Soloist evaluations of six Old Italian and six new violins
Abstract
Some studies open new fields for investigation; this study attempts to close a perennially fruitless one—the search for the "secrets of Stradivari." Great efforts have been made to explain why instruments by Stradivari and other Old Italian makers sound better than high-quality new violins, but without providing scientific evidence that this is in fact the case. Doing so requires that experienced violinists demonstrate (under double-blind conditions) both a general preference for Old Italian violins and the ability to reliably distinguish them from new ones. The current study, the second of its kind, again shows that first-rate soloists tend to prefer new instruments and are unable to distinguish old from new at better than chance levels.
- Publication:
-
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
- Pub Date:
- May 2014
- DOI:
- 10.1073/pnas.1323367111
- Bibcode:
- 2014PNAS..111.7224F