Radio Workshop

The United States of Stradivari (Transcript)

by Stacey Smith

AMBIENT:

(Bring Up Music) 

In a sunny apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, violinist Doron Schachter stands in the center of the room, trying out violins. The maker, Andrea Simmel-Hoffman, sits tuning an instrument, and pauses to listen intently to the sound of one of her favorite Bach pieces.  Schachter gives her comments on each instrument--invalauable feedback for Hoffman.

SCHACHTER: Interesting personality

Hoffman was trained in violin making in Bavaria 40 years ago. She says she loves to hear her instruments playedbecause it gives her a chance to listen for the sound that is the signature of every maker

(Bring Up Music) 

SCHIMMEL One customer said, oh, it has olive oil in it. That's what you want in the sound. The richer, the dirtier, actually, the sound is, the more overtone in the sound, the more sweet it sounds.  

(Bring up music)

NARRATION: 

The violin was perfected in the early 1700s by legendary maker Antionio Stradivari. Today his violins are worth as much as 7 million dollars. But instrument making never caught on in America, not until about a decade ago. Up until then, older European instruments were considered superior and the prices American makers could get for their instruments barely covered the cost of materials. But as demand grew in the U.S. musicians rediscovered contemporary instruments. Jim McKean is a New York based violin maker who says he has seen the number of makers in America increase over 50 fold since he began the craft thirty years ago. 

MCKEAN; The most interesting change in the past maybe 10 years, maybe as little as five years is the willingness of musicians to look at contemporary instruments and not feel that in doing so they were taking a big chance or automatically stepping down.

NARRATION

McKean stands in his shop in a building near Carneigie hall, looking through his collection of wood. the unruly slabs will one day be crafted into violins and cellos. He points out the differnt characteristics and qualities of each piece.

MCKEAN:

You can see it has different patterns to it. That's the figure, it has different ways it grows, all that goes into what makes the different character of the instrument.

NARRATION:

Bosnian maple is the ideal wood for the back of a violin. These trees grow very slowly and their close-knit rings make them unusually strong. But Bosnian maple is hard to come by these days. Since the end of the country's civil war, land mines riddle the forests where the precious trees grow. For a piece large enough for one cello back, the price tag is roughly $2,000. McKean is planning to go to Germany soon to meet with a wood dealer. He says these dealers are notoriously dishonest. As he looks at a recently purchased chunk of maple he recounts an episode with one of the slippery dealers

MCKEAN:

After I bought it and paid for it, I said to the guy, so where did it come from, he said Bosnia. , So I said, okay, look I've already paid for it, where did it really come fro? He said, well... Scotland…" 

NARRATION:

Once purchased, the wood needs to be air-dried for at least ten years in order to be ready for carving. When it is completely dry, a maker will often use a bain saw for the rough cutting, and from there out, it's all by hand. McKean places a roughly cut instrument back on his work table. He does the preliminary hollowing and shaping with the first tool he ever purcahsed, a German twinsteel.

MCKEAN  

And I will actually arch this thing out, scoop it out, and then I will take the small thumb planes and I'll use that to refine it and the once I get it to a shape that I like, I will end up using just a steel scraper and what this does is scrapes the wood off.  

NARRATION 

As the instrument begins to take shape, McKean will tap on the wood. He says he knows when it is finished by its feel and its sound.  

MCKEAN  

What I'm listening for is the overtone series, how rich it is, the crispness of the attack and then the decay of the sound.  

NARRATION,  

After the back is finished, the front is fashioned. European cedar is idea for the top, because its alternating hard and soft rings make the wood very firm across to support the weight of taught strings and very flexible lengthwise to allow the instrument to breathe when played. The finished product doesn't look too different from what Stradivari would have crafted hundreds of years earlier. McKean says that making the instruments requires exactitude. There is not a wide margin of error in a violin.

MCKEAN  

Anytime that you try to start heading down one roda to emphasize one aspect of sound or playbility, you very quickly fall into exaggeration. The best fiddles have a balance to them which is organic. It looks like a human face, like it grew. Any sort of experimentation that could have been done has been done.

NARRATION

Once he finishes the carving, McKean paints the instruments with the varnish he has been developing for 30 years. He says it is the varnish that makes a Stradivarius different from pattern copies. The varnish mellows the sound, protects the wood from the elements and gives the instruments their famous golden hue. Each maker closely guards their secret recipie and Stradivari was no different.

MCKEAN

IF you were to put a great viome next to the one he copied, you'd spot it right away. And it is because of that famous, fabled unknown undercoat and varnish that was used by Stadivari.

NARRATION

A few floors above McKean, dozens of these legendary instruments peek out of cubby holes, waiting to be played. Violin dealer and restorer Andre Morel keeps one of the finest collections of violins in the world in his spacious 11th floor shop. The native Frenchman's voice becomes hushed as he opens the door to the room where the instruments are kept.

MOREL

If you see the label here, Stradivarius, Stradivarius, Stradivarius...

NARRATION

Next to Morel's priceless room is what he calls the hospital. Here, varnish bubbles in metal pots, and three apprentices work at restoring damaged and time-worn instruments. Morel's shop has a waiting list of four to five years. his innovative techniques and attention to detail have made him the go-to guy for fine instruments. On a cloudy weekday afternoon, he watches over his men, offering advice and suggestions

AMBI, fade up

MOREL Take a little bit STEPHAN: OKAY MOREL: Yeah, I understand. I should maybe try to take it closer from this angel. MOREL: But then leave this...

FADE DOWN 

NARRATION 

Morel points to an open cello that has been restored in the old way, with thick patches of wood glued to weak spots and cracks. He says it is an example of a bad restoration.

AMBI scrape sounds MOREL see this wood has nothing to do with this, but this is a reinforcement. That's the old fashioned way of repair.  

NARRATION 

Morel's technique of carving pieces of wood to exactly fit damaged spots, keeping the inside of the instrument smooth, is now practiced all over the world. It is more time consuming and expensive than the traditional technique, but Morel says it is a good investment because of the ever-increasing value of old instruments.

MOREL 

Today instruments are such a great value, so people are not afraid if they have to spend 50,000 or even 100,000 dollars to restore instruments with a resotration which will give them a new life. And you have to remove all of the cancer.

NARRATION 

Morel says that restoring an instrument is as much of an art as making one. He describes becoming consumed with instruments he is restoring. Many of his projects take years to complete--his longest job to date? 15 years.

MOREL

you don't figure on time, you don't figure on money, you don't... all you do, your head is that you want that instrument to be back alive again. If you restore an instrument that is really damaged and you have it for, let's say six months, a year, a year and a half, you are actually in love with that instrument, it becomes a part of your life.  

NARRATION

Back in Hoffman's apartment, Schacter struggles for the words to convey how he interacts with a new instrument. Hoffman offers her observations.

SIMMEL/SCHACHTER Not to be obscene, but it's in a way, like when you are lovers, you know. (SCHACTER: Yes) You have to find out how the other person feels. What they like, how they respond and all that. SCHACHTER: The violin as an instrument is a very sexy instrument, you hug it, you caress it in your playing SIMMEL: and it's a give and take. SCHACHTER: Even violins have good days, bad days. SIMMEL: That's true, yeah.  

BRING UP MUSIC

NARRATION 

It takes Hoffman 300 hours to complete a violin. She says she has seen a young crop of makers, like McKean, take up the craft since she began. A custom-made violin now starts at about 5,000 dollars. but Hoffman says no one would make violins for money. One makes violins, she says, for the same reason one plays them. For love.

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