How Good is the Tone of the Stradivari Betts?

[Michael_Molnar]

Maybe some of the workshop participants who copied the Betts can help me.

 

How does the tone of the Betts fare? That is, is it a decent sounding Strad or not up to typical Strad quality?

 

 

Mike

[Antoine Nedelec]

Hi Mike,

I think it is a great sounding Strad. 

One thing that stood out to me is how responsive it is when playing.

[David Burgess]

I wasn't immediately enamored, but it does much better than OK, as Strads go.  With just brief playing exposure, and nothing in a hall, I'd probably put it at over 80% on the "Strad scale".

[Melvin Goldsmith]

I wasn't immediately enamored, but it does much better than OK, as Strads go.  I'd probably put it at over 80%.

Against what? 

[David Burgess]

Against what?

Against other Strads.

 

(Hah, caught your post before you edited down to what I quoted. No problem, I can get a little gnarly too sometimes.) 

[David Hart]

80% on the strad scale. Ha! So that means there are approximately 120 other more stradlike strads than the Betts. Unless the strad scale is a sliding scale?

[Melvin Goldsmith]

Other Strads.

 

(Hah, caught your post before you edited down to what I quoted. No problem, I can get a little gnarly too sometimes.) 

[David Burgess]

80% on the strad scale. Ha! So that means there are approximately 120 other more stradlike strads than the Betts. Unless the strad scale is a sliding scale?

Maybe I didn't think that through thoroughly enough. Most of the really fine players who I've had contact with, who have played nearly everything, say that there are about a dozen Strads which would be really hard to beat.

[Marty Kasprzyk]

Maybe I didn't think that through thoroughly enough. Most of the really great players who I've had contact with, who have played nearly everything, say that there about a dozen Strads which would be really hard to beat.

1 or 2% of his total?

[gowan]

Nicholas Kitchen played all the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin using several great instruments from the Library of Congress, including the Betts.  All the pieces were videoed and are on Youtube.  Here is a link to part of the performance on the Betts:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOBQyrizksk&list=PLDF334EBA5EA4076B&index=17

[Davide Sora]

 

Maybe I didn't think that through thoroughly enough. Most of the really great players who I've had contact with, who have played nearly everything, say that there about a dozen Strads which would be really hard to beat.

 

It would be interesting to know what are these twelve strad on top of the list, it is always very useful to know which are the ones that really sound good not just for the name .......

 

Davide

[Don Noon]

Gather all the Strads together and have a competition... which would have more instruments than any VSA, I believe.  So a dozen really good ones wouldn't seem out of order.

[Addie]

How do the Betts and the Kreisler GdG compare? Tonally, that is. Physically is a whole other topic.

[Violadamore]

I have to go with "good compared to what?".  I have no doubt that a great violinist can make fabulous music with it, but aside from a spectrogram that Don posts occasionally for "Cremonese Sound", what is there to compare with, independent of the player involved?  As I've noted before, you can't simply go to NIST and get a standard violin for comparison.

[David Hart]

Maybe I didn't think that through thoroughly enough. Most of the really fine players who I've had contact with, who have played nearly everything, say that there are about a dozen Strads which would be really hard to beat.

Hehe... Gotcha! It's ok, if you applied a bell curve to the imaginary strad scale saying 80% would make more sense. The 'top twelve' would make up the top 10%.Then depending on where the average sits there might be 20 or so in the 80-90% range. It would be so nice to have some concrete factorials to identify 'stradness'. Because then we could apply the same principles to non-strad instruments to test their 'Stradability'.

[martin swan]

The problem with judging Strads, according to Stradophiles, is that only the greatest players are capable of perceiving their true greatness.

So we need a bell curve of the very best Strads and then set it alongside a bell curve of the very best players .... I think it would be fun to draw that.

[Michael.N.]

Yes but also factor age and upper frequency hearing loss (hey! it even happens to the best soloists!). That leaves the possiblity that only one person in the entire world is qualified to judge their tone. 

[Omobono]

That leaves the possibility that only one person in the entire world is qualified to judge their tone. 

Says it all....................

[martin swan]

Could that one person be Nigel Kennedy .....?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnHhQGSFHPY&feature=youtu.be

[David Burgess]

 That leaves the possiblity that only one person in the entire world is qualified to judge their tone. 

Maybe it's Hilary Hahn?

[Michael.N.]

I vote Hahn. Younger and Kennedy gives me neck ache every time I watch him play.

[David Hart]

I vote Ehnes. He'd make them all sound good.

[David Hart]

And then the bell curve would just be a line. But then the best players would also be in a line, then you would have Parallel Lines, and a Heart of Glass. Now it's 11:59, and I'm running out of time. So fade away and radiate.

[Barry J. Griffiths]

Anybody know what Mr. Ehnes plays? Bow too, if possible.

[gowan]

Anybody know what Mr. Ehnes plays? Bow too, if possible.

Ehnes's personal instrument is the 1715 Marsick, on indefinite loan from David Fulton.  According to an interview on violinist.com http://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20093/9819/ the violin he actually owns is a Riccardo Antoniazzi violin.