gj Michelob -> RE: Strad's Secrets Exposed? (May 6 2013 17:30:15)
|
quote:
What few people seem to realize (or care to admit) is that of the 600-700 (depending on which expert you choose to believe) surviving Stradivari instruments, only a small percentage of them actually see any kind of regular use. Most of them reside in museum display cases or bank vaults. They aren't all sonic masterpieces by any stretch of them imagination. Another point that is only rarely mentioned is that virtually every one of them has been considerably modified from its original state plus having been subjected to numerous repairs along with often heavy restoration/conservation work. The structural modifications (longer and more angled necks, taller bridges, longer and heavier bass bars, different tailpieces, much higher tension strings, etc.) have altered their sound considerably, so much so that one has to wonder if their current sound is mostly due to Stradivari or to the repair/restoration people who've modified, repaired and maintained them over the years. There is only one existing Stradivari instrument that has avoided modification, a very large tenor viola that was part of a set of instruments that Stradivari built in 1690 for the Medici family. Supposedly everything, except for the strings on it, is original. It resides in the Instutito Cherubini in Florence, Italy. Absolutely good points, to which I think one should add that Stradivari[us]' instruments were not, in his time, as prestigious as his peers' work: "The important fact to be noted here is that Stradivari instruments are more famous today than they were in the 18th century, compared to other more or less contemporary luthiers, like Giuseppe Guarnieri (1698-1744), Niccolò Amati (1596-1684), or Jacob Stainer (1621-1683), not to mention other equally prestigious craftsmen of the same era. This means that some present analytical considerations might waver and risk falling into Presentism. So, when picturing today Boccherini as a cellist of unparalleled high reputation, there is a tendency to link him with (presently) top valued Stradivari, in spite of the fact that any documentary evidence to support such linkage is lacking. This has lead to an inaccurate mixture of Presentism and Wishful Thinking, thus producing a puzzling, yet widely believed tale about one of the still extant Stradivarius instruments, spuriously denominated as "The Boccherini"." [see: http://www.boccherinionline.it/annate/n2-2009/tortella-5.php]
|
|
|
|