Interesting research with a local angle:
FOR CENTURIES, experts have debated whether special varnishes or wood treatments were the secret to the instruments� rich resonance, which some consider superior to contemporary violins.
Now a tree-ring dating expert at the University of Tennessee and a climatologist at Columbia University offer a new theory � the wood developed special acoustic properties as it was growing because of an extended period of long winters and cool summers.
“It just amazed me that no one had thought of this before,� said Henri Grissino-Mayer. “The relationship between the violins, the trees that they were made from, the climate that existed when the trees grew and how it affected wood density to create a superior tonal quality.”
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Grissino-Mayer at Tennessee and Lloyd Burckle at Columbia suggest a �Little Ice Age� that gripped Europe from the mid-1400s until the mid-1800s slowed tree growth and yielded uncommonly dense Alpine spruce for Antonio Stradivari and other famous 17th-century Italian violinmakers.
The ice age reached its coldest point during a 70-year period from 1645 to 1715 known as the Maunder Minimum, which was named after the 19th-century solar astronomer, E.W. Maunder, who documented a lack of solar activity during the period.
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Grissino-Mayer developed a 500-year chronology, from 1500 to the present, for 16 high-elevation forests of larch, spruce and pine in five countries from western France to southern Germany. He discovered an unprecedented period of slow growth from 1625 to 1720 characterized by compact, narrow tree rings.
“We would suggest that the narrow tree rings that identify the Maunder Minimum in Europe played a role in the enhanced sound quality of instruments produced by the Cremona (Italy) violinmakers,� Grissino-Mayer and Burckle write, noting that �narrow tree rings would not only strengthen the violin but would increase the wood�s density.”