Original subtitles

The violin is a wooden box that creates magic.

You can produce infinite tone colors by

simply pulling a bow on strings.

This is my violin.

It turned 310 years old this year.

Its master was the legendary

Italian genius Antonio Stradivari.

Also known as Stradivarius, or simply Strad,

his violins have been regarded as

the epitome of great quality.

They are admired all over the world.

One of them once sold for over

16 million dollars at an auction.

Stradivarius violins produce a sound so

incomparably beautiful, rich, and dynamic.

But no one knows how exactly they were made.

Where does this marvelous sound come from?

Many scientists and makers have been

trying to unravel this secret.

But, to this day, nobody has managed to find the answer.

It is a mystery that still remains after 300 years.

I set off on a journey in hopes of finding some clues.

Stradivarius violins.

About 600 survive worldwide.

Throughout history, prominent musicians

have played these greatest of violins.

Itzhak Perlman is one of the

greatest violinists of our times.

His Stradivarius is called Soil.

It once belonged to the virtuoso Yehudi Menihin.

It's the quality of the sound, is unbelievable.

The center of the sound, it has a core to the sound.

They say that it's like it has a

microphone inside the violin, you know.

Akiko Suwanai became the first

Japanese musician to win the International

Tchaikovsky Competition in 1990.

She plays the Dolphin, which the acclaimed

violinist Jascha Heifetz once owned.

It's as if the vibrations travel

all the way to the inside of my mouth.

I feel like I'm playing with my entire body.

Metaphorically speaking, the sound I hear when playing

is like drops of water rolling over a piece of velvet.

Each clear note, one after the next.

Karen Gomyo has traveled the world as

a professional violinist since the age of 15.

She's appeared as a soloist, with orchestras

in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

She's been playing a Strad called Aurora for 12 years.

The name comes from the fact that it's sound has a

radiance like the Aurora Borealis in the northern skies.

The beauty of a Stradivarius like this is,

it already has so much life and it's own personality,

it's own character, it's own voice.

For example, if you describe an emotion,

so you have different ways of expressing the happiness,

you can jump up with joy, you can cry of happiness,

and I would describe a Strad as having those kind of layers.

Why are Stradivari instruments

still considered exceptional after 300 years?

It is the biggest mystery of the classical music world.

I started my trip in Cremona, the city where

Stradivari mastered his workmanship.

500 years ago, violin

production was born in northern Italy.

Wow.

This is spectacular.

Over time, Cremona became

one of the main producers of quality violins.

In 2012, the traditional craftsmanship that

Stradivari perfected here was added to

UNESCO's cultural heritage list.

A museum opened in 2013 to showcase

the city's long history of violin making.

Hello. Hello.

I'm Karen.

Fausto.

Welcome to the new violin museum.

The museum is one of

the world's largest collections

dedicated to Stradivari and his work.

Stradivari was 25 when he made this violin.

He's said to have demonstrated

exceptional skills at a young age.

He made this one at the age of 71.

Stradivari produced a series of masterpieces,

from his late 50s through his 70s.

A time known as his Golden Period.

You feel, really, a sense of history

and something very profound as well,

and very strong, it's beautiful.

And the wood on the back is just stunning.

It's still something living and it's just,

visually, such a stunning instrument.

Stradivari also had a brilliant artistic sense.

This violin is decorated with inlay.

Ivory rimmed the body.

Only a handful of violins like this

are known to have survived to this day.

In addition to the sounds they produce,

the instruments themselves are works of art.

That's why people have treasured them for hundreds of years.

In this section, we exhibit the tools

that Stradivari used to make instruments.

They're a source of inspiration for

modern day violin makers.

They still study these tools and

try to make violins like he did.

After Stradivari died at 93,

his techniques were lost.

His sons took over the trade,

but they all died shortly after.

The Stradivari's craftsmanship became a mystery

that people could only guess from the things he left behind.

Stradivari perfected the violin.

The instrument's power of expression has inspired

some of history's greatest composers.

One was Vivaldi, who lived during

the same time as Stradivari.

In Vivaldi's best-known work, The Four Seasons,

the composer used violins to describe

various sounds in nature.

Mozart also composed a number of

colorful pieces featuring the violin.

In Beethoven's Fifth Symphony,

violins express the shift from anguish to exaltation.

The violin has made profound

contributions to the evolution of music.

I wonder how violins

are being made in Cremona today.

Bongiorno, prego!

I visit one of the major workshops in town.

Karen. Marco Bissolotti.

Nice to meet you.

The Bissolottis are all violin makers,

including the father and sons.

Each of them spends about a month

and a half to complete one violin.

Let me show you a violin in the making.

The wooden plate is bent along the mold, to make a rib.

This is an exact copy of

the mold that Stradivari used.

Out of this mold, they make the ribs,

which become the basic form of a violin.

Much of today's violin making is

still approached in this way, using a

Strad mold and following his principles.

The way a violin is

constructed hasn't changed in 300 years.

The base is a wooden box.

First, the ribs are glued onto the back plate,

and topped with the soundboard.

Then the neck and scroll are joined to the body.

The parts that hold the strings are then attached.

The strings vibration is transmitted to

the soundboard via the bridge,

and into the back plate through a

small piece of wood called the sound post.

The air vibrates inside the body and

comes out through the F-shaped holes.

This is my father and teacher, Francesco.

Right now, he's also making a Stradivari model.

84-year-old Francesco

is the most senior violin maker in Cremona.

He's devoted his life to recreating Stradivari sound.

Every single part of

the violin influences its sound.

The thickness of the wood, the curve, everything.

Strad is our model.

We're trying to do as Stradivari did

and make the best instruments.

But it's not easy.

Karen tries one of Francesco's violins.

When did you make it?

I think it's written inside.

1987!

It would be more fair to compare,

for example, Mr. Bissolotti's instrument

300 years from now with my violin.

Having said that, if we must compare

a newly-made instrument versus

for example, my violin, I think the first impression

that immediately strikes me is just the huge amount of...

Of color, of possibility of expression.

And yet, no one has attained the level of Stradivarius.

It feels surreal to find myself in this very town,

which produced violins of such

unparalleled reputation since 300 years.

The Stradivari's instruments

have captivated people with their

amazing sound and aesthetic appeal.

Many anecdotes have emerged of Strads

passed from one owner to the next.

Here is one such story.

After Stradivari died, a beautiful

violin remained in his workshop.

His family sold it to Count Cozio di Salabue,

the world's first Strad collector.

"How exquisite!" he said.

"This must be the best Stradivarius ever!"

Another man heard about the violin.

Luigi Tarisio could be called a violin hunter.

Tarisio bought violins from churches

and castles around Italy.

He then sold them at high prices in

Paris and London to make a quick profit.

He wondered, "How much could I get for the best

"Stradivarius, now in Count Salabue's possession?"

Tarisio visited the Count repeatedly,

in the hope of buying the violin.

At last, he obtained the Strad for a fortune.

But the moment he saw the beautiful instrument,

he fell in love with it, he thought,

"I'm not gonna sell this to anyone!"

Tarisio kept the violin hidden in his home.

No one else saw it for a long time.

For the next 30 years, Tarisio devoted

his life to collecting Strads.

He's said to have died in his attic,

surrounded by the violins he admired.

Tarisio's beloved Strad survived several wars.

It's now housed in a museum in Britain.

Culminating, I suppose, in 1716, with the Messiah,

which belongs to us in the Ashmolean.

Stradivari made this violin

during his golden period; it's the best

preserved Strad known to exist.

It looks as though it was finished yesterday.

Stradivari's trademark red varnish and black-rimmed scroll,

every detail looks just as it must have when it was made.

Strads have been handed down as treasured assets.

Some have changed their owner's lives.

The Messiah is said to be the most famous

musical instrument in the entire world.

It owes its fame, not because it's a superior instrument

in the hands of a player, but because it has

survived in such remarkable condition.

The reason why instruments like this are valuable is

because A. They're extremely beautiful, but above all,

because they make sounds that are unsurpassed.

What exactly makes these violins sound so special?

Researchers did an experiment in New York, in March 2013.

They compared the sounds of 11 violins

made by modern craftspeople, and three Strads.

Would the judges be able to tell

the difference solely by sound?

A screen separated them and the musicians.

So they wouldn't be able to see

which violin was being played.

The judges included researchers,

violin makers, and other experts.

How 'bout you? Can you tell the difference?

Not a single judge could

accurately identify all three Strads.

Similar experiments in the past also showed that even

experts have a hard time spotting the difference.

But it's said that for musicians who play Strads,

the difference is crystal clear.

It's very pure, the overtones are very pure,

so when this violin, when you play it in a concert hall,

for example, you can hear everything

from the first row to the last row,

because of the, not so much because it's loud,

but because it's pure.

The low notes have a deep richness,

while the high notes have an exceptional clarity.

The sound travels far, whether played soft or loud.

If musicians can recognize the character of

the Strad's sound, wouldn't it be

possible to analyze it scientifically?

NHK conducted an experiment in a room

specially designed to prevent acoustic reflection.

Three renowned violinists helped out.

Each musician played modern violins made in

the 20th century or later, and their own Stradivarius.

42 microphones were set up around the musicians to

record which type of sound was emitted in which direction.

The testing was supervised by Katsuhiro Maki.

He's a leading researcher in three-dimensional

analysis of the sounds instruments produce.

The test captured a huge amount of data

using 42 channel simultaneous recording.

The experiment was made possible by

advances in digital technology.

Could the team uncover the secrets of the Strad sound?

It took researchers a month to analyze the data.

Maki focused on directionality,

or the direction in which sound travels.

The three-dimensional chart clearly

shows the features of Strad sound.

The sound of modern violins is

comparatively weak, and spreads in wide angles.

It goes out in all directions evenly, like a fountain.

Stradivarius violins, on the other hand,

emit sound toward a particular direction,

like water sprayed out of a hose that's being squeezed.

There's a clear difference.

If we overlap the chart on the music,

we can see that the sound of the modern violin

travels in all directions, relatively evenly.

The Strad sound, on the other hand,

shows a powerful upward emission,

as indicated by the red color.

This is the Strad's directionality,

which the researchers uncovered.

All three Strads exhibited the same directionality.

Maki thinks this is one reason that Strad sound

easily reaches the far end of a concert hall.

I am sure there are more

secrets that we still don't understand.

We did identify their directionality in our test,

but that doesn't fully explain why the sound is so special.

There must be more hidden jewels.

Certainly, the greatness of a

Strad sound has always captivated me.

Maybe its secret comes from the wood

out of which a violin is made.

I went to the forest where Stradivarius

believed to have purchased his wood logs.

We drive three hours to the north of Cremona.

It's like a beautiful painting.

It was the middle of the summer, but it was freezing.

You could see snow on the mountains.

Here comes the inspector of the forest,

who will teach me everything about these trees.

Hi! I'm Karen.

I'm Giuliano.

Are you a musician?

Yes, violinist, and this is my beloved violin here.

Your Stradivari!

This area has been known since

the time of Stradivari for it's high-quality wood.

The altitude here is 1,700 meters above sea level.

It's cold, so plants have only three

to four months to grow per year.

As a result, the annual growth rings in

these trees are very close to one another.

The trees growing in this forest

are spruce, which is in the pine family.

The wood is used to make the top plates of violins.

Split the wood, and it shows narrow,

evenly spaced growth rings.

It's a top-grade board that transmits vibration well.

To protect the genes of the trees,

no saplings are planted in the forest.

Only those that grow naturally are nurtured.

Some researchers point out that the quality of the wood

was even better during Stradivari's time.

A study says Stradivari used wood from

trees that grew during the so-called "Little Ice Age".

From the 16th to 17th centuries,

temperatures were lower than they are now.

Because of that, some people believe that trees

back then grew even more slowly,

and produced especially fine wood,

with tightly packed growth rings.

I suddenly wonder, was my Aurora

once among the trees growing here?

She's feeling a little bit cold as well, but, you know,

this is where she originally comes from, actually,

and I wonder if actually she feels incredibly at home.

But there still remains a deep mystery.

After all, Stradivari was hardly the only one

using the wood from this forest.

Then, why are his instruments exceptional?

If the wood isn't the only key to

the extraordinary sound, what other secrets are there?

One feature that has long attracted people's

attention is Stradivarius violin's distinctive red varnish.

Did Stradivari mix in something special?

Since the 19th century, many researchers

have devoted themselves to studying this puzzle.

Maybe Stradivari used the wings

of an insect that's now extinct.

Or was it propolis, an extract from honey bee hives?

From plants to minerals, people have tried

all sorts of materials, but they weren't

able to reproduce the sound of a Strad.

Eventually, a legend emerged that the deep red

was made using the blood of a young woman.

In the 20th century, scientists used the latest techniques

to try and unravel the mystery of the varnish.

One claimed the secret was red volcanic ash,

revealed by an electron microscope.

Another reported finding an ingredient that

used to be used as an insecticide.

But adding these ingredients to varnish

did nothing to help new violins sound like Strads.

The legends surrounding the varnish

have finally been overturned this century.

Researchers collected tiny amounts of varnish

from five Strads kept at a museum in Paris.

After analyzing the samples for several years,

they found nothing but ordinary pine resin and oil.

These were common ingredients in varnish

at the time the violins were made.

The varnish was not the secret either.

In pursuit of a new hint, I visit the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York.

Hi! Hello.

Hi, I'm Karen. How are you doing, ok?

Good to see you, Karen.

Ken Moore is the curator

in charge of the instruments department,

and will show me the museum's valuable Strads.

But I don't know if you've ever seen a rebaroqued Strad.

Here, I am shown two violins.

Ken explains that their measurements are

little different from those of his other periods.

These two instruments, both of them are Strads,

come from his period when he was making the long pattern.

These were slightly larger instruments that

he started creating around 1690.

And Stradivari was very often experimenting with his form.

I think he wanted to experiment acoustically

with sounds that might be bolder,

and more penetrating, and louder.

When I look closely, I can see how

and where the F-holes are positioned, and the

curves of the body differ slightly, depending on

the period in which the violin was made.

Does this have any influence on the sound?

They have longer bodies than my Aurora,

yet their sound is typical of a Stradivarius.

The bodies are shaped differently,

but they all produce a distinctive sound.

Maybe there's a secret to how the Strads were made.

The American violin maker and researcher

Carleen Hutchins focused on this point

in searching for the answer.

She suspected that the key to generating a good sound

is how the top and back plates vibrate.

She devoted herself to studying the vibrational

characteristics of violin plates,

by applying soundwaves to them.

And what we're doing here is

measuring the normal modes that exist

in a piece of wood that's this shape.

It gives us the sense of the stiffness of the wood,

which violin makers have been feeling and bending

for the last several hundred years.

Particles placed on vibrating areas move,

and gather on static parts of the plate.

Hutchins used this method to test

thousands of pairs of violin plates.

Including those from a Stradivarius.

It turns out that particles draw certain patterns

on plates that produce good sounds.

One measure for determining the best way to

finish the plates had become clear.

Hutchins research, which marries science and craftsmanship,

has pointed the way to a new approach to violin making.

I hear about a team in Minnesota

that has been experimenting with making

an exact copy of Stradivarius violins,

employing a method never before used.

The location that the team chose as

our meeting place was a hospital.

This is Dr. Steve Sirr, a radiologist.

And John Waddle, a violin maker.

Combining their expertise,

they're working to create an ultimate copy.

The team has an unusual tool.

A CT scanner, for medical purposes.

The machine allows them to

examine violins in precise detail.

From the density and thickness of their plates,

to past repairs, all without damaging the instruments.

It's a method made possible by modern technology.

Sirr is an amateur violinist.

20 years ago, he had the idea of

using a CT scanner to analyze violins.

Karen has agreed to let them scan her Strad.

When the researchers started out,

they had difficulty gathering data.

Few Strad owners were willing to lend

their instruments for analysis.

But now, they've scanned 22 of them.

Each masterpiece led to new discoveries.

The team became more and more engrossed

in tackling the mysteries of the Stradivarius violins.

On one hand, it's just an object

that we just scanned, but on the other hand,

it's much more than an object.

And it simultaneously exists both ways at any time.

We visited Waddle's workshop

to find out the results of Karen's Aurora.

They showed us three-dimensional

images created from the data.

It's really beautiful.

There's something very, it's almost like

you walk into a beautiful building.

Just evaluate the instrument from

any part of the inside, any angle.

It's in really good shape

compared to a lot of instruments.

Sirr says through repeated analysis

he's made important discoveries about

the structure of Stradivarius violins.

What I think is the most exciting thing,

which is, I call it balanced chi,

which is where the energy that you provide

from your bowing arm somehow gets into the violin.

First, there's the top plate.

It's weight is divided exactly in half at the bridge.

The bridge conveys the vibration of

the strings created by the bow.

Next, look at the back plate.

The key component is the sound post.

An imaginary line drawn through the center

also divides the plate's weight exactly in half vertically.

What's more, the line that crosses the violin

at the sound post position divides

the violin's internal volume in half.

But the energy provided by the player

goes into the violin in a way that's balanced,

so that the energy is maximized into,

so that it's creating maximal sound from that instrument.

Sirr and his partners

have used their findings to try to make

a perfect copy of a Stradivarius.

Steve Rossow entered the data

from the analysis into a computer,

and recreated the violin's precise curves.

Some parts, including the insides of the plates,

had to be finished by hand.

Waddle's and Rossow's skill as

experienced craftsmen were needed for this job.

The trio has finally produced a

satisfactory copy of a Strad.

So... All right!

What do we have now?

This is another copy.

Clearly, the best instrument I've made so far.

Wonderful.

So... Great.

Great. It's beautiful.

Thank you.

Karen is such a good player, my goodness.

So it was a real treat to hear my violin

be played by somebody so accomplished.

You know, to have my dear buddies make the violin

from the CT scan is a real honor for me.

And, you know, Karen...

You've been wonderful.

Thank you.

Thank you.

More and more people who make violins

are working together to solve the mysteries of Strads.

Every year, top violin makers from various countries

gather in Oberlin, in the US state of Ohio,

to share their techniques and knowledge.

They discuss matters such as methods for

carving the critical parts of the plates.

And the type of structure that

creates a more resonant sound.

Sirr and his colleagues have shared the latest data

from their CT scans of the event.

These exchanges are said to have

led to dramatic improvements,

violin maker's skills over the past several years.

Cremonese days, and Stradivari,

and all those guys, there was only two or three makers,

and here we have 60 makers today.

And some of them are just the top of their skill

in the world, and so they're sharing with each other also.

It has not been normal for many, many years,

because people were secretive about what they did.

But, probably, Oberlin started this out.

In 2012, craftspeople completed a landmark violin.

It's considered the best copy of a Strad ever created.

What does the most accurate

Strad copy of our time sound like?

I went to the Library of Congress to find out.

They also have the original Strad,

which the Oberlin workshop used as model.

I think the one violin you came to see today,

the Stradivari from 1704 that we call the Betts, right here.

They're all gorgeous.

Wow.

And a lot of musicans come here,

they've heard of the instrument for a long time,

and then, finally, like you know,

they make their way here.

This is the copy that was made in

the workshop, known as the Oberlin Betts.

The library carefully looks after the copy

in order to maintain its perfection.

The Betts is considered one of the

masterpieces of Stradivari, known for its fine

curvature and the excellent state of preservation.

The makers copied it as accurately as possible,

from the density of the wood,

to the scratches on the surfaces.

On the inside, you can see the signatures of

the makers who took part in the production.

A proof of their collaborative effort to

try to measure up to the genius of 300 years ago.

But, most importantly, how does the

sound of these violins compare?

I played both of the Betts in the Great Hall.

The fantastic Betts Stradivarius of 1704,

the way that the sound spins out is,

it just seems limitless, so magical, that's really the word.

But, I really have to say that the Betts copy

was such an interesting find or discovery,

so it's a combination of technology,

but also the hands of 50-plus experts,

and so I wonder if the best of each of these 50 people

has been input in this violin, and therefore,

is such a great sounding instrument.

I don't know, it's just a thought,

but yeah, it really surprised me, to admit.

The one and only, the great Stradivarius.

A Strad has always been the ultimate companion

and inspiration for musicians.

But it also continues to be that magic box

that evokes dreams and passions among

makers and audiences around the world.