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Violin Makers Take A Boy in Cremona, Stradivari's Hometown
Roy Leonard, "Going Places", Chicago Daily HeraldAugust 20, 2001 - - Reading in a guidebook that the small, Northern Italian town of Cremona is best known for the development of the violin wouldn't exactly make me put it on my 'must see' list. That would be a mistake.
During a brief stop on our recent tour of Italy's Lombardy region, we not only met a violin maker, but we also heard a master violinist actually play a classic Stradivarius.
Antonio Stradivari was born in Cremona in 1644 and made more than 1,100 violins that are universally accepted as the world's finest and never have been equaled. Six hundred of them survive.
The history of the instrument goes back to 1556 when Andrea Amati perfected the first violin. This instrument soon became popular with the royal courts in Europe because of the superior sound to the medieval fiddle. Stradivari was a pupil of Andrea's grandson Niccolo before he embarked on his own family business.
For our tour, a visit to a local violin maker and a brief concert had been pre-arranged. The small shop off the town's main square had room for perhaps a half dozen people. Here the craftsman began an explanation of how he made a violin. Spruce and maple are the primary woods used; the material must be seasoned for a number of years. He demonstrated the tedious task of shaping and forming the wood, explained the use of hide glue and showed how various tools are used. This craftsman makes about 10 violins a year, many by special order (they start at about $7,000 each). Bows, incidentally, can cost as much as $3,000 - and the best come from Paris, not Italy.
It was just before noon on this warm July morning when we left the violin maker's shop and walked across the street to the Palazzo del Commune. We were escorted up a long set of stone stairs that led to what looked like a conference room. There were guards all over the place, some with side arms, and our tickets were checked carefully.
As we sat quietly, we could hear a violin being played in an adjoining room. After a few minutes, a distinguished-looking gentlemen, violin in hand, walked into our room, took a position by the door and began to play. Glorious sound filled the air with a clarity and tone I can't remember hearing before. The performance lasted only 15 minutes before our concert master retreated back behind the closed doors.
After a few moments we were allowed into that mysterious room, which turned out to be a small museum containing not only the instrument we had just heard, but a selection of great violins created by other master Cremonese violin makers. The concert violin was back in its glass case and turned out to be a Stradivarius made in 1715.
There also was an Andrea Amati commissioned by Charles IX of France in 1566 and a 1658 violin created by Andrea's grandson, Niccolo, who taught Stradivari. There also was a Guarneri crafted in 1689.
I tried to get our guide to put a price on some of these instruments. He finally came up with a figure of around $4 million for the Stradivarius.
There's not a lot to see in Cremona, other than a few other violin museums. However, the main square is dominated by the tallest medieval tower in Italy, known as the Torrazzo and the Duomo, featuring a magnificent astrological clock. There also is a 12th-century baptistery.
If you'd like to see what Cremona looks like, rent the 1999 film 'The Red Violin.' It will give you an insight into the power of a musical instrument. In the tale, a 17th-century violin maker creates his finest work in anticipation of the birth of his first child. When mother and child die during the birth, he finishes the violin in a state of profound grief. We then follow the instrument over the next three centuries. It's a beautiful film about a beautiful instrument.
Required Reading for
Italians...
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