- Country: Italy
- Born: 1644 in Cremona, Italy
- Died: December 18, 1737 in Cremona, Italy
Biography
The roughly 650 surviving instruments built by Antonio Stradivari -- harps, guitars, violas, cellos, lutes, and mandolins in addition to violins -- represent a level of musical craftsmanship and technology that has never been exceeded. "Stradivarius" instruments (the builder signed his creations with the Latin form of his name) resound from stages where classical music's greatest artists appear and they command multimillion-dollar prices at auction. Stradivari was born in Cremona, Italy, perhaps in 1644. Little is known with certainty of his early life, but he probably became an apprentice of Nicolò Amati, then the top Cremonese violin maker, in the 1660s. He apparently began to put his own stamp on instruments he made at the Amati workshop, and to experiment especially with various aspects of violin construction. Married to Francesca Feraboschi, Stradivari moved into a house on one of Cremona's central piazzas and opened his own business in 1680. The couple had six children, two of whom, Omobono and Francesco, became Stradivari's assistants; he later had five more children by his second wife, Antonia-Maria. After Amati's death in 1684, Stradivari was recognized as Cremona's preeminent builder, and his fame gradually spread among Italy's wealthy mercantile families.At no point did he rest on his laurels or accept mere financial security; he continued to experiment with the materials used in the violin's construction, including varnish (the classic Stradivari instruments have a distinctive orange color that has proven difficult to duplicate), and even with the basic shape of the instrument. In the 1690s he sought greater power with the now so-called "long Strad," slightly less than a half-inch bigger than the usual violin, but he eventually returned to the original length. No aspect of the violin, from the scroll to the arch, remained untouched by his experiments. The greatest Stradivarius instruments appeared between about 1700 and 1725, after which his production declined somewhat and is thought to have been assisted by his songs Omobono and Francesco. The instruments of Stradivari's "golden age" were signed "Antonius Stradivarius Cremonensis Faciebat Anno [year], or Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, made in the year -- --. Later, many became known by the names of people who had owned them; the "Betts" Stradivarus of 1704, now in the collection of the U.S. Library of Congress, took its name from that of nineteenth century London instrument dealer Arthur Betts. Thousands of counterfeit Stradivarius instruments exist, however, and the presence of the inscribed Stradivarius name on an instrument indicates little about its provenance.
Debates about exactly how Stradivari imbued his instruments with such uncanny power and tonal beauty began early in the age of the virtuoso violinist and have never really abated. Speculation has encompassed every aspect of the violin but has focused on the combination of maple, spruce, and willow woods he used, and some think that the Little Ice Age, a cool climactic period beginning in the sixteenth century, played a role by making these woods unusually dense. Contemporary instrument makers attempting to recapture Stradivari's magic have worked closely with individual foresters in specific European wood-growing regions. Surely part of any explanation of Stradivari's greatness must reside in his unique combination of curiosity and almost unprecedentedly long life. Stradivari died in Cremona on December 18, 1737, which, if the 1644 birth year is correct, probably made him 93 years old. His instruments, rivaled only by those of Cremona's Guarneri family, were products of a mind and hands that accumulated arcane knowledge over decades, a process not easily susceptible to experimental reconstruction. ~ James Manheim, All Music Guide
