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Vol 444|30 November 2006
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Wood used by Stradivari and Guarneri
The material used by the old masters to make exquisite violins may have been chemically manipulated.
Whether or not the great Italian violin-makers varius violin shows close simi- any of our antique samples.
used wood that had been chemically processed larities to that of the Guarneri, By these methods, the
in order to preserve it and enhance the instru- whereas the deviations of the violin by Guarneri and, to
ment’s sound quality has long been a conten- Stradivari cello wood from the a slightly lesser degree, the
tious issue1,2. Here we use nuclear magnetic recent Bosnian maple are only Stradivari stand out against
resonance and infrared spectroscopy to analyse slightly different from those the other standards. Our
organic matter in wood taken from antique of the old English and French results support the idea that
instruments made by Stradivari (Fig. 1) and instruments, and from those chemical treatments, such
Guarneri del Gesu. Our results indicate that generated by boiling and bak- as oxidation and hydrolysis,
the wood used by the masters could indeed ing the Bosnian maple sample were used in making these
have been chemically treated, a technique that (for details, see supplemen- violins and, to a much lesser
may inspire an approach to violin making that tary information). extent, the Stradivari cello.
is more chemistrty-based. Attenuated total reflection In the case of the cello, the
Maple wood samples from the interior of the Fourier-transform infra- English viola and the French
instruments’ back plates were obtained as thin red (FTIR) spectra 5 were violin, natural ageing cannot
shavings during the repair of cracks. The instru- obtained for recent Bosnian be ruled out as a cause of the
ments were a violin by Stradivari, dated 1717; a maple, the Guarneri sam- chemical changes. The effects
cello by Stradivari (1731); a violin by Guarneri ple and the Stradivari violin may also be related to the
del Gesu (1741); a violin by Gand-Bernardel of sample (Fig. 2b). The differ- Fig 1 | The mysteries of unusual mineral composition
Paris (1840s); and a viola by Henry Jay of Lon- ences between these spectra Stradivarius instruments continue of the wood in these instru-
don (1769). For comparison, we used recent are obvious at several peaks, to fascinate materials scientists. ments, which remains to be
tone woods from Bosnia and central Europe. particularly in the carbonyl investigated.
Figure 2a shows 13C solid-state nuclear mag- region at 1730 cm−1 to 1650 cm−1 and at 1237 However, the observed differences are likely
netic resonance (NMR) spectra of the different cm−1. The increase in absorption at around to have originated from a regional practice of
wood samples, recorded (see supplementary 1650 cm−1 may be caused by the formation wood preservation that affected the mechani-
information) and interpreted as described3,4. of quinones from lignin by oxidation6. The cal and acoustical properties of the wood2,8.
The spectra differ at the following points: the spectra of both violins also differ from that of Our case studies may inspire a more chemis-
small peaks attributed to the acetyl carbons at the Stradivari cello, which in turn differs only try-based approach to violin-making.
18 and 170 p.p.m.; the small methoxy peak at slightly from those of Jay and Gand-Bernardel Joseph Nagyvary*, Joseph A. DiVerdi†, Noel L.
56 p.p.m.; and the main lignin peaks at 135 and and from the boiled–baked Bosnian maple. Owen‡, H. Dennis Tolley§
155 p.p.m. The most significant difference is (See supplementary information for spectra *Department of Biochemistry, Texas A&M
shown by the Guarneri sample as a decrease in and statistical analysis of their significance.) University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA
all of these peaks. The spectrum of the Stradi- We found no evidence of potassium silicate7 in e-mail: [email protected]
†Department of Chemistry, Colorado State
a b 0.16
University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA
Departments of ‡Chemistry and Biochemistry,
0.14 §Statistics, Brigham Young University, Provo,
Utah 84602, USA
0.12
1. Gough, C. Phys. World http://physicsweb.org/articles/
world/13/4/8 (April 2000).
0.10 2. Nagyvary, J. Edu. Chem. 42, 96–98 (2005).
log(1/R)
3. Kolodziejski, W., Frye, J. S. & Maciel, G. E. Anal. Chem. 54,

0.08 1419–1424 (1982).
4. Kosikova, B., Hricovini, M. & Cosentino, C. Wood Sci.
Technol. 33, 373–380 (1999).
0.06 5. Orton, C. R., Parkinson, D. Y., Evans, P. D. & Owen, N. L.
Appl. Spectr. 58, 265–1271 (2004).
6. Anderson, E. L., Pawlak, Z., Owen, N. L. & Feist, W. C. Appl.
0.04 Spectr. 45, 641–647 (1991).
7. Sacconi, S. F. I “Segreti” di Stradivari (Libreria del Convegno,
Cremona, 1972).
0.02 8. Haines, D. W. Catgut Acoust. Soc. Newslett. 33, 19–23
200 150 100 50 0 1800 1700 1600 1500 1400 1300 1200 (1980).
Chemical shift (p.p.m. from TMS) Wavenumber (cm–1)
Supplementary information accompanies this
Figure 2 | Spectroscopy of maple wood samples from antique violins. a, 13C solid-state NMR spectra. communication on Nature’s website.
TMS, tetramethylsilane standard. b, Attenuated total reflection FTIR spectra. Black trace, recent Received 18 July; accepted 8 November 2006.
untreated Bosnian maple; green, violin of Stradivari; red, violin of Guarneri del Gesu. Conditions and Competing financial interests: declared none.
statistical analysis are described in supplementary information. doi:10.1038/444565a
565

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Vol 444|30 November 2006

3. Kolodziejski, W., Frye, J. S. & Maciel, G. E. Anal. Chem. 54,

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