By Isla Quinn
Antonio Stradivari made more than 1,100 instruments, according to Wikipedia, and about 650 survive. Almost everything after the numbers is argued over.
The article says most were violins, with violas, cellos and some plucked instruments too: five guitars, two mandolins and one harp are documented. He worked in Cremona in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
The wood
Wikipedia names spruce for the soundboards, maple for the back, ribs and neck, and willow for internal blocks and linings. It then cites a tree-ring study of 314 series from 284 authenticated instruments, which found that Stradivari predominantly used Norway spruce from high-altitude forests in the eastern Alps, particularly the Val di Fiemme in Trentino, during what the article calls his golden age, from the early eighteenth century onward. We have not read the study and are repeating the article’s summary of it.
The article on violin making is looser about the same choice. It says most makers preferred Norway spruce harvested in northern Italy for the top, and maple, especially Norway maple and a Bosnian variety, for the back and neck. That fits the Stradivari summary and is less specific. Early makers, it adds, used strips of tiger maple for decoration.
The varnish
The Stradivarius article says the researcher Jean-Philippe Echard reported in 2010 that Stradivari used a mixture of common Cremonese resin, oil and pigment as a varnish, instead of making his own. Echard, the article says, found no traces of specialised ingredients such as proteins, gums or fossil amber. We have not read the 2010 paper. The article does not say what follows from that, and neither will we.
The violin-making article gives varnish as the last step in the building sequence, after the moulds, ribs, top, back and neck, and adds a warning about upkeep. Rosin dust can fuse with the varnish and become impossible to remove without damage if left too long. That is a care note for players, and it comes from one article.
How violins are built
The same article lists the steps. A maker draws plans and a template for the outline, builds a mould of wood, plywood or fibreboard about 12 millimetres thick, and bends the ribs round it using heat. The top and back are carved separately and fixed on. A carved neck is set into a mortise, and varnish goes on at the end. Setting up the instrument means adjusting the neck angle, fitting the pegs, dressing the fingerboard and positioning the soundpost and bridge. The article gives no hours for the work.
Before Stradivari
The violin did not start with him. Wikipedia’s article on Andrea Amati gives his birth as about 1505 in Cremona and his death as 26 December 1577, and credits him with making the first instruments of the violin family in the form still used today, adding a fourth string to earlier three-string instruments. It says he made about 38 instruments between 1560 and 1574 for Queen Regent Catherine de Medici, on behalf of Charles IX of France, and delivered the consignment in 1574. It says several of his instruments survive and some can still be played. The article is just as plain about the limits: there is no scholarly consensus on early violin development, and Amati is listed as a top candidate for the invention alongside Gasparo da Salò and another luthier from Füssen.
The same article says Amati’s sons Antonio and Girolamo were violin makers, and that his grandson Nicolò had apprentices including Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri. That is one article’s account of who trained whom, and we have not checked it against a second.
The other great name
Wikipedia’s article on Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù gives his dates as 21 August 1698 to 17 October 1744, and says he was active from the late 1720s. It says the nickname comes from his labels after 1731, which carry the sacred monogram IHS and a cross. It says fewer than 200 of his instruments survive, all violins apart from one cello that seems to have been completed by him. The article describes his early work as quick and accurate, and his late work as showing increasing haste, with some scrolls crudely carved and f-holes unsymmetrical and jagged. It also says his violins often have a darker, more robust and more sonorous tone than Stradivari’s, and notes that some claim them superior. That is the opposite of a clean ranking. We have not tested either maker’s work, and we are reporting the article’s description.
Does it sound better?
Here the sources are blunt. The Stradivarius article says the reputation for unmatched sound has been debated. It reports that multiple studies from 1817 to 2014 never found any difference in sound between Stradivari’s violins and high-quality violins of other makers in a comparable style. It also gives the criticism: musicians say the tests often lack a double-blind design, use judges who are not experts, and that violin sound is subjective and hard to reproduce. We have not read the individual studies, so we cannot weigh them. What we can say is that the article presents both sides.
The sound bank
The article adds that the Museo del Violino in Cremona created a Stradivarius Sound Bank in January 2019. It records scales and arpeggios on original instruments so their tonal character is preserved. The museum article gives the museum’s opening as 14 September 2013 and says one room holds more than 700 exhibits from Stradivari’s workshop. We have not checked either with the museum.
What the sources do not say
We found no source that tells a buyer how to authenticate an instrument, and we are not going to try. We saw auction prices in the Stradivarius article and are leaving them out. We also found no source on how many luthiers work in Cremona now.
What to ask
Ask who made the instrument and where. Ask what the top and the back are made of. Ask how it was varnished. Ask whether it has papers, and who issued them. Ask to hear it played, and ask to hear a second instrument beside it, because the sources suggest a comparison tells you more than a reputation does.
We are not naming a workshop. We have not sourced one for this piece.
Roam first. Shop later.
If you build violins in Cremona, the process for getting listed is at /sell-with-sephari/