A plague of woodworm and a handy local drugstore were the secrets behind the extraordinary success of the Stradivarius violin, a scientist believes.
For centuries, instrument makers, chemists and historians of music have been trying to decipher how Antonio Stradivari, working in the small Italian town of Cremona three centuries ago, was able to make violins whose acoustic qualities have never been surpassed.
Theories abound as to how Stradivari worked his magic.
Did he have some special glue? Did his maple come from old cathedrals? Or did it come from trees that had grown during a mini-Ice Age in Europe and whose bunched-up rings made for a denser wood?
But a study published today in the journal Nature by a Hungarian-born scientist who has been exploring the Stradivarius enigma for decades gives the lie to such thinking.
Joseph Nagyvary, a chemist at Texas A&M University, led a team that used infrared spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance to analyze organic matter in tiny shavings taken from the inside of five antique instruments during repairs.
The five comprised a violin and cello made by Stradivari in 1717, a violin made by a fellow Cremonese, Guarneri del Gesu in 1741, a violin made by Gand-Bernardel in Paris in the 1840s and a viola by Henry Jay of London in 1769.
These were compared with maple from modern-day Bosnia-Herzegovina and Central Europe, which is boiled in water before being baked by instrument-makers.
The three instruments made in Cremona all gave off signatures suggesting that they were chemically treated -- but none of the other instruments did.
Dr. Nagyvary says that further work is needed to ascertain exactly what went into the treatment.
But, he said, his "educated guess" is that it was oxidizing minerals that were used to preserve wood in 17th-century Cremona.
These compounds were used not only by local instrument makers such as Stradivari and Guarneri, but also by furniture makers, he says.
"I assume that either there was a location where the wood was treated, or the solution, a mineral powder, was provided to the craftsmen, and they soaked and boiled their wood in that solution to kill the woodworm and to stop the growth of rotting fungi.
"There was a major woodworm infestation" at that time, Dr. Nagyvary says.
"If you did not kill the woodworm in the wood, there was major damage to the wood. Many, many artifacts in Milan, where they had no such methods, the chairs, the musical instruments show a great deal of woodworm damage."
The woodworm treatment, he believes, is what gives the Stradivarius the mellifluous tones for which it is prized. It is believed that there are fewer than 700 genuine Strads left in existence. Acoustic specialists praise their "low threshold of noise," and expert players cite the absence of irritating, gravelly sounds at low frequencies.
Just as important, Dr. Nagyvary says, is the hard varnish, derived from crystal powder, that Stradivari applied to his violins, again to make them less palatable to woodworm.
This varnish gives a Strad its "brilliance," or clear, focused high notes.
"Basically, I think the unsung hero behind the Stradivarius violin was the local drugstore keeper," adds Dr. Nagyvary, a touch wryly.
"He was the guy who made this powder and worked with these toxic chemicals, and who probably died at the tender age of 30, penniless."
