Everyone’s more information has been obtained about the surface layers of the most famous violin of all time with the latest infrared technology and microscopy.
Italian chemists discovered in his researchthat history’s most famous violin maker Antonio Stradivari (ca. 1644–1737) used his instruments directly on the wood, probably animal collagen or caseinso under the varnish.
Chemists from the research institute Elettra and the University of Pavia analyzed two Stradivarius.
Elettra near Trieste specializes in materials research with laser light. The laboratory of the Violin Museum of the University of Pavia in Lombardy focuses on the research of old instruments. Stradivari worked in the same regions in Cremona.
The latest the subjects of the study were the Toscano violin from 1690 and the San Lorenzo violin from 1718. So Stradivarius are known by name and the reputation of the violins is only growing.
Finnish violinist Fairy tale Vänskä has played the Stradivarius in the Australian Chamber Orchestra in Sydney. In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he says that he heard that some company tried in vain to design a Stradivarius copy on a computer.
The two-hundred-year-old violin, on the other hand, still plays and fascinates. In the first two months of this year alone, twenty studies were published that deal with the sound of the Stradivarius in one way or another.
Researchers took a sample of less than a square millimeter from the six-wood sound box of both.
They study them with new nanophotonics methods. They placed the sample under the tip of an atomic force microscope.
Instead of a lens, the device has a sharp tip that describes the shape of the surface even with the precision of individual molecules or atoms. There are forces acting between the tip and the surface that can be measured.
The gap between the tip and the surface acts as an opening from which the infrared light directed at the sample scatters, i.e. is reflected in different directions.
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Researchers are interested in the durability of musical instruments. The reason is that many Stradivarius are still played.
The researchers imaged the scattering of light, i.e. the reflection in different directions, with a near-field microscope. It could see the light right on the surface of the sample.
Some of the scattered light spreads close to the object and some further away. A so-called near-field microscope detects near-light and can separate an object of a few tens of nanometers. An ordinary microscope only separates objects with a size of hundreds of nanometers.
Using near-field microscopy, the researchers found proteins called amide I and amide II in the violin sample. The abbreviations stand for proteins that regulate apoptosis, i.e. cell death.
In the past, it was known that there is some organic substance under the varnish. However, it was not known what kind of substance was there.
Of both on the violins, the research device also revealed scratches 300–500 nanometers deep and 6–11 micrometers wide. It says that the surface was sanded.
Information of the material will help the researchers a lot further, although not all the details of the construction method can be deduced yet.
The method used required samples that had to be very small. Therefore, for example, it is not known how the smoothing layer is distributed on the surface of the violin.
The work is a step forward in modern violin research that began in the 1980s. It has been studied before wood material and lacquer, which have also been found many kinds of chemicals.
Also researchers are interested in the durability of musical instruments. The reason is that many Stradivarius are still played. The expertise and work of the restorers is also behind the sound of the played Stradivarius.
“Violins wear out with use. Fretboards, pegs and other wearing parts have to be replaced,” says the head of instrument maintenance Mikko Pietinen from the Sibelius Academy.
“The value of a historical instrument is affected by how many original parts are left: base, cover, sides, neck and others.”
The Sibelius Academy has one Stradivarius, which came as a donation in 1900. It is still played, but according to Pietinen, it only became playable in 1989.
Then a violin maker Eero Haahti restored it. According to Haahti, it was a big job because over time the violin had been repaired incorrectly.
“We had to restore a lot. The wood was missing at the cracks, which had to be replaced with new wood to restore the original shape. The old wood has a different aspect and hiding the repairs is one problem,” Haahti describes.
“Fortunately, the chips left over from repairing the inside could be used for camouflage. The corrected points don’t catch the eye, although of course I recognize them myself.”
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“The player must adapt to the instrument and patiently coax out of it what he wants.”
How how much do stradivaris differ from the best violins built today?
“Stradivaris were already valuable when new. They were in the hands of prominent players,” Haahti reminds.
The instrument develops as it is played. The wood gets used by vibrating, and this can be heard in old instruments.
“A good quality new instrument is an easy companion. It’s like a child who still needs to learn to speak. Just like a child’s linguistic expression of the influence of the environment, the sound of the violin also develops according to the player’s vocal understanding and requirements,” says Haahti.
Old instruments, on the other hand, are often capricious.
“Over the course of history, they have developed a character. The player must adapt to the instrument and patiently coax out of it what he wants. And over time, the instrument also adapts to its player.”
Because According to Haahti, it is impossible to compare the Stradivarius with a modern instrument. And he has an important message for the layman. The reputation of Stradivarius is also deep in the minds of the player and the listener.
“The psychological effect is important. When you believe in the violin, you make it work the way you want,” says Haahti.
The history and monetary value of an old value violin inspire confidence. You can learn to trust a new instrument with the same results. According to Haahti, the musicians actually argue about the superiority of the sound.
“Blind tests of Stradivaris have been in the news for years. The question is the placebo effect, which has been studied and accepted in many different fields, i.e. trust in something outside, which allows the individual to get more out of himself.”
In medical research placebo effect is a disorder that is eliminated by double-blind testing. In treatment, the phenomenon is useful. When treating certain pains, placebos have even been found to help even when the patient knows they are receiving a placebo.
And in concerts the players want to play anyway and the listeners want to hear the Stradivarius, whatever the blind tests said.
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“There are many things in violin making that cannot be measured.”
Stradivarius It is even impossible to explain the mysticism exhaustively with physical and chemical studies. It also involves extreme craftsmanship, which makes each instrument unique.
“Wood is an individual material. I choose a piece of wood material that is about fifteen years old. Along with many other possible objects, that tree contains the best violin that can be born from it. My challenge is to dig it out with as few mistakes as possible,” says Haahti.
“Working with wood is also very intuitive, wood needs a sense.”
Industrialization had an effect In the 19th century, industrialization also had an effect on the manufacture of violins.
“The entrepreneur gave his assistants the exact measurements. For example, each violin case had to be three millimeters thick throughout. But because the pieces of wood are not identical, some of the violins turned out to be good, most of them mediocre.”
For carbon fiber, you can say that the thickness must be three millimeters, but not for wood.
“There are many things in violin making that cannot be measured. Attempts have been made to measure and simulate the behavior of wood material in a violin with a computer. The result has been a lot of pseudoscience, whose connection to practical craftsmanship is covered in fog,” says Haahti.
Final knowledge about the secrets of the sound of the high-class violin, despite the recent studies of Stradivariuses, was thus lacking. We are only at the beginning of the natural scientific understanding of both old and new violins.
The most accurate of violins double-blind study have been made by an acoustics researcher at Paris Curie University Claudia Fritz and his colleagues from France and the United States.
They have reformulated the mission. Regardless of where and when the violin was built, it is necessary to study which characteristics of the instrument at any given time affect the quality of the sound. Therefore, wider multidisciplinary research is needed to unlock the riddle of sound.
Read more: Researchers: Stradivarius does not play better than new violins
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