Brief biography of Stradivarius. The secret of Antonio Stradivari's violins

There are still legends about the Stradivarius violin. What is the secret of its special sound? What unique technologies and materials did the master use? The Stradivarius violin is still an unsurpassed masterpiece.

Biography of the master

Antonio Stradivari, violin maker, was born in 1644. But this is only approximately exact date his birth has not been established. His parents are Anna Moroni and Alessandro Stradivari. The violin maker was born and lived his entire life in the city of Cremona.

Antonio has loved music since childhood. But he sang very badly, and everyone who heard him sing laughed. Antonio's second passion was turning wood. The parents were sure that their son would become a cabinetmaker.

One day the boy learned that the best violin maker in Italy, Nicolo Amati, lived in his city. Antonio loved the violin very much and decided to become a student of the genius.

A. Stradivari married only at the age of 40. His wife was the shopkeeper's daughter, Francesca Ferrabochi. The couple had five children. But soon a plague epidemic began. A. Stradivari's beloved wife and children died. This loss plunged him into despair, and he was unable to work. But time passed, the master began to create again and soon became famous throughout the world. Along with fame came A. Stradivari and new love. His second wife was Maria Zambelli. In his marriage to her, he had five children. A. Stradivari taught his two sons - Francesco and Omobono - his craft. They became masters of violin making. But there is an opinion that professional secrets Antonio didn’t even tell his sons. They failed to repeat his masterpieces.

Antonio Stradivari was a workaholic. He did not leave his craft until his death. Antonio Stradivari died in 1737, at approximately 93 years old. His burial place is the Basilica of San Domenico.

Amati's student

A. Stradivari studied violin making from the age of 13. He was a student of the best master of that time - Nicolo Amati. Because the genius taught him his craft for free, he did all the grunt work for him and was his errand boy. N. Amati shared his knowledge with his students, but did not reveal all the secrets. He told some tricks only to his eldest son.

The first secret of N. Amati that young Antonio learned was how to make strings. The master made them from the entrails of lambs. First, it was necessary to soak the veins in an alkaline solution. Then dry. And then twist them into strings.

At the next stage of his training, A. Stradivari learned which wood should be chosen for making violin soundboards. The boy realized that the main thing is not appearance tree, and its sound. N. Amati often made violins from plain-looking pieces of wood.

A. Stradivari created his first instrument at the age of 22. After some time, he had already made dozens of violins. But all his creations bore the mark of Nicolo Amati. This did not upset young Stradivarius. He was happy that his skill was growing. At the age of 40, Antonio opened his own workshop. He soon became a respected violin maker. He had many orders, but he could not surpass his teacher.

A. Stradivari became a famous master in 1680. He improved the instruments created by his teacher N. Amati. To do this, he slightly changed their shape and added decorations. He tried in every possible way to make the voices of the instruments sound more melodious and beautiful. As a result of all his efforts and searches, in the early 1700s, the famous Stradivarius violin was born, which has no equal to this day.

At the peak of excellence

The best musical instruments were created by A. Stradivarius in the period from 1690 to 1725. They were of the highest concert quality. The finest Stradivarius violin, as well as other instruments, date back to 1715.

His skill blossomed after he experienced the loss of his family. After this terrible tragedy he fell into despair and could not work. One of his students helped him continue creating again. He once came to A. Stradivarius, burst into tears and said that his parents had died, and he would not be able to continue learning to make violins, since he was now forced to earn a living. The master felt sorry for the boy, and he left him in his house, and after several years he adopted him. Fatherhood inspired him and he had a desire to create his own unique instrument, not copies of the creations of his great teacher, but something extraordinary, which no one had done before him.

Famous violin

When Antonio was already 60 years old, he created a new one, which brought him fame as a great master, the legendary Stradivarius violin. A photo of this masterpiece is presented in this article.

The violin model Antonio developed brought him fame and immortality. They began to call him the “super-Stradivarius”. His violins were and remain to this day the best musical instruments. And they sound incredible. The master managed to give his violins, violas and cellos a rich timbre and make their “voices” stronger. Because of this, rumors circulated about the master that he had sold his soul to the devil. People could not believe that a person, even a genius with golden hands, could make a piece of wood sing like that.

The secret of a unique sound

Until now, musicians, as well as scientists all over the world, are trying to unravel the secrets of the great master in order to understand how the famous violin of Antonio Stradivari was created. Almost 300 years have passed since the death of the genius, but his creations are still alive, they hardly age, and their sound does not change.

Today, there are several versions with which scientists are trying to explain the secret of the magnificent sound of A. Stradivari's instruments. But none of them have been proven, although hundreds of studies have been conducted using the latest technologies.

There is a version that it’s all about the form. The master lengthened the body, and made creases and irregularities inside it, thanks to which many high overtones appeared, which enriched the sound.

Later, a version appeared that the secret lay in the materials from which A. Stradivarius made his violins. It was found out what kind of wood Stradivarius violins were made from. He made the upper soundboards from spruce, and the lower ones from maple.

Some scientists put forward the version that the secret is not what A. Stradivarius was made of. The varnishes and impregnations with which he coated his instruments are the main “culprits” for the appearance of this masterpiece. Eat reliable facts that the master first soaked the wood in sea water, and then covered it with some mixtures of components of plant origin. Perhaps they included resins from trees that grew in those days, but later every single one was cut down.

As for varnishes, according to some scientists, they consisted of such substances, thanks to which dents and scratches on the wood were healed, and the soundboards were able to “breathe” and resonate better, which makes it possible to achieve beautiful surround sound. But other scientists argue against this version, since many violins have been restored. They were covered with ordinary varnish, but their sound did not change. One of the researchers conducted an experiment - completely cleared one of the Stradivarius violins from varnish. Nothing in her sound has changed because of this.

There are many hypotheses as to why Stradivarius violins sound so extraordinary. But none of them could be proven. The master's secret has not yet been revealed.

Instruments of Antonio Stradivari

According to researchers, the master created at least 1,000 musical instruments during his life. These were mostly violins, but there were also violas, cellos, guitars, mandolins and even a harp. He was so efficient that in 1 year he created 25 instruments. Whereas modern masters, which also work manually, are able to produce only 3-4 copies during this time. How many violins did Stradivari create during his life? It's impossible to say for sure. But approximately 600 violins, 12 violas and 60 cellos have survived to this day.

Cost of violins

A. Stradivari's musical instruments are still the most expensive in the world. During the master’s lifetime, his violins cost 700 modern dollars, which for that time was very large sum. Today the cost of his masterpieces ranges from 500 thousand dollars to 5 million euros.

Most expensive

There is a violin that is valued at $10 million. She goes by the name "Lady Blunt". This is the most expensive Stradivarius violin to date. The photo of “Lady Blunt” is presented in this article.

It was made by a master in 1721. The Stradivarius violin, named "Lady Blunt" in honor of the granddaughter of the poet Byron, who was its owner, has survived to this day in perfect condition, since it was practically never played. Throughout the 300 years of her life, she moved from one museum to another.

Steal a masterpiece

All creations genius master, each have their own name and are registered. But at the same time, robbers regularly steal the musical instruments of the great Italian. For example, the famous Stradivarius violin, which belonged to the Russian violin virtuoso Koshansky before the revolution, was stolen five times. Last time she was kidnapped from a musician named Pierre Amoyal. He valued it so much that he carried it in an armored case, but this did not save it. Since then, nothing is known about where the Stradivarius violin called “Koshansky” is located, whether it has survived and who it now belongs to.

Three centuries have passed since the death of the great Italian string maker Antonio Stradivari, and the secret of making his instruments has not been revealed. The sound of the violins he made, like the singing of an angel, lifts the listener to heaven.

Youth of Stradivarius

As a child, Antonio tried to express with his voice what was hidden in his heart, but the boy did not do it very well, and people simply mocked him. The strange child constantly carried a small penknife with him, with which he carved various wooden figures. The boy's parents wished him a career as a cabinet maker. At the age of eleven, Stradivari learned that in their hometown Cremona is a famous city that was considered the best place to live in all of Italy. Antonio loved music, so the choice of profession was obvious. The boy became Amati's student.

Carier start

In 1655, Stradivari was just one of the master's many students. At first, his duties included delivering messages to the milkman, butcher and wood suppliers. The teacher, of course, shared his secrets with the children, but the most important ones, thanks to which the violin had a unique sound, he told only to his eldest son, because it was, in fact, a family craft. The first serious task for young Stradivarius was the manufacture of strings, which he made from the veins of lambs; the best were obtained from 7-8 month old animals. The next secret was the quality and type of wood. The most suitable tree For the manufacture of the upper part of the violin, spruce trees grown in the Swiss Alps were considered, the lower part was made of maple. He created his first Stradivarius violin at the age of 22. Antonio carefully honed his skills with each new instrument, but he was still working in someone else's workshop.

Short-lived happiness

Stradivari opened his business only at the age of 40, but Stradivari's violin was still a semblance of his teacher's instruments. At the same age, he married Francesca Ferrabochi, and she gave him five children. But the master’s happiness was short-lived, because the plague came to their city. His wife and all five children fell ill and died. Even the Stradivarius violin no longer pleased him; out of despair, he almost never played or made instruments.

Back to life

After the epidemic, one of his students knocked on Antonio Stradivari's house with sad news. The boy's parents died, and he could not study with the master due to lack of funds. Antonio took pity on the young man and took him into his house, later adopting him. Once again Stradivari felt the taste of life, he wanted to create something extraordinary. Antonio decided to create unique violins that were different from others in sound. The master's dreams came true only at the age of sixty. The Stradivarius violin had a flying, unearthly sound that no one can reproduce to this day.

Mystery and unearthly beauty the sound of the master’s violins gave rise to all sorts of gossip, it was said that the old man sold his soul to the devil, and he creates instruments from debris Noah's Ark. Although the reason lay in something completely different: incredible hard work and love for one’s creations.

Cost of an unusual instrument

The Stradivarius violin, which was priced at 166 Cremonese lire (about $700) during the master's lifetime, is now worth about $5 million. If you look from the point of view of value for art, then the works of the master are priceless.

How many Stradivarius violins are left on the planet?

Antonio was an incredible workaholic, a genius creating instruments until his death at 93 years old. Stradivarius created before 25 violin instruments in year. Modern the best masters no more than 3-4 pieces are made by hand. The maestro made about 2,500 violins, violas, and cellos in total, but only 630-650 instruments have survived to this day, most of which are violins.

Paolo, Giuseppe, Omobono, Francesco.

Allesandro Stradivari

Anna Moroney

Unsurpassed Italian master bowed instruments, student of the famous Niccolo Amati.

Antonio Stradivari's entire life was devoted to improving the creation of bowed instruments, which glorified his name throughout the world. The famous violin maker created a new type of violin, distinguished by a powerful sound and richness of timbre.

Until 1684, Stradivari preferred small violins, and then moved on to making larger instruments. His elongated violin is 360 mm long, which is 9.5 mm longer than the violin of his teacher, Niccolo Amati. In search of the ideal shape talented master reduced the length of the instrument to 355.5 mm, while simultaneously making it a little wider and with more curved arches. This is how a violin was created, which is still considered a classic.

Not a single violin maker in the entire history of the creation of bowed instruments was able to achieve such perfection of form and beauty of sound as Antonio Stradivari. Each violin he created had its own name and its own unique voice. Unfortunately, only 600 genuine instruments have survived to this day, while there are hundreds of thousands of fake ones.

Antonio Stradivari was born in 1644 in the north of Italy in the city of Cremona, located on the banks of the Po River, but after the plague epidemic began in Italy, the city gradually became empty, residents began to leave their homes, fleeing the deadly disease. Among the refugees were little Antonio's father and mother. They found refuge in the outskirts of Cremona and remained there forever. The boy spent his childhood in this town. His father came from an impoverished aristocratic family. The main traits of his character were immense pride and unsociability, which frightened local residents. The elder Stradivarius tormented his son with stories about the history of his family and excessive stinginess. It is not surprising that as soon as Antonio grew up, he decided to leave home.

Young Stradivari changed many professions. At first he dreamed of becoming a sculptor. His statues were elegant, but their faces were expressionless. Having abandoned this craft, the young man earned his living by carving wood. He learned to make beautiful wooden decorations for furniture, but suddenly abandoned this activity, becoming interested in drawing. Antonio very diligently studied wall paintings in temples and paintings by great artists. Then he was attracted to music, and the young man decided to become a violinist: now he was learning to play the violin, but his fingers lacked lightness and fluency, and his sound was muffled and harsh. They said about Stradivari: “the ear of a musician, the hand of a carver.” The young man left this craft too, although he could not completely forget it. Stradivari spent hours studying his violin, admiring its shape and sound.

Antonio was always trying to find something he liked that would combine the creativity of an artist, the skill of a woodcarver and music. He understood that he could not become a master in any of the acquired professions separately.

The search for his place in life brought the young man to the workshop of Niccolo Amati. Now it is difficult to say whether this choice was accidental or whether Antonio deliberately chose the craft of a violin maker, but he found a job to his liking. From the age of 18, Stradivarius was a student of this famous violin maker. The years spent in his workshop not only helped the young man master the basics of craftsmanship, but also determined his future fate.

For the first year, Antonio was a free student: he performed only the most unskilled work, minor repairs, cleaned the workshop and delivered orders. He would have continued to work like this if not for chance. One day Niccolo Amati saw Antonio carving frets from a defective piece of wood. After that case old master changed his attitude towards the student: from that time on, Antonio studied the work of the great Amati for days on end. In his workshop, he learned how to choose the right wood for violins and cellos, learned some secrets of processing blanks and understood the law of correspondence individual parts instruments to each other. This rule became fundamental in his work. And most importantly, he understood how important the varnish with which the instrument was coated was.

Having created his first violin, Stradivarius excitedly showed it to his teacher. Amati treated the result of his student’s work condescendingly, and this gave to the young master strength and inspiration in work. With extraordinary persistence, he tried to ensure that his violin sounded no worse than Amati’s instruments. But, having achieved what he wanted, Antonio decided that his violins should sound differently. To achieve this goal he had to spend years. “Stradivarius under Amati,” they said about the novice master. And Antonio dreamed that his violins would sound like the voices of women and children.

In 1680, Stradivari left Amati's workshop and began to work independently. The teacher gave him a small amount of money, which was enough to buy a house and materials for making violins and cellos. In the same year, Antonio married Francesca Ferabosci. The Casa del Pescatore house was very small and cheap. The novice master devoted almost the entire room to a workshop, leaving a small room in the attic for living.

Antonio worked all day in his workshop. Every new tool, coming out of his hands was better than the previous ones. The voices of Stradivarius violins could already be distinguished among thousands of others. Their free, melodious, enchanting sound was like the voice of a beautiful girl. And Antonio’s childhood love for colors and graceful lines was forever embodied in his violins and cellos. The master loved to decorate his instruments by painting the barrels, neck or corners with small cupids with ripe fruits, lily flowers. Sometimes he inserted pieces of mother-of-pearl, ebony or ivory.

Unfortunately, all his efforts were in vain - no one bought Stradivarius instruments, except for rare visiting musicians. Reputable customers preferred Amati violins, willingly shelling out 100 pistoles for the name of the master alone. And for the poor, the creations of Stra-divari were too expensive.

A year later, Antonio gave birth to his first child, Paolo, and a year later, his second son, Giuseppe. Despite all his efforts, the family languished in poverty. Only a few years later, luck suddenly came to him.

Unlike other masters, Stradivari attached great importance to the external design of his instruments, turning them into works of art. In 1700 he made one of his most magnificent violins. Cetera was performed with great love, Antonio put all his skill into it. The curl that completed the instrument depicted Diana's head, entwined in heavy braids, and a necklace was worn around her neck. A little lower he carved two small figures - a Satyr and a Nymph. The satyr hung his goat's legs with a hook, which served to carry an instrument. Both figures were executed with rare grace. No less delicately made to order was a narrow pocket violin - sordino. The curl, carved from ebony, had the shape of a Negro head.

For twenty-five years - from 1700 to 1725 - the master became as famous as his teacher had once been. The recognition was not an accident. Behind this were years of persistent and painstaking work from early morning until late evening. During the day, Stradivari stood at his workbench, and in the evening, in his workshop, hidden from prying eyes, he worked on varnishes and made calculations for future instruments. These years can rightfully be called the master’s golden period.

At this time, he was able to create his best violins: in 1704 - Bette, in 1709 - Viotti, in 1715 - Apard, and a year later - Mission. Each of them proudly bore the mark of Antonio Stradivari: the Maltese cross and the initials A.S. in a double circle. The famous master marked his violins, marking each one with the year of creation of the instrument. His wooden seal consisted of three movable numbers - 166. For many years, Stradivarius added digit after digit to this number, erasing the second six and adding the next two digits by hand. With the advent of the 18th century. the aged master left only one.

By the age of forty, Antonio Stradivari had achieved everything he dreamed of. He was fabulously rich. In Cremona there was even a saying: “Rich as Stradivarius.” But the life of the famous violin maker was not happy. His wife Francesca died. He actually lost two adult sons: Paolo went into business and, in search of luck, went on a long journey to America. Giuseppe, the most talented of the sons, became a monk after he was miraculously cured of cholera. On December 31, 1694, at the age of 50, Antonio Stradivari married for the second time - to 17-year-old Maria Zambeli, who also bore him two sons.

The older Stradivarius became, the more tormented he was by the thought that he had no one to pass on his knowledge and accumulated experience. Although he had students, and younger sons Omobono and Francesco worked with him, Antonio understood that they would never achieve his skill. He also had his favorite students: Carlo Bergonzi and Lorenzo Guadagnini. But passing on his knowledge to his students was the same as stealing from his children.

And one more thought haunted him. U famous master a rival appeared - Giuseppe Guarneri, nicknamed Del Gesu.

Undoubtedly, Stradivari was the first master in his field. And his rival Guarneri was able to surpass him only in the strength of the sound of the instrument. Antonio came to the conclusion that, despite the enormous life experience, his skill never reached perfection - the melodious, gentle tone of his violins can be enriched with new colors -

kami, greater strength sound. Stradivari was reassured by the fact that eminent customers would not buy Guarneri violins, because they did not need instruments made by a drunkard and brawler.

IN recent months Before his death, Antonio Stradivari made the most important decision in his life - he decided not to reveal the secrets of his craft to anyone.

The famous violin maker died on December 18, 1737. His funeral was very magnificent. The funeral procession filled the entire street. He was buried in the church of a Dominican friar. On his grave there is an inscription: “The noble Antonius Stradivarius died in the 94th year of a glorious and pious life.”

After the death of their father, his sons tried to discover the secrets of the varnish and the formula for making violins and cellos, but they never succeeded. Just before his death, Stradivarius burned all the most important papers.

Many generations of scientists are trying to unravel the secret of the amazing sound of Stradivarius violins. Some of them managed to lift the veil of secrecy. Scientists at Columbia University in the USA came to the conclusion that the unique sound of his violins is associated with reduced solar activity in the 18th century. This entailed a slowdown in the growth of trees, as a result of which their wood became more dense and had amazing acoustic properties. The period of reduced solar activity, called the Maunder minimum, lasted from 1645 to 1717 and coincided with the so-called small ice age, when the average annual temperature in Europe dropped by 1-2° C.

Other researchers associate the extraordinary sound of Stradivarius instruments with secret recipe processing wood from the alpine forests of Italy. Music master from Transylvania Claudio Pall became interested in this hypothesis. For 50 years he struggled with the mystery of this unique sound. While conducting experiments on rusticated wood, he came across the notes of one of the scientists who studied the wood used by Antonio Stradivari. Among the chemical analysis data, he discovered the presence of a rare type of wood fungus that develops in mountain rivers with a special water composition.

Claudio Pall knew that Stradivari worked only with wood that was rafted from the Tyrolean Alps. The researcher came to the conclusion that chemical composition river water is of paramount importance for the formation of a special fungal culture. He believed that the sound closest to the Stradivarius effect was obtained from an instrument whose material was soaked in the Bystrica River, located near the Tyrolean Alps. It was also called Zolotaya Bystritsa in another way: gold was mined there in those years.

To help researchers violin secrets The chemists came to Stradivari. Joseph Nagyvary, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at Texas A&M University and an excellent violinist, devoted 25 years of his life to studying the composition of the varnish that coated violins and the wood from which they were made. The American scientist assumed that the wood was previously soaked in sea water or some kind of brine. Sea water contributed to the fact that the material for the violin was impregnated with salts of calcium, magnesium and other metals, which improved the acoustic properties of the soundboard. Nagyvari put forward the hypothesis that Stradivari used myrrh to fill the pores of pine and maple blanks. Its composition is now almost impossible to restore, since it was constantly changing. No wonder the legend attributes to Stradivarius the words that he main secret you have to look in the Bible.

In order to find out what substances were used in the Middle Ages to preserve wood, Nagyvari managed to open some pages of the history of chemistry. Medieval alchemists already knew how to carry out an operation to isolate the finest fractions, which in modern chemistry is called classification, i.e. they selected the upper drain containing the finest particles dissolved in water.

In one of the medieval documents, Nagyvary found an entry: “The pharmacist prepared the varnish for anyone who wanted it, and Grand Antonio Stradivari went to him himself to fill the empty bottle so that his friend would not pour it into the bottle from the bottom of the pot.”

For 20 years, Nagyvary sought the opportunity to perform a spectroscopic analysis of the varnish covering the best Stradivarius violins. He purchased the desired sample and carried out a thorough analysis. As it turned out, the varnish contained at least 20 different minerals, the main ones being calcite, quartz, feldspar and gypsum. Corundum, garnet, rutile and argentide were contained in smaller quantities. Some scientists disagreed with his opinion, explaining that the varnish cannot contain any fillers. And the presence of impurities was explained by ordinary room dust, which inevitably fell on the varnish. Although it is difficult to imagine a workshop with semi-precious stones crushed into powder scattered on the floor. The persistent scientist made several violins using the Stradivarius method. Experienced master, invited to work, kept wooden blanks in sea water and grape juice.

Nagyvary presented his violins at the American Chemical Society conference in March 1998. The young violinist alternated playing the new instrument and the violin Italian master Stradivari. After the concert, she noticed that the new violin sounded almost the same as the old one, but it was more difficult to play...

The mystery of Antonio Stradivari's violins is still not solved. But this does not prevent true music lovers from enjoying their magical sound.

Year of birth: 1644
Place of birth: Cremona, Italy
Year of death: 1737
Place of Death: Cremona, Italy
Citizenship: Italy

Having tried many professions, he experienced failure everywhere. He wanted to become a sculptor, like Michelangelo; the lines of his statues were elegant, but their faces were not expressive. He abandoned this craft, earned his living by carving wood, making wooden decorations for rich furniture, and became addicted to drawing; with the greatest suffering he studied the ornamentation of doors and wall paintings of cathedrals and the drawings of great masters. Then he was attracted to music and decided to become a musician. He studied violin hard; but the fingers lacked fluency and lightness, and the sound of the violin was dull and harsh. They said about him: “The ear of a musician, the hands of a carver.” And he gave up being a musician. But, having abandoned it, I didn’t forget it.

Master Antonio Stradivari was born in 1644! The narrative will take you more than 300 years ago and more than two thousand kilometers to the west, to Italian city Cremona. And you will meet wonderful person, who turned the craft of a master making musical instruments into a genuine, high art.

Time - 1720. Place - Northern Italy. City - Cremona. Square of St. Dominica. Early morning. The streets are still deserted and the window shutters are closed. Merchants open the doors of their shops filled with different goods: lace, multi-colored glass, mosaics. There are few passers-by - women in colorful shawls with large baskets in their hands, humming carefreely, water carriers with copper buckets, apprentices hastily going to work. On the roof of a long, narrow three-story house, on an open flat terrace, brightly lit by the sun, a tall, thin old man in a white leather apron and a white master’s cap had already appeared. And early passers-by bow to him and loudly greet him: - Buon giorno, signore Antonio! It has served them as a clock, accurate and keeping pace for fifty years. If at six o'clock Master Antonio had not appeared on the terrace of this house along with the sun, this would have meant: either the time had changed in Cremona, or Master Antonio Stradivari was ill. And he nods back at them; his bow is important and condescending, because he is rich and old.
This small roof terrace, called a seccadour in Cremona, is his favorite place to work. Here he finishes, varnishes and dries his tools. In the corner there is a sliding ladder to go down into a hatch built into the floor, where selected, tested wood is stored. Narrow, long strips of parchment are stretched along the log wall of the terrace. Shiny lacquered violins hang here. Their sides are basking in the sun. In the neighboring houses, on the same terraces, laundry and fruits are dried - golden oranges, oranges, lemons, and on this terrace, instead of fruits, violins are dried in the sun. The master believes in the sun. As the sun pours down on the shiny dark wood of his violins, it seems to him that his violins are maturing. He works intently for an hour or two, then goes down to the first floor; there is his workshop and laboratory. They knock. Standing at the door fat person in a respectful pose. Seeing him, the master suddenly takes off from his place and grabs one lying on the workbench along the way. wooden block and with unexpected ease and speed jumps up to the guest.
- What did you send me?!
The fat man retreats.
The master is angry, and his importance is gone.
He brings the block to the fat man’s nose.
“Feel,” he says, “yes, yes, sir, feel,” he repeats, because the fat man is shying away. And with long thin fingers he grabs the fat man’s hand and pokes it into the tree. And he looks triumphantly: “After all, it is hard, like iron, it can only creak, you will soon begin to send me wood with stains and knots.”
The fat man is silent and waits.
“You probably got the wrong address,” the old man grumbles, dying down, “you wanted to send this tree to the undertaker, because this tree is truly for the coffin, this tree grew in the swamp, and then you probably roasted it on the fire, like chestnuts are roasted.”
And he suddenly calms down.
- Where are the other samples?
The fat supplier is not very embarrassed; he has been supplying wood to the master for many years and knows his character. He shows new samples.
- This is a rare tree. It's from Turkey.
- How did you get it?
Here the fat man makes a significant expression and winks at the master. His face this time is completely roguish.
“A shipwreck...” he whispers, “and as soon as I saw this tree, I bought it without haggling, because I know, Signor Antonio, what kind of tree you need.”

“Are you still catching this fish?” the master asks, as if contemptuously, but at the same time with curiosity.
The fat man smiles embarrassedly and rolls his eyes.
- Oh, sir, if you would like to see what pearls the sea gave up this time!
“I don’t need pearls,” Stradivari says calmly.
There are tales about his wealth in Cremona, but he is stingy, suspicious and does not like to be considered rich.
Stradivarius sits down at the table and begins to closely examine the tree.
He measures, tries by touch the distance and convexity of the annual layers, follows with his eye the fine lines wood, takes a magnifying glass and examines the small wood pattern. Then he scratches the wood with his fingernail, a craftsman’s nail as hard as a spatula, and immediately quickly brings it to his ear, whittles it down and brings it back to his ear, carefully tapping the edges. He really tries to make the tree speak.
Then he heads into the next room.
Heavy, felt-lined door. The only high window is hung with a dark cloth. On the tables and shelves there are bottles, transparent amber, yellow, red... There is a thick and pungent smell of mastic, sandarac and turpentine. Small light bulbs are burning, retorts and flasks are heating up. Separately on the table there are scales of various sizes, from medium to small, there are compasses, knives, saws, files, ranging from coarse to small needle-shaped.
Tables of calculations and measurements hang on the walls. Not a single painting, although the master loves painting. The paintings hang in the master’s living rooms. There, after work, his eyes will rest on clear, calm lines and soft colors. And here is the working hour. He is strict even with himself. On the table in front of him are some hasty marks, words, crooked lines. Access to this room is closed to everyone. No one is allowed here, not even students.
In this room the master keeps and hides his secrets from prying eyes - the secrets of the varnish with which he covers the violins.
He sits all night among pungent odors, looks at the golden and dark orange liquid in test tubes and flasks, tests its elasticity, transparency and dullness.
So - all night long.
Then he slightly lifts the curtain in the high window. Light bursts into the room.
“Ah,” says the master, “it’s already morning.”
He stops working, turns off the light, goes out, locking the door with heavy bolts, and listens suspiciously. The master works on varnish compositions all his life: he impregnates the wood with one composition - and this improves the sound; he applies the other as a second layer - and the instrument acquires shine and beauty. His violins were sometimes golden, sometimes light brown, and now, towards the end of his life, dark red.
Nobody knows his secrets. He rarely comes here during the day.
That is why the fat man who brought the tree peers greedily when the door to this master’s lair opens for a moment.
But no, the room is dark - the curtain is down. Stradivarius lowers the tree into a vat of strong-smelling liquid and waits; Having taken it out, he looks for a long time and carefully at the thin, winding veins that were previously invisible and have become noticeable.
His face begins to clear, he lovingly strokes the damp wood with his hand and returns to the workshop.
The students have already gathered. Among them are the sons of the master, his assistants. Omobono and Francesco, with gloomy, sleepy faces. They talk in low voices.
Hearing the father's fast and wide steps, everyone approaches their workbench and leans over it too carefully and hastily.
Stradivarius enters, animated.
- This is what I need. This tree will sing. You hear - it sings. Francesco,” he called his eldest son, “come here, son, listen.”
Francesco approached his father with the timid air of a student. The old man put the block to his shoulder, as if it were a violin, and began to carefully tap the end of the bow, carefully listening to the sound and watching his son’s face.
The disciples looked enthusiastically and subserviently.
Yes, such a master is worth working for. This lean, grumpy old man knows the business, the tree in his hands seems to come to life.
But how difficult life is in the workshop of Antonio Stradivari! It’s a disaster for the student who is even one minute late, or who even once forgets the master’s instructions. He is rude, strict and picky. He forces you to start over again work that has already been completed if some small detail is not to his taste.
But they are no longer tempted easy life in other workshops. They realize how much they can learn here. Only the master’s heirs, his assistants Omobono and Francesco, have their eyes darting, either from envy or from bewilderment.
Why is he so good at choosing one out of hundreds of bars? Why do his violins sing like that? Why are they both no longer working on the first violin, and the types of wood are the same as their father’s, the same shape and size, and it’s as if you can’t tell which one was made by them and which one was made by their father, but just touch the bow, and from the first everything becomes clear: the violins they made sound duller, more wooden.

Why doesn’t their father tell them his secrets, why doesn’t he allow them to enter his laboratory, where he spends his nights? After all, he is not young, he will not take with him to the grave both the secrets of the varnish and the capricious figures of his measurements! And anger is reflected in their eyes, preventing them from concentrating and working.
“You can go,” Stradivarius turns to the supplier, “prepare more maple for the lower decks.”
And suddenly he adds, when the fat man is already on the threshold:
- Bring some pearls. I'll see. If it's inexpensive, maybe I'll buy it.
Stradivarius heads to his workbench. Everyone resumes their interrupted work.
There are long rows of wire stretched across the entire workshop room. Suspended from it are violins and viols, either with their backs or their sides turned. The cellos stand out for their wide soundboards.
Omobono and Francesco are working at a nearby workbench. A little further away are the master’s favorite students Carlo Bergonzi and Lorenzo Guadagnini. The master entrusts them with responsible work on the soundboards: distributing thicknesses, cutting out f-holes. The rest are busy preparing wood for the shells, planing a plate attached on one side to the workbench, or bending the shells: they heat an iron tool in a large stove and begin to bend the plate with it, immersing it several times in water. Others plane a spring or a bow with a jointer, learn to draw the outlines of violins, make necks, and carve stands. Some are busy repairing old instruments. Stradivarius works silently, watching his students from under his brows; sometimes his eyes rest sadly on the gloomy and gloomy faces of his sons.
Thin hammers ring, light files squeal, interspersed with the sounds of a violin.
Barefoot boys crowd around the window. They are attracted by the sounds coming from the workshop, sometimes shrill and sharply rattling, sometimes suddenly quiet and melodious. They stand for a while, mouths open, eagerly looking out the window. The measured stroke of the saws and the thin hammer, beating evenly, fascinate them.
Then they immediately become bored and, making noise, jumping and tumbling, they disperse and start singing the song of all the lazzaroni - the street boys of Cremona.
The old master is sitting by the large window. He raises his head and listens. The boys scattered. Only one sings everything.
The master is attracted by the gentle, clear sound of his voice.
“This is the kind of purity and transparency we must achieve,” he says, addressing his students.

Beginning and the end
Antonio Stradivari was born in 1644 in a small town near Cremona. His parents used to live in Cremona. The terrible plague, which began in Southern Italy, moved from place to place, captured more and more new areas and reached Cremona. The city was empty, the streets were deserted, residents fled wherever they could. Among them were Stradivarius - Antonio's father and mother. They fled from Cremona to a small town nearby, or rather a village, and never returned to Cremona.
There, in a village near Cremona, Antonio spent his childhood. His father was an impoverished aristocrat. He was a proud, stingy, unsociable man, he loved to remember the history of his family. Young Antonio quickly grew tired of his father's house and the small town, and he decided to leave home.
Having tried many professions, he experienced failure everywhere. He wanted to become a sculptor, like Michelangelo; the lines of his statues were elegant, but their faces were not expressive. He abandoned this craft, earned his living by carving wood, making wooden decorations for rich furniture, and became addicted to drawing; with the greatest diligence he studied the ornamentation of doors and wall paintings of cathedrals and the drawings of great masters. Then he was attracted to music and decided to become a musician. He studied violin hard; but the fingers lacked fluency and lightness, and the sound of the violin was dull and harsh. They said about him: “The ear of a musician, the hands of a carver.” And he gave up being a musician. But, having abandoned it, I did not forget it. He was stubborn. I spent hours looking at my violin. The violin was of poor workmanship. He took it apart, studied it and threw it away. But he didn’t have enough money to buy a good one. At the same time, being an 18-year-old boy, he became a student of the famous violin maker Nicolo Amati. The years spent in Amati's workshop were memorable to him for the rest of his life.
He was an unpaid student, doing only rough work and repairs and running on various errands for the master. This would have gone on for a long time if not for chance. Master Nicolo came into the workshop after hours on the day Antonio was on duty and found him at work: Antonio was carving f-holes on an abandoned, unnecessary piece of wood.
The master didn’t say anything, but from then on Antonio no longer had to deliver finished violins to customers. He now spent the entire day studying Amati's work.
Here Antonio learned to understand how important the choice of wood is, how to make it sound and sing. He saw the importance of a hundredth in the distribution of soundboard thicknesses and understood the purpose of the spring inside the violin. Now it was revealed to him how necessary the correspondence of individual parts is with each other. He then followed this rule throughout his life. And finally, I appreciated the importance of what some craftsmen considered only decoration - the importance of the varnish that covers the instrument.
Amati treated his first violin condescendingly. This gave him strength.
With extraordinary stubbornness he achieved melodiousness. And when he achieved that his violin sounded like Master Nicolo’s, he wanted it to sound differently. He was haunted by the sounds of women's and children's voices: these are the melodious, flexible voices his violins should sound like. He didn't succeed for a long time.
“Stradivarius under Amati,” they said about him. In 1680 he left Amati's workshop and began working independently.
He gave the violins different shapes, making them longer and narrower, now wider and shorter, now increasing or decreasing the convexity of the soundboards, his violins could already be distinguished among thousands of others. And their sound was free and melodious, like the voice of a girl in the morning on Cremona square. In his youth he aspired to be an artist, he loved line, drawing and paint, and this remained forever in his blood. In addition to sound, he valued in an instrument its slender shape and strict lines; he loved to decorate his instruments by inserting pieces of mother-of-pearl, ebony and ivory, and painted small cupids, lily flowers, and fruits on the neck, barrels or corners.
Even in his youth, he made a guitar, into the lower wall of which he inserted strips of ivory, and it seemed as if dressed in striped silk; He decorated the sound hole with tangles of leaves and flowers carved into wood.

In 1700, he was commissioned for a quadruple. He worked on it with love for a long time. The curl that completed the instrument depicted Diana's head entwined with heavy braids; a necklace was worn around his neck. Below he carved two small figures - a satyr and a nymph. The satyr hung his goat's legs with a hook, this hook was used for carrying an instrument. Everything was carved with rare perfection.
Another time he made a narrow pocket violin - a "sordino" - and gave it a curl of ebony to the shape of a Negro's head.
By the age of forty he was rich and well known. There were sayings about his wealth; in the city they said: “Rich as Stradivarius.”
But his life was not happy. His wife died; he lost two adult sons, and he wanted to make them the support of his old age, to pass on to them the secret of his craft and everything that he had achieved in his entire life.
Although his surviving sons Francesco and Omobono worked with him, they did not understand his art - they only diligently imitated him. The third son, Paolo, from his second marriage, completely despised his craft, preferring to engage in commerce and trade; it was both easier and simpler. Another son, Giuseppe, became a monk.
Now the master was 77 years old. He reached a ripe old age, great honor, and wealth.
His life was coming to an end. Looking around, he saw his family and the ever-growing family of his violins. The children had their own names, the violins had their own.
His life ended peacefully. For greater peace, so that everything would be orderly, like wealthy and respectable people, he bought a crypt in the church of St. Dominic himself determined the place for his burial. And over time, his relatives will lie around him: his wife, his sons.
But when the master thought about his sons, he became sad. That was the whole point.
He left them his wealth; they would build, or rather, buy for themselves nice houses. And the wealth of the family will grow. But did he work in vain and finally achieve fame and knowledge as a master? And now there is no one to leave the mastery; only the master can inherit the mastery. The old man knew how greedily his sons sought their father's secrets. More than once he found Francesco in the workshop after school hours and found something he had dropped notebook. What was Francesco looking for? Why were you rummaging through your father's notes? He still won’t find the records he needs. They are tightly locked with a key. Sometimes, thinking about this, the master himself ceased to understand himself. After all, in three years, five years, his sons, heirs, will still open all the locks and read all his notes. Shouldn’t we give them in advance those “secrets” that everyone is talking about? But I didn’t want to give these short, blunt fingers such subtle methods of composing varnishes, recording the unevenness of the decks - all my experience.
After all, all these secrets cannot teach anyone, they can help. Shouldn't we give them into the hands of the cheerful Bergonzi, who is quick-witted and dexterous? But will Bergonzi be able to apply all the wide experience of his teacher? He is a master of the cello and loves this instrument most of all, and he, the old master, despite the fact that he put a lot of time and work into creating a perfect cello, would like to pass on all his accumulated experience, all his knowledge to the violin lover. And, besides, it would mean robbing one’s sons. After all, as an honest master, he accumulated all the knowledge for his family. And now leave everything to someone else? And the old man hesitated, not making a decision - let the records remain locked until the time comes.
And now something else began to darken his days. he was used to being the first in his skill. Nicolo Amati lay in the cemetery for a long time; Amati’s workshop disintegrated during his lifetime, and he, Stradivarius, is the successor and continuer of Amati’s art. In violin craftsmanship, until now there was no equal not only in Cremona, but throughout Italy, not only in Italy, but throughout the world - him, Antonio Stradivari.
But only until now...