When Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman appeared at last week鈥檚 presidential inauguration, the musicians left their Stradivarius cello and violin at home 鈥� opting instead for modern stand-ins. The cold, quick-changing weather might damage their treasured instruments, they feared.
Now, a chemical analysis of the wood used by Stradivari in his creations hints at the brew used to treat the woods of such instruments.
The recipes might even yield affordable, Stradivarius-quality modern instruments that could handle a bit of rough treatment, says , a chemist and at Texas A&M University in College Station.
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Today, most high-end violins are built out of unadulterated wood. 鈥淭hat may alone explain why everyone has failed to make a violin like Stradivari,鈥� he says.
Salt bath
Nagyvary previously suggested that salt water can impart superior acoustic qualities to wooden instruments.
He has also found that maple used by Stradivari in a violin and a cello three centuries ago seemed to contain chemicals not found in natural wood instruments. Two violins made by Guarneri del Gesu 鈥� an instrument maker from the same Italian city as Stradivarius 鈥� showed similar signatures.
Now, further chemical analysis of wood shavings from these instruments reveals more about the nature of the additives. They included borate 鈥� an insecticide used by Egyptians for mummification 鈥� plus various salts of barium, silicon and calcium, as well as zircon minerals.
These chemicals could affect the wood鈥檚 internal structure and therefore its acoustic properties, Nagyvary says.
Pest proofing?
Chemicals varied widely from instrument to instrument, suggesting that Stradivari and Guarneri did not have a set recipe for treating their wood, Nagyvary says. Moreover, the chemist thinks that the master instrument makers worked with wood that had been pre-treated by others and not necessarily intended for violins.
鈥淵ou get your wood here and start carving,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t did not begin with: get a board and put in chemicals.鈥�
This could explain why these masters did not pass on any recipes to later generations and also why furniture from the same region has not succumb to woodworm, as Milanese furniture has, Nagyvary speculates.
, a scientist at Empa Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research in St Gallen, isn鈥檛 yet convinced that chemical treatments are what distinguish a $1 million Stradivarius from a $1000 student鈥檚 violin. But acoustic measurements of modern violins made with and without mineral preservatives could change his opinion.
鈥淚 think this scientific evidence is required before any relation between treatment with mineral preservatives and the superior quality of the violins of Stradivari and Guarneri can be made,鈥� he says.
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