What is the secret of Antonio Stradivari? Detailed answer

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What is the secret of Antonio Stradivari? Detailed answer

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What is the secret of Antonio Stradivari?

Nicolo Amati, the famous violin maker, picked up little Antonio Stradivari on the streets of the city of Cremona during the plague epidemic - all the boy's relatives died, and he became homeless. Stradivari made his first violin on his own at the age of thirteen, and the last - when he was over ninety. In total, Antonio Stradivari made about 1200 violins, each of them has a special brand of the master. Today, Stradivari violins are extremely expensive.

But why do Stradivari violins sound so beautiful to this day? What is the secret of the master? For centuries, violin makers have been trying to unravel this secret. Old violins were taken apart, tried to carefully copy them, but in vain. Modeled after the Stradivarius violins, the instruments had a sound that only remotely resembled the magical sound of the great master's violins.

Someone claimed that it was all about the secret of the varnish that the violins are covered with in order to protect the instrument from exposure to dampness and various fumes. So that the varnish does not penetrate too deeply into the wood, the violins are first coated with a special compound - primer, then eight to twelve layers of varnish are applied, and each of them dries for about two weeks. And the details of the violin are glued only with animal glue, which is easily soluble in water. This is necessary so that the tool can be disassembled during repair.

But, having examined the varnish and primer, the experts came to the conclusion that they do not contain any secret. Lacquer for his violins Antonio Stradivari bought from a pharmacist friend and chose it solely because of the color he liked.

Others claimed that the secret was in the size of the parts of the violins. But here, too, is a problem. It turns out that the great violin makers Guarneri and Stradivari each time created a violin slightly different from the previous one. And all dissimilar violins sounded equally excellent! What is the point anyway?

Over time, it turned out that the famous masters, before gluing the body of the violin, tuned the upper and lower decks ... without strings yet. If you draw a bow or just tap on a violin deck-lid, it will make a certain sound. And violin soundboards are not so easy to make, because they are thicker in the middle, and thinner at the edges. If you do not follow this rule, then the soundboards will be too dense and will not resonate with the sound of the strings, their trembling will die out almost immediately. Therefore, the old masters, making violin soundboards, constantly listened to them, achieving a certain tone of sound. Perhaps this is the secret of Antonio Stradivari's violins?

Every good violin has a soul, if you like, a part of the master's soul. Stradivarius was already sixty years old when he created his best violins. Their sound is deep and powerful, they sing with an almost human voice, responding to the slightest movement of the bow. Probably, this happened thanks to the intuition and vast experience of Antonio Stradivari. His craftsmanship has remained unsurpassed, and the most valuable violins in the world are made by his hands.

Author: Cellarius E.Yu.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

Who added the word divine to the title of the poem Divine Comedy?

Dante himself called his famous "Divine Comedy" simply "Comedy". In those days, there was still a strict division of poems into a high genre - tragedies, which were written about serious matters in Latin, and a low genre - comedies, about more mundane things with a happy ending in everyday language. Although the Divine Comedy deals with rather serious topics, it was the "vulgar" Italian language of the poem that prevented it from being called a tragedy. And the word "divine" was added to the name after the death of Dante by another poet of the early Renaissance, Giovanni Boccaccio.

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