The Secret Of The Violin ( Stradivarius - Guarnerius )

Oh the sound of these violins is unique and they are worth millions fewer than a thousand still exist the violins of antonio stradivari or Guarneri del gesù continue to cast their spell on all that see and hear them musicians multimillionaires art dealers violin builders but also fraudsters scientists are desperately attempting to solve their secret they achieve record prices at auctions star violinist Daniel Hope knows the violin scene like no other we join him on a discovery tour of the exciting world of rare stringed instruments this is my dream violin the Granero DOJ's who called the ex Lipinski since 2011 it's been my permanent companion I could well understand the fascination for these three hundred year old violins for professional violinist there is nothing greater than being able to play a Stradivari or agra narrator Jesu if only it didn't have the price tag which has literally exploded over the last few decades these violins have become sought-after investments and where there is a lot of money involved the potential for fraud can be great vienna September the 19th 2012 the beginning of proceedings of one of the most spectacular violin dealer scandals of all time involving millions the defendant German violin dealer deep mama heart once considered the star of the industry he made millions with expensive violins until his fall from grace charged with serious fraud embezzlement of several stringed instruments and various bankruptcy offenses he ended up in court another alec worst man that is Jacob he was an enormous bad apple and it's it's really unfortunate he has this air of trust about there are musicians who who lost a tremendous amount of money from being swindled by him the violin business is the biggest shark tank there is one of the problems in the violin world is that it's not an exact science mr. study right if he would see today how much people were ready to pay for his valance he probably would laugh but before we allow the darker side of the violin business to resonate more strongly let's go back to where everything began here in Cremona the myth was born that still today surrounds these priceless instruments this northern Italian town is the mecca of violin making amarti study body in canary the top three of the violin dynasty all emerged from Cremona at each maker passed on his secrets to the next generation the spirit of Stradivari and Coe is omnipresent in the city we see the workshops of the violin makers continuing in the tradition of the old masters on every corner what they created between 1540 and 1740 for within a period of 200 years set new standards without them the epitome of a stringed instrument the violin wouldn't exist as we know it over centuries and different continents with different styles of music you know these really remarkable Cremonese violence continue to be the standard and the things that people are you know highly the most sought-after instruments akaike symbol echch dark the ultimate eva was immense height treyvion content in Cremona it all began with andrea Amati the first violin maker to settle here and the founder of the amarti dynasty in the middle of the 16th century he developed the basic framework of the modern violin imarti refines the existing stringed instruments uses better wood changes the shape curvature and dimensions it was a beautiful instrument the way her Marty had designed it and it also worked very well for the musicians of the time giving a very sweet sound I think and so it grew in popularity very quickly predecessors of the violin are the Rebecca of Arabian origin and the fiddle both have existed since the 11th century and are still simply built minstrels instruments as amarti begins to build violins the era of the Renaissance comes to an end man is now the measure of all things and the earth is no longer flat the spirit of critical research takes the place of authoritative belief and imarti creates the appropriate instrument for this atmosphere of optimism what I think he did was he brought the Rene sauce into violins he introduced the classical geometrical design system the geometry and proportion into kimono in guan devilish risky and Savalas emotive and fast for a common and almost assassin heart form on their shoe in height from clown hag absent of white antic long 4,000 miles from Cremona here we can admire the Ammar t's beautiful shape and its successor with even more highly developed tonal qualities I'm in search of a very special treasure and here the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City where they have over 5,000 musical instruments including four priceless Stratovarius and even an Andrea Marti a man who created the violin let's see if I can get to play on some of them come on I fight good morning welcome to the Metropolitan Museum thank you very much so let's look at survial in absolutely this is from Dandrea Amati I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful instrument I mean just look at thee look at those markings on that I mean that's incredible we've learned through research and through studying the decoration on the back of the instrument and the inscription on the side that this is probably associated with a marriage of henry ii and catherine de medicis daughter Elizabeth de Valois who married philip ii of spain is it a cool marriage which then if it's associated with that marriage would date this instrument at about 1558 1558 so it's one of the very early ones I feel a bit like a a child and I can be still here I would love to hear is that possible yes my goodness I'll make sure I didn't drop it absolutely beautiful terrific thank you for letting me fired I enjoyed standing here that's great let's try this one this is the only Reba wrote Strad in the world Wow completely different but it's a Strad a hundred years after Andrea Marty another master begins his work Antonio Stradivari music had moved into the Royal Courts and the violin was used for the first time as a solo instrument in concerts ever since the sound of a Stradivari violin has been considered ideal Stradivari was a magnificent craftsman and it was Stradivari who was really the second genius of the violin who made just a few small alterations and really perfected the violin one of the fascinating things about the violin world is that really nobody is ever managed to improve on what Stradivari did despite 300 years of trying so Stradivari produced these wonderful instruments he had access to some of the very best materials some beautiful would say he's an instruments were aesthetically pleasing and he became famous relatively quickly and he had clients all over Europe Stradivari lived for more than 90 years and as of 1666 together with his sons he built more than 1100 instruments his contemporary was the grandson of Andrea Marty Nichols who was also one of the greatest violin makers in Cremona one legend indicates that he was even his pupil irrespective of this his first violins would doubtlessly influenced by Nicola Oh Marty's style Fran Avari makes his own changes and gradually through his own amazing imagination creates the perfect violin these are the sounds of a violin made by Josep agua Neary known as Guarneri del gesù meaning of Jesus the violin maker who lived for just 40 years long stood in the shadow of the great Stradivarius and unrecognized genius during his lifetime and always in financial straits I think he said to himself Stradivari does that that is the ultimate in that direction so I would like to go off in a slightly different direction there is a legend that Guarneri del gesù spent some time in prison apparently so the rumor goes for killing a man but nobody seems to know the exact truth of the story his instruments are very special he had a really distinct eye and a really distinct vision and varied his production tremendously his early instruments look nothing like his later instruments in his middle instruments are something different altogether at the time of his death in 1744 no one knew del gesu instruments until the passionate italian violinist niccolò paganini made him famous his favorite instrument was known as Buchanan II a violin from the workshop of Guarneri del gesù he started playing concerts around Europe on this violin and everybody wanted to know what is this violin that he plays and so the fame of Granero del gesù was suddenly launched building a perfect replica of a Stradivarius or a quinary del gesu to this day no one has managed to achieve this this is because neither of the great masters left an instruction manual behind one of the reasons for the speculation as to where the secret of their extraordinary sound lies this is the forest which grows violins experts are unanimous to build the ultimate violin you need the ultimate wood more than 300 years ago Stradivari wandered through these forests according to the legend he selected his trees by the light of a full moon he laid his head against the trunk he knocked the tree with a hammer and he just listened only if you liked what he heard with Stradivari half the tree cut down the forest warden and poets marchello matsuki is going to tell me what the real secret of the trees from the boss cookie SWANA are right here in the heart of the Dolomites Martella very wrapped off glads on this one who had saying that's it tell me why is this forest so special di questa bosco magical yo condo bangle encuesta Bosco Prabhu sempre the Lagrangian even sembra Divini Rae in una catedral a cola : d dorita Alan art a Isola qatal allah for esta decree acanti me jockey I built a idioma moon Silencio infinito en questo Silencio risk oh no the Albury de la música once added some experts say that the mini ice age that happened here had some influence on the thickness of the wood is that true Benny no lo sabe amo questo percale Ultima glasses I own a queer Stata quindi semilla and Aoife Lauren okay segreto can Koren on Kenosha amo el Grande duta-de receive an entrare Nell anima daily Albury propio se sienta a demo Sione do biometry cm2 Tequesta cadre para la la la la musica affiliate rarety steerable a musica una nota artista in Utah Oh Artie stop stop it is indeed the wood but is supposed to make these instruments so unique the theory in the middle of the 17th century a period of several harsh winters prevailed in Europe the wood grew more slowly than usual and had a micro porous hard structure which supposedly transmitted acoustic waves better hence the inimitable Tom bruh of the violins I was last year 2008 at that time I was privileged to select my own tree as part of a fantastic project from the local community here that looks to bring artists and nature together to remember this amazing forest for what it is in addition to Daniel hope other musicians have taken on the sponsorship of these trees of the musical forest the goal the preservation of this unique wood which violinist would not want to have his own tree who knows maybe one day a violin maker will create a perfect sounding instrument out of these we continue on our journey to Washington DC where we have a date at the National Museum of Natural History to decipher the secrets found in woods the Danish archaeologist Bruno foolish has developed a rather unusual method this cello is on a very special mission it is to be scanned and has been brought to Bruno freely normally the scientist sends mummies or bone fragments through this CT scanner but for the past few years he's done the same for the world's most expensive violins 50 of them to date he examines air volume as well as the density and thickness of the wood he passes the results on to violin makers who are still struggling with the superiority of the violins from Cremona you scan this sort of AI instruments and then you get stored awhile out of the grave and put some life into him and you will sit there and discuss it and spend with him the results of the scan can be directly viewed on screen Hawaii is not it didn't make all these instruments the same all of them has a lot of variation in them and you can see that in this image here where we actually display the variation in a thickness after our port and so vet will be thick and grain will be thin and yellow will be in between and if you take its earliest one they're red and then they turned slightly more toward the green there is a correlation between wood density and thickness and as the reason could not make a copy by measuring one because no two pieces of wood would be the same there's quite a lot of channeling from wood worm that has gone these are the holes that are left from the window boring insect attacks the wood you can find instrument that you don't see anything on the outside and maybe one hole on the inside but in fact they've eaten in between they don't want to come out into the light we see instruments the soundboard is completely full of these kind of holes and it sounds fantastic every year numerous scientists believe they have solved the secret of Stradivarius sometimes it's supposed to be because of the varnish the special wood glue or even mold Bruno freely doesn't think much of these speculations most reports on this secret of this very violence men are developed by somebody's studying once England's instrument and they get excited and they do something special and they think they have actually solved all the problems in a world and now we can produce sort of our instruments and we can explain the sound and I find more I'm scanning of different instrument and the Cremona instruments more to attempt to believe that there are no secrets there are no special things in the slurry bondsmen we still refuse to believe that the violins of cremona contain no secrets we continue on to London here we've planned a special experiment I believe my canary del gesù is absolutely unique the violin maker an expert Florian Linhart however has a different idea and so we've decided to make a little bit Leonarda wants to replicate Daniel hopes violin known as the ex Lipinski hardly a day goes by without Leonhardt having to handle expensive string instruments he's familiar with the restoration and reproduction of rare violins I'm sure so he is a rock star socially Karuma up and I'm later so yeah pets kids I'm divorced with an arduous and up cause my daddy can get something about this we won after inclination and then upon each other's number pound these information once was I'm Collison and the Marseille be no heels he lives construction on Japanese earth was licenses to dr. Kagan is visa sale Isis absorb force Turk the outlines of the violin are cut from the polystyrene then numerous plaster and silicone casts will be made this will take quite some time I'm naughty Dimas is closer up it is I like boots ooh yeah this time difference at all I'm not falling for an off track this is a thought I for me sir in Moscow yes done this down yeah now let's turn to the dark side of the violin business the trading of fine violins has long been a big business this is the middle of the last century the current price of a Stradivari is 200 times what it used to be with still no end in sight one of the former global players in the violin dealer world was Dita mama called the main culprit in one of the most spectacular violin scandals of all time laughs a free market economy sites on the gray September the 19th 2012 the start of proceedings in the case of the violin dealer did mama hold the charge mm our corporate forgiving the tablished on TMP to Lucas than the following the Vyasa we had for a strike instrument only a sleaze Vicky on TV as a cuckoo steel Akita he starts a bunch of beef attention with significant assets after acid mineral oil I think a case like this is obviously a blow for the violent world he practically fiddled himself out of the business dieter Mahad one of the great violin dealers he earned millions with the expensive instruments then it became clear that his Stradivarius Empire was built on sand he apparently forged reports and misappropriated instruments I mean we were aware of it way back there but there was nothing you could really do other than warn people of dealing with him deep mama hold bought the castle of ice Busha on the outskirts of Vienna in 1997 and resided there with his wife Barbara 27 years his junior year he held receptions for potential buyers and sellers the sort of opulence was breathtaking there was a cellar full of the best wines of 35 motorcars you know who wants any 35 motorcars in a huge camera collection so I was thinking God how can anybody in the violin business have all this here in Bremen deep mama hole founded his international violin business he had studied law and spent time in his father's violin workshop the Bremen Chamber of Commerce made him an official appraiser he wrote certificates of authenticity for insurance companies and for the court but this Hanseatic city became too small for him he launched his offices in new york vienna suely chicago seoul and tokyo and propelled a small family business to the top of a highly competitive violin market Mahal's financial problems began in 2001 the first complaints from customers started piling up he juggled with millions shifted money from full corporate accounts to empty private accounts restorer Julie Reed worked for him for 21 years we knew that things were not going well but we always had the hope and of course Michael always gave us the impression that things were okay and that we were just you know one big deal away from having everything being you know alright he was extremely charming and I could see why people would entrust millions of dollars with him and entrust their violins with him when they were trying to sell them the bank's trusted him too and awarded him loans to the tune of millions like the Bremen Savings Bank or the Austrian National Bank he provided collateral in the shape of precious violins which didn't necessarily have the value he promised to the banks it's even the honest dealers they they decide for whether its original or not they decide what the price had and they sell it and to me it's always a little bit like the Emperor's New Clothes where people believe it because other people believe it but not only banks were impaired by Mac hold also private collectors and performing musicians are still waiting on their money Brazilian cellist Antonio Meneses is one of the victims in 2005 deep mama HOD was asked to sell his go freely cello built in 1700 by his found immediately but then the problems began so fairly costly from there the coif of others is an involute younger a diet released under minnesota national experts at Alice died fished speck or another I'm dependent ahem ma hold and to crops and agave lava Souza Franco is my guide a portion of the sales proceeds ends up on Meneses account the rest doesn't arrive instead of facts in which Mahad attempts to explain his cash flow problem of telephony atever image Annette on telephone and Akasaka say momentum in an it was finished item variant on tariffs Anatomy the sky chic paper facts were clear to that we feel sent me known and betraying here transit million and I adore feminine to elaborate resume in here not a mere escaped commit recent refresh their invocation in Malaga yes it's the Chablis first Antonia Meneses hires a lawyer and presses charges against eat mama halt but is unsuccessful and fellows very killer males hundred thousand Arabic me become the Meneses case didn't form part of the legal proceedings against it mama ho but it does show the extent of the many years of fraud on the 9th of November 2012 Mahad is sentenced to six years in prison his former wife Barbara and her mother are both sentenced to one year on probation the violin business is the biggest shark tank there is and if I had to own an expensive violin I would be so afraid of what I had or who to trust who do you trust I don't know who to trust how much influence doesn't appraise a have when he determines the value and authenticity of a violin and how much come on really trust his expertise London the capital of violin experts traditionally top dealers are also always top experts and irreconcilable conflict of interests they estimate the value of what they intend to sell and Commission can be as much as 10 percent depending on the value of the violin the elegance causa 400 on the buy as a ich muss cancellous our guns Clara will decide on switching the comedians ID on the expertise inside as a hundred percentage national our graduation then to ask most migrants our control mission is most I'm visits their own super him lenders may avail of Perseid then man wide open state in the world as expert and then stack up by thousand of Melaka he is known in the business as the flying fiddle the london-based expert and violin dealer Peter Biddulph he's been in the business since 1978 okay that's an early Stradivari front of you now that's what I was told yeah well I think they see the attribution I think it's absolutely right 75 to 80 I'm not saying it sounds good you showed it to Wolfgang didn't you immunity yeah one important factor in determining the age of a violin is dendrochronology or tree-ring dating it provides information regarding the time the tree was cut down and where the wood originated but the eyes and the experience of the experts are equally important I mean to look at a violin really you have to start by looking at it from the bag and then you stink from the back Oh have I seen something like that before and the answer is yes I have you don't say musically is it's like that path or an area or whatever so the back is really where you start looking and the outline and the proportion is really what your mind's eye is taking in we visit the most acknowledged of all current experts London violin dealer Charles beer his opinion is gospel he's examined and compared countless precious violins essential for the evaluation and determination of authenticity of the instruments and people coming with certificates that were fake or that were just sort of well I've always thought certificates were much easier to fake the violin yes and I remember there was an auction and Vienna of an instrument and it had our certificate and I pointed out that it wasn't the violin that with our firm had done the certificate for in 1936 was room for criminal greed in practically any walk of life yes and back with violin maker and expert Florin lenhardt he believes he can recreate my Granero del gesu I'm curious to see how far he's got with his copy others persons thank you yeah accept us from ambition for provided here finish this business occurrence these readers lost in the meantime various individual components of the X Lipinsky reproduction are complete the lining has been curved and adjusted as are the corner blocks to stabilize the rim is from a I need a addition west right the steep it's warm dig enough coordinate this just scan out the Lipinski feel anger sheds to hurt by the Gesu Tonga by to dance on instrument is that's mr. long Revere Berliner Dushku converse with Alice fact lives and mystic mountain Emily it's a design yeah that's create an air attack on Islam market at Knopf a fault was in in English Toyota the swings in this niche language was not so bad yeah hurt sister honors of money a Newark appeared avid is a process second isn't another even companies my onset seizure I'm at sky guys with a 10-9 vast water deserted mark Parr comes to leader than sister Gaia fatik you know so far as is danny d and this makes my a sofa I was promised only a few select dealers in the world set the tone in the violin business if the price is right they can get you anything our quest takes us on to Chicago did mama hot wasn't the only one to have an office here at 410 Michigan Avenue one of the global players in the violin industry resides here too fine and pushy among their clients are some of the world's most famous musicians but also oddball collectors I guess there was this sort of eclectic Texas oil millionaire and he wanted a strata very violent the way some people want a Picasso or want a Ferrari and my dad went down to Texas and met with a guy and you know purchased it while he was down there and it is in a case in his living room or library or something like that next to his Picasso the founders of the company Jeffery foo she and Robert vine are both deceased from 1976 onwards they made a huge dent in the traditionally European violin market at a time when the instruments increasingly became an attractive investment these are violins that are for sale and so if they're all here that's not a good thing because that means nobody's trying them so empty slots are good actually this is a 1723 strata very violent that's actually a very well-known one called the Earl Spencer and Princess Diana was a Spencer and so this violin has always been connected to her because she played the violin it's not for sale right now so we don't have an actual asking price but it's certainly you know it's it's north of seven million dollars none of the old violins are still in their original state today all of them are attuned to current standards the neck fingerboard bridge strings chin rest and tail piece are all replaceable it's the body that counts all pegs all accessories that can be changed you know routinely that don't really affect the value on the one hand you have the dealers on the other the auction houses and they're all contenders in the highly competitive violin market we have a date at Christie's we're here at Christie's in New York one of the most prestigious and largest auction houses in the world here everything comes under the hammer even the hammer violin 17:07 a Stradivarius a magnificent instrument that was sold in 2006 for the then record price of 2.7 million euros nowadays prices are even higher annually only around 10 to 20 strats become available on the global market Sotheby's music expert Carrie keen shows us his treasures very nice to meet you Daniel thanks for coming today great pleasure to be here thanks for showing us around Strads and iguana Reid algae's you are on offer at least what that's what it's whatever feeling that's good oh yeah so the same maker and a few years apart yes now remind me Daniel this is 1742 - and this is 1744 oh yes I tell Jason's always different and love to try the DOJ's I was out as a terrific also so different though very round isn't it's beautifully rounded we pay a visit to the London branch of Teresa in 2011 the internet based auction house sold the lady blunt Stradivarius for fifteen point nine million dollars it's one of the best preserved Italian master violins not merely an instrument but a work of art in an auction at Sotheby's in 1971 the lady fetched $200,000 today that makes it 80 times more expensive than it was back then so one thing that made this event such a historically important event was that here's the once in a generation opportunity to buy a violin like this everything at every other violin of this caliber in terms of preservation is already in a museum already in a collection that won't be won't come up for sale there were six total bidders passed about 13 million there were two people and they just went up little by little by little by little and eventually it stopped at 15.9 the previous owners of the lady blunt the Nippon foundation they donated the entire proceeds of the sale to the Japanese tsunami victims as beautiful as the violin maybe it's not fit for today's concert stages it was once played by Yehudi Menuhin it was named after Lady Anne blunt the granddaughter of the British poet Lord Byron it now belongs to a Russian collector we're now the world's biggest museum complex the smithsonian institute in washington DC here you can find everything even a zoo but what interests me is of course the violin collection and this particular collection has been donated to the Smithsonian by a very special donor who by the way was also interested in fish these violins were donated to the Smithsonian by multi-millionaire Herbert Axelrod now well into his 80s a complete string quartet by Stradivarius it was named after the benefactor the presumed value of the Axelrod string quartet is around fifty million dollars it was a great figure of like Hemingway Herbert was an extraordinary man and I have to say I like him enormous Lee but he was he was kind of Jekyll and Hyde - he was a major philanthropist a major collector and he was a client of Dimona home Herbert Axelrod earned his millions with a wholesale pet supplies company furthermore he's a violin lover and enthusiastic fish researcher he was well known for giving valuable instruments to young musicians and for being extraordinarily generous his donations can be appreciated in many museums but eventually he was perceived to be less of a benefactor and more of a very devious salesman Axelrod and Mach Holt became good friends and bedfellows in the violin business you could almost say they tried to rig the International violin market because Axelrod published a book saying listing all his instruments and how much he had paid for them and he he overstated what he had paid for each of those instruments by millions of dollars so that he could get the price of international violins higher and higher and higher but he didn't make himself liable to prosecution in the violin business but rather due to tax evasion he then nested in Berlin and in 2005 he spent 18 months in prison in the USA at the New Jersey newspaper The Star Ledger journalist Mark Mueller dealt extensively with the topic of violin trading it was here that Axelrod hit the headlines when he gave the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra a violin collection for 18 million dollars which was ostensibly worth more than 50 million this was a great splash across America 50 million dollars of violins in the hands of one Orchestra well turned out the collection was not exactly what Axelrod and ma Colt said it was and the orchestra actually knew this before the deal went through because they had experts come in and look at the instruments and the experts said this is a composite this is not a real guada meanie this is also a composite this is not del gesu but they did it anyway and they continued to trumpet it as a 50 million dollar deal and a great gift and and Axelrod was called the biggest benefactor in the history of New Jersey but as soon as his wheeling and dealing became known the scandal surrounding the Symphony Orchestra went public in the meantime the collection was sold for twenty million dollars which is probably what it was actually worth I guess everybody is mad about Strads or a Guarneri del gesù all major violin stars play an Italian master violin a must for their careers as no other musical instrument has so much value attached to the brand name as a violin the old violins have long since become status symbols they suggest perfection whether this is actually the case or not is the unique sound of a Stradivari or a guinardó jesu only a myth a recent study attempts to rob the old Cremonese violins of their mystique in a test they apparently underperformed when compared to modern violins scientists Claudia Fritz shot the entire violin community in a darkened hotel room screened by sheets she had 21 musicians play on three modern violins to Stradivari x' and iguana read algae zoo the result of the blind test the players felt that one of the Stradivari sounded the worst what's amazing to me is the worldwide controversy it's as if you told people there's no Santa Claus why is this topic something that has hit such a nerve that people were critic looking for ways to criticize the study rather than believe her findings it's great for the world to have a romantic image of perfection to admire but myths have uses and they have dangerous this is so complex Desmond Lee recent shaft leash that's common muscle car when Muslim wonders even under the instrument effect lies in the Jesus of tourism of Tisch laying on in flash anayia Albert House messin fertilization where tests mark our deaths of first on Merchiston via vice no not centered Lady Gaga Thomas in fact logic long we travel on to Hanover a blind test is to be held here as part of the yours f your him violin competition however this one is without a scientific background it's more about the enjoyment of sound for both spectators and jury to modern violins to Stradivarius and the Guarneri del gesù are competing against each other the first to get kicked out of this blind test our to modern violins one of which is from the workshop of violin maker florian Leonarda the end of the test the decision lies between number five and number one I fear it's pretty fun oh it's videos you have an island given er it's lighted plots the Stradivari Ramona's in cinema theatre I think you said stomata not knowing me oh no this is leading Zika for surveys Anatoly Canary del gesu 700c and chaotic at the end of the day isn't it all a matter of taste and what remains of the myth when today's violins are on a par with the old ones in terms of quality a modern violin that sounds like a Stradivari which violin maker would not wish for that with the help of an acoustic fingerprint and a virtual violin scientists have been working on making such improbabilities a reality we travel to Hamburg we're about to participate in a special kind of experiment professor Robert Morris is investigating the phenomenon of good violin sound using a dummy head and state-of-the-art technology he detects the acoustic fingerprint of every violin even those of the expensive Stradivari and Guarneri del gesù the SICU doors the achievement here session inside but I didn't instrumental in pools I'm stick relative chords disrespectin prescribed done with the same finger look you know this is fast he's a good guy guy genious of them can see me I'm slack a fathom my bill is an islam does gigantic clan and his instruments the eine kleine impulse fest so heart missed a beat at least can be this awesome idea all weekend as Ahmed's must be immortal are envious ESA will hold on often it's only after saw many teen are in that - Liam the size - Dixey a feeling formats own indie simple strainer and tactical st duster now give us off for the Geiger Alice Vesta gigas argue mr. Venom's bill Lester he was iron cotton impulse a fossil now the information from the impulse is transferred to a silent or virtual violin which then simulates the full sound of the violin helmets as man mmm okay fiend dunk I thought with a scam school - about the job and death homecoming really we came back to our Biden divert Valerio Lina is answer is dr. ahmed emits language power optimum phoneme can in this can be Titan tester I know under Gaiden bar first looked exact an Atlantic opiates their fun I know exists he on and who via techniques like the Italian guy does Mussolini signed a kind of a magnet Romania Nakamoto is permission however a complete tonal replica of a Stradivarius is possible in theory the fundamental prerequisite remains a good violin maker this is circuit Lucas testa by pricey fancy charm and I'm standing is calamity honesty despises me right there me know everything feminism nothing if you like them here of our unnourished pizza seen to be better than Stradivari let me first of all see that your is good do such good violin maker still exist we travel to New York I'm here to meet Sam signal Kovac one of the most famous violin makers of our time his instruments go for record prices and are played by some of the finest violets in the world let's go and try them out the Stratovarius of modern times this is what they call Samuel Sigmund tava CH he's been building violins since 1985 either instruments inspired by the old Italian masters or his own creations and with incredible success his violins are the stuff of legends his clients include star violinists and he only uses the best woodface violins and as a violin maker he makes use of the scientific results of sound research during construction I think right now is one of the best periods to be Lilan maker in the last 200 years probably we have a talent of the of the generation entering violin making combined with the knowledge of the old generation and the appetite of musicians to create a really I think kind of a little Golden Age of violin making in our time Isaac stone was one of your clients as well that's right yeah well he was a great mentor I mean he really was a supporter of new violence so Isaac Stern had two of my violence and may have you know when I got the call that he wanted to send him to me and what did and it's like Isaac Stern's a name I grew up with you know it's like when someone wasn't very good they say well he's no Isaac Stern and so actually it's like meeting the Pope or something like that I mean it's is a monumental personnel cause when Isaac Stern died in 2001 his violins including the two del gesù replicas built by xiguan tava ch4 Stern was sold by the internet auction house Horacio one of them fetched a hundred and thirty thousand dollars the highest son ever paid until then for a violin built by a contemporary violin maker not alone at all and it's gotten to the point where people are establishing a reputations which mean that a musician can go out on stage and you know in their program you know they don't they don't have to be embarrassed that it doesn't say you know play as a Stradivari tell us a little bit about these instruments of yours here what are we looking at well this is a Granero model of mine this is from 2002 this violin was actually is belongs to Joshua Bell it's here for a little bit of maintenance right now you know have a go do you think Josh would mind I don't think so I think he's visiting with a Strad oh that's beautiful leaves a bigger room all these all these interests do but that's that's terrific you really realize when you make make an instrument that this is something that has a life of its own it's not it's not me actually it's it and it will live longer than me we travel to London for the last time violin maker Florian Leonid has wagered to build a replica of Daniels Guarneri del gesù can the myths surrounding the old master violins remain intact it's done the violin maker an expert Florian Lenhart has recreated a copy of micro narrative jesu now let's find out whether it can match the sound of my own violin hello hey so like yes this is a white yeah a liquidy like hi yes in this the same even files yeah so gods are white Alice's die accomplished cook steamer an analysis Berkeley for bluefin suicide it's a glacier yeah Gotha that's phoenician as they an equal to seven yeah future onion compromise neither have I decide by violence you know yeah hushed only for the haters wanna wanker I have to say Thorin's coffee is pretty amazing that anybody could recreate something that well is truly astonishing on the other hand I have the luxury of having one of the finest but into the world and the whole myth and magic of Granero del gesù is still Harper Dee you you

Channel: violinman_

Views: 197,732

Rating: 4.8352437 out of 5

Keywords: violin, stradivari, guarneri, amati, bergonzi, vuillaume, violinist, stradivarius, guarnerius, maggini, da salo, cremona, violins, kavakos, documentary, ex-lipinsky, del gesu, violin making, violin maker, luthier, violin dealer, violin expert, antonio stradivari

Id: 79-eaaKLsgU

Length: 59min 58sec (3598 seconds)

Published: Sun May 01 2016