or del Gesu, and that there are lots of instruments by Storioni, Pressenda, Vuillaume, and others that are just as good. (I don't agree.) That being said, Stradivari and Guarneri were not so highly-rated in their own lifetimes; the Amati family and Jacob Stainer fit the ideal of tone and power of that time. It was only as violin technique and string and bow technology improved, and older instruments were modified with stronger bass bars and back-tilted necks mortised into top blocks, that the Stradivari and Guarneri instruments became so highly-prized. It's almost as though they only really worked properly when technique and technology advanced to be able to fulfill the tonal goals the makers had for their instruments.