Why do Stradivaris violins sound sublime?
A wood preservation technique was probably responsible for the exquisite sound produced by violins of the 17th-century Italian instrument makers Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri. US researchers used infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to analyse the chemical properties of the each instrument’s backboard – its largest resonant component. They found that a chemical wood preservative used in timber yards around Cremona in Lombardy, where both violin makers worked, appears to have given the violins their signature sound quality. Analysis of the wood shows that it has a different chemical composition to maple grown in the region today. The researchers think the Italian masters prepared their wood by artificial means. The violin backs appear to have been brutally treated with salts of copper, iron and chromium as wood preservers. It is these salts, they suggests, that provided the mellifluous tone. Some metal ions – like copper – have powerful fungicidal properties,
