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Stradivari's Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection PDF

228 Pages·2006·2.26 MB·English
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PRAISE FOR STRADIVARI’S GENIUS “The real delight of Mr. Faber’s book lies in his decision to tell the Stradivari story through the lives of six of the master’s best-known instruments.” —The Economist “Enthralling and accessible.” —Booklist “Faber’s stylish account savors Stradivari’s marvelous acoustics and the individual personalities of his instruments while exploring the science behind them (X-rays, chemical tests and tree-ring analysis have all been deployed to unlock their secrets) and regaling readers with colorful tales of the musicians who built their careers around them. The result is an illuminating look at an enduring cultural monument.” —Publishers Weekly “A captivating account of the often tangled histories of six celebrated Stradivarius instruments … Especially impressive is Faber’s depth of research.… Highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review) “Lovingly researched … [Faber] is able to let the evolution of the violin unfold before us.” The Sunday Times (London) “Stradivari, said Paganini, ‘used only wood from trees on which nightingales sang.’ That flight of fancy typifies the reverence which these instruments still inspire, and that reverence pervades Toby Faber’s knowledgeable study of the Strads, sharpened by scholarship and a keen eye for an anecdote.” —Literary Review “These stories … Faber weaves seamlessly together, in prose of admirable lucidity.… [He] pitches his story just right, neither patronizing nor baffling the reader.” —The Times (London) “Faber is chatty, user-friendly, eagerly non-elitist, and minimizing of sources, yet his passion for his subject, his painstaking research, his faith in the integrity of musicianship and craftsmanship lifts this book above gossip for the string-playing classes.… Faber’s observations are always illuminating.” —Financial Times “Even the most straightforward biography of Antonio Stradivari, the virtuoso instrument-maker whose craftsmanship to this day baffles scientists and musicians alike, would make for a gripping read.… But Toby Faber is far too restless and instinctive a storyteller to be content with a single time or place. His is more of a quest across centuries and continents in search of elusive treasures rather than a conventional ‘life.’ … It is fascinating to follow his passionate pursuit of the Davidov, a cello currently in hands of Yo-Yo Ma, and five violins, including the fabled Messiah.… Faber keeps the many separate strings of his story in harmony.” —The Observer “Stradivarius is an inspired idea for a book. Because these instruments and their players have reputations that have endured, Faber has been able to find fine tales that hang on each of them. Unlike so many books of this sort, which focus on small things and pan out into world history, Faber has needed no padding or special pleading. Best of all, he remains clear-headed about his subject.” —The Daily Telegraph 2006 Random House Trade Paperback Edition Copyright © 2004 by Toby Faber All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Trade Paperbacks, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. RANDOM HOUSE TRADE PAPERBACKS and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc. This work was originally published in the United Kingdom in 2004 as Stradivarius: Five Violins, One Cello and a Genius by Macmillan UK, and in hardcover in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2005. Grateful acknowledgment is made to The New York Times for permission to reprint a brief excerpt from an article entitled “Davidoff ‘Cello Arrives on Paris” from the November 29, 1928 issue of The New York Times, copyright © 1928 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted by permission. eISBN: 978-1-58836214-8 www.atrandom.com v3.1 CONTENTS Cover Title Page Copyright Epigraph Introduction Chapter One F IVE VIOLINS AND ONE CELLO The Messiah, the Viotti, the Khevenhüller, the Paganini, the Lipiński, and the Davidov Chapter Two “T C ” HE INCOMPARABLY BETTER VIOLINS OF REMONA The Amati dynasty Chapter Three “H ” E WAS A GENIUS ALREADY The origins and development of Antonio Stradivari Chapter Four “H ” IS COSTUME SCARCELY EVER VARIED Stradivari’s golden period, decline, and death Chapter Five “S ” O SINGULAR AND SO BEAUTIFUL The violins of Giuseppe Tartini and Paolo Stradivari Chapter Six “M ” Y VIOLIN SHOULD REALIZE A LARGE SUM Viotti and his Strad Chapter Seven “T V V ” O THE IRTUOSOS OF IOLINS Prince Khevenhüller, Count Cozio, Joseph Böhm, and Tarisio Chapter Eight “T ” HE TURNING-POINT IN THE HISTORY OF VIRTUOSITY Paganini, showman and dealer Chapter Nine “I ” HAVE 80,000 FRANCS ON ME Vuillaume and the Hotel of Delights Chapter Ten “U ” NVEILED IN ALL ITS INTACT GLORY The Messiah makes its mark Chapter Eleven “F ” IND HIS MAJESTY’S SOLOIST Charles Davidov and his cello Chapter Twelve “A ” N IMMENSE RESERVE OF STRENGTH Marie Hall, the Hills, and the Edwardian era Chapter Thirteen “N ” O MATTER WHAT THE PRICE Four Strads go to America Chapter Fourteen “W ?” HAT CAN WE SELL THIS AS Violin dealers and the postwar world Chapter Fifteen “T ” HE SOUND KEPT ON COMING AND COMING The Davidov, the Paganini, the Khevenhüller, the Viotti … and the Marie Hall Chapter Sixteen “A S ” RUN-OF-THE-MILL TRAD Interpreting the Messiah Afterword Appendix One: Chronology of Classical Luthiers Appendix Two: Glossary Appendix Three: Price Conversions Bibliography and Sources Picture Acknowledgments Dedication Acknowledgments About the Author Violins are the lively, forward, importunate wits, that distinguish themselves by the Flourishes of Imagination, Sharpness of Repartee, Glances of Satyr, and bear away the upper Part in every Consort. I cannot however but observe, that when a Man is not dispos’d to hear Musick, there is not a more disagreeable Sound in Harmony than that of a Violin. , THE TATLER APRIL 1, 1710 I have a violin that was born in 1713. It was alive long before me, and I hope it lives long after me. I don’t consider it as my violin. Rather, I am perhaps its violinist; I am passing through its life. IVRY GITLIS, THE ART OF VIOLIN, 2000 A great violin is alive; its very shape embodies its maker’s intentions, and its wood stores the history, or the soul, of its successive owners. I never play without feeling that I have released or, alas, violated spirits. YEHUDI MENUHIN, UNFINISHED JOURNEY, 1976 INTRODUCTION When I was about ten my parents bought me a violin. Comparing instruments was a way for those of us at the back of the second violins to fill the inevitable longueurs of school orchestra rehearsals. One had an elaborately carved fish at the end of its neck instead of the usual snail- shell scroll. Another was a striking, if rather nauseating, olive-green. But we had three more standard criteria to use in comparisons: the violin’s age, where it was made, and the name of its maker. On most of our violins we could establish all three from the labels visible through their left-hand soundholes. My own violin did reasonably well on our first criterion: the 1809 on its label meant it was pretty old, although, I knew even then, too young to date back to the true golden era of violinmaking. Age added more to violins than just antiquity; they needed to be old to sound good. It was this that caused my secondhand damaged instrument by a nondescript maker to cost more than a brand-new one. It had a good tone, despite the small crack in its belly. On our other two criteria, however, my violin scored rather poorly. It was made in Mittenwald, in Germany. The name meant nothing to us, although a lot of our school violins seemed to come from there. As far as we were concerned, good violins came from Italy. If we had known enough, I am sure we would have graded towns within Italy into a pyramid with Cremona at its apex, but I don’t think we had even heard of the place. We were most definitely familiar, however, with its most famous citizen. Stradivari was the only violinmaker whose name carried any weight with us at all. That was the third criterion: your violin either carried the meaningless name of a long-dead maker or it was a Stradivarius. One of those orchestral instruments met all our requirements gloriously: “Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno 1716” (or some similar date), its label proclaimed with splendid confidence. It was

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Antonio Stradivari (1644—1737) was a perfectionist whose single-minded pursuit of excellence changed the world of music. In the course of his long career in the northern Italian city of Cremona, he created more than a thousand stringed instruments; approximately six hundred survive, their quality
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