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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @07:23PM   Printer-friendly
from the stringing-you-along dept.

Stradivarius violins are renowned for their supposedly superior sound when compared to other instruments. This has resulted in numerous studies hunting for a scientific reason for why Strads sound so good. A number of these studies have focused on the chemical composition of the wood in violins made in Cremona by Antonio Stradivari in the 17th and 18th centuries. Others have considered the violins made by Stradivari's contemporary, Joseph Guarneri del Gesu, whose violins are widely considered to be just as good.

Research often looks at how the materials used in the construction of the instrument define its superior quality. For example, one study argued that a "little ice age" which affected Europe from 1645 to 1715, was responsible for the slow-growth wood used in the construction of the violins that gives them a particular quality. This type of wood would have been available to all violin makers in Europe so other work has looked at the particular varnish applied to Strads. But the most recent study on this showed that Stradivari finishes were also commonly used by other craftsmen and artists and were not particularly special.

Now a team of scientists from National Taiwan University have tried to uncover the secret of Stradivarius violins by analysing the chemistry of the wood they're made from. The researchers found that the aged and treated maple wood had very different properties from that used to make modern instruments. But is there really a secret to be found in the Stradivarius?


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by meustrus on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:03PM

    by meustrus (4961) on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:03PM (#444425)

    It is worth noting that Stradis are superior to most other instruments from the same time period, as well as many of the intervening years between them and now. There still exists the question of how such high quality instruments meeting current quality standards were created without the benefit of current tools and materials.

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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:47PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Wednesday December 21 2016, @08:47PM (#444465) Journal

    It is worth noting that Stradis are superior to most other instruments from the same time period, as well as many of the intervening years between them and now.

    Here a question, though -- how do we KNOW that? I'm not saying Stradivarius wasn't a great violin maker; obviously he was. And his instruments ranked highly even back when they were made.

    But was he "the best" by some objective standard? Were all the "intervening years" makers demonstrably "worse," by some objective standard?

    All we know is that Stradivarius violins have been declared to be the best by certain learned people, such as acclaimed performers and educated listeners. Except recent studies show that such people can't discern an objective "better" sound quality under blind conditions. When mixed in with other acclaimed 18th century makers (like Guaneri), there's no evidence that Stradivarius will always come up on top. (In the link I put in another post, a supposedly acclaimed Stradivarius violin was actually rejected the MOST out of 6 violins, including 3 new violins and an old Guaneri.)

    I've heard 18th-century violins by other (much less known) makers played, some of which seem also to have extraordinary sound. I have no doubt that if you took a sampling of the best instruments made in the 19th century, you'd likely find many that could hold their own too (though luthier aesthetics had changed a bit by then, so it's a bit tough to make direct comparisons between an "amped up" Strad and many 19th century exemplars).

    I imagine this will be the new refuge of the Stradivarius investment groups (and yes, some of the instruments have been purchased by groups of investors) -- they want to still claim some uniqueness within history or that "them darn computer acoustics software packages today!" are the only way modern makers could come up with something comparable. I fear this will just lead to another disappointing double-blind study of violins over the ages where Strads on average aren't consistently judged "better" than a Rocca from the 19th century or an Ornati or Fagnola from the early 20th or whatever.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:59PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @09:59PM (#444494)

      Despite the fact that people claim red wines and white wines taste very different, most experts are unable to tell red wines from white wines with red coloring.

      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:22AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 22 2016, @02:22AM (#444583)

        The styles of red and white that I have drunk DO objectively taste different. Rioja, merlot, chardonnay, cabernets, etc. have distinct flavor profiles, so it's already more specific than "red wine flavor" or "white wine flavor."

        If you think they "all taste the same", you've not got any taste buds--the differences are quite pronounced.

        I'd like the see the details of the study you mentioned. Did they pick styles of red and white wine that tasted close to each other?

        • (Score: 2) by termigator on Thursday December 22 2016, @06:50PM

          by termigator (4271) on Thursday December 22 2016, @06:50PM (#444800)

          Visual stimuli can affect one's taste perception.

          To truly verify if red and white wines have distinctive taste charateristics, all tasters have to be blind folded with them stating if they are sampling a red or white wine.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by meustrus on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:51PM

      by meustrus (4961) on Wednesday December 21 2016, @10:51PM (#444506)

      I imagine this will be the new refuge of the Stradivarius investment groups (and yes, some of the instruments have been purchased by groups of investors)

      This is something I take issue with. Because people now have a solely financial incentive in the instrument, we have to devote all this time to discerning whether it's really worth what they want it to be worth. On top of that, unless they are loaning the instrument out to musicians (which would be bad fiscal policy due at least to the chance of theft) they are actively taking some of "the best violins ever made" out of circulation of actually being heard. Perhaps the only silver lining is that when they do loan out the violins, it's done presumably based on merit rather than finances, but this still places a bunch of investors in charge of determining what constitutes enough merit.

      Meanwhile, all that investment money is locked up in an object with near-zero economic impact instead of "making jobs" or whatever it is that supply-side economists claim investment is supposed to do.

      There's no sane way to discourage this kind of investment short of preventing people from getting that rich. And if there was nobody rich enough to pay the current asking price for a real Stradivarius, maybe the price would come down to a point where a real musician could actually afford one.

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