Stradivari

A highly illustrated biography and study of Stradivari, the greatest violin maker, including colour photographs of his most famous instruments.

Stewart Pollens (Author)

9780521873048, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 February 2010

366 pages, 135 b/w illus. 16 colour illus. 32 tables
28.4 x 22.7 x 2.5 cm, 1.51 kg

' … for practitioners and teachers of any of the instruments investigated - the book is an extremely important tool in understanding the history and development of those instruments. It contains a great deal of useful resources: three appendices, extensive routes on primary and secondary sources, and a splendid bibliography. it is very much a book to be dipped into time and time again. Music Teacher

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.

Preface
1. Historical background
2. Stradivari's workshop materials
3. The violin forms and patterns
4. Violin fittings and setup
5. The dance master's 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 Salmon's '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.

Subject Areas: Antiques & collectables: scientific & musical instruments [WCX], Techniques of music / music tutorials [AVS], Musical instruments & instrumental ensembles [AVR]