July 29, 2023 • 40 mins
The Strad violin is noted for its tonal qualities and superior craftsmanship. And for its price tag. There are many theories why the Strad sounds so great, from the wood to the lacquer, to the simple fact that Antonio Stradivari was really good at what he did. Rosin up your bow and take a listen to this classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's select,
I've chosen our episode from September of twenty sixteen, on
the Strata Various Violin. It's where we get to the
bottom of whether strata various violins really are that much
better than others, or whether everyone in the music world
is just really into brand names. I think you'll be
pleasantly surprised. And I mentioned the movie The Red Violin
(00:24):
that like, this episode is worth checking out too, so
enjoy them both.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Roland. Yeah, Jerry said.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Right before she pressed record, I'm sleepy three two to one.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh really, Yeah, I didn't hear you didn't even notice that,
did you. I was just remember or practicing what I
was going to say.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh, sorry, we'll go ahead.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I just did. Oh it was successful.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You're practicing. Hey, welcome to the podcast. Should we talk fiddles?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, Chuck fiddle d D let's do.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I bought one a few years ago. By the way,
it took one lesson.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
And you became an expert.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yep, No, that's just me, man, That's how things go
with me. I have a lot of things that I've
been like, I'm going to do this.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Got a lot of balls in the air.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, specifically musically. I bought a steel guitar and didn't
learn to play that and sold it. I bought a
keyboard and was going to learn to play piano, didn't
do that, Okay, bought the violin. I'm keeping a violin.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Though, So you're stimulating the economy.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, pretty much. And I usually keep just like sell
that and use that money to buy the next thing.
I don't play. Yeah, but I don't know, like I
know how to play guitar. So I'm kind of realizing
at my age, like maybe that's all it's going to be.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You're a guitar man. And like Bread said, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
But used I used to want to be like man
by the time I die. I want to be able
to play all the stringed instruments. Yeah, that was my goal,
and I've learned one.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I mean that's more than some people. I don't I
don't know how to play any stringed instruments.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So yeah, but you don't care too it sounds like no.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I mean I well, so you consider the piano a
stringed instrument. It's got strings, so yeah, is it percussion
or is it string or is it both?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well, a little hammer hits the string percussion interesting, where
as a harpsichord is plucked.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, talking piano, Yeah, I wish I could play the piano.
I'd like to learn that one day.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Right. My brother took lessons as a kid and my sister,
but I didn't. Oh yeah, Scott can still play a
little bit today of.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Course, Hey Scott, super bro.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Uh So the fiddle a little history here before we
get into the man the fiddle or violin. There's no difference,
by the way, is that right? Yep?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's one pronounced one way and the others pronounced it
the other way.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, it's a little and I thought there was a
difference when I bought mine. I was like, well, what's
the difference, And it's just in how you play it.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
They were like, hillbillies play fiddles, yeah, other people play
violins exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So the fiddle at first was not a well regarded instrument.
It was thought of as a sort of a cheap
tavern instrument, you know, like you'd get drunk and hop
upon the table at the tavern, really and beat out
a little Irish jig. Really yeah, and it didn't have
a good reputation. Wait when, well, I mean this is
(03:34):
the sixteenth century.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Okay, So then initially yeah, okay, yeah, I'm with you.
Then I'm with you, okay, hanging on.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
And even in parts of Italy, at first the church
ordered the destruction of violins. They were so like look
down upon. And then a lady named Catherine de Medici
got on board and she was like, this thing is wonderful. Sure,
I'm gonna order thirty eight of them for my court
from the guy named Nicholas Amati, who was the grandson
(04:03):
of the great violin maker Andrea Amadi. Actually she probably
bought them from Andrea if it was the fifteen hundred, right,
and yeah it was fifteen sixty four, and that was it.
Things started to change, and that's literally what kind of
led the violin down a path of respectability.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah. Once you introduce it into court, sure people tend
to follow suit. Yeah. Yeah. So the Amades lived in
a place called Cromona, Italy, right, and Crimona because the
Amadis lived there, who were basically the de factor inventors
of the violin, cello, and viola as we recognize them today.
(04:45):
Because that's where they were from. Kromona became the center
of violin production. Yeah, stringed instrument production, plain and simple. Yeah,
which is pretty neat, like the idea that that's where
violence came from and that they're that recent in origin. Yeah,
And of course that goes further back than that, like
loots were obviously around long before the violin. Sure, but again,
(05:09):
if you look at a violin today and say, oh,
it's a violin, you can thank the Amadis of Cremona
for making that recognizable to you.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah. And here's another cool little fact. The the you know,
the fancy beautiful shape of a violin is not for esthetics.
It is all about the sound that it makes.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
The violin doesn't give a damn weather you think it
looks good.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, it turned out to look beautiful. But all those
curves allow for equal resonance of all the notes, which
if it was more basically shaped, Yeah, certain notes would
be sound better than others.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So that allowed the entire fingerboard to sound wonderful.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Well. Plus, also, if you look at a violin face on. Sure,
if you go down the sides in the middle, it's
cut in. Yeah, those are called seabouts. Those actually have
a practical purpose, I'm sure, in addition to helping produce sound,
but it allows the bow to play the strings on
either side without hitting the body of the violin. Yeah,
(06:11):
pretty clever.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
It's really hard to play. I can't stress that enough.
It's like I thought, this is not so different than
a guitar, Like I'm just holding it under my neck
and using a bow instead of fingers.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
That's got to be a pretty big difference.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
It's a huge difference.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yes, fingers, bows totally different. You're born with one the other.
You have to like buy well.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
It's a combination of pressure on a string, angle of
the bow on the.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
String, pressure from your parents.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Placement of the bow on like as far as how
far down it is, up and down the violin speed.
It's like there's like ten different things that go into
making a sound on a violin that you have to
do successfully all at once. It's really really hard. Yeah,
(07:00):
Like I was intimidated and went in the closet. You go,
maybe my daughter will play one day and then we'll
be waiting for her. Nice so we'll see. But should
we go over the parts? I know you mentioned the seabout.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Sure, seabout's my favorite. So you take it from there.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, if you look at a violin, you got the
very above those little tuning pegs which are contained in
the peg box. You've got the scroll, which is that
kind of a curvy, lovely fancy piece at the top.
Then you have the neck and the fingerboard. The neck
goes from basically down to the body of the violin,
but the fingerboard continues on through it. The upper about,
(07:37):
the lower about, and then that seabout you mentioned, which
is also called the waist. Then you have your two
f holes cut on either side.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Ye, the fancy holes, Yeah, they look like f's.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Then you have your bridge, which is the very thin
piece of wood that keeps the strings you know, off
of the violin body itself and taut. Then you have
your tail piece at the bottom where the strings end,
and then the all important chin rest. And that's a violin.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Bam, go make one. Now I'm leaving. So again, there
was the amadis that came up with the violin you
just described, that's right, And one of the amadis the
grandson of Andrea Amadi, who I think is credited with
inventing the violin basically. But his grandson, Nicola taught a
(08:28):
young man by the name of Antonio and Antonio Strataviri.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Ooh, that name sounds familiar.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, Antonio STRATAVII was born in Cremona. They're not sure
when they think, probably about sixteen forty four.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
His life is a bit of a mystery, his young
life at least, right, not a lot of great records
on it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
You know what, This just jogged my memory. We never
explained why Alexander Hamilton would shave two years off of
his age, even though we specifically said we were going to.
Well that's all.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Should we follow up now?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Probably not, okay, I think people would get mad.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, if you want to know, right in and we'll
tell you, or maybe we'll post it on such means.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I think that's better. Yeah, but who cares. We're talking
Strataveri now.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, we've moved on, all right.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
So Strativery there's not very good records about his youth,
I think, as you said, but he pops up in
sixteen sixty six at the very latest.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
A violin pops up in sixteen sixty six. I should
say it has an inscription on it and a label actually,
and if you translated to English, it says made by
Antonio Stradiveri of cremona pupil of Nicoro Amadi in sixteen
sixty six, well done the year of Satan.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
And that means he was either a pupil, which it
clearly says, sure, or a bit of a bit of
a stretch of the truth and a bit of a
ruse in a career move.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Really.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, there's some people that say, and that's why I
was wondering it says people believe some people believe he
was a pupil.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, I didn't get with the well it says he was.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
A pupil and the inscription right. But the other thought
is that maybe it was a bit of a career
move to say I was taught by the grade Amadi.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Right, who's dead now and can't say otherwise?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Maybe, but uh, who knows. I bet he was probably
a pupil.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Actually he wasn't dead, so that would have been pretty
gut seacher to have done that, because Amadi didn't die
for many years, many more years after sixteen sixty six.
So I think the common consensus is that he was
a pupil of Amadi.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
He would have said, he's stealing my business, so what up?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
But with that, right, man, this thing is going to
be lousy with that, all right?
Speaker 2 (10:46):
So sixteen sixty six, you are correct. He builds his
very first violin on his own. He continues to build
violins on his own in his attic, which was apparently
the tradition attic violin building.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Was it?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
That's what it said?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I guess that was just like where you would put
your workshop. Okay, who knows, maybe it I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Have you ever seen the movie The Red Violin? Yes,
great movie, agreed, like, stick with it.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I think I might have seen that on your recommendation
years ago, probably if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, really good
movie though. Yeah. So he's making violins. He moves into
a home in sixteen eighty and he started to get
some recognition as a great builder and maker of violins,
a great craftsman.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
He did, and he was still kind of living in
the shadow of the Amadis. But when Nikola Amadi died
in sixteen eighty four, by this time everyone said, this
guy is Kremona's best maker. Of violins. Yeah, which since
Kromona was the world capital of violin making. They were
made elsewhere, but Kromona was like the place where the best.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Were made, the krem of the Cromona.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Right. That made him the world's best violin maker. And
he hadn't even entered his golden period yet.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, and he's making more than violins. He's making cellos
and guitars and mandolins and harps pretty much anything with.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Strings except harpsichords.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Who knows, he might have made a harpsichord.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I'll bet that'd be worth a lot probably.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So all right, should we take a break here, Yes,
all right, we'll get into more craftsmanship right after this.
(12:44):
All right, So Strativari is following in Amadi's Amadi his footsteps,
but he's also like, you know what I'm gonna. I'm
gonna start tweaking this thing, Yeah, and craft my own
brand of violin. And he does so. He said, I'm
going to use some new materials, maybe some new finishes.
(13:05):
I'm gonna I'm gonna make that seabout a little straighter
then you're used to.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, man, then f's a little straighter the f holes
is it straighter? Was that the deal, I think so.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And then we altered the f hole some and uh
something with a scroll too, Is that right?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
He made it more amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
And he made the the scroll larger scroll, the f
holes not only straighter but longer, larger scroll, and a
and a straighter and stronger seabout that was like mechanically
that those were the biggest differences.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Right, But he also crucially came up with his own
formula for a varnish. It's a very easily recognized, deep,
deep red brown varnish. That's right, that his violins have.
It's very handsome. But a lot of people, as we'll
see later, believe that it's possibly the varnish that made
Strata various violins so great because when he made these changes,
(14:07):
not only was he making these changes to the shape
and appearance of the violin, he was also like a
master wooden layer. Like. The craftsmanship that his violins had
were just unparalleled. There were flawless, flawless works of art
as musical instruments, So in addition to just being a
(14:29):
flawless work of art, they also sounded better than anything
anything that could possibly compare be compared to it. And
what's really exceptional about strata varius is it's not just
one of those things where like, oh the name is
actually what is really driving it. A stratavarius violin that's
(14:49):
three hundred years old today is probably better than any
violin that's been produced in the last three hundred years,
including a brand new one, only now getting to the
point where they can they've discovered techniques where they can
start to replicate the sound of a strata varius. That's
(15:10):
how good this guy's violins were. That that it's not
a joke, it's not hyperbole of how great the strata
various violins were. They are still the ones that this
guy made by hand, are still the best violins in
the world.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, that's the most really.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Saying something for sure, considering how much progress we've made
in the last three hundred years and just about.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Everything, and and these are you know, for the the
finest tuned ears in the world. Like clearly there are flawless,
amazing instruments and violins being produced since then. But for
the true like aficionado, they can spot the difference. Apparently,
(15:48):
Oh yeah, like you and I can't.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
No, But people whose job it is to identify and
praise strata various violins. Say that comparing it to a
non stratavarius, like a knockoff or something, is like comparing
a Ferrari to a school bus. Yeah, well, it's like
that obvious.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
For people like saying things like that.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
It's a great quote.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
We're just a couple of schmumps. What do we know?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So it just went.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It might be a new gag. So he and his
first wife had six kids. He was good at having kids.
He and his second wife, His wife sadly died in
sixteen ninety eight. He got remarried and had five more
kids with wife number two. He was great at making
violins and making children. Yes, crafting children. He's great at it,
(16:42):
crafting little babies.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, they called them the mice tro in the bedroom,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
And I think a couple of his sons even went
on to follow in his footsteps.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Is that right from his first marriage?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Right? They were at second lot they.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Were schmumps, though they couldn't hold a candle to their
father's work.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So let's talk about the golden period from seventeen hundred
to seventeen twenty to twenty five, depending on who you
had talked to, This was the Golden Period where these violins,
I mean, he had really honed his design at this point,
and the materials that he used and everything kind of
all coalesced into making the best violins in the history
(17:21):
of the world.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Right, it was like Lebron's tenure at the Heat.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Oh, well, we'll see his career is not over yet. Yeah, wow,
you're calling it now, huh.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I mean he he made a case for a resurgence
this past season, but we'll see if he can repeat it. Okay,
he was playing on five hundred cylinders with the Heat.
It was just perfect because he didn't have to be
the team leader. He could be one of like the leaders.
That team had several leaders, and he could be one
(17:54):
of them. It wasn't like the whole team just pushed
upward towards Lebron.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
See, a lot of people have the opposite view that
that was. You know, anyone can get on a team
of superstars and win championships, but no, not necessarily to
be the one leader is a bigger accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
I'm very curious to know how, say, like the Golden
State Warriors are going to be next season with Durant
and Steph Curry and Klay Thompson on there. Thompson knows
so much. But like Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, they're
like two of the greatest players that have ever lived,
ever lived, not just their playing right now, how are
they going to gel the idea that Dwayne Wade and
(18:29):
Chris Bosh and Lebron James were all able to keep
their egos in check and come together to work together
and lead a team together. I think that's harder than
this just being like, forget it, I'll do it myself,
you think, yes.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
All right, So Stratavari is making his mark on the world,
getting his reputation, and he's making a lot of money.
He wasn't one of these. It's like after he died
they later realized how great he was. He was a
rich man. Yeah, making and selling these violins.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, apparently there was a phrase richest stretta vari Yeah,
like richer than an astronaut is what we would say today.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah. He was one of the more famous guys in
Italy at the time, for sure.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yeah, and rightfully so.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
His crowning achievement supposedly is in seventeen sixteen when he
built the Messiah And this is the only violin that
he never sold that he kept in his workshop till
the day died.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It was his head stash violin.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And this violin has rarely been played. Apparently. One of
the sort of things unspoken rules when this thing's been
sold and passed down is that don't even play it.
This one should remain pristine.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah, it's basically as close to a mint condition strata
various as you can find in the world. Oh it's
not close, it's meant yeah, but I mean a couple
of people have played it. Oh really, Yeah, it's not
been unplayed.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Okay, a couple of bad eggs in there, a couple
of super lucky violin plays that screw your unwritten rules.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, well this is before the Ashmullyan got their hands
on it.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Okay, So post seventeen twenty, post golden period, he still
produced violins and things, but apparently his eyesight was going,
his hands were not as steady, and they weren't quite
what they were during the golden period. I'm sure they
were still wonderful violence.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Oh yeah, he's still churning out the good stuff, but
nothing like that golden period.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And he worked into his nineties, so he was building
violins for you know, seventy years.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
He worked up to his death. As far as I understand,
I think so so yeah. But that golden period stuff
that was there was the Messiah from seventeen sixteen, the
Allard from seventeen fifteen, the Bets from seventeen oh four.
Those are just a few of the ones that he
made during this period that are still around today. He
(20:55):
made I saw a thousand, also saw fifteen hundred stringed
instruments during his career, amazing about six hundred and fifty
survived today. And there they tend to have names, especially
the ones from his golden period. As you just heard,
they have names, and they're usually the name of the
most famous UH player who owned it.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
They weren't like a skippy and old roy right, Barnabas
Barnabas the violin right.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So there's a there's a superstition among violinists that the
more you play a violin, the more a particular person
plays violin, the more that violin takes on the character
of that player, right, so much so that a violinist
or even a cellist or a violist can come along
(21:47):
afterward and play that person's violin. Yeah, and it will
say it will sound much more like the person who's
violin it is than the person playing it.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
And there's there's a further superstition that the more you
play a violin, the better it sounds.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Well, that's not a superstition, that's fact, right, any instrument.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So there is a study from I think nineteen ninety
six that I came across that found that the more
violin wood is vibrated, the more the dampening coefficient is lowered.
The lower the damping coefficient, the longer a note resonates.
(22:27):
The longer a note resonates, the richer the sound. And
so just playing it right, because you're vibrating the wood
when you're playing a violin, the more you do that,
the more frequently you do that, the better the violin's
actually going to sound. So astoundingly, the more you play
a violin, the better it sounds.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Well, that's true for any instrument, is it. Yeah, it's
called breaking it in. Oh, So it's like a pair
of genes you can identify with that.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Sure, I love genes.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
You know, a pair of genes five years in or
better than they are when you come off the shelf. Yeah,
it's the same thing. It's breaking it in, especially strings
with anything with the fingerboard. That fingerboard just you know,
wears in those frets wear down a little and it
does get a little bit attuned I think to your style.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yeah for sure. Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, I'd like to do more on musical instruments here
and there. Okay, I'm putting it out there, all right,
all right, well let's take another quick break and we
will get into all the controversies surrounding just why these
things sound so good and all those theories. Pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
So, Chuck, I gotta say, you did a good job
putting this one together. Okay, sure, I'm interested in it.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
You know we I had that stuff from the B
Side podcast for like two months back in the day.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
People still call for it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
And we covered this very briefly. Oh really, yeah not.
We didn't do right by it. So that's why I
was like, you know what, that's a good topic. Nice,
I mean, dust that one off. Nice. So there have
been many many theories over the years, like if the
strat is so revered in legendary that people experts, scientists
(24:28):
are bound to want to crack that nut. Yeah, like
why yeah, like what's the deal.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
And it's not. Again, this is it's objectively better than
other violins, the ones that strata vary made.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Correct some of the theories. The old theories back then
was that he would soak the wood in salt water.
Not true, that the wood was coated with volcanic ash,
not true. That dragon's blood was used in the varnish.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
That may have been true, Okay, George R. Martin came
up with that one.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Probably so, and then i'll, you know, we'll get into
the more modern theories. There's really well, there's a couple
of leading theories. One is the wood, yeah, this ice
age wood, which we'll talk about, and the others the varnish.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Right, go, okay, Well, the Strativari was working during what's
known as Europe's Little Ice Age, which is a period
of unusually, very unusually colder temperatures, and I think they're
still trying to figure out what the heck happened. And
as a matter of fact, we need to do like
(25:39):
an irregular ice age podcast and we'll talk about it then.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, But the.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Upshot of it was that because of the colder temperatures,
the spruce that was used by Strativari in the manufacture
of these violins grew slower but more evenly steadier, so
that the wood that was harvested from these bruce trees
was much more uniformly grained. Right, So just basically really
(26:08):
high end wood was produced by this little ice age.
The problem with that being the reason that Strata Vari's
violins were so great, is that that wood was also
available to violin makers elsewhere in Europe, and their violins
don't sound anything like a Strata Vary.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
So the little ice age theory, while still I think
out there has I think that really kind of goes
a long way to undermining it.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, like they were, people were really excited about that
at first, and I think they're like, yes, not proof.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
It's a cool theory. It is cool, little ice age.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
There's another dude at Texas A and M I named
Joseph Nagavary nagie Vary, what a unique name. And he said,
it's all about this varnish, this cremones. Cremones varnish. Is
that not right?
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yeah? Cream and ease.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, I think that's what they say.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Start your morning right with cremin ese.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
So he published an article in Scientific Journal Public Library
of science one. It's capitalized for some reason, and he says,
you know what's going on here. It's this varnish that
he used. Let me analyze it chemically, and what he
found out was it's very unique in that it has
(27:29):
these things in there that you would not expect to
be in a varnish, like borax and chromium. And he said, so,
what I think is going on is this stuff. He
added this stuff to the varnish to protect it that
would against damage an infestation, But what it really did
was actually weakened the wood and made it porous where
(27:52):
it should not be, and that created more tone, a
more booming, rich, powerful tone. Right.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Pushback his well, his theory is not entirely out of
left field, like it's it's pretty much accepted that if
you put the wrong kind of varnish on a violin,
it's going to ruin the sound. Sure, so his whole
thing was, well, why couldn't you stumble upon some varnish
that actually enhanced the sound, And that was his idea
that that's that accounted for strata areas violin sounding like that. Yeah,
(28:23):
I think he did get a lot of pushback. There
seems to be even if He's right. There seems to
be a desire among the people who collect and play
strata various violins is that we'll never understand what makes
it special. We don't really want to know what will
make it special.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
There's a guy who was widely quoted. He's a violinist
from America's name is James EANs Ends EANs Man, Well, James.
His his whole view is that he's played a number
of strata of various violins and other stringed instruments, and
(29:03):
he said that there's probably a thousand things that make
them special. Yeah, and we could never possibly know what
all those thousand things are, and there's never just going
to be just this one thing that is the key
to what made strata varius violins so great.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah. I think I watched a BBC documentary that was
really pretty great and they interviewed another violin maker and
he said, you know, it was the right place, right time.
Thing like this guy came along. Maybe they had this
good wood that was special, maybe he had this varnish
that was special.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, but they were in the hands of somebody special too.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Well. That was his point was that other people were
using some of these same things and they turned out
very different. He said he was so good at what
he did, Like that's the secret. He was just better
at doing this than other people.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Right, Like how Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade brought the
best out of Lebron James.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Well, where I think this Texas A and M Professor
aired was that he was so bold as to even
posit the idea that it may have been an accident,
and that like.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I would say bold is an appropriate term.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, Like they turned out this good on accident. He
didn't know this varnish was going to do that, or
the wood may have been even pre treated with these chemicals,
and he kind of lucked into what it ended up being. Yeah,
and not that he wasn't talented, but like that's why
they are what they are.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And people were like, whoah, blasphemy.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, out heretic. So how much of these things cost
a lot?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
The end I saw, I mean, the numbers are all
over the place. Like one thing, we'll say that the
the record was three point five four four million dollars. Yeah,
and then later on the record was broken with three
point six million dollars with the Molitor stratavaries owned famously
by Milwaukee brewer Paul Mollitor. That's where that one got
(30:57):
its name.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Well, yeah, I agree. And then this says, in June
twenty fourteen, the Kreutzer at a pre sale estimate of
seven and a half million to ten million, but it
failed to reach the reserve price.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Right But then later on another one sold in twenty
eleven for sixteen million, So apparently nobody's really keeping tabs here.
I looked down the internet. I couldn't find anything approaching
a comprehensive list of how much these things had gone for.
But the fact is millions of dollars, tens of millions
in some cases, from what I understand. And there are collectors,
(31:30):
very very wealthy collectors who are driving the price of
strata various violins and other string instruments through the roof,
where if you were smart enough to buy one for
a few hundred thousand dollars twenty thirty years ago, it's
worth easily ten twenty times that now.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, and it's kind of a shame that these aren't
in the hands of the great players of the world,
you know.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Well, they're in the hands of the great players of
the world who come from very wealthy families.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, or who, like you said, bought one twenty or
thirty years ago, right, and that's their you know, their
go to But.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, it's it's just another fat piggy thing to buy
and own and possess. The one I have is the
most expensive one, right, Fortunately, the one that's so so
valuable that it's frequently cited as priceless is the Messiah. Yeah,
and that is owned by the Ashmoley and at Oxford University,
(32:20):
so that one's not up for grabs, which is cool
because all the other ones are just operating under that level.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah. And the lady in the BBC documentary as a violinist,
and she got to hold the Messiah with gloves.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And it's called that because there's a Nativity scene in
laid on the back I believe.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Oh I don't think it's the back. I think it's
in the little tail piece. Oh okay, But this thing
is gorgeous. And she was allowed to hold it with
gloves is like white cotton gloves, And the whole time,
even though I knew that wouldn't happen, I was like,
don't drop it. Yeah, you know those slippy little cotton gloves. Sure,
and it just made me nervous watching it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Did you ever see that video of things that were
very expensive things that were accidentally oken that I made
years back?
Speaker 2 (33:02):
I remember that.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
It's just like it was tough to make. I bet
it's tough to watch too.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah. So over the years there have been many, many,
many many fakes. As as soon as he died, they
started pumping out forgeries, and not even forgeries, like just
mass produced violins that they would throw a label on that.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
At the time, in the nineteenth century, eighteenth and nineteenth century,
the people buying the violins knew that they were like
knockoff manufactured fakes.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, largely in Germany, right right, But they weren't like, yeah,
they weren't.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
They weren't being duped. It was like this is this
is in the style of Stratavarius or whatever. Yeah, largely
in Germany and Czechoslovakia. And the thing is, though, is
over time these what are now pretty old violins because
they were again made in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Yeah,
they I had labels on them that would say like Stratavarius,
(34:03):
cremonsis fachibot Onoh, and then say like sixteen seventy nine
or something like that. Right, So, if you find one
of these violins and your attic, yeah, and it looks
pretty old. It literally says an Italian. This violin was
made by Stratavarius in sixteen seventy nine. You could be
(34:24):
forgiven to think that you have just found a Strativarius
violin and all of your money problems are over. You
can go buy more meth than you'll ever be able
to do in your entire life.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
It might say made in Germany too, though.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
That's a big giveaway, it is. Yeah, And apparently if
you're an appraiser of this kind of thing, you were
so sick of people calling you that you can't even
hide it when you're interviewed in an article. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
The one guy even said that. He's like, people get
angry when you tell them it's not he said, because
they think they've got a lottery ticket and you have
to break it to him. And he said, they get
mad on these phone calls.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Right, and they're like, well, do you have twenty bucks
from men?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
It's pretty funny. Uh, do you got anything else?
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah? If you find a violin and you look it
over and it says Stratavarius and you look even further
and it doesn't say made in Germany.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Fake.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
If it doesn't say that, I know, but it's still
probably a fake. Well you can. There's a Smithsonian article
about it that has basically step by step what you
can do and who you can submit photos to to
get it basically pre appraised, well not appraised, but just
looked at. And they can usually tell from the photos like, no,
it's a fake.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Like step one, leave it out in the sun and
let it let it get rained on a couple of
times if ants are attracted to it, not as strata exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, but one of the appraisers makes the point like
they're about six hundred and fifty in the world and
they're all basically accounted for it.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
We know where they are.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, and even when we don't know where they are,
we know we would know the one that we don't
know where they are when they surface.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah. They stolen one.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Yeah, there was one that was famously stolen thirty something
years ago from a concert violinist and it was a
stratavarius and it was in the attic of a Milwaukee
thief's house and I guess he died and his girlfriend
took it to an appraiser who's like, uh, this is stolen.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I know who's this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
So it's a very small community. So the idea that
somebody's just gonna walk up with like a real strata
varius that had previously been unknown is it's just most
likely not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah. The one of the other appraisers said, it's like
finding a new rem brand. He said, we know what
he painted, right, we know where they are.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah, now they got computers painting rem brands.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
I think a guy left his strata in the cab
a few years ago too.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Was it, Joshua Bell? Sounds like something that I would do.
He's wacky.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
I can't remember. I believe that happened, though I remember
to get it back. I think so.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Only in New York, right, jeez?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Can you imagine? No?
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Because again, like these are concert violinists who have almost
been entrusted by humanity with these things like here, this
is a very expensive violin. Yes, but we are giving
this to you because we think you will enrich this
and with your playing and maybe someday it'll be called
your last name Stratavarius. Play it well, don't leave it
(37:26):
in the back of a cab.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
And then that guy had to get on Craigslist and
buy a one hundred dollars fiddle right yep to play
first chair at the Philharmonic.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, Chuck, Yes, you got anything else?
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I don't either. Good job putting this together, man.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
If you want to know more about Stratavarius, you can
search the internet for it, because we don't have an
article on how stuff works. Since I said, uh, Internet,
it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Recall this from my good buddy Becks Rebecca Bloomfield. She's
one of my pen pals.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Okay from the stuff you should know want see in
prison over the years.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
She sure is. No, she's not. She's a delight though,
and she backed me up on my comments about women
in science, so I felt good about it, so I
wanted to read it. She made me feel better. I
hope you guys had a great time in the UK.
By the way, she just missed our show and I
think in London by a couple of days, since she
(38:30):
was very bummed out.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Does she live there or was she visiting?
Speaker 2 (38:32):
I think visiting. She now lives somewhere else, so she said,
I know you did. I just listened to the delightful
history of steam. Anyway, I'm writing to say, bloody well done.
Is that a curse word?
Speaker 1 (38:45):
I think like it's like.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Very okay, great, well done, Chuck on your comment on
what we could have achieved of women had been allowed
into the stem fields from the start. I know this
sort of comment could be a minefield for guy, but
I can assure you you made your point really well.
I'm normally the first to jump on non feminist comments
or man's plaining. That's what I was afraid of, So
(39:09):
she said, I'm usually the first to jump on the
man's plaining. And when you said it, I just said yes, yes, Chuck,
very loudly in my office. I even startled the dogs.
Raising children is very important, but men can do it too.
All humans of any gender should have a choice to
what they do with their lives that should not be
predetermined because of their gender. So good on you, Chuck.
Makes me happy to know that the next generation of
(39:29):
women are being raised by men like you. And that's
from Beck's Bloomfield And she is a graphic designer for
Little Red Robot Design Ooh, Shout Out and just a
nice lady.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Nice. Well, thanks a lot Be's Can I call her that?
Or should I just call her Rebecca?
Speaker 2 (39:46):
No, you're in the club.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Okay, Well thanks a lot Bes for that email and
for shouting. We appreciate that kind of thing certainly. If
you want to get in touch of this, you can
tweet to us at sysk podcast. You can hang out
with us at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
You can also send us an email to stuff podcast
at HowStuffWorks dot com and as always, joined us sort
(40:08):
o at home on the web, Stuff youshould Know dot com.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, everybody, it's me Josh, and for this week's select,
I've chosen our episode from September of twenty sixteen, on
the Strata Various Violin. It's where we get to the
bottom of whether strata various violins really are that much
better than others, or whether everyone in the music world
is just really into brand names. I think you'll be
pleasantly surprised. And I mentioned the movie The Red Violin
(00:24):
that like, this episode is worth checking out too, so
enjoy them both.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
Charles W Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Roland. Yeah, Jerry said.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Right before she pressed record, I'm sleepy three two to one.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Oh really, Yeah, I didn't hear you didn't even notice that,
did you. I was just remember or practicing what I
was going to say.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Oh, sorry, we'll go ahead.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I just did. Oh it was successful.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
You're practicing. Hey, welcome to the podcast. Should we talk fiddles?
Speaker 1 (01:13):
Yeah, Chuck fiddle d D let's do.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
I bought one a few years ago. By the way,
it took one lesson.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
And you became an expert.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yep, No, that's just me, man, That's how things go
with me. I have a lot of things that I've
been like, I'm going to do this.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Got a lot of balls in the air.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah, specifically musically. I bought a steel guitar and didn't
learn to play that and sold it. I bought a
keyboard and was going to learn to play piano, didn't
do that, Okay, bought the violin. I'm keeping a violin.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Though, So you're stimulating the economy.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yeah, pretty much. And I usually keep just like sell
that and use that money to buy the next thing.
I don't play. Yeah, but I don't know, like I
know how to play guitar. So I'm kind of realizing
at my age, like maybe that's all it's going to be.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
You're a guitar man. And like Bread said, yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
But used I used to want to be like man
by the time I die. I want to be able
to play all the stringed instruments. Yeah, that was my goal,
and I've learned one.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I mean that's more than some people. I don't I
don't know how to play any stringed instruments.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
So yeah, but you don't care too it sounds like no.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I mean I well, so you consider the piano a
stringed instrument. It's got strings, so yeah, is it percussion
or is it string or is it both?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well, a little hammer hits the string percussion interesting, where
as a harpsichord is plucked.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Yeah, talking piano, Yeah, I wish I could play the piano.
I'd like to learn that one day.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Right. My brother took lessons as a kid and my sister,
but I didn't. Oh yeah, Scott can still play a
little bit today of.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Course, Hey Scott, super bro.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Uh So the fiddle a little history here before we
get into the man the fiddle or violin. There's no difference,
by the way, is that right? Yep?
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's one pronounced one way and the others pronounced it
the other way.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, it's a little and I thought there was a
difference when I bought mine. I was like, well, what's
the difference, And it's just in how you play it.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
They were like, hillbillies play fiddles, yeah, other people play
violins exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
So the fiddle at first was not a well regarded instrument.
It was thought of as a sort of a cheap
tavern instrument, you know, like you'd get drunk and hop
upon the table at the tavern, really and beat out
a little Irish jig. Really yeah, and it didn't have
a good reputation. Wait when, well, I mean this is
(03:34):
the sixteenth century.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Okay, So then initially yeah, okay, yeah, I'm with you.
Then I'm with you, okay, hanging on.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
And even in parts of Italy, at first the church
ordered the destruction of violins. They were so like look
down upon. And then a lady named Catherine de Medici
got on board and she was like, this thing is wonderful. Sure,
I'm gonna order thirty eight of them for my court
from the guy named Nicholas Amati, who was the grandson
(04:03):
of the great violin maker Andrea Amadi. Actually she probably
bought them from Andrea if it was the fifteen hundred, right,
and yeah it was fifteen sixty four, and that was it.
Things started to change, and that's literally what kind of
led the violin down a path of respectability.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah. Once you introduce it into court, sure people tend
to follow suit. Yeah. Yeah. So the Amades lived in
a place called Cromona, Italy, right, and Crimona because the
Amadis lived there, who were basically the de factor inventors
of the violin, cello, and viola as we recognize them today.
(04:45):
Because that's where they were from. Kromona became the center
of violin production. Yeah, stringed instrument production, plain and simple. Yeah,
which is pretty neat, like the idea that that's where
violence came from and that they're that recent in origin. Yeah,
And of course that goes further back than that, like
loots were obviously around long before the violin. Sure, but again,
(05:09):
if you look at a violin today and say, oh,
it's a violin, you can thank the Amadis of Cremona
for making that recognizable to you.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah. And here's another cool little fact. The the you know,
the fancy beautiful shape of a violin is not for esthetics.
It is all about the sound that it makes.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
The violin doesn't give a damn weather you think it
looks good.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, it turned out to look beautiful. But all those
curves allow for equal resonance of all the notes, which
if it was more basically shaped, Yeah, certain notes would
be sound better than others.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
So that allowed the entire fingerboard to sound wonderful.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Well. Plus, also, if you look at a violin face on. Sure,
if you go down the sides in the middle, it's
cut in. Yeah, those are called seabouts. Those actually have
a practical purpose, I'm sure, in addition to helping produce sound,
but it allows the bow to play the strings on
either side without hitting the body of the violin. Yeah,
(06:11):
pretty clever.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
It's really hard to play. I can't stress that enough.
It's like I thought, this is not so different than
a guitar, Like I'm just holding it under my neck
and using a bow instead of fingers.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
That's got to be a pretty big difference.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
It's a huge difference.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yes, fingers, bows totally different. You're born with one the other.
You have to like buy well.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
It's a combination of pressure on a string, angle of
the bow on the.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
String, pressure from your parents.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Placement of the bow on like as far as how
far down it is, up and down the violin speed.
It's like there's like ten different things that go into
making a sound on a violin that you have to
do successfully all at once. It's really really hard. Yeah,
(07:00):
Like I was intimidated and went in the closet. You go,
maybe my daughter will play one day and then we'll
be waiting for her. Nice so we'll see. But should
we go over the parts? I know you mentioned the seabout.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Sure, seabout's my favorite. So you take it from there.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Well, if you look at a violin, you got the
very above those little tuning pegs which are contained in
the peg box. You've got the scroll, which is that
kind of a curvy, lovely fancy piece at the top.
Then you have the neck and the fingerboard. The neck
goes from basically down to the body of the violin,
but the fingerboard continues on through it. The upper about,
(07:37):
the lower about, and then that seabout you mentioned, which
is also called the waist. Then you have your two
f holes cut on either side.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Ye, the fancy holes, Yeah, they look like f's.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Then you have your bridge, which is the very thin
piece of wood that keeps the strings you know, off
of the violin body itself and taut. Then you have
your tail piece at the bottom where the strings end,
and then the all important chin rest. And that's a violin.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Bam, go make one. Now I'm leaving. So again, there
was the amadis that came up with the violin you
just described, that's right, And one of the amadis the
grandson of Andrea Amadi, who I think is credited with
inventing the violin basically. But his grandson, Nicola taught a
(08:28):
young man by the name of Antonio and Antonio Strataviri.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Ooh, that name sounds familiar.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, Antonio STRATAVII was born in Cremona. They're not sure
when they think, probably about sixteen forty four.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
His life is a bit of a mystery, his young
life at least, right, not a lot of great records
on it.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
You know what, This just jogged my memory. We never
explained why Alexander Hamilton would shave two years off of
his age, even though we specifically said we were going to.
Well that's all.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Should we follow up now?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Probably not, okay, I think people would get mad.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Yeah, if you want to know, right in and we'll
tell you, or maybe we'll post it on such means.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
I think that's better. Yeah, but who cares. We're talking
Strataveri now.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yeah, we've moved on, all right.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
So Strativery there's not very good records about his youth,
I think, as you said, but he pops up in
sixteen sixty six at the very latest.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
A violin pops up in sixteen sixty six. I should
say it has an inscription on it and a label actually,
and if you translated to English, it says made by
Antonio Stradiveri of cremona pupil of Nicoro Amadi in sixteen
sixty six, well done the year of Satan.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
And that means he was either a pupil, which it
clearly says, sure, or a bit of a bit of
a stretch of the truth and a bit of a
ruse in a career move.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Really.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, there's some people that say, and that's why I
was wondering it says people believe some people believe he
was a pupil.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yeah, I didn't get with the well it says he was.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
A pupil and the inscription right. But the other thought
is that maybe it was a bit of a career
move to say I was taught by the grade Amadi.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Right, who's dead now and can't say otherwise?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Maybe, but uh, who knows. I bet he was probably
a pupil.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Actually he wasn't dead, so that would have been pretty
gut seacher to have done that, because Amadi didn't die
for many years, many more years after sixteen sixty six.
So I think the common consensus is that he was
a pupil of Amadi.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
He would have said, he's stealing my business, so what up?
Speaker 1 (10:40):
But with that, right, man, this thing is going to
be lousy with that, all right?
Speaker 2 (10:46):
So sixteen sixty six, you are correct. He builds his
very first violin on his own. He continues to build
violins on his own in his attic, which was apparently
the tradition attic violin building.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Was it?
Speaker 2 (11:00):
That's what it said?
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I guess that was just like where you would put
your workshop. Okay, who knows, maybe it I don't know.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
Have you ever seen the movie The Red Violin? Yes,
great movie, agreed, like, stick with it.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
I think I might have seen that on your recommendation
years ago, probably if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, really good
movie though. Yeah. So he's making violins. He moves into
a home in sixteen eighty and he started to get
some recognition as a great builder and maker of violins,
a great craftsman.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
He did, and he was still kind of living in
the shadow of the Amadis. But when Nikola Amadi died
in sixteen eighty four, by this time everyone said, this
guy is Kremona's best maker. Of violins. Yeah, which since
Kromona was the world capital of violin making. They were
made elsewhere, but Kromona was like the place where the best.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Were made, the krem of the Cromona.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Right. That made him the world's best violin maker. And
he hadn't even entered his golden period yet.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, and he's making more than violins. He's making cellos
and guitars and mandolins and harps pretty much anything with.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Strings except harpsichords.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Who knows, he might have made a harpsichord.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I'll bet that'd be worth a lot probably.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
So all right, should we take a break here, Yes,
all right, we'll get into more craftsmanship right after this.
(12:44):
All right, So Strativari is following in Amadi's Amadi his footsteps,
but he's also like, you know what I'm gonna. I'm
gonna start tweaking this thing, Yeah, and craft my own
brand of violin. And he does so. He said, I'm
going to use some new materials, maybe some new finishes.
(13:05):
I'm gonna I'm gonna make that seabout a little straighter
then you're used to.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Yeah, man, then f's a little straighter the f holes
is it straighter? Was that the deal, I think so.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
And then we altered the f hole some and uh
something with a scroll too, Is that right?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
He made it more amazing.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
And he made the the scroll larger scroll, the f
holes not only straighter but longer, larger scroll, and a
and a straighter and stronger seabout that was like mechanically
that those were the biggest differences.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
Right, But he also crucially came up with his own
formula for a varnish. It's a very easily recognized, deep,
deep red brown varnish. That's right, that his violins have.
It's very handsome. But a lot of people, as we'll
see later, believe that it's possibly the varnish that made
Strata various violins so great because when he made these changes,
(14:07):
not only was he making these changes to the shape
and appearance of the violin, he was also like a
master wooden layer. Like. The craftsmanship that his violins had
were just unparalleled. There were flawless, flawless works of art
as musical instruments, So in addition to just being a
(14:29):
flawless work of art, they also sounded better than anything
anything that could possibly compare be compared to it. And
what's really exceptional about strata varius is it's not just
one of those things where like, oh the name is
actually what is really driving it. A stratavarius violin that's
(14:49):
three hundred years old today is probably better than any
violin that's been produced in the last three hundred years,
including a brand new one, only now getting to the
point where they can they've discovered techniques where they can
start to replicate the sound of a strata varius. That's
(15:10):
how good this guy's violins were. That that it's not
a joke, it's not hyperbole of how great the strata
various violins were. They are still the ones that this
guy made by hand, are still the best violins in
the world.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah, that's the most really.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Saying something for sure, considering how much progress we've made
in the last three hundred years and just about.
Speaker 2 (15:28):
Everything, and and these are you know, for the the
finest tuned ears in the world. Like clearly there are flawless,
amazing instruments and violins being produced since then. But for
the true like aficionado, they can spot the difference. Apparently,
(15:48):
Oh yeah, like you and I can't.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
No, But people whose job it is to identify and
praise strata various violins. Say that comparing it to a
non stratavarius, like a knockoff or something, is like comparing
a Ferrari to a school bus. Yeah, well, it's like
that obvious.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
For people like saying things like that.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
It's a great quote.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
We're just a couple of schmumps. What do we know?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
So it just went.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It might be a new gag. So he and his
first wife had six kids. He was good at having kids.
He and his second wife, His wife sadly died in
sixteen ninety eight. He got remarried and had five more
kids with wife number two. He was great at making
violins and making children. Yes, crafting children. He's great at it,
(16:42):
crafting little babies.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, they called them the mice tro in the bedroom,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
And I think a couple of his sons even went
on to follow in his footsteps.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Is that right from his first marriage?
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Right? They were at second lot they.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Were schmumps, though they couldn't hold a candle to their
father's work.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So let's talk about the golden period from seventeen hundred
to seventeen twenty to twenty five, depending on who you
had talked to, This was the Golden Period where these violins,
I mean, he had really honed his design at this point,
and the materials that he used and everything kind of
all coalesced into making the best violins in the history
(17:21):
of the world.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Right, it was like Lebron's tenure at the Heat.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Oh, well, we'll see his career is not over yet. Yeah, wow,
you're calling it now, huh.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I mean he he made a case for a resurgence
this past season, but we'll see if he can repeat it. Okay,
he was playing on five hundred cylinders with the Heat.
It was just perfect because he didn't have to be
the team leader. He could be one of like the leaders.
That team had several leaders, and he could be one
(17:54):
of them. It wasn't like the whole team just pushed
upward towards Lebron.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
See, a lot of people have the opposite view that
that was. You know, anyone can get on a team
of superstars and win championships, but no, not necessarily to
be the one leader is a bigger accomplishment.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
I'm very curious to know how, say, like the Golden
State Warriors are going to be next season with Durant
and Steph Curry and Klay Thompson on there. Thompson knows
so much. But like Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, they're
like two of the greatest players that have ever lived,
ever lived, not just their playing right now, how are
they going to gel the idea that Dwayne Wade and
(18:29):
Chris Bosh and Lebron James were all able to keep
their egos in check and come together to work together
and lead a team together. I think that's harder than
this just being like, forget it, I'll do it myself,
you think, yes.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
All right, So Stratavari is making his mark on the world,
getting his reputation, and he's making a lot of money.
He wasn't one of these. It's like after he died
they later realized how great he was. He was a
rich man. Yeah, making and selling these violins.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, apparently there was a phrase richest stretta vari Yeah,
like richer than an astronaut is what we would say today.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Yeah. He was one of the more famous guys in
Italy at the time, for sure.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Yeah, and rightfully so.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
His crowning achievement supposedly is in seventeen sixteen when he
built the Messiah And this is the only violin that
he never sold that he kept in his workshop till
the day died.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
It was his head stash violin.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
And this violin has rarely been played. Apparently. One of
the sort of things unspoken rules when this thing's been
sold and passed down is that don't even play it.
This one should remain pristine.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah, it's basically as close to a mint condition strata
various as you can find in the world. Oh it's
not close, it's meant yeah, but I mean a couple
of people have played it. Oh really, Yeah, it's not
been unplayed.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Okay, a couple of bad eggs in there, a couple
of super lucky violin plays that screw your unwritten rules.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, well this is before the Ashmullyan got their hands
on it.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Okay, So post seventeen twenty, post golden period, he still
produced violins and things, but apparently his eyesight was going,
his hands were not as steady, and they weren't quite
what they were during the golden period. I'm sure they
were still wonderful violence.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Oh yeah, he's still churning out the good stuff, but
nothing like that golden period.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And he worked into his nineties, so he was building
violins for you know, seventy years.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
He worked up to his death. As far as I understand,
I think so so yeah. But that golden period stuff
that was there was the Messiah from seventeen sixteen, the
Allard from seventeen fifteen, the Bets from seventeen oh four.
Those are just a few of the ones that he
made during this period that are still around today. He
(20:55):
made I saw a thousand, also saw fifteen hundred stringed
instruments during his career, amazing about six hundred and fifty
survived today. And there they tend to have names, especially
the ones from his golden period. As you just heard,
they have names, and they're usually the name of the
most famous UH player who owned it.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
They weren't like a skippy and old roy right, Barnabas
Barnabas the violin right.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
So there's a there's a superstition among violinists that the
more you play a violin, the more a particular person
plays violin, the more that violin takes on the character
of that player, right, so much so that a violinist
or even a cellist or a violist can come along
(21:47):
afterward and play that person's violin. Yeah, and it will
say it will sound much more like the person who's
violin it is than the person playing it.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
And there's there's a further superstition that the more you
play a violin, the better it sounds.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
Well, that's not a superstition, that's fact, right, any instrument.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So there is a study from I think nineteen ninety
six that I came across that found that the more
violin wood is vibrated, the more the dampening coefficient is lowered.
The lower the damping coefficient, the longer a note resonates.
(22:27):
The longer a note resonates, the richer the sound. And
so just playing it right, because you're vibrating the wood
when you're playing a violin, the more you do that,
the more frequently you do that, the better the violin's
actually going to sound. So astoundingly, the more you play
a violin, the better it sounds.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Well, that's true for any instrument, is it. Yeah, it's
called breaking it in. Oh, So it's like a pair
of genes you can identify with that.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Sure, I love genes.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
You know, a pair of genes five years in or
better than they are when you come off the shelf. Yeah,
it's the same thing. It's breaking it in, especially strings
with anything with the fingerboard. That fingerboard just you know,
wears in those frets wear down a little and it
does get a little bit attuned I think to your style.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yeah for sure. Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, I'd like to do more on musical instruments here
and there. Okay, I'm putting it out there, all right,
all right, well let's take another quick break and we
will get into all the controversies surrounding just why these
things sound so good and all those theories. Pretty interesting stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
So, Chuck, I gotta say, you did a good job
putting this one together. Okay, sure, I'm interested in it.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
You know we I had that stuff from the B
Side podcast for like two months back in the day.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
People still call for it.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
And we covered this very briefly. Oh really, yeah not.
We didn't do right by it. So that's why I
was like, you know what, that's a good topic. Nice,
I mean, dust that one off. Nice. So there have
been many many theories over the years, like if the
strat is so revered in legendary that people experts, scientists
(24:28):
are bound to want to crack that nut. Yeah, like
why yeah, like what's the deal.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
And it's not. Again, this is it's objectively better than
other violins, the ones that strata vary made.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
Correct some of the theories. The old theories back then
was that he would soak the wood in salt water.
Not true, that the wood was coated with volcanic ash,
not true. That dragon's blood was used in the varnish.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
That may have been true, Okay, George R. Martin came
up with that one.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
Probably so, and then i'll, you know, we'll get into
the more modern theories. There's really well, there's a couple
of leading theories. One is the wood, yeah, this ice
age wood, which we'll talk about, and the others the varnish.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Right, go, okay, Well, the Strativari was working during what's
known as Europe's Little Ice Age, which is a period
of unusually, very unusually colder temperatures, and I think they're
still trying to figure out what the heck happened. And
as a matter of fact, we need to do like
(25:39):
an irregular ice age podcast and we'll talk about it then.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, But the.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Upshot of it was that because of the colder temperatures,
the spruce that was used by Strativari in the manufacture
of these violins grew slower but more evenly steadier, so
that the wood that was harvested from these bruce trees
was much more uniformly grained. Right, So just basically really
(26:08):
high end wood was produced by this little ice age.
The problem with that being the reason that Strata Vari's
violins were so great, is that that wood was also
available to violin makers elsewhere in Europe, and their violins
don't sound anything like a Strata Vary.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
So the little ice age theory, while still I think
out there has I think that really kind of goes
a long way to undermining it.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Yeah, like they were, people were really excited about that
at first, and I think they're like, yes, not proof.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
It's a cool theory. It is cool, little ice age.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
There's another dude at Texas A and M I named
Joseph Nagavary nagie Vary, what a unique name. And he said,
it's all about this varnish, this cremones. Cremones varnish. Is
that not right?
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yeah? Cream and ease.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, I think that's what they say.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Start your morning right with cremin ese.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
So he published an article in Scientific Journal Public Library
of science one. It's capitalized for some reason, and he says,
you know what's going on here. It's this varnish that
he used. Let me analyze it chemically, and what he
found out was it's very unique in that it has
(27:29):
these things in there that you would not expect to
be in a varnish, like borax and chromium. And he said, so,
what I think is going on is this stuff. He
added this stuff to the varnish to protect it that
would against damage an infestation, But what it really did
was actually weakened the wood and made it porous where
(27:52):
it should not be, and that created more tone, a
more booming, rich, powerful tone. Right.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Pushback his well, his theory is not entirely out of
left field, like it's it's pretty much accepted that if
you put the wrong kind of varnish on a violin,
it's going to ruin the sound. Sure, so his whole
thing was, well, why couldn't you stumble upon some varnish
that actually enhanced the sound, And that was his idea
that that's that accounted for strata areas violin sounding like that. Yeah,
(28:23):
I think he did get a lot of pushback. There
seems to be even if He's right. There seems to
be a desire among the people who collect and play
strata various violins is that we'll never understand what makes
it special. We don't really want to know what will
make it special.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
There's a guy who was widely quoted. He's a violinist
from America's name is James EANs Ends EANs Man, Well, James.
His his whole view is that he's played a number
of strata of various violins and other stringed instruments, and
(29:03):
he said that there's probably a thousand things that make
them special. Yeah, and we could never possibly know what
all those thousand things are, and there's never just going
to be just this one thing that is the key
to what made strata varius violins so great.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah. I think I watched a BBC documentary that was
really pretty great and they interviewed another violin maker and
he said, you know, it was the right place, right time.
Thing like this guy came along. Maybe they had this
good wood that was special, maybe he had this varnish
that was special.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, but they were in the hands of somebody special too.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Well. That was his point was that other people were
using some of these same things and they turned out
very different. He said he was so good at what
he did, Like that's the secret. He was just better
at doing this than other people.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Right, Like how Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade brought the
best out of Lebron James.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Well, where I think this Texas A and M Professor
aired was that he was so bold as to even
posit the idea that it may have been an accident,
and that like.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
I would say bold is an appropriate term.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, Like they turned out this good on accident. He
didn't know this varnish was going to do that, or
the wood may have been even pre treated with these chemicals,
and he kind of lucked into what it ended up being. Yeah,
and not that he wasn't talented, but like that's why
they are what they are.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
And people were like, whoah, blasphemy.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, out heretic. So how much of these things cost
a lot?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
The end I saw, I mean, the numbers are all
over the place. Like one thing, we'll say that the
the record was three point five four four million dollars. Yeah,
and then later on the record was broken with three
point six million dollars with the Molitor stratavaries owned famously
by Milwaukee brewer Paul Mollitor. That's where that one got
(30:57):
its name.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Well, yeah, I agree. And then this says, in June
twenty fourteen, the Kreutzer at a pre sale estimate of
seven and a half million to ten million, but it
failed to reach the reserve price.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Right But then later on another one sold in twenty
eleven for sixteen million, So apparently nobody's really keeping tabs here.
I looked down the internet. I couldn't find anything approaching
a comprehensive list of how much these things had gone for.
But the fact is millions of dollars, tens of millions
in some cases, from what I understand. And there are collectors,
(31:30):
very very wealthy collectors who are driving the price of
strata various violins and other string instruments through the roof,
where if you were smart enough to buy one for
a few hundred thousand dollars twenty thirty years ago, it's
worth easily ten twenty times that now.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Yeah, and it's kind of a shame that these aren't
in the hands of the great players of the world,
you know.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Well, they're in the hands of the great players of
the world who come from very wealthy families.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, or who, like you said, bought one twenty or
thirty years ago, right, and that's their you know, their
go to But.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
Yeah, it's it's just another fat piggy thing to buy
and own and possess. The one I have is the
most expensive one, right, Fortunately, the one that's so so
valuable that it's frequently cited as priceless is the Messiah. Yeah,
and that is owned by the Ashmoley and at Oxford University,
(32:20):
so that one's not up for grabs, which is cool
because all the other ones are just operating under that level.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah. And the lady in the BBC documentary as a violinist,
and she got to hold the Messiah with gloves.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
And it's called that because there's a Nativity scene in
laid on the back I believe.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Oh I don't think it's the back. I think it's
in the little tail piece. Oh okay, But this thing
is gorgeous. And she was allowed to hold it with
gloves is like white cotton gloves, And the whole time,
even though I knew that wouldn't happen, I was like,
don't drop it. Yeah, you know those slippy little cotton gloves. Sure,
and it just made me nervous watching it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Did you ever see that video of things that were
very expensive things that were accidentally oken that I made
years back?
Speaker 2 (33:02):
I remember that.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
It's just like it was tough to make. I bet
it's tough to watch too.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Yeah. So over the years there have been many, many,
many many fakes. As as soon as he died, they
started pumping out forgeries, and not even forgeries, like just
mass produced violins that they would throw a label on that.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
At the time, in the nineteenth century, eighteenth and nineteenth century,
the people buying the violins knew that they were like
knockoff manufactured fakes.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, largely in Germany, right right, But they weren't like, yeah,
they weren't.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
They weren't being duped. It was like this is this
is in the style of Stratavarius or whatever. Yeah, largely
in Germany and Czechoslovakia. And the thing is, though, is
over time these what are now pretty old violins because
they were again made in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Yeah,
they I had labels on them that would say like Stratavarius,
(34:03):
cremonsis fachibot Onoh, and then say like sixteen seventy nine
or something like that. Right, So, if you find one
of these violins and your attic, yeah, and it looks
pretty old. It literally says an Italian. This violin was
made by Stratavarius in sixteen seventy nine. You could be
(34:24):
forgiven to think that you have just found a Strativarius
violin and all of your money problems are over. You
can go buy more meth than you'll ever be able
to do in your entire life.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
It might say made in Germany too, though.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
That's a big giveaway, it is. Yeah, And apparently if
you're an appraiser of this kind of thing, you were
so sick of people calling you that you can't even
hide it when you're interviewed in an article. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
The one guy even said that. He's like, people get
angry when you tell them it's not he said, because
they think they've got a lottery ticket and you have
to break it to him. And he said, they get
mad on these phone calls.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Right, and they're like, well, do you have twenty bucks
from men?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
It's pretty funny. Uh, do you got anything else?
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah? If you find a violin and you look it
over and it says Stratavarius and you look even further
and it doesn't say made in Germany.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Fake.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
If it doesn't say that, I know, but it's still
probably a fake. Well you can. There's a Smithsonian article
about it that has basically step by step what you
can do and who you can submit photos to to
get it basically pre appraised, well not appraised, but just
looked at. And they can usually tell from the photos like, no,
it's a fake.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Like step one, leave it out in the sun and
let it let it get rained on a couple of
times if ants are attracted to it, not as strata exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, but one of the appraisers makes the point like
they're about six hundred and fifty in the world and
they're all basically accounted for it.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
We know where they are.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Yeah, and even when we don't know where they are,
we know we would know the one that we don't
know where they are when they surface.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Yeah. They stolen one.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
Yeah, there was one that was famously stolen thirty something
years ago from a concert violinist and it was a
stratavarius and it was in the attic of a Milwaukee
thief's house and I guess he died and his girlfriend
took it to an appraiser who's like, uh, this is stolen.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
I know who's this is crazy.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
So it's a very small community. So the idea that
somebody's just gonna walk up with like a real strata
varius that had previously been unknown is it's just most
likely not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Yeah. The one of the other appraisers said, it's like
finding a new rem brand. He said, we know what
he painted, right, we know where they are.
Speaker 1 (36:41):
Yeah, now they got computers painting rem brands.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
I think a guy left his strata in the cab
a few years ago too.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
Was it, Joshua Bell? Sounds like something that I would do.
He's wacky.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
I can't remember. I believe that happened, though I remember
to get it back. I think so.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Only in New York, right, jeez?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Can you imagine? No?
Speaker 1 (37:04):
Because again, like these are concert violinists who have almost
been entrusted by humanity with these things like here, this
is a very expensive violin. Yes, but we are giving
this to you because we think you will enrich this
and with your playing and maybe someday it'll be called
your last name Stratavarius. Play it well, don't leave it
(37:26):
in the back of a cab.
Speaker 2 (37:27):
And then that guy had to get on Craigslist and
buy a one hundred dollars fiddle right yep to play
first chair at the Philharmonic.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
Yeah, Chuck, Yes, you got anything else?
Speaker 2 (37:42):
I got nothing else.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I don't either. Good job putting this together, man.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
If you want to know more about Stratavarius, you can
search the internet for it, because we don't have an
article on how stuff works. Since I said, uh, Internet,
it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Recall this from my good buddy Becks Rebecca Bloomfield. She's
one of my pen pals.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Okay from the stuff you should know want see in
prison over the years.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
She sure is. No, she's not. She's a delight though,
and she backed me up on my comments about women
in science, so I felt good about it, so I
wanted to read it. She made me feel better. I
hope you guys had a great time in the UK.
By the way, she just missed our show and I
think in London by a couple of days, since she
(38:30):
was very bummed out.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Does she live there or was she visiting?
Speaker 2 (38:32):
I think visiting. She now lives somewhere else, so she said,
I know you did. I just listened to the delightful
history of steam. Anyway, I'm writing to say, bloody well done.
Is that a curse word?
Speaker 1 (38:45):
I think like it's like.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Very okay, great, well done, Chuck on your comment on
what we could have achieved of women had been allowed
into the stem fields from the start. I know this
sort of comment could be a minefield for guy, but
I can assure you you made your point really well.
I'm normally the first to jump on non feminist comments
or man's plaining. That's what I was afraid of, So
(39:09):
she said, I'm usually the first to jump on the
man's plaining. And when you said it, I just said yes, yes, Chuck,
very loudly in my office. I even startled the dogs.
Raising children is very important, but men can do it too.
All humans of any gender should have a choice to
what they do with their lives that should not be
predetermined because of their gender. So good on you, Chuck.
Makes me happy to know that the next generation of
(39:29):
women are being raised by men like you. And that's
from Beck's Bloomfield And she is a graphic designer for
Little Red Robot Design Ooh, Shout Out and just a
nice lady.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Nice. Well, thanks a lot Be's Can I call her that?
Or should I just call her Rebecca?
Speaker 2 (39:46):
No, you're in the club.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Okay, Well thanks a lot Bes for that email and
for shouting. We appreciate that kind of thing certainly. If
you want to get in touch of this, you can
tweet to us at sysk podcast. You can hang out
with us at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
You can also send us an email to stuff podcast
at HowStuffWorks dot com and as always, joined us sort
(40:08):
o at home on the web, Stuff youshould Know dot com.
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
For more podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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