From Cremona

Among musicians it is generally agreed that string chamber music is the highest, purest medium of expression. The wealthy patrons of art have taken heed: Felix M. Warburg, Clarence H. Mackay, James P. Warburg, Mrs. Robert Bliss, Mrs. Otto H. Kahn, Mrs. Alma Gluck Zimbalist. So, in Manhattan's Aeolian Hall, last week, a new quartet was heard, enthusiastically applauded for a lovely rendition of the Mozart C Major, Schubert D Minor--the Musical Art Quartet. Three of the artists are pupils of Franz Kneisel:--Sascha Jacobsen, Bernard Ocko, Louis Kaufman; one, Marie Roemaet-Rosanov, cellist, pupil of one of the world's greatest interpretive musicians, Pablo Casals.

A peculiar responsibility rests upon these four: to match the tradition of Kneisel, to play upon the instruments of Antonio Stradivari. Felix M. Warburg provided each one with a precious Stradivari, a taut, light, sensitive, beautiful creature that quivers to the slightest vibration of a string, laughs, cries, pleads, cajoles to the mood and art of the musician. These are not things. They are temperaments, identified by their own names for centuries, treasured, loved by the men who have been fortunate to know their richness. The "Titian" was once owned by Efrem Zimbalist. The "Viola Mac Donald" was born in 1701. "La Belle Blondine," the cello that was heard in Spain, was bundled off in silks and felts to the U. S. in return for a fabulous sum of money. The fourth, a "Red" Stradivari, was just recently released from a physician's care; its tone wanted strengthening. For these four fiddles Mr. Warburg paid $200,000. It is not for antiquity this sum has been paid. It is for workmanship. After 200 years, they are still the work of a hand that has never found a rival. Though it is rumored that Mischa Elman has discovered a young Russian exile in Oregon whose work is unique for its artistry, and musicians are hoping that he will in time become the 20th Century Stradivari, there has been nothing in two centuries to compare in brightness, power, softness of tone with the work of the old master. "Even God could not make a Stradivari without Antonio Stradivari." There has been but one Antonio Stradivari in musical history.

In 1644, to the Stradivari, or Stradiverdi, of Cremona, Italy, a son, Antonio, was born. At the age of 14, the lad was trundled off to the shop of Nicolo Amati, master fiddle-maker of the town known all over Europe for its violins. When death came to Amati, Stradivari took over the little shop. He worked, worked. From daylight to dusk, from the dawn of 14 to the darkness of 93. Unremittingly he toiled at his labor of love, creating in all, about 1,100 violins with his own hands, works of art that still mark the apex. A tall, thin man, stoop-shouldered from bending over his tasks, white-aproned, white-capped, so he is described by the few records of his person. He dedicated himself to capturing music from pine trees that heard eagles screech on Alpine peaks. He experimented. He fitted more massive willow blocks into the joints, designed sound holes to curve convergently in harmony with the general form, flattened the waists to give greater resistance to the strings, thus to produce more powerful tones. He made heavier scrolls to counterpoise the instrument in the hand of the player. Now, even a dull artisan can make a tolerable fiddle, if he only copy patiently enough the general dimensions of the master's model. If Stradivari had never done another thing, his invention of the present violin bridge would have merited immortality. Through the bridge, string vibrations are transmitted to the sympathetic wood that quivers in response. If the Stradivari curves in the bridge be altered even the tiniest fraction, the magic vanishes. There may be sound, but nothing to compare with what might "come out" through the master's bridge. His varnish, which varies in color from a soft, transparent golden yellow to light red, is, however, regarded as his crowning achievement, both in itself and in his pains of applying it. Oil varnish is of the utmost importance for preserving violin tone; without it and care in its application, all other efforts soon become vain.

He married twice. His first wife, a widow 15 years his senior; his second, a maiden 15 years his junior. There were eleven children, one for every 100 violins. The last born alone had issue.

It is reported that Cervetto, an Italian musician resident in London in 1800, returned to Cremona a consignment of Stradivari instruments because he could not dispose of them at -L-4 each. Be that as it may, Antonio Stradivari died rich enough to be proverbial--"rich as Stradivari" means Croesus in Cremona. Yet he was ever frugal. He bought his own tombstone at a sale, a second-hand one, from which some of the previous possessor's initials were carved away to make room for a new name. What had he to do with wealth ? He worked. Bent over his tools, testing with infinite care the fitting of every block into every curve, he touched everything he made. His fingers were startlingly muscular, like the fingers of a Mestrovician statue. Through them Stradivari breathed his soul. His work was all his own. It has never been equaled, probably never will be.

*Founder and for 30 years chief player in the Kneisel Quartet (1886-1917), famed and hitherto unsurpassed U. S. chamber music organization. His death last spring (TIME, April 5) then seemed to music-lovers to mark the end of an era not likely to be equaled in this field.