{"product_id":"stradivaris-genius-isbn-9780375760853","title":"Stradivari's Genius","description":"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, their quality unequalled by any subsequent violin-maker. In this fascinating book, Toby Faber traces the rich, multilayered stories of six of these peerless creations–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 takes us from the salons of Vienna to the concert halls of New York, and from the breakthroughs of Beethoven’s last quartets to the first phonographic recordings. This magnificent narrative invites us to share the life, the intrigue, and the incomparable beauty of the world’s most marvelous stringed instruments.“Fascinating . . . lively . . . more enthralling, earthy and illuminating than any fiction could be.”\u003cbr\u003e–The New York Times Book Review\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A celebration of six instruments and the master craftsman who made them . . . [Faber] brings to the subject an infectious fascination with Stradivari’s life and trade. . . . He writes with clarity and fluency.”\u003cbr\u003e–Chicago Tribune\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“An extraordinary accomplishment and a compelling read. Like strange totems that cast an irresistible spell, these instruments bring out the best and the worst of those who would own them, and Faber deftly tells the stories in all their rich and surprising detail.”\u003cbr\u003e–Thad Carhart, author of The Piano Shop on the Left Bank\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“As Faber traces the history of these standout strings, many engrossing subplots emerge. . . . A worthy contribution to the ongoing legend of Stradivari.”\u003cbr\u003e–Minneapolis Star Tribune\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Fascinating, accessible, and enjoyable.”\u003cbr\u003e–Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl EarringBorn in Cambridge, England, in 1965, \u003cb\u003eTOBY FABER\u003c\/b\u003e now lives in London with his wife and daughter. He was previously managing director of his family’s renowned publishing firm, Faber and Faber. This is his first book.Chapter One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFive violins\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eand one cello\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Messiah, the Viotti, the Khevenhüller, the Paganini, the Lipi´nski, and the Davidov\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE MESSIAH\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOxford’s Ashmolean Museum, founded in 1683, is the oldest institution  of its kind in Britain. From Elias Ashmole’s original bequest, it has  gone on to establish an enviable reputation for excellence in research  and teaching, with an appearance impressive enough to match. Wide stone  steps lead up to a grand, if slightly austere, classical façade. The  Ashmolean may be smaller than London’s British Museum, or New York’s  Metropolitan Museum of Art, but the overall effect is similar. You feel  a proper sense of awe even before stepping over the threshold. Once you  do, and if you’re lucky, the guard on duty at the front door will tell  you the shortcut: don’t go up the main stairs but turn left, go to the  end of the gallery, take the stairs you see on your right, and the Hill  Music Room is immediately at the top on the first floor. On your  arrival, as likely as not, the room will be shut, with a sign on the  door blaming staff shortages and suggesting that, if you particularly  wish to see the room’s contents, you should try the invigilator next  door.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is an unpropitious beginning. When you manage to get in, you will  find a room only perhaps fifteen by thirty feet. On hot days there will  be a fan in the corner to compensate for the lack of air-conditioning.  The cork tiles on the floor are scuffed about; protruding nails catch  the unwary foot. Curious Old Masters with little obvious connection to  music line the walls above the harpsichords and virginals that make up  the less interesting part of the Hill Collection. Elsewhere, one case  contains bows, while another includes a guitar made by Stradivari  himself. It is plain but superbly constructed—testimony to its maker’s  range, but far from being the main attraction. In the middle of the  room a further case is crowded with eight violins, a viola, and a bass  viol. One of the violins was made by Andrea Amati in 1564, part of a  commission for Charles IX of France. It is the oldest surviving violin  in the world, an exquisite piece of workmanship. The Civic Museum in  Cremona has one from the same set, but dated 1566, that was recently  valued at $10 million. The Ashmolean’s example has been laid on its  back to fit into the case, obscuring what remains of the gilded  painting with which the violin was decorated.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlmost every exhibit in this display would be the highlight of another  museum’s collection, but here they are no more than also-rans to the  star, the only instrument to get its own cabinet, the one that greets  you as you walk through the door: the Messiah. There it hangs,  suspended in its case, visible from every angle, pristine, its varnish  as flawless as when Stradivari applied the last few drops in 1716. It  is in mint condition because this, the most famous violin in the world,  template for countless copies, has hardly ever been played.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE VIOTTI\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn May 6, 1990, Thomas Bowes gave a recital at the Purcell Room, a  small concert hall in London. He was playing a violin he called the  Viotti–Marie Hall, after two previous owners. Its looks alone were  striking: the immaculate maple back had natural horizontal stripes  whose effect Bowes describes as almost psychedelic. But it is the sound  that he most remembers now: “That violin was absolutely deafening to  play; when you played a sort of high harmonic in G or something on the  E string you would actually be slightly in pain; it was so focused; it  was like a sort of laser beam. . . . It gave an incredible feeling of  power just to know that the smallest touch would just ping out to the  back of the biggest hall. . . . There was a kind of awesome perfection  about it.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBowes’s recital was billed as revisiting the golden age of the violin:  the Edwardian era when musicians faced no competition from modern  technology for the ears of their prosperous audience. One of the  Strad’s eponymous owners, Marie Hall, had been a leading English  violinist in the early twentieth century. The recital consisted mainly  of music that she would have played, exhibition pieces by some of the  great nineteenth-century violinist-composers: Paganini, Spohr,  Vieuxtemps, Ernst, and Wieniawski. As for the violin’s connection with  Viotti, Europe’s most influential violinist at the beginning of the  nineteenth century, the program had this to say: “The Viotti  Stradivarius of 1709 was used by Viotti until his death, when it was  sold in Paris with other instruments in his possession. Viotti was  perhaps one of the first great players to fully appreciate the merits  of Stradivarius. The ‘Marie Hall’ ex Viotti Stradivarius is said to  have been Viotti’s favorite instrument and is reputed to be the  instrument he used when he first visited Paris. It is a magnificent  violin, with superb tone; a perfect Stradivarius in every respect.” It  is our second violin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE KHEVENHÜLLER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUrbane and charming, with a penchant for expensive cigars and a fund of  amusing stories, Peter Biddulph is everything one expects a violin  expert to be. His dealership has a fine address in London’s West End,  and its safe has played host to violins that most players can only  covet. He is one of the few dealers in the world who can identify the  real thing with confidence and who have the reputation to match their  skill. Biddulph’s habit of conducting transactions at either end of a  trip on the Concorde earned him, in happier times, the nickname Flying  Fiddle. Nowadays he probably regrets the double entendre. A case  brought by the heirs of Gerald Segelman, whose violin collection  Biddulph helped to disperse after its owner’s death, ended in an  out-of-court settlement of £3 million [$4.5 million].* Biddulph had to  sell the building that houses his London shop, although he still  operates from the basement and a ground-floor reception area.  Nevertheless he protests his innocence of anything more serious than  bad record-keeping; it was, he says, only his inability to afford a  protracted case that led to the settlement.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Segelman affair has turned an unwelcome spotlight on violin dealers  and their role as the final arbiters of authenticity and value.  Biddulph could be forgiven for avoiding questions. Nevertheless he is  happy to talk, over a mint tea, about the Khevenhüller, the third of  our violins, which he sold in 2000 on behalf of one of the oldest  violin shops in Japan.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Khevenhüller Stradivarius was made in 1733, a late masterpiece. One  previous owner describes it as “ample and round, varnished a deep  glowing red, its grand proportions . . . matched by a sound at once  powerful, mellow and sweet.” In the last twenty years it has changed  hands many times; this was the second time that Biddulph acted as  intermediary. On this occasion it was valued at $4 million. Another  dealer had shown it to Maxim Vengerov. He “loved it,” but not enough,  apparently, to make him give up the Kreutzer. To my mind, we should  admire him for refusing to abandon his “marriage” for a new paramour.  Jaime Laredo, the Bolivian American violinist, also tried the  Khevenhüller. He too “would have loved it” as a partner to his other  great Strad, the Gariel, made in 1717. But he could not raise the  funds. Who could afford an asking price like that?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE PAGANINI\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“If the Tokyo String Quartet isn’t the world’s greatest chamber music  ensemble, it’s hard to imagine which group is.” Unsurprisingly, the  quartet’s publicity likes to repeat that quote from The Washington  Post. Less definitive but almost as flattering reviews remark on both  the group’s succulent tone and a cohesiveness that persists despite the  numerous changes of personnel since the ensemble’s formation in 1969.  It would be pleasing to think that both these attributes may partly  result from another fact, also repeated in every press release: since  1995 the Tokyo Quartet has played the same set of instruments, all made  by Stradivari, the Paganini Quartet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNamed after the nineteenth-century Italian virtuoso who once owned all  four instruments, the Paganini Quartet has a legendary status that is  almost matched by the quality of its constituent pieces. Stradivari  only made two or three great violas, and the Quartet’s, made in 1731,  is one of them. The first violin, four years older, was described by  Paganini as having a tone as big as a double bass; it too is recognized  as a masterpiece. The cello’s label dates it to 1736, the year before  its maker’s death, although many place it earlier. It has the  reputation of being among the best works of Stradivari’s last years,  with perfect proportions that hark back to an earlier era of the  Master’s life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn such exalted company the second violin, made around 1680, is an  oddity. Stradivari’s early works are generally thought to be in a lower  league than his more mature output, and this violin—the 1680  Paganini—is fifty years older than its counterparts in the Quartet. A  string quartet is a partnership of equals. The second violin should  never be of poorer quality than the instruments with which it must  balance. The answer to why the 1680 Paganini became part of the Quartet  lies in its history. It is our fourth violin.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE LIPI´NSKI\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor two hundred years the 1715 Lipi´nski boasted a succession of famous  players. One of the biggest violins Stradivari produced, made when he  was at his peak, its construction speaks of its maker’s confidence, and  the longevity of its fame is surely evidence of his genius. But for  more than fifty years it has figured in no performances. Since its last  recorded sale in 1962, the Lipi´nski—our final violin—has dropped from  sight.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE DAVIDOV\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNo such fate is likely to befall the Davidov cello, made in 1712. Yo-Yo  Ma, who has played it for the last twenty years, is probably the most  celebrated cellist of his generation, and he is eloquent when he  describes getting to know his great Stradivarius: “The pianissimos  float effortlessly. The instrument’s response is instantaneous. The  sound can be rich, sensuous or throbbing at every range, yet can also  be clear, cultured and pure. Each sound stimulates the player’s  imagination. However, there is no room for error as one cannot push the  sound, rather it needs to be released. I had to learn not to be seduced  by the sheer beauty of the sound in my mind before trying to coax it  from the cello.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMakers have a similar response to the quality of the Davidov’s  workmanship. In a recent article one says: “Antonio Stradivari made  this cello to give us all a lesson in humility.” Every aspect of the  instrument is remarkable, but it is the varnish that creates the  greatest impression: “For a few precious moments toward evening the sun  broke into the airy studio and the cello blazed with light. Not only  did it change color, it changed in transparency and depth and like some  fantastic natural hologram it presented a different image with each new  twist and turn.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Messiah, the Viotti, the Khevenhüller, the Paganini, the Lipi´nski,  and the Davidov: these are our six Strads. Each has its own history.  Occasionally two will cross paths, in the collection of a single owner  or at the same performance, but there is only one man whose life  encompasses all six: Antonio Stradivari himself. And his story begins  at least a century before his birth, with the emergence of Cremona at  the center of Europe’s nascent violin industry and the royal patron who  helped to put it there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChapter Two\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“The incomparably better violins of cremona”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Amati dynasty\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUnder normal circumstances the French royal family would never have  considered tainting its line with the blood of a woman whose family,  only two or three generations before, had been in trade. But Catherine  de Medici was a cousin to Pope Clement VII, with whom the perpetually  belligerent François I sought an alliance, and her new husband-to-be,  Henri, was only a second son with little prospect of inheriting the  throne. So the marriage in October 1533 was quickly arranged, and the  wedding night observed by the king, who noted afterward that “each had  shown valor in the joust.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePope Clement’s death in 1534, less than a year after the nuptials, was  therefore a bitter blow. It meant, according to a contemporary Venetian  report, that “all of France disapproved of the marriage.” Worse was to  come. Henri’s older brother, the dauphin, died in 1536, apparently from  drinking ice-cold water immediately after a game of tennis. Catherine,  still only seventeen, was destined to be queen of France, responsible  above all else for continuing the male line. But for ten years she bore  no children, while her husband fathered enough offspring outside his  marriage to demonstrate that the problem clearly was not with him.  Stuck in a medieval court that followed its monarch around the country,  chasing the latest reports of a hart fit to be hunted by a king,  Catherine could hardly be blamed for surrounding herself with servants  and artists from her native Flor-ence. Even before she acquired any  political influence, her cultural connections were starting to be felt.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOver the next twenty years a series of births and deaths transformed  Catherine from devoted but neglected wife into the ruler of France. In  1544 she finally gave birth to her first child—what is more, a son.  Thoughts of putting her into a nunnery, freeing Henri to take a second,  more fertile wife, were finally shelved. Several more sons and  daughters were to follow. Her father-in-law’s death in 1547 made  Catherine queen, even if her husband elected to spend most of his time  with his mistress. Then, in 1559, Henri himself died following a  jousting accident. The widowed Catherine was queen mother, a powerful  influence over her sickly son François II, who at fourteen was deemed  able to rule alone. A year later François’s own death brought his  younger brother to the throne. Deft political footwork ensured that  Catherine was named as Charles IX’s regent, and she retained her power  even when he was judged to have reached his majority in 1563. By then  France’s religious wars had already begun. Catherine was unable to stop  them, and she must bear some responsibility for the infamous St.  Bartholomew’s Day massacre of Huguenots in 1572. So while she may have  planned her lavish festivals and ballets as peaceful diversions, they  served only to cast her in the same mold as Nero, fiddling while Rome  burned. It is an apt analogy; the court entertainments were accompanied  by music from an instrument that had only recently emerged from Italy:  the violin.[quote] --The New York Times Book Review","brand":"Random House Trade Paperbacks","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46305419952357,"sku":"NP9780375760853","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375760853.jpg?v=1767737389","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/stradivaris-genius-isbn-9780375760853","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}