Thread: $10 million for a violin for Australian orchestra

Here is a nice article http://www.alfstudios.com/news/artic...sProspect.html Stradivari’s Heirs on Prospect Street

and another http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/13/4/8
Science and the Stradivarius


And I dont have a musical bone in my body

Cheers

Originally Posted by old_picker

Talking about the guys who made the cremona violins ... probably used wood in their violins that was put aside for air dryng by their great grandfathers while they were buying and storing woods for their great grandsons.

dunno about that. Strad and Del Gesu, as far as i am aware, pretty much came up with the design of what we now now as the violin. If they were just using traditions passed down for hundreds of years, you would think there would be at least a few 500 year old violins around, or fossilised ones, no? But there aren't. other instruments, yes, but not violins as we know them. And they haven't really changed much in design or material since then, although you would have thought that the tradition would have continued to be passed on from master to apprentice - which it HAS!!!

But ... we just can't make 200 year old violins from scratch, can we?

MT

There is more art than mechanics in making fine instruments I think. It is the same in many things we humans do and thankfully in my opinion. It gives you a reason to keep doing it. I used to make surfboards and even with the controlled man made materials used it was always impossible to make two boards that felt the same and we are talking about a pretty simple structure compared to an instrument. If making a guitar (or a violin or surfboard) could be reduced to a simple formula I suspect many people would stop doing it.

I have just finished reading a book called Stradivari's Genius which tracks the life of 5 famous strads. But Giuseppe Guarneri 'del Gesu' features in the book. Rather than being beautifully made, del Gesu's are described as "...the only consistent alternatives to Strads for the virtuosic soloist; dark, powerful and responsive. Roughly worked, often slipshod, they were little valued in their maker’s lifetime, at least by most purchasers. Stradivari, however, must have known differently. Conscious of his younger rival, he determined to maintain his own standards.”

The best surfboards I ever shaped were when I used my instinct and got in this focused zone where you just did it and did not think about it too much. And try to make it look like you think it should look. Trust yourself. Very Zen. That to me is one of the most satisfying places to be mentally. I hope achieving this in guitar building is what will make the difference between a good guitar and a brilliant one.
Dom

Well the annonymous benefactor impressed SWMBO, which is a rare thing! I'm a classical fan, and she won't call anything produced before 1970 music, so this is a major achievement. In the end we agreed that spending 10m on something for no reason other than to make someone else (us) happy is as great a thing as you are ever likely to do.

According to the Syd M Herald, Richard T.'s previous violin was a mere $1.2M item, so you'd think he'd know the difference.

BTW, are you sure that in 250 years time, the items revered from our own period will be the craftsman produced furniture, or the pieces produced by global companies with large marketing budgets? I'd like to think that history is the ultimate discriminator - to use a musical analogy, Bach was ignored in his own lifetime, but history has made a different call.

Isn't it a bit like saying Michelangelo's "Pieta" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3...ichelangelo%29) is just a piece of stone?

Matthew, maybe in 250 years, my archtop and your bass could be worth 10mil too!

Originally Posted by Malibu

Matthew, maybe in 250 years, my archtop and your bass could be worth 10mil too!

only if we finish them

Originally Posted by contrebasse

I think that the theories of secret varnish recipe, special groundcoat, secret techniques, even special woods etc are on the whole, red herrings. Kiwigeo, I'd argue with your points 2 and 3. Unless you show me proof! Scientists can prove blue is red if they want to.

Matthew, its fact that high quality tonewood is getting harder to get and more expensive. Export of Brazilian RW is banned and even woods like Honduras Mahogany is getting harder to procure. High quality tonewoods are a finite resource.....end of story.

I'm out on an oil rig at present so dont have access to my library but check out the GAL Big Red Book series or publications from the Catgut Society for numerous articles by both scientists and luthiers (often both) on sound properties of wood and influence of guitar design on sound of same. I think philosophers can easily prove blue is red but for a scientist to do so is a bit more difficult. A bit hard to fudge the output from an audio spectrum analyzer.

Originally Posted by kiwigeo

Matthew, its fact that high quality tonewood is getting harder to get and more expensive. Export of Brazilian RW is banned and even woods like Honduras Mahogany is getting harder to procure. High quality tonewoods are a finite resource.....end of story.

I don't argue with that at all. But I'm not so sure the reason that the 200 year-old instruments sound so good is because of the quality of the wood they used. Particularly for violin. Although expensive, even "top grade" wood fletch for a violin is not out of reach to a top maker, who, I think, is the only one likely to be able to get the full potential from that wood. If someone gave me the best wood in the world I'm sure it would be wasted on me at this stage in my career.

As far as spectrum analysers go, well I've read a lot of catgut stuff too and a lot of university scientific analysis... and I just reckon the jury is still out. Too many variables, really - even with carleen hutchins at the helm - to be able to isolate individual "ingredients" and do rigorous scientific tests. Nagyvary, who claims to be doing leading edge contemporary scientific research on violin construction, seemes to be able to get breakthrough scientific stories on front page in the media every few years - but his research does not, in my experience, hold up for very long.

I maintain the principle that cream rises to the top - and that OLD cream is perhaps better than new cream!!!!!

Originally Posted by contrebasse

I maintain the principle that cream rises to the top - and that OLD cream is perhaps better than new cream!!!!!

I'll agree with that.

Originally Posted by zenobia

There is more art than mechanics in making fine instruments I think. It is the same in many things we humans do and thankfully in my opinion. It gives you a reason to keep doing it. I used to make surfboards and even with the controlled man made materials used it was always impossible to make two boards that felt the same and we are talking about a pretty simple structure compared to an instrument. If making a guitar (or a violin or surfboard) could be reduced to a simple formula I suspect many people would stop doing it.

I have just finished reading a book called Stradivari's Genius which tracks the life of 5 famous strads. But Giuseppe Guarneri 'del Gesu' features in the book. Rather than being beautifully made, del Gesu's are described as "...the only consistent alternatives to Strads for the virtuosic soloist; dark, powerful and responsive. Roughly worked, often slipshod, they were little valued in their maker’s lifetime, at least by most purchasers. Stradivari, however, must have known differently. Conscious of his younger rival, he determined to maintain his own standards.”

The best surfboards I ever shaped were when I used my instinct and got in this focused zone where you just did it and did not think about it too much. And try to make it look like you think it should look. Trust yourself. Very Zen. That to me is one of the most satisfying places to be mentally. I hope achieving this in guitar building is what will make the difference between a good guitar and a brilliant one.
Dom

Well said Zenobia. I know what you mean. The secret ingredient is of course, Laarve. (and I actually believe this) Very hard to maintain the focus and love when all around you is distracting and the piece one is working on has a mind of its own. Even worse, some instruments seem to be conspiring against you. These may well be the ones with the highest potential. Not so different with the animals.

I too agree Zenobia,

I have been practicing meditation for some time and it really came in handy when I had to deal with crafting my very first instrument.

No woodworking skills, or hand / powertool skills this chick when in cold.

Instruction was great by the actual end result was up to me and the timber combined.

Over the past 10 months 3 other people have chosen the same combo of timber as my little guitar and all are going to sound different.

The sanding, and the sanding, and the sanding -Zen focus
Finite finishing of bracings - Zen Focus
Timber selection - Natures selection

It is what is is.

End results are just that. Like making a cake.

So I guess we are all hoping the our instruments actually last 200 years and not pop, crack or buckle.

Cheers Fiona

Actually I dont think the difference matters and is anyway totally subjective!
It is like those audiophile freaks who pay $60,000 for a pair of speakers . They dont buy them on sound they buy them because of claimed frequency response and harmonic distortion figures. They cant hear the difference because most of it if it exists happens way beyond the hearing range of humans anyway. Point is they derive pleasure from having something of quality something that sets them apart from others. In their own way they "appreciate" the difference even if they cant perceive the difference!

I dont claim that there is not a significant difference between a $10,000 modern violin and a Stradivarius worth $10,000,000 but I cant appreciate the difference and I would not support spending that sort of money on it.
Why? Am I a Philistine? No I simply do not like/appreciate what it is used for or what is created with it .To my ear most solo violin work sounds like cats copulating in a sack!
On the other hand people who have a love of this art form would pay $20,000,000 for it and think it a bargain but wouldnt spend a cent on instruments that I think are worth saving for posterity!

No one person is right it is subjective and we value what is important to us not what is important! or valuable intrinsically.
Mind you I would rather have $10,000,000 spent on a violin than on the institute of sport or the war in Iraq!


Ross

Got to make you wonder that if Mr. Stradivarius' name was something a little more simpson-esque like Ivana Pokensniff or something, whether people would be as willing to fork out the dough:

My violin is a 200 year old Stadivarius...

or...

My violin is a 200 year old Pokensniff...

Well, people will always find something to spend ridiculous amounts of money on regardless of what it is.

The stradivarius is such an iconic name to the general public, let alone to someone that has spent a huge proportion of their life trying to master the violin, that I could imagine that it would be the only name you would want. The whole effect could be a placebo or phallic, who would know, but if the end result is there, well, who cares? If I owned a stradivarius and someone offered me 10 mil for it, I would not say to them, "don't you think thats a bit too much to pay for it? How 'bout 10 thousand instead?" At least the violin does something, look at how much people pay for a piece of artwork?

Originally Posted by zenwood

In today's The Australian is an article about a donation of a violin worth $10 million to the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

That prompted me to wonder: has anyone ever done a scientific study on whether people can hear any differences between a violin worth millions of dollars, and other violins worth less astronomical amounts?

LOL. No violin is worth anywhere near that, maybe that's why they donated it...who would be silly enough to consider buying at that price...but then again, there's always someone... I can think of so many ways to help people that really need it, than spend or donate a $10mil violin to an orchestra.