Correct … Trigger’s Broom
Remind me please, where in Amurrika do people talk like that?
The Tin Woodsman of Oz
I don’t play violin myself but can I just highlight that Joshua Bell is a bit more than just a violin player. He is one of the greats.
I know him as the performer of the soundtrack to The Red Violin, a brilliant film about a Strad.
I get the feeling that Stradivarius devotees would use a version of the No True Scotsman ploy to dismiss the blinded comparison.
“No truly top-of-the-line violinist could fail to distinguish a Stradivarius from a new violin.”
I wonder if odor could potentially be a tell. Do ancient violins have a mustier smell than their modern counterparts? Do counterfeiters use spray bottles of Classic Violin Odor?
I suspect that violins do vary in quality, and that Stradivarii are on the high end of the quality scale, but that the best modern instruments are still comparable to them. But a genuine Strad or a genuine modern high-quality violin would still either one sound better than the fiddle found in a typical high school orchestra.
Likewise, I would expect that any high-quality instrument would be more demanding than a low-quality one: It’ll do exactly what you make it do, and hence what you make it do matters more.
A long time ago I read an article in some skeptic magazine (it might have been The Skeptical Inquirer or Michael Shermer’s Skeptic magazine about Stradivarii as related to many of the things mentioned above. The basic gist, IIRC, was that the mystique of the Stradivarius is essentially a crock (for want of a better word).
There are several different issues here:
- are there differences in quality between violins, and
- are Stradivarius violin significantly better than the best modern violins.
The study appears to deny the second claim, and I see no reason to disbelieve it.
However, AFAIK it is not seriously disputed that there exist quality differences between violins. I recently was looking for a new violin and tried out eight violins and they were clearly different in many respects, how much they resonate, whether they have a warmer, darker sound or brighter sound, how easy it is to get a stronger sound out of it. If someone thinks (like the OP) it is just the strings, try playing when you have stuffed the f-holes with cloth and see whether it sounds the same.
Some of the confusion may also arise because there are two perspectives: whether they sound different and whether they are different to play. My current instrument plays differently, better for me, but on a recording it sound quite similar to my old instrument. See also that video of Ray Chen, where the audible differences are not always so dramatic.
I had no doubt that I heard diffences in the NPR audio test – no doubt they’re easily measured – but I wouldn’t expect my preference based on that hearing to be universal. It is perhaps interesting that luthiers who try to mimic Strads seem to feel that they never quite succeed. Ah, well.
Like so many things, anyone can tell the difference between shitty and great, experts or aficionados can tell great from excellent and amongst the excellent it’s effectively impossible to discern. I recall the Skeptic journal violin article. I recall that there were carbon fiber composite violins that many experts consider superior to wood.
I concur.
Once, my cello teacher handed me his cello, the one he had used in several professional recordings, and asked me whether I wanted to try it.
I immediately noticed that it was significantly easier to get a sound out of it. Where it took quite a bit of pressure to get a full sound from my low-end cello, I could play his so effortless that it was a joy. Metaphors of warm butter, and all. But I very quickly realized that, unlike mine, his cello responded to every single micro-movement I made, and very unpredictably.
Someone made an analogy to driving a sportscar above, well, I don’t drive but it feels correct. My teacher’s cello was so reactive it was exhilarating to play, but very difficult to control. For me at least.
I would agree with this. From everything I’ve read, the Stradivarius hype is a lot like vintage-wine hype. It’s true that good wine is better than bad wine, good winemakers produce better wine than bad ones, but there’s no magical secret sauce that justifies a 500x price multiple on a certain wine vs. its retail competitor. It’s all about the mystique.
If I hand a wine aficionado a bottle of wine that has notes of soap, grass, and pig scrotum, and I tell them it’s a rare vintage that just sold for $18,000, they’re going to find some very nice things to say about the taste of soapy grassy pig balls.
Similarly when you hear talented violin players talk about how they play a Strad, well, they’re going to describe any violin in terms that make no sense to a layman like you, because they’re expert professionals who have prodigious experience playing many types of violin.
But equally importantly, they’re humans subject to the same biases and superstitions as everyone else. Additionally, they benefit professionally from the existence of the Stradivarius mystique (as well as having played one, and hence having an opinion about it).
Some wine, and musical instruments, are just rare, and therefore expensive, regardless of whether or not one prefers the specific sound above all others.
My limited experience playing cello decades ago matches this observation.
I had a talent show I once did (arm twisted by my dad), and all I could hear was the screeches and scratches of every stroke on the strings.
Keep in mind the wood of the box is laquered and glued, so the wood is pretty well protected from aging. However, the laquer and glue are also materials that age, albeit much more slowly.
True.
Strads are prized because at the time, they were the highest quality. Stradivarius developed the right techniques to maximize the sound quality.
Nowadays modern instruments can achieve equal or superior quality sound, but the Strads are still the benchmark in part due to the mystique from when they were the ultimate.
However, their value comes not just from the superior sound (which may be superceded by modern instruments), but from being old and rare works from a specific master craftsman.
A Picasso is going to be expensive just for being a Picasso.
Reminds me of this.
I know him personally-- or maybe, knew him, is better, albeit, the last time I ran into him, he was very friendly, and remembered lots of things about me.
We were born the same year, and grew up in the same synagogue, so were in the same religious school class, and the same bar/bat mitzvah class.
He’s a really nice guy-- absolutely nothing disingenuous about him, so anything he says about the violins isn’t snobbery, I trust that absolutely.
He had one sister a year older than me, and one a two years younger, and I was more friends with his sisters than with him, but we talked a lot, and sometimes he played board games with us.
There’s a question I’m dying to ask him, but I don’t want it to sound like the kind of “got’cha” question reporters ask.
It’s this: I read the same Skeptic article on the Cremona violins (Stradavarius, and several other makers in the same city at the same time that are considered as good, just not as famous), and something dawned on me: I have always believed the legend of the Cremona violins, because every time I heard one it was magic-- but then I realized-- I’ve never heard one not played by a Josh Bell-caliber violinist. I heard Yitzhak Perlman play one, I heard Isaac Stern play one; I’ve heard the Beaux Arts Trio like, and IIRC, a couple of them played them. And I’ve heard them in recordings.
So, of course they sounded special. I’ve never heard an eighth grader who takes one private lesson a week since he was 11, and takes orchestra class in his middle school, and got a B last semester play one.
But, on the other side, I saw a program a long time ago on PBS on the Cremona violins. It featured a current violin-maker who was so skilled, she could produce a violin that played anyway the violinist wanted-- crisper, softer. more robust, etc.
One point I have not forgotten is that during the time Stradivarius et al. were working, it was during the “little ice age,” and this had an effect on the way trees grew, so the wood of the time was unlike wood before or since, at least in the history of violin making. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten what was different, but it’s probably Google-able.
I have to go, or I will be late for work.
Everything you hear on YouTube has passed through a compression algorythm that renders any comparison between two instruments moot and does probably both instruments, but surely the Stradivarius a disservice. It is an amazing thing that our brains can make up for most of the loss and we still enjoy the performances.
Still glad YouTube exists, don’t get me wrong. I am getting old and my ears are not as discerning as they once were, not to mention my tinnitus, so little is lost to me with the compression algorythms. It’s just not a valid medium for really apreciating an exceptional instrument.
I have read this many times and it’s the common hypothesis on why they supposedly can’t be reproduced with modern wood.
Great overall post. It’s cool that you knew him.
Has anyone tried to find the same species from a climate that matches that of the area during the little ice age? Seems like a good way to test the hypothesis.
Or just find an antique piece of furniture made from the same trees.