Posted on 12/05/2003 5:06:55 PM PST by Spruce
By Duncan Mansfield
Associated Press
December 1, 2003
KNOXVILLE - The secret of a Stradivarius violin's heavenly sound may actually have celestial origins.
For centuries, experts have debated whether special varnishes or wood treatments were the secret to the instruments' rich resonance, which some consider superior to contemporary violins.
Now a tree-ring dating expert at the University of Tennessee and a climatologist at Columbia University offer a new theory - the wood developed special acoustic properties as it was growing because of an extended period of long winters and cool summers.
"It just amazed me that no one had thought of this before," said Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer. "The relationship between the violins, the trees that they were made from, the climate that existed when the trees grew and how it affected wood density to create a superior tonal quality.
"It just started clicking, and I thought, 'Oh, we are on to something,'" he said.
Grissino-Mayer at Tennessee and Dr. Lloyd Burckle at Columbia suggest the "Little Ice Age" that gripped Europe from the mid-1400s until the mid-1800s slowed tree growth and yielded uncommonly dense Alpine spruce for Antonio Stradivari and other famous 17th century Italian violinmakers.
The ice age reached its coldest point during a 70-year period - 1645-1715 - known as the Maunder Minimum, which was named after the 19th Century solar astronomer E.W. Maunder, who documented a lack of solar activity during the period.
Stradivari was born a year before the Maunder Minimum began, and he produced his most prized and valued stringed instruments as the period ended - his "golden period" of 1700-1720.
Burckle, who studies global climate change through the lives of tiny sea creatures at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., compared the dates and wondered if there was a connection.
"I refer to this as my 10-minute hypothesis that took several years to put in print," Burckle said.
To test the theory, Burckle contacted Grissino-Mayer, a dendrochronologist at Tennessee's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Science. The UT scientist two years ago authenticated the world's most venerated Stradivarius violin, known as "The Messiah," in England.
Grissino-Mayer developed a 500-year chronology, from 1500 to the present, for 16 high-elevation forests of larch, spruce and pine in five countries from western France to southern Germany. He discovered an unprecedented period of slow growth, 1625-1720, characterized by compact, narrow tree rings.
"We would suggest that the narrow tree rings that identify the Maunder Minimum in Europe played a role in the enhanced sound quality," Grissino-Mayer and Burckle write, noting that "narrow tree rings would not only strengthen the violin but would increase the wood's density."
Grissino-Mayer and Burckle published their findings in a five-page article in the obscure scientific journal Dendro chronologia in July. Their conclusions are only now beginning to circulate.
"I think it is very, very interesting, and it seems to me a valid observation," said Helen Hayes, president of the New York-based Violin Society of America.
Merry Christmas all!
Let's cut her in half and count the rings.
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