A high-tech attempt to crack Stradivari code

By Guy Gugliotta

Updated: 6:57 p.m. ET Feb. 6, 2006

Paganini had two of them. Heifetz owned "Dolphin," perhaps the best of the best. Itzhak Perlman bought "Soil" from Yehudi Menuhin for $1.25 million, and probably got a bargain. Christie's sold "Lady Tennant" at public auction last year for $2 million, and private owners have gotten more than twice as much in closed deals.

Nearly 270 years after his death, the genius of violin-maker Antonio Stradivari shines brightly as ever. So elegant do his violins sound, so easily do they play and so beautiful are they to behold that most of the 650 or so that survive are famous enough to have their own names.

Today, Stradivari's instruments are still coveted by great virtuosi, but even as their music has captivated generations of concertgoers, their workmanship has confounded generations of scientists and artisans. Why does a Stradivarius sound the way it does? Why has no one ever been able to duplicate it?

Over the years experts in disciplines ranging from carpentry to historical climatology have explored the phenomenon, bringing provocative insights to the debate but finding no definitive model that a craftsman could take to the workshop.

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Into this quest a Swedish team has suggested something different: Instead of trying to build a duplicate Stradivarius part by part, why not start with a computer model of a whole violin, tinker with it electronically until its sound matches a Stradivarius -- and then build it?

"The violin is easy to measure geometrically," said structural engineer Mats Tinnsten in a telephone interview from Mid Sweden University. "Then you can measure how it vibrates, look at the frequencies and other parameters. You excite it with a loudspeaker, knock on it with your knuckles. We can do this as well."

But after that it gets tricky. Violins are made of wood, and no two pieces of wood are exactly alike. Each violin, whether built by Stradivari or Tinnsten, is unique, and the challenge is to sculpt the wood — delicately shaving the top and the back — to "optimize" the acoustical qualities. Stradivari, working in a pre-industrial age, did this by ear and hand with unsurpassed consistency and artistry.

Tinnsten said his team can do it, too. "Violin-makers reduce the thickness of the wood with a knife, and do it in different places until they are satisfied," he said. "We use the same method, but in the computer. We take an electronic blank and carve it."

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