This page is a translation of the English text " The sound of Venice " written by Milo Stamenkovic, in which he describes what, in his opinion, characterizes the sound of the violins of the Italian masters of the 17th and 18th centuries. I felt it was important to pass on this theory by translating it into French, as it is highly interesting and largely unknown.
The origin of wood
It's not the shape, nor the varnish, and certainly not the finish that conceal the extraordinary sound capabilities of the instruments of Cremona's old masters. If they were to conceal any secrets, at least one of Cremona's many luthiers would have taken note. But we have no trace of them...
The materials used in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries were very different in structure and biology to what we find today. It was maple(Acer Pseudo Platanus), but with a different structure. I doubt if the old masters ever saw flamed maple in its original white color. I'm deeply convinced that, by force of circumstance and sheer coincidence, they had no choice but to buy this different type of maple. Even the use of freshly cut spruce did not cross their minds, as there was an abundance of old-growth wood available in Italy at the time.
But first things first:
In those days, it was widely believed that the flame maple could only be found in ancient Turkey(now Bosnia). The Venetian Republic, constantly at war with Turkey, bought many goods from the independent city-republic of Dubrovnik, while the latter, besieged by Turkey, was forced to trade with it. It's not entirely untrue that Dubrovnik retained its independence only to enable Venice and Turkey to trade, despite numerous conflicts and disagreements. The goods traded were of low value: labor, weapons, but above all meat, leather and, of particular interest to us, wood.
The stakes involved in felling trees were not, unlike today, taken lightly by Turkish woodcutters: trees were generally cut down in spring, just before being sold in Dubrovnik. At this time of year, the trunk had already begun to fill with sap, becoming "alive" and accumulating sugars and nutrients, as well as developing a whole bacterial flora.
These trunks were, generally speaking, quite large in diameter - by my estimate, no less than eighty centimetres, and often overa metre. It's not very difficult to determine this from the depth of the ring curves on closely examined instruments. Waves in those days, as today, could not be found beside roads. They also had to be found in remote mountainous regions. What's more, logs couldn't be cut with a chainsaw, transported on a truck by crane and then delivered to Dubrovnik by road. On the contrary, cuts were made using a hand saw, on sections of fifty centimetres to one metre in length, then split into halves, quarters, or eighths(depending on their weight and transport solutions, as the deformations of the waves in the wood made splitting quite difficult).
The journey took at least a month, and often much longer, interrupted by farm work, troop movements, bad weather, injuries, illnesses and, at best, laziness. Then it was off to Dubrovnik, on horseback if possible or, if not, on foot. There, just outside the city gates, hardened merchants awaited them, ready to haggle, offering them a modest fee. Once again, through carelessness, the wood was left exposed to the torrid Adriatic sun, still soaked with moisture, until the Venetians came to buy it.
Quite similar to today, isn't it? In fact, it's exactly the same!
The process of decomposition by bacteria of the sugars present in the wood began. The logs were stained and gradually changed color, so Dubrovnik merchants had to lower their prices. Venetians simply came to exchange goods or buy with their gold. The goods were then loaded into the ships and used as ballastto ensure stability. In these conditions of even greater heat and humidity, the wood had enough time to split until, after stopping at each port, even those of minor importance, it finally arrived in Venice.
The mysterious story of Venice wood
In Venice, or more precisely in the "Arsenal"(the commercial port) there was, from our point of view, a sawmill of quite incredible size. In the place of today's Venetian customs area, next to the Larghetto del Legname lake, timber was stored, sawn and sold all over Europe. Virtually all furniture of the classical era was made from Venetian wood, and some 40,000 people worked here.
During hundreds of years of timber trading, the Venetians had a major problem: they couldn't prevent their huge stock of wood from splitting or staining under the onslaught of the summer sun. By chance, after being underwater for several years, the trunks that were used as pillars to support the city of Venice were lifted out of the water. Even today, this wood is quite mysterious - still compressible, crack-resistant, waterproof, impervious to worm attack. Thus began the marvellous story of Venetian wood, used to make ships, oars, furniture and more...
Later, the entire Venetian fleet was built from the submerged timbers - which is how the legend was born: the Venetian merchant and military navy was lighter, and therefore faster, than that of other warlike nations. Their ships were difficult to ignite or sink.
The Venetians were very proud of their fleet, much feared by their enemies. Naval authorities and shipbuilders specifically requested that even oars be fashioned from the lake's submerged timber. In time, the Venetian navy became the world's greatest maritime power, its ships unrivalled, while the city's pillars remained architectural mysteries.
The Venetians immersed their wood stocks in the nearby lake called Larghetto del Legname (Wood Lake), knowing that this was the only way to preserve it from drying out and cracking. Also, bacteria affected the color of the wood, and with enough patience, this change would completely cover the wood, giving it a new color - darker and more intense. It was this wood that was sold to luthiers.
In my opinion, the wood had to stay in the lake for at least two years. Sometimes, it could wait seven years for customers in Cremona. Various types of wood were soaked in the water: beech, oak, maple, ash and spruce - whatever could be bought on the long journey from Egypt to Venice.
Once in the water, the wood was exposed to an abundance of what are generally known as microaerophilicbacteria, which systematically fed on the substances present in the wood. These were so active that the lake water was black and sour-smelling. But as much as it may upset us today, with our preoccupation with health and the environment, Venetians of the time lived, unperturbed, amidst all manner of "odors".
Finally, on a regular basis during the summer break, luthiers came to buy the wood, while the process continued to develop on the way back to Cremona. The decomposition of the sugars did not stop, as the town was located in a valley below sea level, with a rather damp, marshy climate.
Had Cremona been in a different location, or had the Stradivari and Amati lived elsewhere, I doubt we would have been able to enjoy such exceptional instruments.
My thoughts are corroborated by several facts:
- Older Cremonese instruments generally have less mass than more recent ones(as the nutrients in the wood are no longer present).
- Their wood won't let the light from an ordinary lamp shine through(due to the loss of nutrients, the wood has contracted and, like a folded curtain, no longer lets light through).
- The color of the wood of the old Cremonese masters is different from the German instruments of the same period(German luthiers came to Bosnia to get their wood from the land, which was worked much earlier and was in a much healthier and paler condition).
With the loss of substances, the wood was not only lighter and denser, but also much more flexible, and the softer back could breathe better with the membrane(table). So the timbre was fundamentally different from that of other violins. I'm convinced that Italian luthiers had no option but to buy what was available in their day, and the Venetians had to protect their wood from rot and the elements by submerging it, all to keep it in saleable condition.
We can also trace the journey from wood to finished instrument. While we may find many coincidences, flaws and oversights, we won't encounter anything esoteric.
There are no mysteries. That's why it's impossible for us to find and solve them.
A few words about manufacturing
I'd like to devote the next section to the process of making the instrument itself.
Again, I don't see any mystery in this, especially as the ancient Italians had a keen sense of aesthetics and, in keeping with the carpentry tradition handed down from generation to generation, loved every piece of wood they worked with. Wood has its own laws, which must be recognized and observed.
No piece of wood is straight in its inner split line; each one has an arched shape that the old masters used to create the curves of their instruments. It is the wood itself that decides which curves the top and back will take, and only if these are followed will maximum flexibility be achieved, allowing the instrument's timbre to reach its full potential.
Paradoxically, the old masters in most cases made their instruments from woods that today's "spoiled" luthiers wouldn't even look at. Even so, their instruments sounded better because they were always perfectly cut.
I only hope that this text will help luthiers to get away from dogma and mystery hunting and, in this century, use sound as a starting point. Sound is within our reach, in the materials. We just need to stop seeing lutherie from an obscure perspective. And, with a little patience, focus on sound as a crucial goal.
Violin making is, and must remain, an art. An inner feeling that must guide us in the creation of high-quality instruments, faster and more poetically than a pile of measuring devices. We mustn't give up, because soon the old Italian masters will disappear from the limelight. But we can catch up and even surpass them.
Source : The sound of Venice
