Adonis saw his first symphony orchestra yesterday. He couldn't keep his eyes off the violins. It was an orchestra afterall, and an orchestra belongs to the strings...
There was a radio program on NPR about American violinist, Robert McDuffie. An elegant Southerner, he-- in the great company of so many of the famous soloists of today-- studied at Julliard under Dorothy Delay. Several years ago, the gentleman fell helplessly and, yes, hopelessly in love with the 1735 Guarneri del Gesù violin, the "Ladenburg."
Played by history's most famous violinist, Paganini, McDuffie said it was love at first sight, It was, he insisted, perfect for him. Sounds great, but how to pay for it? At $3.5 million dollars, this was no simple matter. He contacted banks and foundations, but no one would get on board. You can read about the plan he came up with by following the links below, but in a nutshell: he formed a corporation, found investors and the rest is beautiful music history.
What is interesting to me was what was his part of the bargain. While the other investors were putting up millions of dollars, McDuffie was in charge of the insurance and upkeep. Which means basically that he was in charge of playing the instrument.
This is the thing. Science just has not figured out everything that there is to know about these violins. Kashmiris will tell you that the more you walk on a fine rug, the more beautiful it will become. These old violins, though, take this to a new level, for as the great violinists tell us, they have to play their instrument constantly to keep it sounding as it should. But no one knows exactly why.
The violin-- it seems simple. Like its older cousins, the Chinese erhu, the Indian Esraj, and the Middle Eastern rebab (which is the violin's direct ancestor), it is a bowed instrument. Horse-hair bow rubs against sheep gut string to create vibrations which are then revereberated inside a soundbox to produce a louder sound. It is simple, and yet-- even modern scientists cannot explain what creates the difference in sound between a strad and even the best modern instrument. And, everyone tells us there *is* a difference.
The magic appears to be in the details. The age of the wood, how the wood was treated-- and the varnish, of course, is thought to be one of the most important missing pieces to the musical puzzle. Here is varnish expert, Joe Robson, in the latest edition of Strad Magazine:
"There is a genuine, well-deserved mystery surrounding the making of the violin. The combination of materials, from the wood to the strings, fittings and varnish, as well as the interaction of the luthier with these materials is-- to say the least-- complex. Likewise, there is a great deal of mystery surrounding the violin varnish itelf. Classic Cremonese varnish in particular has a warmth of color, a livliness of reflection, a clarity and a longevity which have made it the pinnacle of violin coatings..."
I was utterly intrigued by this article. For, of course, anyone who knows me, knows that I don't only love a good mystery, but have been long fascinated by tree sap. Even more amazing then honey, tree sap is perfume, medicine, amber and all the miraculous lacquers of the East.
In his much-loved book, the Golden Peaches of Samarkand, Edward Schafer gives us an elaborate list of Tang exotics-- and of these, the aromatics of SE Asia were treasured almost above all. I've been trying to finish up a post about a great Japanese emperor of the 8th century. Emperor Shomu and his court lived in an exquisite cloud of aromatics; a truly dream-like world of perfumed baths and robes infused with the scent of precious incense brought from the exotic lands to the west.
There was aloeswood, camphor, and sandalwood from Southeast Asia; cinnamon and musk from Vietnam and Frankinscence from Somiland. Cloves were used to freshen the breath. These aromatics were used to treat both body and spirit as they affected the totality of the person: body, mind and soul.
One of his most valued possessions-- a gift from the Tang court-- was a piece of aloeswood. So precious was this piece of incense, it was given a name: Ranjatai*. Only about 61 inches long, the piece of diseased wood weighs some 25 pounds! Native to the aquilaria tree of Southeast Asia, aloeswood has been an important item of trade for centuries and centuries. The tree alone does not produce the wood for incense, however, as the miraculous perfume is only created when an aquilaria tree is infected with a fungus. It is this infection that produces the fragrant resin-like substance. The fragrance is deeply penetrating and is usually described as warm and woody.
The small chips of diseased wood are permeated with this resin, which is what gives it its miraculous perfume (which in this case has lasted 1500 years). More similar to myrrh, perhaps, the main ingredient of violin varnish is resin, which are the solids found in tree sap. There are three main types of resins: amber (made from fossilized sap up to 90 million years old), copal resins (crystallized sap from Mediterranean evergreen trees), and pitch. Made from the sap of a variety of pine species, including the Aleppo pine, this was most probably what Stradavari and the other great Cremonese masters used for their varnish.
Beautiful Greek pitch-- this is what rosin (which is also essential to making music on the violin) is made from as well. Can you imagine? The finest, most exquisitely beautiful violin music depends on the delicate interaction of human hand with horsehair bow, sheep gut strings and pine sap. Alchemy.
**
Robert McDuffie
Robert McDuffie
--NPR: Interview:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4811389
-- The Love Affair:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1118419
--An article about the violin:
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/arts/Content?oid=oid:46970
Interesting Christian Science Monitor article on Stradivari's mysterious varnish
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1129/p17s1-stgn.html
Strings Magazine article on the production of California-made rosins
http://www.stringsmagazine.com/issues/strings98/rosin.html
This interesting video and article were linked on my other post, but here again:
The Mystery of Stardivarius (24 minutes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy1LD2oxVjU
Did "Little Ice Age" Create Stradivarius Violins' Famous Tone?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0107_040107_violin.html
Comments