Stradivari Musical Performance and Reception Hardcover

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 locate information easily. The book contains tables of measurements of Stradivari's forms and patterns,...