快猫短视频

THE Stradivarius in Oxford鈥檚 Ashmolean Museum is 300 years old鈥攄espite
looking as good as new. The violin鈥檚 pristine condition and uncertainties about
its provenance had led some to suggest that it is a mid-19th century fake. But a
new analysis of the instrument鈥檚 wood shows that it may even have been made from
the same tree as two undoubtedly genuine strads.

The violin was said to have been crafted by the master instrument maker
Antonio Stradivari in 1716. It was sold to an itinerant Tuscan dealer, Luigi
Tarisio, who boasted of his wonderful instrument in Paris. But as he allowed no
one to see or hear it, musicians dubbed it the Messiah because, as one violinist
put it: 鈥淥ne always waits鈥攁nd he never appears.鈥� When Tarisio died in
poverty in 1855, no one could be sure that the instrument that surfaced was the
strad.

Now John Topham, a violin maker in South Nutfield, Surrey, and Derek
McCormick of the Queen鈥檚 University of Belfast have analysed the tree rings on
the face of 33 violins of the period, including the Messiah and 19 genuine
strads. Their study shows that the latest tree ring on the face of the disputed
violin was formed in 1682. The violin was made later than this, as the wood
would have been seasoned and the outermost rings would have been planed
away.

But the latest ring is a good guide to the date of manufacture. The study
showed that the age of the latest rings varied between 6 and 34 years before
manufacture. 鈥淭he violin maker chooses the finest part of the wood, which tends
to be the wood closest to the outside of the tree,鈥� says Topham. Statistical
analysis showed that two other violins created about the same time by Stradivari
may have been made from the same tree.