What is a stradivari violin. The unique sound of Stradivarius violins was explained by the peculiarities of the chemical composition of wood. Instruments by Antonio Stradivari

Location and exact date The birth of the notorious Italian violinist-master Antonio Stradivari has not been precisely established. The estimated years of his life are from 1644 to 1737. 1666, Cremona is a mark on one of the master's violins, which gives reason to say that this year he lived in Cremona and was a student Nicolo Amati.

More than 1000 violins, cellos and violas were created by the great master, devoting his life to the manufacture and improvement of instruments that glorified his name forever. About 600 of them have survived to our time. Experts note his constant desire to endow his instruments with a powerful sound and richness of timbre.

Entrepreneurial businessmen, knowing about the high price of the master's violins, with enviable regularity offer to buy fakes from them. All Stradivari methyl the same way. His brand is the initials A.B. and a Maltese cross placed in a double circle. The authenticity of the violins can only be confirmed by a very experienced expert.

Some facts from the biography of Stradivari

The heart of the brilliant Antonio Stradivari stopped on December 18, 1737. Presumably, he could live from 89 to 94 years, creating about 1100 violins, cellos, double basses and violas. Once he even made a harp. Why is the exact year of the master's birth unknown? The point is that in Europe XVII plague reigned for centuries. The danger of infection forced Antonio's parents to take refuge in the ancestral village. This saved the family.

It is also unknown why, at the age of 18, Stradivari turned to Nicolo Amati, a violin maker. Perhaps the heart told? Amati immediately saw in him a brilliant student and took him to his apprentice. Antonio began his working life as a handyman. Then he was entrusted with work on filigree wood processing, work with varnish and glue. So the student gradually learned the secrets of mastery.

What is the secret of Stradivari violins?

It is known that Stradivari knew in great numbers the subtleties of the "behavior" of the wooden parts of the violin, the recipes for cooking a special varnish and the secrets of proper installation were revealed to him. In his heart, the master, long before the end of the work, already understood whether the violin could sing beautifully or not.

Many masters high level they could not surpass Stradivari, they did not learn to feel the heart of the tree as he felt it. Scientists are trying to understand what causes the pure unique sonority of Stradivarius violins.

Professor Joseph Nagivari (USA) claims that the maple used by the famous violin makers of the 18th century was subjected to chemical treatment in order to preserve the wood. This influenced the strength and warmth of the sound of the instruments. He wondered: could the treatment against fungi and insects cause such purity and brightness of the sound of the unique Cremonese instruments? Using nuclear magnetic resonance and infrared spectroscopy, he analyzed wood samples from five instruments.

Nagiwari claims: if impact is proven chemical process, it will be possible to change modern technology making violins. Violins sound like a million dollars. And restorers will ensure the best preservation of ancient instruments.

The lacquer that covered Stradivari instruments was once analyzed. It was revealed that its composition contains nanoscale structures. It turns out that even three centuries ago, violin makers relied on nanotechnology.

An interesting experiment was conducted 3 years ago. They compared the sound of a Stradivarius violin and a violin made by Professor Nagivari. 600 listeners, including 160 musicians, assessed the tone and power of the sound on a 10-point scale. As a result, the Nagiwari violin received higher marks. However, violin makers and musicians do not recognize that the magic of their instruments is due to chemistry. Antiquarians, in turn, wishing to maintain a high cost, are interested in preserving the aura of mystery of ancient violins.

December 12, 2016 on stage Concert Hall named after P. I. Tchaikovsky Russian violist and conductor Yuri Bashmet and his chamber ensemble Moscow Soloists performed in honor of the 25th anniversary of the band.

The musicians played the instruments of Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati, which were specially anniversary date delivered from the collection State collection musical instruments of the Russian Federation.

TASS spoke with the first deputy CEO Museum of Musical Culture. M. I. Glinka Vladimir Lisenko and violin maker Vladimir Kalashnikov and found out why these violins are so valuable, and the name Stradivarius has become almost a household name.

Why are these violins so unique?

The so-called baroque violins, which were created before the middle of the 17th century, had a rather modest chamber sound. They had a different shape, and the strings for them were made from ox tendons.

Craftsman Nicolo Amati from Cremona, Italy, reshaped and improved the acoustic mechanism of the instrument. And his students - Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri - brought the design of the violin to perfection.

The talent of these craftsmen lies primarily in the manufacturing technology and how carefully the balance of the instrument was built. It is precisely because of this that it is believed that these violins have no equal today.

But if there were other masters, why are Stradivari instruments most famous?

It's all about the diligence of the master. During his life, Antonio Stradivari, according to various estimates, created from a thousand to three thousand instruments. his main life purpose he considered making violins.

On the this moment Around 600 Stradivarius instruments have been preserved around the world. For comparison, the Guarneri family created a little more than a hundred, Amati (from the founder of the Andrea dynasty to Nicolo) - several hundred.

In addition, Stradivari was the first to make a violin of the shape and size that we know today. We can say that this is a brand surrounded by legends and having a great heritage. And it matters to the big live musicians or collectors who buy these instruments.

What is the secret of the Cremonese masters?

There is a certain system that has now been studied, with the exception of one thing - what kind of primer the violins were covered with. Outside, this lacquer provides a high degree of preservation, while inside it enhances the acoustic effect.

Thanks to this, no one has yet been able to repeat just such a sound. Scientists even did a spectrographic analysis, but the composition and technology of applying varnish still raise questions.

That is, no one has yet been able to unravel this technology?

Back in the 19th century, the French master Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, who was a follower of Stradivari, dismantled one of his violins. He studied it, reassembled it and made exact copy. But, as contemporaries noted, the sound, although approaching Stradivari instruments, was still worse.

Is it really impossible for anyone to create a violin close in quality to Stradivari instruments?

Strictly speaking, science and technological progress have advanced far enough. There are violins that are as close as possible to Stradivari instruments.

Even during the life of Stradivari, the instruments of Andrea Guarneri's grandson, Giuseppe, were popular. He was nicknamed "del Gesu" because he signed his work with the monogram IHS (Jesus Christ the Savior).

But Giuseppe was a very sickly man and because of this, he made the instruments rather casually in terms of finishing. Although musicians note the more powerful sound of Guarneri's instruments. One of the violins Giuseppe played Nicolo Paganini.

The great master of string craftsman Antonio Stradivari has not been with us for almost three centuries. Secret the greatest master never managed to figure it out. Only his violins sing like angels. modern science and the latest technology failed to achieve what for the Cremonese genius was just a craft ...
What is the secret of Antonio Stradivari, did he exist at all, and why did the master not convey the secret to the successors of his kind?

"From some piece of wood..."

As a child, Antonio Stradivari simply went crazy at the sound of music. But when he tried to express by singing what sounded in his heart, it turned out so badly that everyone around him laughed. The boy had another passion: he constantly carried a small pocket knife with him, with which he honed numerous pieces of wood that came to hand.

Parents predicted Antonio a career as a cabinetmaker, which he was famous for. native city Cremona in northern Italy. But one day, an 11-year-old boy heard that Nicolo Amati, the best violin maker in all of Italy, also lives in their city!
The news could not but inspire the little boy: after all, no less than the sounds of a human voice, Antonio loved to listen to the violin ... And he became a student of the great master.

Years later, this Italian boy would become famous as the manufacturer of the most expensive violins in the world. His products, which were sold in the 17th century for 166 Cremonese liras (about 700 modern dollars), will go under the hammer for 4-5 million dollars each in 300 years!

However, then, in 1655, Antonio was just one of the many students of Signor Amati who worked for free for the master in exchange for knowledge. Stradivari began his career as an errand boy. He rushed like the wind through sunny Cremona, delivering Amati's numerous notes to wood suppliers, a butcher or a milkman.

On the way to the workshop, Antonio was perplexed: why did his master need such old, seemingly worthless pieces of wood? And why does the butcher, in response to the signor's note, often wrap vile blood-red intestines instead of appetizing garlic-smelling sausages? Of course, the teacher shared most of his knowledge with his students, who always listened to him with their mouths open in amazement.

Most - but not all ... Some of the tricks, thanks to which the violin suddenly acquired its own unique, unlike anyone else's voice, Amati taught only his eldest son. Such was the tradition of the old masters: the most important secrets should have stayed with the family.
The first serious business that Stradivari began to entrust was the manufacture of strings. In the house of master Amati, they were made from ... the insides of lambs. Antonio diligently soaked the intestines in some strange-smelling water (later the boy found out that this solution was alkaline, created on the basis of soap), dried them and then twisted them. So Stradivari began to slowly learn the first secrets of mastery.

For example, it turned out that not all veins are suitable for rebirth into noble strings. Most best material, learned Antonio, these are the veins of 7-8-month-old lambs raised in Central and Southern Italy. It turned out that the quality of the strings depends on the area of ​​the pasture, and on the time of slaughter, on the properties of water, and on a host of other factors…

The boy's head was spinning, but this was only the beginning! Then came the turn of the tree. Here Stradivari understood why Signor Amati sometimes preferred ordinary-looking pieces of wood: it doesn’t matter how the tree looks, the main thing is how it sounds!

Nicolò Amati had already shown the boy several times how a tree could sing. He lightly touched a piece of wood with his fingernail, and it suddenly resounded with a barely audible ringing!

All varieties of wood, Amati told the already grown up Stradivarius, and even parts of the same trunk differ in sound from each other. Therefore, the upper part of the soundboard (the surface of the violin) must be made of spruce, and the lower part of maple. Moreover, the most “gently singing” spruces are those that grew in the Swiss Alps. It was these trees that all Cremonese masters preferred to use.

Like a teacher, no more

The boy turned into a teenager, and then became an adult man ... However, in all this time there was not a day that he did not hone his skills. Friends were only amazed at such patience and laughed: they say, Stradivarius will die in someone else's workshop, forever remaining another unknown apprentice of the great Nicolo Amati ...

However, Stradivari himself remained calm: the score for his violins, the first of which he created at the age of 22, had already reached tens. And even though everyone was branded “Made by Nicolo Amati in Cremona”, Antonio felt that his skill was growing and he would finally be able to get honorary title masters.
True, by the time he opened his own workshop, Stradivari turned 40. At the same time, Antonio married Francesca Ferrabocchi, the daughter of a wealthy shopkeeper. He became a respected violin maker. Although Antonio never surpassed his teacher, orders for his small, yellow-lacquered violins (exactly the same as those of Nicolò Amati) came from all over Italy.

And the first students have already appeared in the Stradivari workshop, ready, like he himself once, to catch every word of the teacher. The goddess of love Venus also blessed the union of Antonio and Francesca: one after another, five black-haired children, healthy and lively, were born.

Stradivari had already begun to dream of a peaceful old age, as a nightmare came to Cremona - the plague. That year, the epidemic claimed thousands of lives, sparing neither the poor nor the rich, nor women, nor children. The old woman with a scythe did not pass by the Stradivari family either: his beloved wife Francesca and all 5 children died of a terrible disease.

Stradivari plunged into the abyss of despair. His hands dropped, he could not even look at the violins, which he treated like his own children. Sometimes he took one of them in his hands, held the bow, listened for a long time to the piercingly sad sound and put it back, exhausted.

Golden period

Antonio Stradivari was saved from despair by one of his students. After the epidemic, the boy was not in the studio for a long time, and when he appeared, he wept bitterly and said that he could no longer be a student of the great signor Stradivari: his parents had died and now he himself had to earn his living ...

Stradivari took pity on the boy and took him to his house, and a few years later adopted him altogether. Having become a father again, Antonio suddenly felt the taste for life again. With redoubled zeal, he began to study the violin, feeling a keen desire to create something extraordinary, and not copies, even excellent ones, of his teacher's violins.

These dreams were not destined to come true soon: only at the age of 60, when most people are already leaving for a well-deserved rest, Antonio developed new model violin, which brought him immortal fame.

Since that time, Stradivari began the "golden period": he created the best concert quality instruments and received the nickname "super-Stradivari". So far no one has reproduced the flying unearthly sound of his creations ...

The violins he created sounded so unusual that it immediately gave rise to many rumors: it was rumored that the old man had sold his soul to the devil! After all a common person, even if he has golden hands, cannot make a piece of wood make sounds like the singing of angels.

Some people seriously argued that the tree from which some of the most famous violins, are fragments noah's ark.

Modern scientists are simply stating a fact: the master managed to give his violins, violas and cellos a richer timbre, a higher tone than that of the same Amati, and also to amplify the sound.

Together with the fame that scattered far beyond the borders of Italy, Antonio found and new love. He married - and again happily - the widow Maria Zambelli. Maria bore him five children, two of whom - Francesco and Omobone - also became violin makers, but they could not only surpass their father, but also repeat.

Not much information has been preserved about the life of the great master, because at first he was of little interest to chroniclers - Stradivari did not stand out among other Cremonese masters. And yes, he was a reserved person.

Only later, when he became famous as a "super-Stradivari", his life began to acquire legends. But it is known for sure: the genius was an incredible workaholic. He made instruments until his death at 93.

It is believed that in total Antonio Stradivari created about 1100 instruments, including violins. The maestro was amazingly productive: he produced 25 violins a year.
For comparison: a modern, actively working craftsman who makes violins by hand produces only 3-4 instruments annually. But only 630 or 650 instruments of the great master have survived to this day, the exact number is unknown. Most of them are violins.

Wonder Options

Modern violins are created using the most advanced technologies and achievements of physics - but the sound is still not the same! For three hundred years there have been disputes about the mysterious "secret of Stradivari", and each time scientists put forward more and more fantastic versions.

According to one theory, Stradivari's know-how is that he possessed a certain magical secret of violin varnish, which gave his products a special sound. It was said that the master learned this secret in one of the pharmacies and improved the recipe by adding insect wings and dust from the floor of his own workshop to the varnish.

Another legend says that the Cremonese master prepared his mixtures from the resins of trees that grew in those days in the Tyrolean forests and were soon completely cut down. However, scientists have found that the varnish used by Stradivari was no different from what was used in that era by furniture makers.

Many violins were generally re-lacquered during restoration in the 19th century. There was even a madman who decided on a sacrilegious experiment - to completely wash off the varnish from one of the Stradivari violins. And what? The violin didn't sound worse.
Some scholars suggest that Stradivarius used high mountain fir trees that grew in unusually cold weather. The wood had an increased density, which, according to the researchers, gave a distinctive sound to his instruments. Others believe that the secret of Stradivari is in the form of an instrument.

They say that the thing is that none of the masters put so much work and soul into their work as Stradivari. An aura of mystery gives the products of the Cremonese master an additional charm.

But pragmatic scientists do not believe in the illusions of lyricists and have long dreamed of dividing the magic of enchanting violin sounds into physical parameters. In any case, there is definitely no shortage of enthusiasts. We can only wait for the moment when physicists reach the wisdom of the lyricists. Or vice versa…

A group of scientists from Taiwan and Germany came to the conclusion that the outstanding sound of the Stradivarius violin is due to the special chemical composition of the wood, which was achieved by processing the wood with a special composition. The research article was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .

As reminds N+1, the violins of the master Antonio Stradivari, who lived in Cremona in the second half of the 17th - first half of the 17th centuries, are considered the best instruments of their kind. The only violin maker whose success was comparable to that of Stradivari was his contemporary and neighbor Giuseppe Guarneri. According to many musicians, the sound of Stradivari and Guaneri violins is still unsurpassed, so the best violinists usually prefer them to modern instruments.

Taiwanese and German researchers decided to find out exactly what features of the violins of the two great masters make their sound unique. To do this, they conducted a chemical analysis of samples of maple wood used to make the back of instruments from two violins and two Stradivari cellos, as well as one Guarneri violin. For comparison, the researchers also analyzed the maple wood from which five contemporary Italian violins were made.

Nuclear spectroscopy magnetic resonance(NMR), mass spectrometry and synchrotron X-ray diffraction showed that the wood of the Stradivari and Guarneri instruments differed significantly from the wood modern violins composition of organic and inorganic substances. In particular, in vintage instruments about a third of the hemicellulose had time to decompose, and the lignin turned out to be partially oxidized.

At the same time, the differences in the composition of inorganic substances turned out to be much more noticeable. Scientists have found that the wood of Stradivarius violins was treated with a complex preservative composition containing aluminum, calcium, copper, sodium, potassium and zinc. Apparently, this composition was used by the master for preliminary soaking of wood.

Currently, this method of wood preparation is not used in the manufacture of violins - wood for instruments is simply air-dried for several years. In addition, it follows from the documents of the 18th and 19th centuries that even then the violin makers did not use special compositions for wood processing.

According to the researchers, this suggests that this method of wood preparation was practiced only by some craftsmen in Cremona, and the secret of the mineral solution was lost. However, further research may help to reconstruct the exact composition of the solution.

The researchers note that the unique sound of the Cremona violins, apparently, is due to a combination of three factors: wood processing, aging, and vibrations when playing instruments, which over several centuries led to a change in the structure of wood fibers.

The most famous in the world violin maker Antonio Stradivari was born in 1644 in Cremona. It is known that already at the age of thirteen he began to study violin making. By 1667 he had completed his apprenticeship with a renowned master bowed instruments Andrea Amati.

Stradivarius made his first violin in 1666, but for more than 30 years he was looking for his own model. Only in the early 1700s did the master construct his own, still unsurpassed, violin. It was elongated in shape and had kinks and irregularities inside the body, thanks to which the sound was enriched due to the appearance a large number high overtones. From that time on, Antonio no longer made fundamental deviations from the developed model, but experimented until the end of his long life. Stradivari died in 1737, but his violins are still highly valued, they practically do not age and do not change their "voice".

During his life, Antonio Stradivari made about 2,500 instruments, of which 732 are indisputably authentic (including 632 violins, 63 cellos and 19 violas). In addition to bow strings, he also made one harp and two guitars.

It is generally accepted that the most best tools were made from 1698 to 1725 (and the best in 1715). They are especially rare and therefore highly valued by musicians and collectors alike.

Many Stradivari instruments are in rich private collections. There are about two dozen Stradivari violins in Russia: several violins are in the State Collection of Musical Instruments, one is in the Glinka Museum (where it was donated by the widow of David Oistrakh, who in turn received it as a gift from English queen Elizabeth) and a few more - in private ownership.

Scientists and musicians around the world are trying to unravel the mystery of the creation of Stradivari violins. Even during his lifetime, the masters said that he had sold his soul to the devil, they even said that the wood from which some of the most famous violins were made was fragments of Noah's ark. There is an opinion that Stradivari violins are so good because a real instrument begins to sound really good only after two or three hundred years.

Many scientists have conducted hundreds of studies of violins using the latest technology, but they have not yet been able to unravel the secret of Stradivari violins. It is known that the master soaked wood in sea water and exposed it to complex chemical compounds of plant origin.

At one time it was believed that the secret of Stradivari was in the form of an instrument, later great importance they began to attach to the material, which is constant for Stradivari violins: for the upper deck - spruce, for the bottom - maple. They even thought that the whole thing was in varnishes; The elastic lacquer that covers the Stradivari violins (due to its soft consistency, small dents and scratches on the surface are quickly healed) allows the soundboards to resonate and "breathe". This gives the timbre its characteristic "surround" sound.

According to legend, the Cremonese masters prepared their mixtures from the resins of some trees that grew in those days in the Tyrolean forests and were soon completely cut down. The exact composition of those varnishes has not been established to this day - even the most sophisticated chemical analysis turned out to be powerless here.

In 2001, biochemist Joseph Nigivare of the University of Texas announced that he had solved the secret of Stradivarius. The scientist came to the conclusion that special sound bow was the result of the efforts of the master to protect them from the woodworm. Nigivara found out that during the creation of the violin maker, wooden blanks were often struck by a wood borer, and Stradivari, in order to protect the unique musical instruments, resorted to the storm. This substance, as it were, soldered the molecules of the tree, changing the overall sound of the violin. By the time Stradivarius died, the wood-borer had already been defeated in northern Italy, and subsequently the borax was no longer used to protect the tree. Thus, according to Nigiwara, the master took the secret with him to the grave.