Word: strads
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...hour in his undershirt in broiling Trinidad, mastering some short-haired music for a concert at the Army base in San Juan. The shorthair number was St. Louis Blues. "I practiced and I got pretty good," he said. He played it on his Guarnerius instead of the Strad, because the former "had a more earthy, a more contralto quality...
Lastly, I suppose I should mention the inevitable Strad Quartet concert at the Fogg next Wednesday evening, for which all tickets are gone, and for which the program has not yet been announced...
...only man I have ever heard who can cut Joe Venuti in his better days. He told me after the concert that he had often listened to Joe and that he enjoyed him very much. I am sorry to say that I didn't like the way the Strad boys played the Haydn. They rushed it like Toscanini playing the blues and I expected. Uncle Joe Haydn to pop through the skylight...
With a harmonic analyzer Dr. Saunders dissected the tones of old and new violins, plotted their ups & downs on a graph. These indicated that there was practically no difference between the tone quality of a Strad or Guarnerius and of a fine new instrument. The scientist then had a violinist play a Strad and two new violins behind a screen, asking an audience-many of whom were musically erudite-to tell which was which. Only about a third guessed right, and this number would be expected to guess correctly oft the basis of pure chance...
Violin makers, even chemists and acoustical engineers, have taken Stradivari's instruments apart to see what makes them so good. One theory is that the unusually lustrous and transparent varnish Stradivari used had something to do with the Strad tone. But Antonio Stradivari's secret, like his grave, is still undiscovered. Where those bones are today, and what makes a Strad a Strad, nobody knows...