It won't be a Steinway anymore!

[Ron Nossaman]

>Well, good grief. I thought I had a good point. I guess I'll just thank my
>lucky stars that I am not a violin technician. 

I'll say. Not many options for fretting in that field.


>But tell me why some number
>(many?) of top violinists such as Itzhak Perlman, Yo Yo Ma, Issac Stern, Gil
>Shaham, Joshua Bell, and Nigel Kennedy pay top dollar for violins by
>Stradivari and Guarneri that are hundreds of years old? 

They don't play old violins BECAUSE they are old violins. They play old
violins because what they feel are the best sounding violins are old. The
violins lasted long enough to BECOME old because they sounded good enough
NEW that they were taken care of and maintained. Of all the violins made
for the last 300 years, how many are in use today? Where are all those many
many thousands of lesser instruments today? Only the very best of the
original lot has survived at all because they sounded good enough for
someone to spring for repairs as necessary, and they very likely don't
sound as good today as when they were new. We'll never know for sure, but
if age enhances the sound of violins, why didn't all those lesser brands
through the years age into a higher plane and finally sound good enough to
be worth keeping around? I'd be curious to know what percentage of total
Stradivarius production exists today vs the middle and low end violins.
That little stat should tell an interesting tale.


Ron N