From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Sat Aug 24 2002 - 12:08:37 MDT
E. Shaun Russell:
>Wow...great article! If you haven't done so already, you may like to
>check out a movie called _The Red Violin_. It details the life of a
>single violin from the 17th century to present day. It's a
>surprisingly engaging movie, and is in multiple languages (the
>violin had migrated from Italy to Austria, England, China, Canada
>etc.). Well worth watching.
I heard too, about this movie. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
This kind of violin story is what I discovered in the last week
while I was scouring the web looking for clear and clean violin
samples to put through my wavelet transform software. Many of these
world-class instruments have a 200+ year history that the violinists
know well, and often publicize. For example: Nigel Kennedy's
Guarnieri:
-----------------------
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/Another.String/guarneri.htm
The Lafont Guarneri 'del Gesu' - The Story
<begin quote>
Joseph Guarneri, known as 'del Gesu' to distinguish him from his
father, also called Joseph, made the violin in 1736. The early
history of the instrument is unknown, but it came into the
possession of the great French violinist Charles Philippe Lafont,
whose name it carries, some time during the early 19th century.
Lafont died in 1830, so he would have owned it when both Beethoven
and Schubert were alive.
It subsequently passed to a Paris violin repairer and maker called
Thibout and was sold to a London-based dealer called Davis. He sold
it to a well-known collector called James Goding, a brewer by trade,
who died in 1857 and whose collection was auctioned by Christie's.
The violin returned to France as it was acquired by the most famous
French violin restorer-maker of the 19th century, namely J.B.
Vuillaume. The original certificate, dated 29th November 1857, still
exists. In it he states that he has sold the violin to Jean de
Kousminski, a Russian amateur violinist from Kiev. The Vuillaume
certificate is interesting, because it refers back to Lafont, saying
that this violin was his favourite and the one that he habitually
used for public performances.
Kousminski kept the violin for many years and eventually sold it to
Adolf Brodsky in 1880-81. This great Russian violinist gave the
first performance of the Tchaikovsky concerto, almost certainly on
the Lafont Guarneri, on December 4th, 1881 in Vienna under the baton
of Hans Richter.
Brodsky subsequently settled in England and was doubly famous as the
founder of the Brodsky Quartet and as the leader and occasional
conductor of the Halle Orchestra.
After Brodsky's death, the violin passed out of sight until 1991
when, in the quest for a suitable replacement for Nigel's Cathedrale
Strad, it was discovered for sale with the Chicago firm of Bein and
Fushi. The rest is history, as they say. Nigel played the violin for
the first time in Oslo, and it was love at first sight.
<end quote>
-----------------------
I also discovered that the idea of analyzing these special
Cremona-made violins in frequency space is not new- it's been done
for more than 50 years, however the results are today still
controversial. That is, whether one can really find in frequency
space if particular characteristics appear that are _that_ different
from 'bad violins'. Some people have said that a good violinist
can make any (bad) violin sound good.
In addition, I doubt that I am the first to use wavelet transforms to
look at sounds from Cremona-made violins, but so far I've not seen
anyone else (I'm asking around). If it's true that no on else has
tried, then it will be my luminescent drop into the vast
Cremona violin story-space.
Some results of discrete wavelet transforms of violin samples:
http://www.amara.com/violins/violinboth.html Sci American samples
http://www.amara.com/violins/violinsame.html Nigel Kennedy samples
Amara
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "The best presents don't come in boxes." --Hobbes
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