Some thoughts on Stainer violin sound

[Terry Maurice]

The recent remarks regarding the nasal quality of high arched Stainer violins prompted some thoughts on these and other "baroque" violins. We inevitably judge these violins by our modern "standards" and ears. I wonder how many of us have actually heard a Stainer violin in the setup that it was originally conceived, i.e. a true baroque setup and with gut strings. What we most often hear now is an older violin trying to sound like a modern violin.

How many of these "Stainer copies" are actual copies, rather than modern distortions of the Stainer violin.

http://www.usd.edu/smm/Violins/Before1800/Stainerviolin.html

Most of the copies that I have seen have excessively high arching that does not seem to agree with authentic Stainer instruments.

The Stainer sound "ideal" is most probably what Johann Sebastian Bach and other north German composers had in their heads when they wrote the masterworks they did. The baroque sound ideal, or at least what we now conceive of as baroque sound ideal, was most probably much different that what we now expect from a violin, with our ears conditioned to modern playing technique and sound production. Lightness of sound and articulation, more than projection and volume, were the ideals of baroque sound.

Having recently converted a cello to a baroque setup and using gut strings, I can say that the sound produced by my cello is very different from what it was before with a modern setup. The sound is softer, but has a much more interesting harmonic content and. It is very different and takes some getting used to, especially in the playing technique on gut strings. It takes some effort to listen to and appreciate its new qualities, while at the same time, trying not to judge it based on what is missing from its modern setup.

Your comments or thoughts would be interesting to hear.

Terry

[Jacob]

This is a tricky subject to discuss, firstly because of the large number of bad Stainer copies around - giving "Stainer" a worse reputation than the style deserves, I think - and also because of the other defects often accompanying this type of instrument, such as a bad neck set, which often contributes more to the tonal defects of the instrument than the model (of the bad copies) itself. I have done dozens of neck-sets and also re-graduations on this type of instrument, and the end-result is light-years away, tonally, from the original. When I've had the opportunity to do a neck-set and setup on a good Stainer immitation, these often sound as good as their best counterparts in the German commercial category based on Strad or del Gesu.

I have no first-hand experience of a real Stainers. Nevertheless, I find reports about these, such as the one in a Strad magazine a few years ago describing the playing in concert of some Stainers in the Smithsonian, very illuminating - the term "powerful" was even used. That makes me think that with the correct setup a real Stainer might not be as wanting for modern purposes as some accounts (such as by the Hills) would have us believe. But then I wonder what the neckset standards were around 1880. If the "Messiah" is played today with the neckset it currently has, I would be surprised if it sounds good - the nut seems to be quite some distance below the edge of the top plate.

I don't think there is any doubt that at a certain time in history, for a specific type of musical style, Stainers were the preferred instrument. If one accepts that they respond easier than the Cremonese-style instruments, as is claimed, it is fairly easy to understand why they would work better for the polyhonic type of solo music of the German school (Biber, Bach, etc) and perhaps even for Tartini (BTW, does anyone know what Tartini's preferred own instrument was?) I once saw a write-up of a solo performance on Baroque violin in the Classic FM magazine in which the performer was heavily critisised for playing unaccompanied Bach on an Amati - which, silly as the critisism was, nevertheless got me thinking a bit.

The closest I will be able to come to a meaningful first-hand comparison will be with my next Baroque violin, which will be a Stainer copy. To date the Baroque violins I've assembled from pre-carved parts were Strad models (sort of, seeing as how the parts were from the Höfner factory). I used to play the keyboard (harpsichord and organ) on a local period-instrument group before I meandered into violin-making. The first violinist played a Bavarian violin in original condition - a standard Stainer/Tyrolean type - and I found tone sweet, but quite strong and penetrating - certainly not nasal.

[Steve R.]

As the owner of two Stainer modeled violins, that I believe predate the "German Trade Violin" era, I feel fairly confident that they are not "modern distortions". The two are dated 179? (Carl Joseph Hellmer) and 1826 (Georg Adam Krauch), the older from Prague and the younger from Vienna (Wien). I feel they have a lovely sound and I am not certain I would call either "nasal".

The older violin has very high arching (I eyeballed it at about 16 mm) a narrow body with short ribs and with a modern bridge and Obligatos produces what I call a bright tone with nice complexities. The neck is original and slightly low angled so there is a wedge under the fingerboard to provide a good angle at the bridge.

My other “newer” instrument is "softer" in tone (I hear less complexity in the overtones) and has not been getting much play recently, however, looking at the baroque Stainer, I cannot help but notice that with the exception of the modern neck, the lines of the body are identical. Though I can't compare measurements since there are none on the Pressler Gallery page.

[fiddlecollector]

I know /of two Baroque players one plays a Stainer which to me has an excellent tone the other plays a `Gagliano`as his prefered instrument.I personally think real Stainers have a very refined beautiful tone.They are not like any of these German/ sometimes English violins in the slightest way.To me these funny arched monstrosties are more like a corruption of some Northern Italian instruments .

When you find a good Stainer model such as by William Forster or the odd German instruments they are often very nice sounding.

[Ron MacDonald]

Szigeti's preferred concert instrument was a Pietro Guarneri of Mantua once owned by Tartini. It shared a case with a fine Pietro of Venice. Szigeti could have had almost any instrument he desired, but these were his favorites.

[Jacob]

I wish I had the hands-on type of experience of somebody like Michael. My experience in the upper bracket extends to two Vuillaumes, two Carcassis, two of the family Gagliano - and thereabouts. For the rest, it's in "modelled after" etc. Based on this, a decent copy of a Stainer, with a modern neck set and good set-up, in my experience can easily equal something of similar quality in an Italian style. Even so, I'm not brave enough to start making Stainer models in a modern setup. I've worked on many old (1600's and 1700's) German and Bohemian instruments, doing neck grafts, neck-sets, set-ups etc, and some of these instruments, including a Mathias Klotz, are hard to beat by any modern standards, or at least the standards with which I am familiar, which is the point at which my whole argument might break down. On the other hand, the Mathias Klotz mentioned, which is played by a student currently studying in the USA, is reputedly the talk of the town, being considered as having the beating of the student's teacher's Peter Guarneri of Venice- which might perhaps be considered as not accounting for much in some circles anyway.

One thing which I feel secure to state - a good old Stainer/Tyrolean violin with a proper neck-set and setup can be seriously powerful, even throughout all registers, resonant and responsive - but I'm sure a big-time performer will be able to explain to me the difference between one of those and a Cremonese-styled old instrument. For that you will need a Michael Schumacher, not just a Ferrari mechanic.

[Steve R.]

I have to agree about the sound of the Bohmemian/Tyrolian violins, since getting the sound post (too short and out of place) and bridge (old with thin feet and ankles) replaced on my 1826 Krauch the tone is very even across all strings and as high as I play. (Dancla Aires Varies has sent me to 7th position so far.) And the Hellmer is my primary for good reason, it performs and responds noticably better than the Krauch.

However, while my violins have not had the opportunity to "compete" against any other violins. My teacher (a semi-retired soloist, who plays a Strad) has pronounced both my violins to be "very good, professional quality violins". Also, in comparing the sound he produces on one of my violins compared to his own when he has played mine, I hear very little diffence, perhaps in a concert hall environment there would be a more noticable difference.

[Jacob]

"Szigeti's preferred concert instrument was a Pietro Guarneri of Mantua once owned by Tartini."

Thanks for that bit of info. If that was the kind of instrument Tartini preferred, and if one accepts what the Hills have to say about Peter of Mantua's violins, it makes quite a bit of sense to me given Tartini's style of composition - for instance, the G minor ("Devil's Trill")sonata.

[Andres Sender]

I've heard some real Stainers on recordings for what it's worth, and they had a wonderful pure sweet quality--these were in baroque setup.

True Stainer and Amati model baroque violins that I've heard have also had this quality. I've heard some Strad models that approach this sweetness. I've also got a CD somewhere of a Strad which is I believe in the collection of the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art (?) in baroque set up which sounded really awful--I'm sure the setup was at fault.

I suspect that what set Strads apart when the conversions started happening was their flexibility of sound.

Long ago I heard some intriguing things about someone in Europe who was setting up Stainers in a distinctive way which really brought out their quality. I wish I could find out more about who that was and what he was doing.

[Jacob]

What works for me on instruments with that sort of arching is to make the neck overstand quite high (more than is justified by the arching height) to accomodate a high bridge (without the strings being far from the fingerboard nor an acute angle for the strings over the bridge), almost the kind of setup which works well for many violas. Recently I supplied quite a nice Chinese viola to a customer which had a good standard neckset. The fingerboard was too think and I had to plane it, and in the end that resulted a very low bridge. I therefore felt it necessary to do a neck reset with a neck-root shim. I had set up the viola for playing before this, and it sounded really very nice. However, with the much higher bridge (but still the same string angle) the sound and response improved remarkably.

I was wondering whether the extra flexibility of the higher bridge perhaps amplified the drumming of the bridge feet on the belly, which in some cases where the arching is stiffer (models which are less "flat") might be beneficial?

[sammy444]

Quote:

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I have no first-hand experience of a real Stainers.

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I have seen and tried a couple Strad violins, one Del Gesu, a Guadanini, and many other "high end" violins...But, I have never seen a real Stainer. Did Stainer build many violins? How come there are so few of them around?

[fiddlecollector]

There are quite a few Stainer`s around but as they are more played by players in Baroque ensembles and chamber musicians,they don`t tend to leap into the limelight as much .Also the players tend to keep hold of them once they have one.The Baroque violinist Richard Gwilt plays one.

http://www.gwilt.net/

[sammy444]

Thanks Fiddlecollector, I take it that Stainers violins do not have the big projection, which normally require for concert violinists; like Del Gesu or others. I wonder if the myth about high arcing violins do not have big projection sounding is true or not? Or bigger pattern (body lenght bigger than 355-357mm) violins, also do not give big project sounding?

[Michael Darnton]

Arching height alone doesn't determine volume--it has *much* more to do with arching shape than height. The Stainer shape is a quiet one.

[Steve R.]

An on topic side note...

My wife had the opportunity to attend one of my lessons on Saturday. So I had the opportunity to get an outside ear assesment of the sound of my violin (a Stainer model by C.J. Hellmer) and my teacher's Strad (real thing - don't know if it has a name).

Since my wife is not a musician, but is a Broadway fan, she ended up describing the two in vocal terms. At first she said that my violin, is "quieter and deeper" while his is "louder and higher", then further explained that his sounds like a "head voice" while mine sounds like a "chest voice".

Even allowing for the difference in player skills, his violin would have more up front power and a brighter tone, though the tone could be partly strings, I believe he is using Dominants, while I am using Obligatos.

For an example of the diffence between head and chest voice, listen to "Les Miserables" - Fantine is chest voice, Cosette is head voice.

[sammy444]

Thanks for you input Micheal. You've probably explained it before...but, what kind of shape of high arc would yield quieter sound? And why would Stainer want to produce violins, which are quieter? Perhaps, there's a high demand for that type of instrument?

What about big patern violins? is it true that bigger violin don't produce big projection sounding? I guess one think we can compare to is viola. Viola is a big violin...and they do not produce the sound that concert violinists require.

Cheer,

[wmeng]

I don't think that a larger-than-standard size violin will necessarily be a louder instrument. I had the opportunity to examine a long pattern Strad this summer, and while it was a nice instrument, I didn't detect any particular advantage in volume over similar instruments of that caliber. Of course, that's purely anecdotal evidence

[sammy444]

Thanks for your input. Actually, i was talking about the opposite...the larger side violins produce warmer and smaller projection.

[Michael Darnton]

Big violins lose their incicive tone. That's maybe the least effective thing about Vuillaume--he thought if big was good, then bigger was better. Especially when you make them wider, everything turns too broad, without any detail. Most violas are just that. I'm often surprised how nice small violins can sound, with the right arch.

I think the Stainer arch was just a personal error, like Vuillaume's--there's a tendency to accentuate what you like, and sometimes miss what else is going on that's detrimental.

My experience with real Stainers is very limited, but that general type of violin tends towards a Country and Western voice--lots of color and a pleasant harshness that tickles the ears, but lacking variability and depth. It's often said that Stainers were more popular at one point. This really is specifically in England, though that part is rarely stated. However, if you look at what the English were making at that time, you could argue for temporarily deformed national taste in tone. There's something alluring about a C&W voice, but it becomes boring after you're filled with its single sound and start to want more, and that's the same feeling I get from this type of violin.

[sammy444]

Thanks for your input. As usual, your thoughts were very insightfull.

As an Engineer, i can almost explain your opinion in the scientific perpective. I said "almost" to indicate that my opinion may be wrong. And it's only an opinion...so i hope nobody get too upset about it.

From my engineering opinion, all energies behave very similarly. Wether it's Radio Frequency (RF), which is electrical energy or Acoustic Energy (sound), they behave very similarly. It has something to do with "wave lenght". Bigger objects, when vibrating producing longer wave lenght, thus deeper sound and lower frequency. Smaller objects, when vibrating producing shorter wave lenght, thus producing higher frequency, higher pitch sound. And Shorter wave lenghts can travel further distance with less energy. That's why most inter-continentent radio broadcastings are on short frequency wavelenght. In the close range, long wave lenght can make bigger impact. That's why you can hear the bass sound better than other frequencies. However, it would take more energy to produce bass sound.

[BillW]

"It's often said that Stainers were more popular at one point. This really is specifically in England . . ."

Without intending to provoke controversy, I don't think that Stainers were appreciated exclusively in England. Boyden (pp. 195-6) mentions that Stainers were owned and played by Veracini and Locatelli, both of whom were younger contemporaries of Stradivari. Also, Leopold Mozart, Biber, and J.S. Bach. He adds: "As late as 1774, Loehlein, a German theorist, remarks that Stainers and Amatis with their flute-like tone were preferred to the Stradivaris with their more penetrating and oboe-like tone; and Loehlein himself obviously holds the Stainers and Amatis in highest esteem. He notes their great popularity and remarks that all these instruments are in the hands of connoisseurs and therefore very hard to obtain." (Boyden goes on to quote Sir John Hawkins to the same effect, which corroborates your point. He also mentions that in the early 18th century Stainers' violins commanded prices considerably higher in the London market than either Nicola Amati or Stradivari, but is this simply because the London auction market is the only one for which we have early 18th c. data?)

[Michael Darnton]

It's always interesting to me that Stainers and Amatis get lumped into the same group, because they certainly don't sound the same.

[Terry Maurice]

Michael said,

"I think the Stainer arch was just a personal error,..."

Your statement reflects, of course, your modern ears and your personal preference. I believe that the ears of the baroque violinists and composers were not listening for the same thing we now listen for in violin sounds. Articulation was a key element of baroque playing, more so than the creation of a big and projecting sound. Clarity of texture and smaller ensembles allowed for adequate volume, given the fact that gut strings and baroque setups were the order of the day. Given the change in musical styles toward the Classical and Romantic periods, it is understandable that the Stradivarius won out. However, we must keep in mind that very few violins today are what they were when they were made. It would be very interesting to hear several of these violins with original setups, played by a professional player.

Interestingly J.S. Bach owned a Stainer. "Yehudi Menuhin makes reference to Stainer in his book entitled 'Music Guides Violin and Viola.' On page 224 the Sources of Bach`s Sonatas and Partitas he says of Bach "he owned an ordinary violin which was valued at 2 thalers , and a fine Jacobus Stainer valued at 8 thalers. He played the Stainer when he led the orchestra, and meditated musically upon it when, in 1720, he wrote down the Sonatas and Partitas in their final form,He succeeded in fusing together the basically Italianate forms of chamber music or church sonata with the grandiloquent polyphony of the German violin school.""

ref: http://rperras.tripod.com/index.htm

Terry

[Michael Darnton]

Individual owners aside (and I notice the list so far is mostly of primarily composers--I think the list, even today, of composers owning Strads would be minimal) I still think that Stainer represents a blip in the market.

It's not just my modern ears speaking: certainly Stradivari made an OK reputation for himself, much broader based than Stainer's, as did the whole Amati family, even before modern times and during the height of the baroque, as did a number of other Italian makers. The lack of Stainers might even be taken as the natural result of his not actually being that popular during his own working life.

If there's any popularity today among baroque players for this type of sound, it could more easily be assumed that their own modern ears and minds are making incorrect assumptions about what violins sounded like in the past--by assuming that baroque players preferred an inferior sound, an assuption which Stradivari's original sales figures and perennial popularity definitely don't support. That modern players misread the baroque a common criticism of ALL modern baroque styles, given the total lack of original recordings from the 1700s to go on. However I really don't see Stainer as more than an extremely limited phenomenon, when looked at in the TOTAL context of violin history, even or especially during the baroque, rather than citing a limited list of famous owners.

[Terry Maurice]

Good points Michael and an interesting discussion. The "true" sound of the baroque will, most probably, be debated forever.

Nickolas Harnoncourt, a cellist and conductor, in his book, "Baroque Music Today - Music As Speech" has some very interesting observations and thoughts about the "color" of the baroque sound, given the differences in construction of baroque instruments, compared to their modern counterparts and the harmonic content that resulted from this. His comments in this regard, referred more to the woodwinds and brass, but he does make some interesting observations about stringed instruments as well.

Terry