Stradivari violin tonal qualities due to....chemicals?

[TheVat]

https://phys.org/news/2021-08-secret-stradivari-violin.html

 

New research co-authored by a Texas A&M University scientist has confirmed that renowned violin maker Antonio Stradivari and others treated their instruments with chemicals that produced their unique sound, and several of these chemicals have been identified for the first time.

Joseph Nagyvary, professor emeritus of biochemistry at Texas A&M, who first proposed the theory that chemicals used in making the violins—not so much the skill of making the instrument itself—was the reason Stradivari and others, such as Guarneri del Gesu, made instruments whose sound has not been equaled in over 200 years. An international team led by Hwan-Ching Tai, professor of chemistry at National Taiwan University, has had their findings published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

About 40 years ago at Texas A&M, Nagyvary was the first to prove a theory that he had spent years researching: that a primary reason for the pristine sound, beyond the fine craftsmanship, was the chemicals Stradivari and others used to treat their instruments due to a worm infestation at the time.

[joigus]

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

New research co-authored by a Texas A&M University scientist has confirmed that renowned violin maker Antonio Stradivari and others treated their instruments with chemicals that produced their unique sound, and several of these chemicals have been identified for the first time.

 

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

About 40 years ago at Texas A&M, Nagyvary was the first to prove a theory that he had spent years researching: that a primary reason for the pristine sound, beyond the fine craftsmanship, was the chemicals Stradivari and others used to treat their instruments due to a worm infestation at the time.

This hypothesis was very much talked about as far as decades ago. If I remember correctly, it was on a Scientific American issue.

[Ken Fabian]

I've heard variations of this - treating the wood with rotting fruit was one I'd heard of. Plums if I recall correctly. I've also heard claims that blindfolded violinists prefer the sound of modern instruments and can't tell which is Strativari's.

I also wonder what Enthalpy thinks.

[joigus]

1 hour ago, Ken Fabian said:

I also wonder what Enthalpy thinks.

Let's give them a call:

Hi, @Enthalpy.

Edited August 21, 2021 by joigus

[Enthalpy]

Hello nice people!

Such theories abound and none uses to be confirmed when checking more samples. Among competing theories, one claims that wood improves over the centuries as it loses mass. Others claimed the wood was stored in ponds for decades. Or that the climate was colder then (but just an altitude 120m higher does the same).

As a general warning: mistrust all such claims, especially the spectacular ones. Be they correct or not, they find too easily a path into the general Press to bring career advantages to the authors, especially since the Shanghai rating.

For instance "Guarnieri, Guadagnini and Stradivari aren't better" is just cr*p. Violinist do recognize old Italian violins, or rather good instruments. The difference is bigger than for wind instruments. Tests claiming "no difference" are just badly conducted.

• You notice differences better when playing the instrument than when listening at it. Some affect the ease of playing, not the sound.
• Musicians hear better than an average journalist.
• It takes time to notice the differences. I saw a "test" that ran a scale up and down, end.
• One must target artificially, provoke, check and reproduce the differences. Once you noticed them, you hear them in normal music too. Playing only some Mendelssohn won't tell anything in 5min. But you would notice the differences after days of normal use.

Yes, some less old instruments are excellent, equalling arguably old Italian ones. More and more soloists (Hilary Hahn, Vilde Frang...) play instruments made by Vuillaume.

One should also remember that the old Italian instruments differ much now from the original sound.

• The string materials have changed. Huge difference, stronger than between two instruments.
• The bridge's curvature was increased. To avoid collisions between the bow and the soundbox, bridges rose, and their stronger push relies on thicker bass bars now. This raised some resonances.

Finally, many soloists prefer old Italian instruments because these are louder and more brilliant, a necessity to play in a big concert hall with an orchestra accompaniment, but these instruments don't sound nicer at all. Chamber musicians or Gypsies would comment "OK, loud and responds very easily, but sounds horribly, I prefer that other instrument" with a nice warm dark tone.

[John Cuthber]

1 hour ago, Enthalpy said:

As a general warning: mistrust all such claims, especially the spectacular ones.

OK
 

 

1 hour ago, Enthalpy said:

Violinist do recognize old Italian violins, or rather good instruments.

I presume you can provide evidence for that.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like a link to it.

"Stradivari violin tonal qualities due to....chemicals?"

 

Yes.

It's possible that the only chemicals concerned are in the brain of the listener, but chemicals are certainly involved.

[geordief]

Is it the case that only a few of us can really say whether or not a Stradivarius is much better than  (or just distinctive from?)  other similar instruments?

Those who can play it at the highest level and those (few?) who can appreciate the different performances of the instrument and the player?

 

Since ,I guess it is mainly the most virtuoso  or musically sensitive who actually play these instruments(?)  is it hard to separate out the two effects?(skilled artist or exquisite instrumentation)

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by geordief

[Enthalpy]

If a musician has time to find out the main differences between two bowed instruments, and then plays the instruments for you and tells you at what to listen, you will notice the difference. It's much more striking than between two clarinets.

Maybe I should search among the many records on Youtube. I remember hearing a comparison between two celli, it was impressive even over computer loudspeakers.

[TheVat]

I note the article carefully refers to the tonal qualities of these violins as "unique" and not "better than others."   Also,  I don't see the claims made as "spectacular, " but rather fairly restrained,  in the article cited.   As a musician myself,  I have heard string players (string theorists, if you will) speculate for years that it was the varnish that made Cremona violins stand out,  so I found it interesting to hear that old canard tossed,  and that perhaps it was the anti-worm treatment that made more of a difference.   

Quote

He said that the varnish recipes were not secret because the varnish itself is not a critical determinant of tone quality. In contrast, the process of how the fresh spruce planks were treated and processed with a variety of water-based chemical treatments is critical for the sound of the finished violin.

This makes sense,  and I agree with the researchers that further research is needed to see how these chemicals change (and then preserve) the tone.   

[zapatos]

This is a very interesting topic. Here's some additional information on the violins.

Quote

"In terms of physics, we haven't found any differences, basically, between new and old Italian violins," she explains.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/05/08/527057108/is-a-stradivarius-violin-easier-to-hear-science-says-nope

[TheVat]

17 minutes ago, Enthalpy said:

If a musician has time to find out the main differences between two bowed instruments, and then plays the instruments for you and tells you at what to listen, you will notice the difference. It's much more striking than between two clarinets.

 

Yes.   The difference between two woodwinds is keenly dependent on the reeds (which is why reed making is an especially big part of being a professional  oboist) more than other parts.   A poor reed will ruin a woodwind.   But string instruments seem to depend on a much wider range of factors,  involving contact points,  parts and acoustic surfaces.   

55 minutes ago, zapatos said:

This is a very interesting topic. Here's some additional information on the violins.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/05/08/527057108/is-a-stradivarius-violin-easier-to-hear-science-says-nope

Fascinating study.   I liked both sound clips,  new and old violin,  and didn't find one to be better.   But hearing it live,  in the hall,  would be more useful than sound clips on a tablet.   

I think the comparison of a Strad to a Picasso might be valid.   Buyers aren't shelling out millions for a Picasso because his painting is superior to others,  they pay because they value his cultural impact and reputation and power to influence.   They value it both because it's good art AND because the artist is an iconic figure.  

[John Cuthber]

5 hours ago, Enthalpy said:

If a musician has time to find out the main differences between two bowed instruments, and then plays the instruments for you and tells you at what to listen, you will notice the difference. It's much more striking than between two clarinets.

Maybe I should search among the many records on Youtube. I remember hearing a comparison between two celli, it was impressive even over computer loudspeakers.

It is well documented that people hear what they "expect" to hear, so that "experiment" doesn't tell us anything much.

 

And
https://integratedlistening.com/blog/2015/09/24/what-you-see-is-what-you-hear-the-mcgurk-effect2/

There's another problem; I'm not very musical, but even I can tell the difference between, say, a banjo and a ukulele.

That's because they are slightly different instruments. A better ear than mine would be able to discern  much smaller differences in construction.

And, as you have pointed out, there are differences in manufacture between an ancient and modern violin.

"

• The string materials have changed. Huge difference, stronger than between two instruments.
• The bridge's curvature was increased. To avoid collisions between the bow and the soundbox, bridges rose, and their stronger push relies on thicker bass bars now. This raised some resonances."

So we would expect them to sound different.

So the question is how much of the difference is due to whatever mystical treatments Antonio Stradivari gave the timber, and what is down to the fact that it's a differently engineered instrument?

You are not comparing like with like.

 

[TheVat]

There is,  overall,  a problem when purely scientific empirical standards are applied to the domain of art.   We don't really have an objective handle on how much better is the judgment of a trained musician ear than an ordinary listener (except in regard to pitch identification, which can be objectively measured).  And the musician may be moved by the player's artistry when judging tonal qualities,  which blows in more subjective smoke.  And so many of the descriptive terms, like "resonance, " don't have rigorous definitions.   It is telling that the trained listeners in @zapatos linked study seemed unable to accurately distinguish old and new instruments.  

 

[Ken Fabian]

As someone who plays guitar a bit (I play a homemade 1 string box bass too) I appreciate Marc's (Enthalpy) point that it takes time playing instruments to fully appreciate their qualities - and it doesn't come down to any one thing. I had a guitar maker "adjust the intonation" - which involved small changes to the bridge (on the guitar body, that the strings go over) to change the precise active length of each string, compensating for differences between each string (thickness of strings, wound vs unwound). It means the frets line up more precisely to the required notes when you hold the string down. The differences were small but real but I needed to warm up my fingers and play for some time to notice a difference.

I suppose the test will be if such chemically treated woods get made into violins and in a century or two we will be able to know... except there is much less highest quality specialist timber than ever before and a lot more instruments are being made; sourcing the same kinds and quality of wood as Strativari used adds another impediment.

[John Cuthber]

On 8/22/2021 at 12:13 AM, Ken Fabian said:

The differences were small but real but I needed to warm up my fingers and play for some time to notice a difference.

Did you  measure the difference or are we going to have to take your word for it?

You could ask the Royal Society about that.

 

But I will assume you are right; there is a difference.

As you say, the guitar maker made "small adjustments" to the guitar and that changed the sound.

That's certainly a reasonable idea.

 

Now, if we know that small adjustments to the design will give a change in the sound the trouble with the experiment is that we don't have a violin which is identical to the Strad in the shapes and sizes of the bits, but different in the way in which the wood has been treated. Until we make one, we can't do a proper test..

As Enthalpy says

On 8/21/2021 at 11:42 AM, Enthalpy said:

Tests claiming "no difference" are just badly conducted.

Well, so are all the others.

There's another wrinkle too.

Consider one bit of the instrument- say the bridge.

Does the density of it make a difference to the sound?

I presume it does.

 

So, when we make our "copy" of the Strad do we choose a piece of timber with the same density as the master? For the sake of discussion, let's say it was a bit denser than most of the wood he used.

How do we know if he achieved that sound by choice of dense a piece of wood, or by some sort of treatment or particular choice of varnish?

Did he just use thicker varnish?

 

If he did, was it because he wanted the instrument to sound really good a few hundred years after he died rather than "now", when he was selling it to a customer?

Because he will have realised that the timber and the timbre will change with time...