Who is Antonio Stradivarius? Great violin makers

Stradivarius Antonio Stradivarius Career: Musician
Birth: 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 back more than 300 years and more than two thousand kilometers to the west, to the Italian city of Cremona. And you will meet wonderful person, who turned the craft of a master making musical instruments into a genuine, high art.

Time - 1720. Location - Northern Italy. City - Cremona. Square of St. Dominica. Early start of the day. The streets are still deserted and the window shutters are closed. Merchants open the doors of their shops filled with various 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, dazzlingly illuminated by the sun, a tall, thin grandfather 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 together with the sun, this would have meant: either the time has changed in Cremona, or Master Antonio Stradivari is 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 descend into an opening in 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 neighboring houses, on the same apt terraces, laundry and fruits are dried - golden oranges, oranges, lemons, and on this terrace, instead of fruits, violins are dried for the sun. The master believes in the luminary. When the sun pours 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. A fat man stands in the doorway in a respectful pose. Seeing him, the master takes off like a jack-in-the-box 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 quickly send me wood with stains and knots.”

The fat man is silent and waits.

“In all likelihood, you have the wrong address,” he grumbles. old man, subsiding, - you wanted to send this tree to the undertaker, due to the fact that this tree is truly for the coffin, this spruce grew in the swamp, and later you, presumably, roasted it on the fire, as chestnuts are roasted.

And out of the blue he 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 at that very moment was perfectly roguish.

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?” asks the master, 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 away that very 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 carefully examine the tree.

He measures, feels by touch the space and convexity of the annual layers, follows with his eye the fine lines wood, takes a magnifying glass and examines a small wood pattern. Then he scratches the wood with a fingernail, as hard as a spatula, a craftsman’s nail, 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 gate. 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 the work, his eyes will catch their breath on the clear, calm lines and soft colors. And here is the working hour. Moreover, he is strict 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, especially students.

In this room the master keeps and hides his secrets from the curious - the secrets of the varnish with which he covers the violins.

He spends entire nights sitting in the midst of pungent odors, looking at the meager light of light bulbs, the golden and dark orange liquid in test tubes and flasks, experiencing its elasticity, transparency and dullness.

So - all night long.

Then he slightly raises the curtain in the high window. Light bursts into the room.

“And,” says the master, “it’s already the beginning of the day.”

He stops working, turns off the light, goes out, locking the gate 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; otherwise he applies a second layer - and the instrument acquires luster and beauty. His violins are sometimes golden, sometimes light brown, and now, towards the end of his life, dark red.

Nobody knows his secrets. He doesn't come here often during the day.

That’s why the overweight gentleman, the one who brought the tree, peers greedily when the gate 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 healthy-smelling liquid and waits; Having taken it out, he looks for a long time and sympathetically at the sinuous, thin veins that were invisible at one time 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 fast and wide steps of the father, anyone approaches his workbench and bends over it overly sensitively and hastily.

Stradivarius enters, animated.

This is what I need. This tree will sing. You hear - it sings. Francesco,” he called his eldest son, “apparently 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, sympathetically listening to the sound and watching his son’s face.

The disciples looked enthusiastically and subserviently.

Yes, such a master is worth acting with. This lean, grumpy old man knows what he's doing; the tree in his hands seems to come to life.

But how difficult is life in the workshop of Antonio Stradivari!

Food for a student who is late at least one minute, at least one beautiful time forgot the master's order.

He is rude, strict and picky. He forces the work, already completed to completion, to begin again if some small trifle is not to his taste.

But they are no longer tempted by the 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 excitement or from bewilderment.

Why can he choose the only 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 dad tell them his secrets, why doesn’t he allow them to come into 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 acting.

You can go, - Stradivari turns to the supplier, - prepare some more maple for the lower decks.

And he unexpectedly 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 to one side of the workbench, or bending the shells: they heat an iron tool in a huge stove and begin to bend the plate with it, immersing it in water a few times. Others plane a spring or a cushion with a jointer, learn to paint the outlines of violins, make fingerboards, and carve stands. Some are busy repairing old instruments. Stradivari works in silence, watching his students from under his brows; at times 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 roughly rattling, sometimes unexpectedly quiet and melodious. They stand for some time, mouths open, greedily looking into the window opening. The measured stroke of the saws and the thin hammer, beating evenly, fascinate them.

Then they suddenly feel sad and, making noise, jumping and tumbling, they disperse and sing 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 the only one sings everything.

This is the kind of purity and transparency we must achieve,” he says, addressing his students.

Beginning and ending

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 location to location, captured more and more new areas and reached Cremona. The city was deserted, the streets were deserted, the inhabitants 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 an arrogant, stingy, unsociable uncle, he loved to recall the history of his family. Young Antonio was tired of his father's monastery and the small town, and he decided to leave home.

Having tried too 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 gave up 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 he 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. He was stubborn. I spent hours looking at my violin. The violin was poorly made. 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, as an 18-year-old boy, he became an apprentice to the famous violin maker Nicolo Amati. The years spent in Amati's workshop were remembered 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 continued for a long time if not for the episode. Master Nicolo came into the workshop outside of normal 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 was currently spending the entire day studying Amati's work.

Here Antonio learned to know how important it is to select a tree, how to make it sound and sing. He saw the significance of a hundredth in the distribution of soundboard thicknesses and understood the direction of the spring inside the violin. Now it was revealed to him how necessary correspondence is individual parts between themselves. He followed this rule throughout his entire life. And, in the end, he 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. He failed to do this for a long time.

“Stradivari under Amati,” they said about him. In 1680, he left Amati's workshop and began to work 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 sound 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 its sound, he appreciated the slender shape and strict lines of the instrument; 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, the same hook was used for carrying an instrument. Everything was carved with rare perfection.

Another time he made a pocket narrow violin - a "sordino" - and gave a curl of ebony the shape of a Negro 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 existence was not a happy one. 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 throughout his entire existence.

Although his surviving sons Francesco and Omobono worked together with him, they did not understand his art - they only diligently imitated him. The third heir, Paolo, from his second marriage, despised his craft in the least, preferring to engage in commerce and trade; it was both easier and simpler. Another only son, Giuseppe, became a monk.

Now the master was 77 years old. He achieved 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 location for his burial. And everywhere, over time, his relatives will lie down: his lifelong friend, his sons.

But when the master thought about his sons, he became sad. That was all the activity.

He left them their native prosperity; they would build, or rather buy, good houses for themselves. And the prosperity of the family will grow. But did he really 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 all equally open all the locks and read all his notes. Shouldn’t we give them back in advance those “secrets” that everyone is talking about? But I didn’t want to return such subtle methods of composing varnishes, recording the unevenness of decks - all my skill - to these short, blunt fingers.

After all, all these secrets cannot teach anyone, they can help. Shouldn't they be returned to the hands of the cheerful Bergonzi, the one who is captivated and dexterous? But will Bergonzi be able to use all the extensive skills of his teacher? He is a master of the cello and loves that very instrument most of all, and he, the old master, despite the fact that he put countless hours and labor into creating the perfect cello, would like to pass on all his accumulated skill, all his knowledge. And, besides, it would mean robbing one’s sons. After all, as an honest master, he saved up all the knowledge for his family. And now throw everything to someone else? And grandfather hesitated, not making a decision - let the records remain locked until the time comes.

And at the moment 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. Until that time, in violin craftsmanship 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 then...

For a long time there had been rumors, at first dubious and timid, and then completely clear rumors about another master from a family of good and capable, but somewhat rude masters.

Stradivarius knew this master quite well. And at the beginning he was completely calm for himself, due to the fact that his uncle is the one who can achieve anything in violin making, in the past, should have been a man of a calm, sober and moderate life, but Giuseppe Guarneri was a drunkard and a brawler. Such a person's fingers tremble and his hearing is always foggy. And with all the same...

And then one time...

And then one day, before the deadline in the morning, when life had not yet begun in his workshop, and he, as usual, had already been to the secador and went downstairs to examine the varnishes, there was a knock on the gate. They brought the violin in for repair. Throughout his life, Stradivari, working on new violins, did not forget the noble skill of repair. He loved it when broken, old violins made by good, average and completely unknown masters turned into violins with features of his craftsmanship; because of the correct installation of the spring, or because he covered the violin with his own varnish, someone else’s violin began to sound more noble than before, before it broke - well-being and youth returned to the instrument. And when the customer, who gave the instrument for repair, was amazed at the change, the master felt proud, like an aesculapian who healed a child when his parents thank him.

The man who brought the violin was not a Cremonese; he explained that its owner bought this violin here while passing through two years ago, and now it was broken and needed to be repaired. He lost the master's address on the way, but of course he ended up in the right place: everyone here points to the famous master Antonio Stradivari.

Show me your violin, said Stradivarius.

The man carefully took the violin out of the case, still chatting:

My owner is a great connoisseur, he greatly appreciates this violin, it sings with such a strong, thick voice that I have never felt before in any violin.

The violin is in the hands of Stradivarius. It is large format; clear varnish. And he immediately realized whose work it was.

Leave her in this place,” he said dryly.

When the chatterbox left, bowing and greeting the master, Stradivarius took the bow in his hands and began to check the sound. The violin really sounded powerful; the sound was enormous, perfect. The damage was minor, and it did not greatly affect the sound. He began to examine her. The violin is excellently crafted, although it has an excessively large format, thick edges and long f-holes, similar to the folds of a laughing mouth. Another hand - a different technology of work. Only now did he look into the hole in the f-hole, checking himself.

Yes, only one man can work like that.

Inside, on the label, in black, even letters, it was written: “Joseph Guarnerius.”

It was the label of the master Giuseppe Guarneri, nicknamed Del Gesu. He remembered that he had recently seen Del Gesu from the terrace returning home at dawn; he was staggering, talking to himself, waving his arms.

How can such a gentleman work? How can anything come out of his faithless hands? And yet... He took the Guarneri violin again and began to play.

What a large, deep sound! And moreover, if you get out under open skies go to Cremona Square and play in front of a healthy crowd - and then you will hear it in the distance around you.

Since the death of Nicolo Amati, his teacher, not a single violin, not a single master, can compare in the softness and brilliance of sound with his, Stradivarius, violins! But power! In the power of sound, he, the aristocratic master Antonio Stradivari, must yield to this drunkard. This means his skill was not perfect, which means he needs something else that he doesn’t know, but the dissolute man whose hands made this violin knows. This means that he has not yet done everything and his experiments on the acoustics of wood, his experiments on the composition of varnishes are not complete. The free melodious tone of his violins can still be enriched with new colors and healthy power.

He pulled himself together. In old age, there is no need to worry too much. And he reassured himself that the sound of Guarneri violins was sharper, that his customers, noble lords, would not order violins from Guarneri. And now he has received an order for a quintet: two violins, two violas and a cello - from the Spanish court. The order pleased him, he had been thinking about it for a whole week, making sketches, drawings, choosing a tree, and decided to try out a freshly baked technique for attaching a spring. He sketched out the design for the inlays and drew the coat of arms of a high-profile customer. Such customers will not go to Guarneri, they do not need his violins, because they do not need depth of sound. In addition, Guarneri is a drunkard and a brawler. He cannot be a dangerous opponent for him. And yet Giuseppe Guarneri Del Gesu overshadowed the last years of Antonio Stradivari.

While still going down the stairs, he heard loud voices coming from the workshop.

Usually, when students arrive, they immediately head to their workbenches and get to work. This has been the case for a long time. Now they were talking loudly. Something apparently happened.

Tonight, at three o'clock...

I didn’t see it myself, the owner told me that they were leading him along our street...

What will happen to his students now?

Don't know. The workshop is closed, there is a lock on the door...

What a master, says Omobono, is a drunkard in his time, and this should have been expected for a long time.

Stradivarius entered the workshop.

What's happened?

Giuseppe Guarneri has been arrested these days and taken to prison, Bergonzi said sadly.

Stradivarius stood rooted to the spot in the middle of the workshop.

His comrade’s knees began to tremble.

So this is how Del Gesu ends! However, this really should have been expected. Let him play his violins at this moment and delight the ears of the jailers. The room, truly, is not enough for his powerful violins, and the listeners will probably cover their ears...

So, everything comes to its turn. How extremely all the Guarneri fought against failure! When this Del Gesu's uncle, Pietro, died, his widow Catarina took over the workshop. But the workshop was soon to close. This is not a woman’s occupation, not handicraft. Then they began to say: Giuseppe will show you. The Guarneri haven't died yet! And watch him beat the oldest Antonio! And now it’s his turn.

Stradivari did not like this man not only because he was afraid of competition and thought that Guarneri surpassed him in skill. But together with Guarneri Del Gesu, a spirit of restlessness and violence entered the Cremona masters. His workshop was often closed, the students disbanded and carried away their comrades who worked for other masters. Stradivari himself went through the entire art of craftsmanship - from apprentice to master - he loved order and rank in everything. And the existence of Del Gesu, vague and unstable, was in his eyes a life unworthy of a master. Now it's his final. There is no return from prison to the master's chair. Now he, Stradivarius, is the only one left. He looked harshly at his students.

“Let’s not waste time,” he said.

Green mountainous area a few miles from Cremona. And like a gray, dirty speck - a gloomy low building with bars on the windows, surrounded by a battlement. Tall, heavy gates close the entrance to the courtyard. This is a prison where people languish behind thick walls and iron doors.

During the day, prisoners are kept in solitary confinement; at night, they are transferred to a large semi-basement cell for sleeping.

A man with a scraggly beard sits barely audibly in one of the solitary confinement cells. He's only been here for a few days. Until now he had not been unhappy. He looked out the window at the greenery, the earth, the sky, the birds that were briskly rushing past the window; for hours, barely audible, he whistled some monotonous melody. He was busy with his thoughts. Now he felt sad from idleness, and he languished.

How long will you have to stay here?

No one really knows what offense he is serving retribution for. When he is transferred to a general cell for the night in the evening, everyone bombards him with questions. He answers with pleasure, but none of his answers clearly understand what the occupation is.

They know that his craft is to work violins.

The little girl, the jailer’s daughter, who runs and plays near the prison, also knows about this.

My father said one evening:

This guy makes, they say, violins that cost a lot of money.

One day a wandering musician wandered into their yard, he was so funny, and he had a big black hat on his head. And he began to play.

It’s close to them because no one comes close, people don’t like to come here, and the guards drive away everyone who comes a little closer to their gate. And that same musician started playing, and she begged her father to let him finish playing. When the guards finally drove him away, she ran after him, in the distance, and when no one was nearby, he called her like a jack-in-the-box and asked affectionately:

Do you like the way I play?

She said:

Like.

Can you hum? “Sing me a song,” he asked.

She sang her favorite song to him. Then the gentleman in the hat, without even listening to her, put the violin on his shoulder and played what she sang today.

She opened her eyes wide with joy. It was nice for her that she could hear her song being played on the violin. Then the musician said to her:

I will come here and play you any day whatever you want, but in return do me a favor. You will give this little note to the prisoner, the one who is sitting in that cell,” he pointed to one of the windows, “he is the one who can work the violin so well, and I played his violin.” He's a good uncle, don't be afraid of him. Don't tell your father anything. And if you don’t give me the note, I won’t play for you anymore.

The girl ran around the prison yard, sang at the gate, all those serving sentences and the guards knew her, they paid as little attention to her as to the cats that climbed the roofs and the birds that sat on the windows.

It happened that she would sneak behind her father into the low prison corridor. While dad opened the cells, she looked with all her eyes at the prisoners. We're used to it.

This is how she managed to pass the note. When the jailer, during his evening rounds, opened the cell gate and, shouting: “Get ready for the dark!”, walked further to the next doors, the girl darted inside the cell and hastily said:

The man in the big black hat promised to play often, on any day, and for this he asked me to give you a note.

She looked at him and came closer.

And he also said that the violin he played was made by you, sir, prisoner. It is truth?

She looked up at him, stunned.

Then he stroked her head.

You need to walk, girl. It's not good to be caught in this place.

Then he added:

Get me a stick and a knife. Do you want me to make you a pipe and you can play it?

The prisoner hid the note. He only managed to read it the next morning. The note read: “To the honorable Giuseppe Guarneri Del Gesu. - The love of the disciples is always with you.” He held the note firmly in his hand and smiled.

The girl became friends with Guarneri. At first she came secretly, and dad did not notice it, but when the girl came home one day and brought a ringing wooden pipe, he forced her to confess everything. AND, strange activity, the jailer was not angry. He twirled the smooth pipe in his fingers and thought.

The next day he went into Del Gesu's cell outside of normal hours.

If you need wood,” he said curtly, “you are allowed to get it.”

“I need my tools,” said the prisoner.

“No tools allowed,” the jailer said and left.

A day later he entered the cell again.

What tools? - he asked. “A plane is not forbidden, but a file is forbidden.” If using a carpenter's saw, then it is not forbidden.

So in Del Gesu’s chamber there was a stump of a spruce log, a carpenter’s saw and glue. Then the jailer obtained varnish from the painter who was painting the prison chapel.

And he was touched by his own generosity. His late life friend told him all the way that he was a worthy and not bad man. He will make life easier for this unfortunate man, he will sell his violins and command a high price for them, and he will buy cigarettes and wine for the prisoner.

"Why does a prisoner need money?"

But how do you sell violins without anyone knowing about it?

He thought about it.

“Regina,” he thought about his daughter. “No, she’s too small for this, she probably won’t be able to handle it. Well, okay, let’s see,” he decided. “Let her make violins, and somehow we’ll make it happen.”

It is difficult for Giuseppe Guarneri to work his violins in a small low chamber with a thick saw and a large plane, but the days are now passing faster.

First violin, second, third... Days change...

The jailer sells violins. He got a new dress, he became significant and fat. At what price does he sell the violins? Giuseppe Guarneri Del Gesu does not know this. He gets smoke and wine. And it's all.

This is all he has left. Are the violins he gives to the jailer good? If only he could avoid putting his own name on them!

Can the varnish he uses improve the sound? It only muffles the sound and makes it motionless. Carriages are allowed to be coated with this varnish! It makes the violin shine - and that’s all.

And all that remained for Giuseppe Guarneri was smoke and wine. Sometimes a girl comes to him. He whiles away the hours with her. She tells the news that happens within the walls of the prison. She herself doesn’t know more, and if she knew, she would be afraid to say: she is strictly forbidden by her father to babble too much.

The father makes sure that the prisoner cannot receive news from friends. The jailer is afraid: now this is a very dignified prisoner, dear to him. He makes money from it.

In the intervals between orders, Guarneri makes a long small violin for the girl from a piece of spruce board.

“This is a sordino,” he explains to her, “you can put it in your pocket.” It is played by dance teachers in rich houses when they teach smartly dressed children to dance.

The girl sits barely audible and listens sensitively to his stories. It happens that he tells her about life in freedom, about his workshop, about his violins. He talks about them as if they were people. It happens that he suddenly forgets about her presence, jumps up, begins to wander around the cell with wide steps, waves his arms, and says words that are tricky for a girl. Then she becomes sad, and she quietly slips out of the cell.

Death and eternal existence

Every year it becomes more and more difficult for Antonio Stradivari to work hard on his violins. Now he must resort to the help of others. Increasingly, the inscription began to appear on the labels of his instruments:

Sotto la Disciplina d"Antonio

Stradiuari F. in Cremonae.1737.

Vision changes, hands are unsteady, f-holes are becoming more and more difficult to cut, varnish lies in uneven layers.

But cheerfulness and composure do not leave the master. He continues his daily work, gets up early, goes up to his terrace, sits in the workshop at the workbench, works for hours in the laboratory.

He needs a lot of time at the moment to complete the violin he started, but he still brings it to the end, and on the label with pride, with a trembling hand, he writes a note:

Antonius Stradivarius Gremonensis

Faciebat Anno 1736, D" Anni 92.

He stopped thinking about everything that had once worried him; he came to a certain decision: he would take his secrets with him to the grave. It is better that no one owns them than to return them to people who have neither talent, nor love, nor audacity.

He gave his family everything he could: security and a noble name.

Over his long existence, he has made thousands of instruments that are scattered all over the world. It's time for him to take a break. He loses his life gradually. Now nothing overshadows his last years. He was wrong about Guarneri. And how could he imagine that that same unfortunate man sitting in prison could have done anything to hinder him? Good Guarneri violins were easily an accident. Now this is clear and confirmed by facts: the violins he now makes are crude, incomparable with the previous ones, prison violins are unworthy of the Cremonese masters. The master has fallen...

He did not want to think about the conditions under which Guarneri worked, what kind of wood he used, how stuffy and black it was in his cell, that the tools he worked with were more suitable for making chairs than for working on violins.

Antonio Stradivari calmed down because he was wrong.

In front of the house of Antonio Stradivari, on St. Dominica, people are crowding.

Boys are running around, looking into the windows. The windows are covered with dark cloth. Quiet, everyone is talking in a low voice...

He lived ninety-four years, I can’t believe he died.

He did not survive his wife for long; he respected her greatly.

What will happen to the workshop now? Sons are not like the old man.

They'll close, for sure. Paolo will sell everything and put the capital in his pocket.

But where do they need capital? Dad left enough already.

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1. Biography

There is no reliable information about the birth of Stradivari; history has preserved it. "Father's, Alessandro (Italian) Alessandro Stradivari ), and an approximate date of birth, between 1644 and 1649. It is also known that Stardivari was born in Cremona. Without a doubt, his mother cannot be, as traditionally believed, Anna Moroni (Italian. Anna Moroni), Because she was married to another Alessandro Stradivari, who died in 1630, long before Antonio was born.

One of the violins contains a signature Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Alumnus Nicolaij Amati, Faciebat Anno 1666 (Antonius Stradivarius of Cremona, student of Nicolaij Amati, made in 1666), the only evidence that Stardivari was a student of the famous Cremonese Nicolo Amati. The violin itself and whether it belonged to Antonio Stradivari's mark were the subject of debate. Alfred and Arthur Hill spoke in favor of authenticity, in the work "Antonio Stradivari: His Life and Work", text of 1902, which takes into account the authoritative testimony of Simone Fernando Sacconi (Italian. Simone Fernando Sacconi ) And Charles Bear (eng. Charles Beare). However, Bear, given the fact that all violins are next year already contain the signature with which Stradivari signed the rest of his life: Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno (Antonio Stradivarius of Cremona, made on [date]), without mentioning Amati, he wonders - it cannot be assumed that the violin is mistakenly attributed to Stradivarius, and indeed the name Amati should be on it.

From church books parish of St. Agatha we know that Stradivari settled in this quarter of Cremona in 1667. In the same year he married his first wife Francesca Ferraboschi (Italian. Francesca Ferraboschi ). His children were born in this house - Julia Maria, Catherine, Francesco, Alessandro, Omobono. Of these, Francesco and Omobono later also became violin makers. In the instruments Stradivarius made during this period, the influence of Nicolo Amati is undoubtedly felt. Incredibly, only about two dozen instruments remain from this period, so it can be assumed that he did some of his work under the supervision of other violin makers, for example Amati or Francesco Ruggeri (Italian. Francesco Ruggieri). The instruments made under his name are of decent quality, but not brilliant.

In 1680, Stardivari bought a house with a workshop in Piazza San Domenico (ital. piazza San Domenico) (Today it is Piazza Roma (Italian. piazza Roma)), in which he worked until his death. Stradivari's wife, Francesca, died on May 20, 1698. Antonio remarried on August 24, 1699 to Zambelli Costa (Italian. Zambelli Costa), who gave birth to five children - Francesca Maria, Giovanni Battista Giuseppe, Giovanni Battista Martino, Giuseppe Antonio and Paolo.

According to one researcher from Texas, the varnishes used by Stardivari were enriched with submicroscopic crystalline minerals, of which the researcher counted 22, but there probably should have been more. According to those known on this moment According to Stradivari, to strengthen the structure of wood, he used a glassy preparation - a mixture of potash, willow and coal. After prolonged exposure to this mixture, the wood became almost crystalline, giving the wood extreme durability over time. In this case, the varnish could not be applied directly, since chemical reaction with the previous layer. Stradivarius therefore applied a second layer: an insulating material consisting of protein, honey, sugar and gum arabic. Finally, a thin layer of varnish was applied, which did not penetrate deep into the wood of the violin.

For his instruments, Stradivari used Balkan maple for the back, sides and neck; European spruce for the top. Legend says that he ordered tree trunks to be migrated and listened to the sound to choose the best ones. But the master’s amazing ability to “hear” wood was influenced by an external factor: glaciation, a period of severe cold and severe climate that gripped continental Europe between the 17th half of the 18th century. There was a "luck" factor here. According to one theory, special climatic conditions caused by icing led to a decrease in plant photosynthetic activity, suppressing growth and increasing the density and elasticity of wood. Thanks to these properties, Stradivari was able to use wood without defects. However, this theory is unconvincing, since the rest of Stradivari's contemporaries would also have benefited from this climatic phenomenon.

Italian Vittorio Salerno). The role of Stradivarius was played by Anthony Quinn.

In the detective film "A Visit to the Minotaur" (1987) one of storylines- the life of Antonio Stradivari. Main role played in the film

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Antonio the Great Stradivari(Italian: Antonio Stradivari, or Stradivarius lat. Antonius Stradivarius; (1644 ) , Cremona - December 18, Cremona) - famous master of string instruments, student of Nicolo Amati. About 720 instruments of his work have survived.

Biography

Antonio Stradivari is believed to have been born in 1644, although his exact date of birth is not recorded. He was born in Cremona. His parents were Alessandro Stradivari (Italian: Alessandro Stradivari) and Anna Moroni (Italian: Anna Moroni). It is believed that from 1679 he served as a free apprentice to Nicolo Amati, that is, he did menial work.

In addition to violins, Stradivarius also made guitars, violas, cellos, and at least one harp—a total of more than 1,100 instruments, according to current estimates.

Music

• 2015 - “The Stradivarius Violin”, Basta.

Cinema

• - “Night Visit”, the first film adaptation of the Weiner brothers’ novel “A Visit to the Minotaur” about the theft of a Stradivarius violin
• - “Visit to the Minotaur”, Antonio Stradivari- Sergey Shakurov
• - The 15th film about the adventures of the British agent James Bond - “Sparks from the Eyes”, the Stradivarius cello, “Lady Rose” is mentioned many times in the plot, it also saves Bond from a bullet.
• - biographical film “Stradivarius”, Antonio Stradivari- Anthony Quinn, young Antonio- Lorenzo Quinn.
• - “Red Violin”.
• In episode 36 of “Detective School Q,” the film’s characters unravel the mystery of the Stradivarius violin.
• In episode 44 of the television series "White Collar" the heroes are looking for the stolen Antonio Stradivarius violin.
• In episode 2 of the 1st season of the series National Security Agent, the heroes are also looking for the stolen Antonio Stradivarius violin.
• - In the first film, episodes 1-3 of the series “Investigator Tikhonov,” based on the Weiner brothers’ novel “A Visit to the Minotaur,” the heroes are looking for the stolen violin of Antonio Stradivari.

see also

• Nicolo Amati (1596-1684) - Italy
• Andrea Guarneri (1626-1698) - Italy
• Nicolas Lupo (1758-1824) - France

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An excerpt characterizing Stradivarius, Antonio

But the night passed and nothing changed. His essence spoke to her, but she stood there, deadened, hearing nothing, only endlessly calling on the Fathers... She still did not give up.
Finally, when it was getting light outside, a bright golden glow suddenly appeared in the room - as if a thousand suns were shining in it at the same time! And in this glow, a tall, higher than usual, appeared at the very entrance. human figure...Magdalena immediately realized that it was the one whom she had been calling so ardently and persistently all night...
“Get up, Joyful One!” the newcomer said in a deep voice. – This is no longer your world. You lived out your life in it. I'll show you yours new way. Get up, Radomir!..
“Thank you, Father...” Magdalena, who stood next to him, quietly whispered. - Thank you for listening to me!
The elder peered long and carefully at the fragile woman standing in front of him. Then he suddenly smiled brightly and said very affectionately:
- It’s hard for you, sad one!.. It’s scary... Forgive me, daughter, I’ll take your Radomir. It is not his destiny to be here anymore. His fate will be different now. You yourself wished for it...
Magdalena just nodded at him, showing that she understood. She could not speak; her strength was almost leaving her. It was necessary to somehow withstand these last, most difficult moments for her... And then she would still have enough time to grieve for what was lost. The main thing was that HE lived. And everything else was not so important.
A surprised exclamation was heard - Radomir stood, looking around, not understanding what was happening. He did not yet know that he already had a different destiny, NOT EARTHLY... And he did not understand why he still lived, although he definitely remembered that the executioners had done their job superbly...

“Farewell, my Joy...” Magdalena whispered quietly. - Farewell, my dear. I will fulfill your will. Just live... And I will always be with you.
The golden light flashed brightly again, but now for some reason it was already outside. Following him, Radomir slowly walked out the door...
Everything around was so familiar!.. But even feeling absolutely alive again, Radomir for some reason knew that this was no longer his world... And only one thing in this old world still remained real for him - it was his wife. .. His beloved Magdalene....
“I’ll come back to you... I’ll definitely come back to you...” Radomir whispered to himself very quietly. A whiteman hung over his head with a huge “umbrella”...
Bathed in the rays of golden radiance, Radomir slowly but confidently moved after the sparkling Old Man. Just before leaving, he suddenly turned around to last time to see her... To take her amazing image with me. Magdalena felt a dizzying warmth. It seemed that in this last look Radomir was sending her all the love accumulated over their many years!.. Sent it to her so that she would also remember him.
She closed her eyes, wanting to endure... Wanting to appear calm to him. And when I opened it, it was all over...
Radomir left...
The earth lost him, turning out to be unworthy of him.
He stepped into his new, still unfamiliar life, leaving Maria Debt and children... Leaving her soul wounded and lonely, but still just as loving and just as resilient.
Taking a deep breath, Magdalena stood up. She simply didn’t have time to grieve yet. She knew that the Knights of the Temple would soon come for Radomir to betray his deceased body to the Holy Fire, thereby escorting his pure Soul to Eternity.

The first, of course, to appear was John... His face was calm and joyful. But in the deep gray eyes Magdalene read with sincere sympathy.
– I am very grateful to you, Maria... I know how hard it was for you to let him go. Forgive us all, honey...
“No... you don’t know, Father... And no one knows this...” Magdalena quietly whispered, choking on tears. – But thank you for your participation... Please tell Mother Mary that HE is gone... That HE is alive... I will come to her as soon as the pain subsides a little. Tell everyone that HE LIVES...
Magdalena couldn't stand it anymore. She didn't have anymore human strength. Falling straight to the ground, she burst into tears loudly, like a child...

The great master of string making, Antonio Stradivari, has not been with us for almost three centuries. The secret of the greatest master has never been unraveled. Only his violins sing like angels. Modern science And the latest technologies failed to achieve what for the Cremonese genius was just a craft...
What is the secret of Antonio Stradivari, did he exist at all, and why did the master not pass on the secret to the successors of his family?

“From some kind of wood...”

As a child, Antonio Stradivari simply went crazy at the sound of music. But when he tried to express by singing what was in his heart, it turned out so badly that everyone around him laughed. The boy had another passion: he constantly carried a small pocket knife with him, with which he sharpened numerous pieces of wood that came to hand.

Antonio's parents envisioned a career as a cabinetmaker, for which his hometown of Cremona was famous in Northern Italy. But one day an 11-year-old boy heard that Nicolo Amati, the best violin maker in all of Italy, also lived in their city!
The news could not help but inspire the boy: after all, no less than the sounds of the human voice, Antonio loved listening to the violin... And he became a student of the great master.

Years later, this Italian boy would become famous as the manufacturer of the most expensive violins in the world. His products, which were sold in the 17th century for 166 Cremonese lire (about 700 modern dollars), 300 years later would go under the hammer for 4-5 million dollars each!

However, back then, in 1655, Antonio was just one of the many students of Signor Amati who worked for free for the master in exchange for knowledge. Stradivarius began his career as... an errand boy. He rushed like the wind around sunny Cremona, delivering numerous notes from Amati to wood suppliers, a butcher or a milkman.

On the way to the workshop, Antonio was perplexed: why did his master need such old, seemingly worthless pieces of wood? And why does the butcher, in response to the signor’s note, often wrap vile blood-red intestines instead of deliciously smelling garlic sausages? Of course, the teacher shared most of his knowledge with his students, who always listened to him with their mouths open in amazement.

Most - but not all... Some of the tricks, thanks to which the violin suddenly acquired its unique voice, unlike anyone else, Amati taught only to his eldest son. This was the tradition of the old masters: the most important secrets were to remain in the family.
The first serious task that Stradivarius began to entrust was the manufacture of strings. In the house of master Amati they were made from... the entrails of lambs. Antonio carefully soaked the intestines in some strange-smelling water (the boy later learned that this solution was alkaline, based on soap), dried them and then twisted them. So Stradivarius began to slowly learn the first secrets of his craft.

For example, it turned out that not all veins are suitable for transformation into noble strings. Most best material, Antonio learned, these are the sinews of 7-8 month old lambs raised in Central and Southern Italy. It turned out that the quality of the strings depends on the pasture area, the time of slaughter, the properties of the water and a host of other factors...

The boy’s head was spinning, but this was just the beginning! Then it was the tree's turn. Then Stradivarius understood why Signor Amati sometimes preferred unattractive-looking pieces of wood: it doesn’t matter what the wood looks like, the main thing is how it sounds!

Nicolo Amati had already shown the boy several times how a tree could sing. He lightly touched a piece of wood with his fingernail, and it suddenly gave off a barely audible ringing sound!

All varieties of wood, Amati told the already grown Stradivarius, and even parts of the same trunk differ in sound from each other. Therefore, the upper part of the soundboard (the surface of the violin) must be made of spruce, and the lower part must be made of maple. Moreover, the most “gently singing” spruces are those that grew in the Swiss Alps. It was these trees that all Cremonese craftsmen preferred to use.

As a teacher, nothing more

The boy grew into a teenager, and then became a grown man... However, during all this time there was not a day that he did not hone his skills. Friends were only amazed at such patience and laughed: they say, Stradivarius will die in someone else’s workshop, forever remaining another unknown apprentice of the great Nicolo Amati...

However, Stradivari himself remained calm: the number of his violins, the first of which he created at the age of 22, had already reached dozens. And even though everyone had the mark “Made by Nicolo Amati in Cremona,” Antonio felt that his skill was growing and he would finally be able to receive the honorary title of master himself.
True, by the time he opened his own workshop, Stradivarius was 40. At the same time, Antonio married Francesca Ferraboci, the daughter of a wealthy shopkeeper. He became a respected violin maker. Although Antonio never surpassed his teacher, orders for his small, yellow-varnished violins (exactly the same as Nicolo Amati's) came from all over Italy.

And the first students have already appeared in Stradivarius’s workshop, ready, like he himself once was, to hang on to every word of the teacher. The goddess of love Venus also blessed the union of Antonio and Francesca: one after another, five black-haired children, healthy and lively, were born.

Stradivari had already begun to dream of a calm old age, when a nightmare came to Cremona - the plague. That year, the epidemic claimed thousands of lives, sparing neither the poor nor the rich, neither women nor children. The old woman with a scythe did not pass by the Stradivari family: his beloved wife Francesca and all five children died from a terrible disease.

Stradivari plunged into the abyss of despair. His hands gave up, he could not even look at the violins, which he treated as his own children. Sometimes he took one of them in his hands, held the bow, listened for a long time to the piercingly sad sound and put it back, exhausted.

Golden period

Antonio Stradivari was saved from despair by one of his students. After the epidemic, the boy was not in the workshop for a long time, and when he appeared, he cried bitterly and said that he could no longer be a student of the great Signor Stradivarius: his parents died and now he himself must earn his own living...

Stradivari took pity on the boy and took him into his house, and a few years later he even adopted him. Having become a father again, Antonio suddenly felt a new taste for life. He began studying the violin with redoubled zeal, feeling a strong desire to create something extraordinary, and not copies, even excellent ones, of his teacher’s violins.

These dreams were not destined to come true soon: only at the age of 60, when most people were already retiring, Antonio developed a new model of violin, which brought him immortal fame.

From that time on, Stradivarius began his “golden period”: he created the best instruments for concert performance and received the nickname “super-Stradivarius”. The flying unearthly sound of his creations has not yet been reproduced by anyone...

The violins he created sounded so unusual that it immediately gave rise to many rumors: they said that the old man had sold his soul to the devil! After all, an ordinary person, even one with golden hands, cannot make a piece of wood make sounds like the singing of angels.

Some people have seriously argued that the wood from which several of the most famous violins are made is the wreckage of Noah's Ark.

Modern scientists simply state a fact: the master managed to give his violins, violas and cellos a rich timbre, a higher tone than that of Amati, and also amplified the sound.

Along with the fame that spread far beyond the borders of Italy, Antonio also found new love. He married - and again happily - the widow Maria Zambelli. Maria gave birth to five children, two of whom - Francesco and Omobone - also became violin makers, but they could not only surpass their father, but also repeat them.

Not much information has been preserved about the life of the great master, because at first he was of little interest to chroniclers - Stradivari did not stand out in any way among other Cremonese masters. And he was a reserved person.

Only later, when he became famous as a “super-Stradivarius,” did his life begin to become overgrown with legends. But we know for sure: the genius was an incredible workaholic. He made instruments until his death at age 93.

It is believed that Antonio Stradivari created about 1,100 instruments in total, including violins. The maestro was amazingly productive: he produced 25 violins a year.
For comparison: a modern actively working violin maker who makes violins by hand produces only 3-4 instruments annually. But only 630 or 650 instruments of the great master have survived to this day; the exact number is unknown. Most of them are violins.

Miracle parameters

Modern violins are created using the most advanced technologies and achievements of physics - but the sound is still not the same! For three hundred years, there has been debate about the mysterious “secret of Stradivarius,” and each time scientists put forward more and more fantastic versions.

According to one theory, Stradivari's know-how is that he owned a certain magical secret varnish for violins, which gave his products a special sound. They said that the master learned this secret in one of the pharmacies and improved the recipe by adding insect wings and dust from the floor of his own workshop to the varnish.

Another legend says that the Cremonese master prepared his mixtures from the resins of trees that grew in those days in the Tyrolean forests and were soon completely cut down. However, scientists have found that the varnish used by Stradivari was no different from what furniture makers used in that era.

Many violins were generally re-varnished during restoration in the 19th century. There was even a madman who decided to undertake a sacrilegious experiment - completely removing the varnish from one of the Stradivarius violins. And what? The violin did not sound any worse.
Some scientists suggest that Stradivari used high-altitude spruce trees that grew in unusually cold weather. The wood had an increased density, which, according to researchers, gave his instruments a distinctive sound. Others believe that Stradivari's secret is in the shape of the instrument.

They say the whole point is that none of the masters put as much work and soul into their work as Stradivari. An aura of mystery gives the creations of the Cremonese master an additional charm

But pragmatic scientists do not believe in the illusions of lyricists and have long dreamed of dividing the magic of enchanting violin sounds into physical parameters. In any case, there is definitely no shortage of enthusiasts. We can only wait for the moment when physicists achieve the wisdom of lyricists. Or vice versa…

It can be noted that people who have achieved perfection in any activity almost always have students. After all, knowledge exists in order to disseminate it. Someone passes it on to their relatives, from generation to generation. Some pass it on to equally talented craftsmen, while others simply pass it on to all those who show interest. But there are also those who try to hide the secrets of their skills until their last breath. Anna Baklaga about the mysteries of Antonio Stradivari.

Before you understand your true purpose, Great master went through many professions. He tried painting, making wooden decorations for furniture, and sculpting statues. Antonio Stradivari diligently studied the ornamentation of doors and wall paintings of cathedrals until he realized that he was attracted to music.

Stradivarius did not become famous due to insufficient mobility of his hands

Despite diligent practice of playing the violin famous musician he failed to become. Stradivari's hands were not mobile enough to produce a particularly pure melody. However, he had excellent hearing and a burning desire to improve sound. Seeing this, Nicolo Amati (Stradivari's teacher) decided to initiate his ward into the very process of creating a violin. After all, the sound of a musical instrument directly depends on the quality of the build.

Soon, Antonio Stradivari found out how thick the soundboards should be. Learned how to choose the right tree. I understood what role the varnish that covers it plays in the sound of a violin, and what the purpose of the spring inside the instrument is. At twenty-two he made his first violin.

Stradivari wanted to hear children's and women's voices in his violin

After he managed to create a violin that sounded no worse than his teacher’s, he began to work on his own. Stradivarius had a dream to build the most ideal instrument. He was simply obsessed with this idea. In the future violin, the master wanted to hear the sounds of children's and women's voices.

Before achieving the desired result, Antonio Stradivari went through thousands of options. The most important thing was to find the right type of wood. Each tree resonates differently, and he looked to differentiate them by their acoustic properties. Great importance It also mattered in what month the trunk was cut down. For example, if it was spring or summer, then there was a chance that the tree would ruin everything, since it would have a lot of sap. It was rare to come across a truly good tree. Often, the master carefully used one barrel for several years.

The sound of the future violin directly depended on the composition of the varnish with which the instrument was coated. And not only from the varnish, but also from the primer that needs to be used to cover the wood so that the varnish is not absorbed into it. The master weighed the parts of the violin trying to find the best proportion between the lower and upper soundboard. It was long and painstaking work. Many tested options and many years of calculations went into making a violin unsurpassed in sound qualities. And only at the age of fifty-six did he manage to construct it. It was elongated in shape and had kinks and irregularities inside the body, due to which the sound was enriched due to the appearance of a large number of high overtones.

Stradivari created the perfect instrument at the age of 56

However, in addition to their excellent sound, his instruments were famous for their unusual appearance. He skillfully decorated them with all sorts of designs. All violins were different: short, long, narrow, wide. Later he started making others stringed instruments- cello, harp and guitar. Thanks to his work, he achieved fame and honor. Kings and nobles ordered him instruments that were considered the best in Europe. During his life, Antonio Stradivari made about 2,500 instruments. Of these, 732 originals have survived.

For example, the famous cello called “Bass of Spain” or the most magnificent creation masters - the “Messiah” violin and the “Münz” violin, from the inscription on which (1736. D’anni 92) it was calculated that the master was born in 1644.

However, despite the beauty that he created as a person, he is remembered as silent and gloomy. To his contemporaries he seemed aloof and stingy. Perhaps he was like this because of constant hard work, or maybe they were just jealous of him.

Antonio Stradivari died at ninety-three years old. But until the end of his long life, he continued to make instruments. His creations are admired and appreciated to this day. Unfortunately, the master did not see worthy successors the knowledge he acquired. Literally, he took it with him to the grave.

Stradivarius made about 2,500 instruments, 732 originals survive

The most interesting thing is that the violins he made practically do not age and do not change their sound. It is known that the master soaked the wood in sea water and exposed it to complex chemical compounds of plant origin. However, to determine chemical composition The primer and varnish applied to his instruments still fail to this day. Using the example of Stradivari's work, scientists conducted many studies and attempts to make a similar violin. Until now, no one has been able to achieve this perfect sound, like the original creations of the master.

Many Stradivarius instruments are in rich private collections. There are about two dozen violins by the master in Russia: several violins are in the State Collection of Musical Instruments, one is in the Glinka Museum and several more are in private ownership.