Download Free Stradivariss Genius Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Stradivariss Genius and write the review.

“’Tis God gives skill, but not without men’s hands: He could not make Antonio Stradivari’s violins without Antonio.” –George Eliot Antonio Stradivari (1644—1737) was a perfectionist whose single-minded pursuit of excellence changed the world of music. In the course of his long career in the northern Italian city of Cremona, he created more than a thousand stringed instruments; approximately six hundred survive. In this fascinating book, Toby Faber traces the rich, multilayered stories of six of these peerless instruments–five violins and a cello–and the one towering artist who brought them into being. Blending history, biography, meticulous detective work, and an abiding passion for music, Faber embarks on an absorbing journey as he follows some of the most prized instruments of all time. Mysteries and unanswered questions proliferate from the outset–starting with the enigma of Antonio Stradivari himself. What made this apparently unsophisticated craftsman so special? Why were his techniques not maintained by his successors? How is it that even two and a half centuries after his death, no one has succeeded in matching the purity, depth, and delicacy of a Stradivarius? In Faber’s illuminating narrative, each of the six fabled instruments becomes a character in its own right–a living entity cherished by artists, bought and sold by princes and plutocrats, coveted, collected, hidden, lost, copied, and occasionally played by a musician whose skill matches its maker’s. Here is the fabulous Viotti, named for the virtuoso who enchanted all Paris in the 1780s, only to fall foul of the French Revolution. Paganini supposedly made a pact with the devil to transform the art of the violin–and by the end of his life he owned eleven Strads. Then there’s the Davidov cello, fashioned in 1712 and lovingly handed down through a succession of celebrated artists until, in the 1980s, it passed into the capable hands of Yo-Yo Ma. From the salons of Vienna to the concert halls of New York, from the breakthroughs of Beethoven’s last quartets to the first phonographic recordings, Faber unfolds a narrative magnificent in its range and brilliant in its detail. “A great violin is alive,” said Yehudi Menuhin of his own Stradivarius. In the pages of this book, Faber invites us to share the life, the passion, the intrigue, and the incomparable beauty of the world’s most marvelous stringed instruments.
A highly illustrated biography and study of Stradivari, the greatest violin maker, including colour photographs of his most famous instruments.
Construction methods, woods, varnishes, types of instruments, and special features plus life of the composer. "A rich mine of fascinating information." — American Record Guide. 93 illustrations. 4 color plates.
Cremona violins occupy a unique and storied place in violin history. This book contains a brief account of that history — the rise and fall of the Cremonese art of violin making that dominated over two centuries. It is primarily devoted, however, to the physics behind violin acoustics, specifically the research of William F “Jack” Fry over the past several decades. The gradual evolution of his ideas leading to a holistic approach is chronicled, in sharp contrast to the conventional “reductionist” analysis. With rare insights, he has come closer than anyone before in reproducing the tonal qualities of the great Italian masters. This historic achievement makes the book extremely valuable for violin makers and violin researchers, enabling young and aspiring violinists to own excellent sounding instruments with the acoustical marvels of the old at affordable prices.The accompanying video features Fry's demonstration of how and why minute changes in thickness graduations make predictable changes in tonal qualities of an instrument.
Katalog zur Ausstellung in Poznań von Oktober bis Dezember 2001.
"Wechsberg was a connoisseur in the old Continental sense of the word, a man who valued perfection for its own sake, seeing its quest as worthy and its attainment as eminently possible. Born in 1907 into a wealthy, assimilated Jewish family, he saw his comfortable life threatened by World War I and then extinguished by Hitler's annexation of his native Czechoslovakia. He came to America with only a basic command of English but an impressive understanding of what was happening in Europe. His most powerful essays, describing the tragic political fragmentation of Europe at the end of World War II, are never strident or bitter; his appreciations of Europe's finer offering are a sheer delight."--BOOK JACKET.
How did Ludwig van Beethoven help overthrow a tsarist regime? With the establishment of the Russian Musical Society and its affiliated branches throughout the empire, Beethoven's music reached substantially larger audiences at a time of increasing political instability. In addition, leading music critics of the regime began hearing Beethoven's dramatic works as nothing less than a call to revolution. Beethoven in Russia deftly explores the interface between music and politics in Russia by examining the reception of Beethoven's works from the late 18th century to the present. In part 1, Frederick W. Skinner's clear and sweeping review examines the role of Beethoven's more dramatic works in the revolutionary struggle that culminated in the Revolution of 1917. In part 2, Skinner reveals how this same power was again harnessed to promote Stalin's campaign of rapid industrialization. The appropriation of Beethoven and his music to serve the interests of the state remained the hallmark of Soviet Beethoven reception until the end of communist rule. With interdisciplinary appeal in the areas of history, music, literature, and political thought, Beethoven in Russia shows how Beethoven's music served as a call to action for citizens and weaponized state propaganda in the great political struggles that shaped modern Russian history.