Three years ago Decca released an album, ‘12 Stradivari’, featuring the violinist Janine Jansen playing a selection of miniatures, partnered at the piano by Sir Antonio Pappano, on a dozen instruments made by the great Cremonese maker, Antonio Stradivari. (For the record, the word ‘Stradivarius’, the Latinised version, often used, of the Italian was how he referred to himself on the labels inside his instruments: ‘Antonius Stradivarius fecit’. The nickname ‘Strad’ obviously sidesteps the issue!) Even more enchanting than the recording was an accompanying documentary, ‘Falling for Stradivari’, directed by Gerald Fox. The whole project was supported by the instrument dealers, J&A Beare, who were probably the only people who could bring together such a spectacular array of instruments. (Such were the insurance strictures, I gather, that no more than three Strads could be together in the studio at any one time!)

For me, the other stand-out moments of the documentary were the interviews with Beare’s Head of Scientific Research & Conservation, Robert Brewer Young, a distinguished luthier in his own right, and a man who speaks about the art of the instrument-maker in a way quite unlike any I’d encountered before. The explanation is simple: he is both an instrument-maker and a philosopher (a pupil of Saul Kripke and Jacques Derrida, no less). After the documentary I longed for an excuse to talk to him, and now one has appeared. Beare’s has just published the most comprehensive catalogue of every instrument known to be made by Stradivari – about 850 in all. Antonio Stradivari: The Complete Works is in six volumes and costs £3900 per set, in case you’re starting to compile your Christmas present list. (An even more limited edition of just 100 copies comes with leather binding complete with gilded edges and embossing for £5000.)

Before we talk about the work of Stradivari, I had to ask Young about his dual career of luthier and philosopher. ‘I became a violin maker to support my philosophy habit,’ he explains in an American accent so gentle it could almost be mistaken for an Irish brogue. ‘I was doing graduate work in New York and wanted something practical in order to support my studies, because I wanted to learn for love, not for money. I also was very keen on handwork – my father was a carpenter and built houses. He also restored First World War aircraft with wooden wings (we always had an airplane wing in the garage!). So my first encounter working with spruce was finely tuning parts for spars for airplane wings. And it was the same material that you used to make violin tops. So there was a nice resonance for me.

‘I became interested in violin making in New York City, and I did an apprenticeship with a French violin maker – there was a whole world of French violin making above Carnegie Hall – and I went to one of those studios with a broken cello, did translation in exchange for having it fixed, and basically didn’t want to leave the shop ever. I absolutely loved it, and it worked quite well; going to graduate school at night, working during the day, and for a long time the disciplines were kept quite separate for me. One was very cerebral, one was very handwork, but they started to intersect in a very interesting way when I started looking into the philosophy of geometry and the work done by a French maker, François Denis, who’s also an incredible scholar – looking at the empty space inside the instrument, the fundamental design, its relation to architecture, the intellectual history behind the creation of the forms, and the very rich philosophical context in which the violin emerged. So my work moved into the philosophy of geometry, mathematics and logic, and that has wonderful intersections with the violin.’

When we met at Beare’s elegant townhouse headquarters near Wigmore Hall, Young was just off to Oxford to talk at the European Graduate Schools Institute, Research Institute for Music and Philosophy. ‘For me,’ he suggested, ‘I would say at this point and moving forward, the idea is to actually not even bridge the gap, but realise that there isn’t one, and to illuminate the intersections that are continuous between philosophy and music. And talking to musicians is magnificent because they have such a strong philosophical encounter with their own art, and I find that very beautiful to listen to.’

One of the frequently encountered comments about the work of Stradivari (1644-1737) is that he achieved a pinnacle – perhaps the pinnacle – of excellence in his work that has never been equalled in the nearly 300 years since his death. ‘It’s an interesting question because it’s something that’s often repeated – “We’ve never broken the code … There was this great secret … There was a form of practice that’s never been replicated”. But I think contemporary making offers a disruptive challenge to those myths and exposes some of the ways in which there is something truly mysterious there. I think sometimes that mythology, in a way, masks the true uniqueness of the period, and also of some of the authors within that – and by authors, I mean artists. It’s not something we ask about Vermeer, for example. There are painters now who can mimic his techniques and use similar materials and capture the light, and so on, but it’s never a Vermeer. And there’s this sense that within the work of Vermeer, the secret is the artist himself. Obviously it’s the same thing with Van Gogh. It’s not just a question of technique, or even a moment of history, but the individual’s place within that and within their own intellectual and creative culture. So for me, the idea of there being this secret that one might discover in the methods or materials, that contemporary science is continuing to unpack, is a myth. But there is this sense of mystery and uniqueness, and I think that’s more about the author and the period from which he emerged. And Stradivari was emerging in a time when violin making had already been happening on a grand scale for 200 years. The instruments he was looking at were made by Amati and the brothers Amati, and he was looking at absolute masterpieces and being schooled by them. And I think that provides a unique platform for someone with his particular genius to excel in.’

Perhaps the mystique surrounding Stradivari’s work is burnished by the aspiration of so many great players wanting to own one of his instruments. ‘I think that the experience of a player is informed by many things,’ Young suggests. ‘When encountering an instrument, are you encountering it only as a musical tool? Are you encountering it as a piece of art? Are you encountering it as something with a particular provenance and an Italian name? All of those things come together in a very unique way in a Stradivari – and a Guarneri or an Amati. On the more romantic side, Steven Isserlis says that playing a Stradivari is like communing with, or communicating with, an old soul. And he refers to these instruments as old souls. And there’s this sense of connection with centuries of soloists who were the greatest players of their time, who have been producing their art on this instrument, and we are continuing that tradition with the same object, with the same work of art, the same sculpture, the same musical tool. That’s a very unique experience. And I think that informs a player’s experience and potential in a magnificent way.’ And Young is quick to point out that you can no more speak of a Stradivari sound than you can a Picasso style with his wildly varied ‘periods’ – and Stradivari’s working career spanned nearly 70 years.

Young tells the story of how Isserlis was given the opportunity to play a cello that had been in the Beethoven House in Bonn and which hadn’t been played for over 80 years. ‘And he said it woke up in an hour and he was ready to perform on it. There was a life in it. And that was a very interesting real-world experience with a player I have immense respect for and his encounter with an old instrument.’ Similarly, the ‘Messiah’ Strad sits in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford unplayed. ‘If we were to hear it today,’ Young wonders, ‘would it be a matter of it truly having suffered from being perfectly preserved all these years, or just a matter of taking some time to adjust to being under pressure and being used as an instrument again?’ But, I suggest, it has a new life as an artwork. ‘Yes, but it’s an artwork with a unique potential that we don’t get to experience. For me, it’s more than an artwork. It’s an artwork with a particular potential.’ So, it’s sleeping? ‘Yes.’

Much of the magic surrounding Strads in general is their astounding financial value. Young revealed that this has been the case much longer than one might imagine. ‘That actually happened during Stradivari’s own lifetime because he was already creating what could be called a luxury good. I mean, his instruments were 150 lira, a Guarneri was 50, so his instruments were already three times as much as his very talented neighbours. And he was making for royal courts. He made for the Medicis. I would love to know what access musicians at the Medici court actually had to them. Was it a more museum-type environment? Were they in the house on display? Were the musicians allowed to take them home? I’m very curious about what actually happened during that time.’

So to the book. ‘They’ve been working on it for nine years now. It’s an immense process, and there are numerous examples of instruments that we know have disappeared. Some we have no idea how they were documented up to a certain point, some we know when and how they were destroyed or lost. Many of the instruments in there we no longer have access to – maybe no one does, but we know that they existed. That’s important to document as well as including a multilayered provenance for each instrument with the unique access that J&A Beare has to that type of information. It’s certainly the most complete catalogue that’s ever been created. And what’s critical is also that it’s being time-stamped. This is a moment in time in which all available resources have been put together in order to document things as they are, using the knowledge that we have today. It’ll be very interesting to see how this book is used by researchers in the next ten, 20 and 50 years.’

I’m always struck when talking to string players about their instruments by how uninterested some are in the provenance – who owned and played it before. And then there are others who are fascinated. ‘Both of those extremes are very active in the world of musicians,’ Young agrees. ‘And I think both have interesting components for the musician who is unconcerned about those things. There’s a sort of parallel lack of interest in the way things look – occasionally. Some people are purely interested in the sound. How does it respond and project? How does it work as a musical tool? This is where they’re meeting it. What’s their encounter like? What’s an audience going to experience? There’s something very direct in that encounter where you completely dispense with both history and appearance. So how are they experiencing one aspect of the instrument? There are others. How does it look? How is it as an artwork, a sculpture and a painting and what is its provenance? You know, what is its relation to history, which of course, for some players is a critical component of their encounter with the instrument and their ability to transmit their art to an audience.’

So next time you hear, say, Joshua Bell play his 1713 Gibson Stradivari instrument, just reflect that before him it was in the hands of the Amadeus Quartet’s Norbert Brainin and, before him, it was played by Bronisław Huberman. These glorious instruments must have stories to tell …

This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Gramophone magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe to Gramophone today