Stradivari

Stewart Pollens

For over 200 years, Antonio Stradivari has been universally regarded as the greatest violin maker who ever lived, yet it is not widely known that he made virtually every kind of bowed- and plucked-string instrument popular in the Baroque period, including lutes, viols, mandolins, guitars, and harps. Stradivari provides a fascinating biography of this legendary maker, based on newly discovered material in church and civic archives, alongside technical descriptions and analyses of many of the maker’s workshop materials preserved in the Museo Stradivariano in Cremona, particularly as they relate to extant and lost instruments, baroque stringing and instrument adjustment, and early performance practice. There are separate chapters for each type of instrument, allowing the reader to easily locate information. The book contains tables of measurements of Stradivari’s forms and patterns, over 100 black and white photographs and drawings, and colour photographs of 16 of Stradivari’s most important violins, violas, and cellos.

Bibliographic Details

135 b/w illus. 16 colour illus. 32 tables

Contents

• Preface
• 1. Historical background
• 2. Stradivaris workshop materials
• 3. The violin forms and patterns
• 4. Violin fittings and setup
• 5. The dance masters kit
• 6. The viola da gamba and viola d amore
• 7. The lute
• 8. The mandola and mandolino
• 9. The guitar
• 10. The harp
• 11. The workshop
• Appendices: 1. The Hill Bass-Bar collection
• 2. Thomas Salmons The Theory of Musick Reduced to Arithmetical and Geometric Proportions from Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1705
• 3. A case study: The Messiah
• Color plates.