Stradivari's Genius

Stradivari's Genius PDF Author: Toby Faber
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588362140
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Book Description
“’Tis God gives skill, but not without men’s hands: He could not make Antonio Stradivari’s violins without Antonio.” –George Eliot Antonio Stradivari (1644—1737) was a perfectionist whose single-minded pursuit of excellence changed the world of music. In the course of his long career in the northern Italian city of Cremona, he created more than a thousand stringed instruments; approximately six hundred survive. In this fascinating book, Toby Faber traces the rich, multilayered stories of six of these peerless instruments–five violins and a cello–and the one towering artist who brought them into being. Blending history, biography, meticulous detective work, and an abiding passion for music, Faber embarks on an absorbing journey as he follows some of the most prized instruments of all time. Mysteries and unanswered questions proliferate from the outset–starting with the enigma of Antonio Stradivari himself. What made this apparently unsophisticated craftsman so special? Why were his techniques not maintained by his successors? How is it that even two and a half centuries after his death, no one has succeeded in matching the purity, depth, and delicacy of a Stradivarius? In Faber’s illuminating narrative, each of the six fabled instruments becomes a character in its own right–a living entity cherished by artists, bought and sold by princes and plutocrats, coveted, collected, hidden, lost, copied, and occasionally played by a musician whose skill matches its maker’s. Here is the fabulous Viotti, named for the virtuoso who enchanted all Paris in the 1780s, only to fall foul of the French Revolution. Paganini supposedly made a pact with the devil to transform the art of the violin–and by the end of his life he owned eleven Strads. Then there’s the Davidov cello, fashioned in 1712 and lovingly handed down through a succession of celebrated artists until, in the 1980s, it passed into the capable hands of Yo-Yo Ma. From the salons of Vienna to the concert halls of New York, from the breakthroughs of Beethoven’s last quartets to the first phonographic recordings, Faber unfolds a narrative magnificent in its range and brilliant in its detail. “A great violin is alive,” said Yehudi Menuhin of his own Stradivarius. In the pages of this book, Faber invites us to share the life, the passion, the intrigue, and the incomparable beauty of the world’s most marvelous stringed instruments.

Antonio Stradivari

Antonio Stradivari PDF Author: William Henry Hill
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Violin
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Book Description

The Violin Maker

The Violin Maker PDF Author: John Marchese
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061850578
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
“[A] magical, profound, and elegant look at the continued need for high quality in our throw away society.” —Douglas Brinkley, Historian This intensely human story, which moves from an ageless workshop in Brooklyn to the rehearsal rooms of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and across the globe to Cremona, the birthplace of Stradivari, opens up for the reader the insular and fascinating realm of music, musicians, and the craftsmanship that is essential to that world. How does a simple piece of wood become the king of instruments? On a quest to learn about what many consider the world’s most perfect instrument, author and musician John Marchese befriends Sam Zygmuntowicz, an old-world craftsman in Brooklyn, New York, along with the man who is waiting for Sam’s next violin, Eugene Drucker of the world famous Emerson String Quartet. The violin does something remarkable, magical, and evocative. It is capable of bringing to life the mathematical marvels of Bach, the moan of a Gypsy melody, the wounded dignity of Beethoven's Concerto in D Major. No other instrument is steeped in such a rich brew of myth and lore—and yet the making of a violin starts with a simple block of wood. The Violin Maker takes the reader on a journey as that block of wood, in the hands of a master craftsman, becomes an instrument to rival one made by the greatest master of all time.

Stradivari

Stradivari PDF Author: Stewart Pollens
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521873045
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 367

Book Description
A highly illustrated biography and study of Stradivari, the greatest violin maker, including colour photographs of his most famous instruments.

Antonio Stradivari

Antonio Stradivari PDF Author: W. H. Hill
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486172600
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 402

Book Description
Construction methods, woods, varnishes, types of instruments, and special features plus life of the composer. "A rich mine of fascinating information." — American Record Guide. 93 illustrations. 4 color plates.

Cremona Violins: A Physicist's Quest For The Secrets Of Stradivari (With Dvd-rom)

Cremona Violins: A Physicist's Quest For The Secrets Of Stradivari (With Dvd-rom) PDF Author: Kameshwar C Wali
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814338338
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175

Book Description
Cremona violins occupy a unique and storied place in violin history. This book contains a brief account of that history — the rise and fall of the Cremonese art of violin making that dominated over two centuries. It is primarily devoted, however, to the physics behind violin acoustics, specifically the research of William F “Jack” Fry over the past several decades. The gradual evolution of his ideas leading to a holistic approach is chronicled, in sharp contrast to the conventional “reductionist” analysis. With rare insights, he has come closer than anyone before in reproducing the tonal qualities of the great Italian masters. This historic achievement makes the book extremely valuable for violin makers and violin researchers, enabling young and aspiring violinists to own excellent sounding instruments with the acoustical marvels of the old at affordable prices.The accompanying video features Fry's demonstration of how and why minute changes in thickness graduations make predictable changes in tonal qualities of an instrument.

Trifles Make Perfection

Trifles Make Perfection PDF Author: Joseph Wechsberg
Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
ISBN: 9781567920925
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Book Description
"Wechsberg was a connoisseur in the old Continental sense of the word, a man who valued perfection for its own sake, seeing its quest as worthy and its attainment as eminently possible. Born in 1907 into a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family, he saw his comfortable life threatened by World War I and then extinguished by Hitler's annexation of his native Czechoslovakia. He came to America with only a basic command of English but an impressive understanding of what was happening in Europe. His most powerful essays, describing the tragic political fragmentation of Europe at the end of World War II, are never strident or bitter; his appreciations of Europe's finer offering are a sheer delight."--BOOK JACKET.

Beethoven in Russia

Beethoven in Russia PDF Author: Frederick W. Skinner
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 025306306X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 346

Book Description
How did Ludwig van Beethoven help overthrow a tsarist regime? With the establishment of the Russian Musical Society and its affiliated branches throughout the empire, Beethoven's music reached substantially larger audiences at a time of increasing political instability. In addition, leading music critics of the regime began hearing Beethoven's dramatic works as nothing less than a call to revolution. Beethoven in Russia deftly explores the interface between music and politics in Russia by examining the reception of Beethoven's works from the late 18th century to the present. In part 1, Frederick W. Skinner's clear and sweeping review examines the role of Beethoven's more dramatic works in the revolutionary struggle that culminated in the Revolution of 1917. In part 2, Skinner reveals how this same power was again harnessed to promote Stalin's campaign of rapid industrialization. The appropriation of Beethoven and his music to serve the interests of the state remained the hallmark of Soviet Beethoven reception until the end of communist rule. With interdisciplinary appeal in the areas of history, music, literature, and political thought, Beethoven in Russia shows how Beethoven's music served as a call to action for citizens and weaponized state propaganda in the great political struggles that shaped modern Russian history.

The Story of the Violin

The Story of the Violin PDF Author: Paul Stoeving
Publisher: London : Walter Scott ; New York : C. Scribner
ISBN:
Category : Violin
Languages : en
Pages : 378

Book Description

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