Boletin Walintonia

Have there been any surprising modern violins that managed to rival a Stradivarius in terms of sound quality?

The short answer is yes. In fact, the scientific consensus suggests that the premise of the question is slightly backwards: it is the Stradivarius that often struggles to rival top-tier modern violins in double-blind tests, rather than the other way around.

While the «Secret of Stradivari» remains one of the music world’s most enduring romantic myths, rigorous acoustic experiments conducted over the last fifteen years have systematically dismantled the idea that Old Italian instruments possess a sonic quality that cannot be replicated.

The Paris Double-Blind Experiment – The most famous of these showdowns occurred in Paris in 2012 (published later in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). A team led by acoustic researcher Claudia Fritz and violinmaker Joseph Curtin assembled ten world-renowned soloists. They were presented with twelve violins: six Old Italians (including five Stradivari) and six high-quality modern instruments. The soloists wore modified welding goggles so they could not identify the violins by sight, and the instruments were perfumed to mask the distinctive smell of old varnish and wood.

The results were shocking to the classical music establishment:

• The single most preferred violin was a modern one.
• The «least preferred» violin was a Stradivarius.
• The soloists were unable to distinguish new from old at a rate better than a coin flip.
• When asked to choose which instrument they would like to take home for a concert tour, the majority chose a modern instrument.

The «Projection» Myth – Following the Paris experiment, critics moved the goalposts. They argued that while modern violins might sound great «under the ear» (to the player), they lacked the magical projection required to fill a concert hall. So, Fritz and Curtin ran another study in 2017. They put soloists on stage behind an acoustically transparent screen in a 300-seat concert hall in Paris and an 860-seat hall in New York. They asked both the audiences and the soloists to judge projection. Once again, the modern violins won. They were rated as having better projection and better tone quality by listeners in the cheap seats and the front row alike.

If modern violins are better, why do Strads cost $15 million?
If you handed a violinist a modern instrument made by a top living luthier like Sam Zygmuntowicz (who built violins for Isaac Stern) or Joseph Curtin, and told them it was a $10,000 copy, they would likely critique it harshly. If you handed them the same violin and told them it was a $10 million Stradivarius, they would likely weep at its beauty.

This is the psychoacoustic placebo effect. We hear what we expect to hear. When a player holds a Stradivarius, they are holding a piece of history. They approach the instrument with reverence, adjusting their bowing technique to coax the best sound out of it. They work with the violin. When they pick up a modern instrument, they often test it skeptically, looking for flaws.

Furthermore, the price of a Stradivarius is driven by economics and antiquity, not just utility. They are Veblen goods—items that are desirable specifically because they are expensive and rare.

The Modern Masters – Today, there are living makers whose instruments are functionally indistinguishable from the Golden Age masters.

• Sam Zygmuntowicz (Brooklyn): Perhaps the most famous living luthier. His copies of Guarneri and Stradivari violins are played by top soloists who often choose to leave their fragile, multi-million dollar antiques in the vault for safety while touring with a «Zyg.»
• Peter Greiner (London/Zurich): Known for making powerful instruments favored by soloists like Christian Tetzlaff, who famously abandoned his Stradivarius in favor of a Greiner for his concert work.

The reality is that violin making is currently in a Golden Age. We understand the physics, the wood chemistry, and the architecture of the violin better today than at any point in history. Antonio Stradivari was a genius, but he was not a magician; he was a craftsman. And modern craftsmen have finally caught up.