Why ORIGINAL Stradivari DON'T exist?

In this video, I delve into the captivating history of Stradivari's violins and reveal an intriguing fact: all Stradivarius violins (except one or two) in circulation have undergone dramatic modifications over the years. The original baroque necks, bridges and bass bars have been replaced with modern style ones as we know and use them now. Iinfluenced by musicians' desire for enhanced virtuosity and speed during performance.
I will provide valuable insights into the historical context that led to the transition from baroque style to the more powerful performing and versatile modern set up. This change has been done between the 18th and the 19th century.
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Meanwhile all the best from Cremona
Edgar
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[@tullochgorum6323]

Once you understand that modern Strads and del Gesus have radically altered necks, bass bars and bridges, you have to start wondering whether their reputation relies more on their romance, history, beauty and investment value rather than their playability and sound. Certainly, careful blind testing suggests that even the best are matched by the top modern makers. I have met two high level pros who actively prefer their modern instruments to any Golden Age violin they have tried. I myself have played a certified Jacob Stainer, and although I'm only an amateur I didn't feel it matched my own rather nice modern fiddle. Of course this is all quite subjective, so it's an argument that will never be resolved. But there's surely no need for any concertising pro to despair if they can't secure a $$$ multi-million classic Cremona.

[@bluehoo0]

Well said I concur with your statement. Had I been more articulate I would have made the same comments.

[@EdgarRuss]

it's a very complex subject! nowadays sound perception is changing as well. I agree but I still have respect for what and how the Great makers worked and therefore I can perfectly understand the continues raising of the value of their instruments. All the best from Cremona Edgar

[@tullochgorum6323]

@@EdgarRuss Edgar - thanks for responding! We can certainly agree that they are beautiful works of enormous historical value. There can't be any other human invention of such complexity that was perfected in the 17th C to the point that it has barely been improved in all the intervening years. So these great instruments must still be the inspiration for almost every modern maker. I've just discovered that many years ago a friend of mine knew the instrument curator of the Ashmolean in Oxford. He was able to arrange for a maker friend to access the collection, including the Messiah. They spent a couple of hours examining these glorious Amatis, Strads and del Gesus. He is a keyboard player, not a fiddler, but said that even for him it was a quasi-spiritual experience!

[@srinitaaigaura]

​@@EdgarRussJust let the musicians keep playing great music on those violins for 100 years. They will open up and open up more and more. Even a cheap student violin like mine has opened up a lot in 20 years, not to mention the upgrades I did on it (bridge, fingerboard, setup, strings and bow).

[@srinitaaigaura]

The violins are valued on what they have already done, not what they can do vs a modern violin. Wait and see what happens to the new violins by the next century.

[@Bekindtopeople]

I really like this soft spoken voice over. The explanation was wonderful!! I like this type of video👍

[@InfoArtistJKatTheGoodInfoCafe]

Beautifully explained. And then there are the pre-war carved top L5 guitars that Gibson's Lloyd Loar modeled after master cellos. Like my 1938 blonde "GUT" guitar with original white pick guard!

[@bluehoo0]

Very informative Edgar, red hot nails I never imagined they did that.

[@chrisebbesen5798]

Thank you Mr. RUSS, FASTENATING, I MADE A PUN! ERGO, SECURING NECK WITH THE RED HOT IRON NAILS TO AID PENETRATION. I DID NOT KNOW THIS PROCEDURE. ALSO DID NOT KNOW USE OF SPRUCE IN EARLY BAROQUE STRADS FINGER BOARDS. MY SINCERE THANKS. MOST GRATEFUL, CHRIS,USA

[@nicolasrahnama6333]

Fantastico, thanks for very informative video.

[@ghlscitel6714]

Thank you, Maestro.

[@umiviolalefut1593]

Enjoyed the history lesson. 🙂👍 Thank you!

[@EdgarRuss]

You are welcome! All the best from Cremona Edgar

[@picksalot1]

Thank you so much for making this video and specifying the numerous modifications that are regularly made to modernise vintage violins. I was only aware of a couple of the modifications, and was shocked by the actual amount. It shines a whole new light and redefines what the word "vintage" actually means in the world of violins, and perhaps other instruments.

[@EdgarRuss]

That's the way it is! All the best from Cremona Edgar

[@randomdestructn]

Good video. You've really stepped up your audio and editing. It flows a lot better now and is easier to listen to.

[@EdgarRuss]

Thank you! Thats thanks to the help of Cristian. Edgar

[@ellisc.foleyjr9778]

I'm an 80 year old "Weekend Woodhacker" love to dabble. but not a serous builder. but love the thinking behind all of this. Just recently past three or four years started following Violin making and the intricacies. involved in their building and making. and its interesting the mental thought that prevails amongst the builders and makers through out the centuries. The extent of the study of the woods. used. the techniques. each maker has his own ideas on glue mixtures, varnish mixtures, and each is trying to duplicate the strads. and they might be achieved in hundred years when the woods have the same time to age and develop the same sounds. facinating concepts keep up the good reporting to duffers like me I love it. ECF

[@EdgarRuss]

Thanks for your interesting comment! All the best from Cremona Edgar

[@gregmonks]

Why doesn't anyone build a violin to 18th-century specifications so we can see and hear what a violin with the shorter neck and gut strings sounded like? I've searched high and low for such a demonstration and have come up empty. You could be the first . . .

[@RAkers-tu1ey]

Really great info. Fascinating. I have encountered the red hot nails in really old (Louie XIV copies) maple furniture, but I never knew the technique extended to violins. I wonder if it came from the violins, and moved to furniture with the advent of Louie XIV table and chair legs, which look a lot like violins. Sometimes the nails are blind, requiring a magnet to be used before any sawing!

[@donbachmeier7617]

Awesome! My mind has been blown!

[@EdgarRuss]

great to know! All the best from Cremona Edgar

[@tyremanguitars]

this reminds me of a professor when I studied at the university of leeds who researched early violins and baroque music, he was showing us how it actually would have sounded in stradivarius times as well as mozart and it was radically different to what we are used to hearing now with gut strings, in my opinion much more pleasant sounding with less sharpness.

[@EdgarRuss]

Correct! But you can't make the same audience with such baroque style instrument. And for nowadays use..... 😉

[@jomamahan]

Oh o

[@srinitaaigaura]

More like an acoustic guitar type of sound. Somewhere between those old viols and modern violins. Today's violins are much throatier.

[@gregmonks]

Excellent! Linking to my video on the same subject. I've yet to hear even a modern replica of an 18th century violin with the shorter neck and gut strings. All the "replicas" I've seen have the modern longer neck. Sharing as well!

[@EdgarRuss]

👍🏼

[@dennismeehan11]

Another great bit of education, many thanks. One question, were gut strings shorter to achieve the frequence range that violins in that early era was wanted. I'm no physicist but the longer the string the lower the frequency. To compensate would require thicker but strings for modern violin size. Is that a fair assumption. On this point running was required 300 years ago hence tuning forks must have existed and are still to be found. Another guess on my part.

[@liamnevilleviolist1809]

8:28 - I think I can see a slight imperfection in the maple of the fingerboard a couple of centimetres away from the nut. Could this be a repair? Is it possible that Stradivari himself or perhaps a worker of his added matching wood to the end of a slightly-too-short fingerboard? We all know him to be a perfectionist of course so my first thought is that he'd likely make a fingerboard out of one cut of maple rather than having a fingerboard with a slight "flaw". Other thoughts?

[@jayblair4344]

Hello Mr. Russ , Did Stradivarius ever use amber inlay . On the back ?

[@gregmonks]

What did they do with all the old parts from all the old violins?

[@EdgarRuss]

Good question! usually musicians keep them in the case for the rest of their lives; than the next owner cleans up. and here they are gone for ever. All the best from Cremona Edgar

[@srinitaaigaura]

While the wood may have been ultra dense in the Marauder Minimum period of cold, pretty much everything on old violins is upgraded. The bow has also totally changed, and bows also make a tremendous difference to the sound. Just look at a Baroque violin and bow and see for yourself. The real secret is playing good music on them continuously and getting them repaired by the best hands in the business for 300 years. Any new violin made today will sound much better in 100 years. Heck my own student violin now sounds so much better than anything 10x its price range because of all the upgrades and after 20 years of playing on it. Not all that improvement is mine, see I didn't play on it for years and it sat up in the attics getting beaten and battered around for a few years too.

[@charliegrandison1176]

What a fantastic video !

[@EdgarRuss]

Grazie mille!

[@arfanhanba6161]

👌❤

[@Gonzalo_Chalo_Luthier]

👏👏👏

[@EdgarRuss]

Thanks

[@californiadreamin8423]

No mention of how the base bar changed when new necks were fitted.

[@EdgarRuss]

👌🏽

[@californiadreamin8423]

@@EdgarRuss Hello. Have you covered this, or plan a new video in the future ? Thank you….in advance 🙀

[@user-wz2qe2pv6r]

When our top flight heros do a side by side test with a Strad v say the best modern instruments...they always play the Strad second..this means they are pre-dispossed to then play the Strad with more gusto and better...I think thats why we think Strads are so much better. Are they?

[@gregmonks]

It just occurred to me, Edgar- since Cremonese violins haven't existed for 200 years, what, then, is the modern violin? How do we define the sound? And who gets to do so? Since it's all mythology, does this mean that no one can be considered an expert? The sound of the modern violin can't be said to belong to any school because none of those schools exist. The Cremonese violins were altered to suit the "modern" tastes of two centuries ago, so what standards can we be talking about? The goal posts have been moved so many times that striving for exactitude is like trying to nail a fart to the wall.

[@fernandochavez1830]

What about the Messiah Stradivarius?

[@EdgarRuss]

That's one of the only ones which is still in original style! Edgar

[@oakhurstaxe6392]

I was going to post same thing. One guy did most of the surviving Strad updates, and he did them in a way that no one is sure how he did it.

[@fernandochavez1830]

The Messiah is not original. Villaume modified it.

[@oakhurstaxe6392]

@@fernandochavez1830 That was his name. I had thought he never modified the Messiah. Thanks for the info!

[@fernandochavez1830]

@@oakhurstaxe6392 he modified. In the musseum is the original bass bar and a label showing the information

[@mikethespike7579]

It's all about provenance with these old instruments, not about their sound. A bit like old master paintings. Almost nobody apart from one or two experts can tell a good counterfeit from the original. But it's only the original that commands the highest value while the original is worth almost nothing.

[@alanaliyev456GT]

1% (6 instruments) had not be modified ...all other Strads had improved diring centuries...and parts had change.

[@GarGlingT]

Stradivari violin wood is patched.