The Little Wooden Song Box

The lordly violin and its less illustrious relatives in the string family are in trouble. As today's concert halls grow more cavernous, it becomes increasingly difficult for a solo violinist to project his sound above a thundering orchestra and out to the most distant seats. And even if he does, many stereo hi-fi addicts contend that the sound is only a pale echo of the "electronically enhanced" concertos that they can conjure up in their living rooms.

Troubled by such problems, Cellist Janos Starker recently hit on a solution that is "so simple as to be almost silly." Working with a Chicago violinmaker and a specially designed drill, he bored small, cone-shaped holes in the undersides of the bridges of several string instruments; these holes, says Starker, act like tiny megaphones and "dramatically" amplify the quantity and quality of the tone. So far, he has applied his treatment to 50 string instruments, including the Stradivari played by Chicago Symphony Associate Concertmaster Victor Aitay, who says it has made a "tremendous difference." Starker has applied for a patent for his technique, plans to market the Starker Bridge in six weeks for about $25.

Baked & Boiled. If the new bridge lives up to expectations, it will be one of the most significant tonal innovations in string instruments in 300 years. This, however, is not likely to cut much ice with many performers, if only because musicians have a habit of disagreeing on almost every notion concerning their instruments, especially violins. Fiddle players agree on one important fact, however: the finest violins are the Cremona instruments made by Joseph Guarneri del Gesu (1698-1744) and Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737). There are only about 150 Guarneri and 550 Strads still in existence, and they sell today for $30,000 to $100,000. Most violinists cannot afford that kind of money.

But can't modern technology provide an equally good wooden song box? A few violinists say yes, most say no. In recent years, scientists have studied the art of violinmaking in minute detail; scores of fiddles have been scraped, Xrayed, dismembered, chemically treated, dehumidified, baked, boiled, bombarded with sound waves, measured by oscilloscopes and spectrum recorders -- all to little avail. Though Strads have been copied to within one-thousandth of an inch of the original, the sound never measures up. The reasons for this, as diverse and elusive as music itself, constitute a mystery and mystique that is unmatched in the art.

Polo Balls. To begin with, even the foremost violinists are out of tune. Jascha Heifetz, Leonid Kogan and Isaac Stern like the dark, virile tone of the Guarneri; Zino Francescatti, Yehudi Menuhin and David Oistrakh prefer the lighter, silvery tone of the Stradivari. The Guarneri has the breadth and projection of a contralto, says one camp. Ah, yes, but the Strad has the clarity and finesse of a soprano, counters the other. That Stradivari enjoys a more illustrious reputation, says Heifetz, is because "he had a better pressagent." Actually, claims Jascha, "the Guarneri is a joyous woman, richly experienced in life; the Stradivari is a young, unsophisticated girl."

The clash of opinion reverberates among the luthiers, or violinmakers, as well. Some figure that Stradivari got his wood from as far away as Germany, but most agree that the supple spruce in the tops of his fiddles came from the southern slopes of the Alps, and the curly maple in the bottom and sides from the eastern shores of the Adriatic. To find identical cuts of wood, U.S. Luthier Fernando Sacconi scavenged demolition sites in Italy last summer and salvaged planking from 400-year-old houses. To duplicate the seasoned willow that Stradivari used for braces, one U.S. luthier uses polo balls and broken cricket bats from England, or Lombardy poplar from the crates in which bottles of Chianti are shipped from Italy.

Golden Luster. Then there is the matter of the Great Varnish Mystery. Stradivari used a tacky concoction provided by a local apothecary, the known ingredients of which were oil, gum resin and vegetable coloring. But the precise proportions and the method of application remain unknown. Luthiers have been experimenting with secret formulas for decades, but so far none has been able to match the resiliency, golden luster and lasting power of Stradivari's "pasta." Varnish, contends London Violin Dealer Desmond Hill, is all-important because "it acts as a shock absorber. If the finish is too hard, it makes the tone brittle, if too soft, it makes the tone soggy."

Fiddlesticks, says Konrad Leonhardt, director of the Mittenwald violin school in Germany. "Delightful as the Stradivari varnish might be to look at," he says, "it hardly contributes anything to the sound." Time, say the experts, is far more important. "A man reaches his prime around 40, a violin at about 100," explains Cremona Luthier Pietro Sgarabotto. Thus many luthiers insist that old violins are better only because they are older, that a century from now the fiddles being made by such modern masters as Sacconi, and Carl Becker Sr. of Chicago, will equal the fabled Strad. That, of course, remains to be heard.

Horsehair & Sheep Guts. All of which explains why violinists mother their instruments like newborn babies. "It's something very personal," says Isaac Stern, "because it is an extension of your musical soul. Treat your violin with love and it will love you back."

If it doesn't, touring virtuosos take comfort in the fact that there is a "violin doctor" in many major cities on the concert circuit ready to make repairs. Sometimes though, it is the violinists who need help. "They're all the same," sighs Max Moller, the resident string doctor in Amsterdam, who is forever dashing off to the concert hall on emergency calls. "I usually discover there is nothing wrong," he says, "except with the artists' nerves. I tell them that their violin is fine and then they are happy." So, ultimately, are the audiences, for as Violinist Henryk Szeryng says, the miracle of "the fragile little box is that we can produce sounds that penetrate people's hearts and provoke tears just by drawing horsehair over sheep guts."

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