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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 15, 1985)
-4- Joseph Nagyvaiy, professor of bioehemistn , has been tiring to discover what finishes were used on Renaissance violins, so he can duplicate their tone. Currently, he is working with a finish made of bee wings. By TRICLA rVYRJKER Staff Writer In Joseph Nagyvaiy, art and science are a successful blend. Nagyvary’s job is teaching bio- chemistiy at Texas A&>M; his art, a love of violins. He is using his knowledge of both to dis cover the secrets of Renaissance violin makers. Nagyvaiy says his fascina tion with violins has been with him all his life. “I was always interested in violins,” he says, “ever since I can remember hearing one when I was a child. I thought it was the most magnificent sound ever.” So for the last 20 years or so, he has been trying to duplicate the processes perfected bv Re naissance violin makers like Stradivari, Guameri and Am- ati, who are widely held to have produced the finest vio lins in the world. “Only the old Italian violins are any good,” he says. “All the others are mediocre in compa rison.” What makes a violin good, he says, is clarity of sound, lack of noise and certain combina tions of overtones. Nagyvary, who has been at A&>M since 1968, says these tonal qualities depend not only on who makes the instrument but on what materials are used. Nagyvaiy says the type of wood used by Stradivari and his contemporaries is spruce or maple from Germany — no great mysteiy. But more diffi cult to discern has been what the Italians did to preserve the wood. They were so secretive, that their methods were lost. Nagyvary’s job is made more difficult by the rarity of the vio lins he wants to reproduce. The problem, he says, is that there are only 500 or so Stradivaris left in the world. They range in price from about $400,000 to over one million, even if the owners were willing to sell it. And few owners of such an in strument are eager to have it taken apart for experimenta tion, he savs. So he, like others interested in the same kind of research, must wait and hope for a sliver from some old Italian instru ment to come into their hands. Nagyvaiy says people have been trying to resurrect the se crets of the Italian masters for 200 years without success. But with the help of complex chemical analysis and a little bit of sleuthing, Nagyvaiy says he is near to discovering their methods. Several years ago Nagyvaiy got the chance he’d been wait ing for. He obtained a sliver of wood from a Guarneri cello. When he examined the wood he found changes in the chemi cal make-up of the wood not solely attributable to the aging of the wood. This sent him looking for clues as to where the wood came from. His breakthrough came when he realized that the wood used to make the violins had been floated down river to Italy. The waterlogging on the way accounted for the changes in the wood — changes which gave the Italian violins excep tional tone and resonance, he says. Following his theory about the wood, Nagyvaiy pickled some wood himself and sent it off to craftsmen in Austria, Bulgaria and Salt Lake City SKI TELLURIDE Spring Break March 10-16 Includes: $^9 Round trip bus transportation 4 nights lodging 3 day lift tickets Lots more March 10-15 $509 includes: Roundtrip Airfare 5 nights lodging Carnegie Hall performance City tour/famous landmarks Deadline Feb. 21 MSC Travel 845-1515 MSC 216 Student Programs Office who miicic the boxes of' the in struments. But he’s not finished vet. Na gyvary says the next problem is finding out exactly what was used as varnish on the violin af ter it was put together. A little detective work, a few educated guesses and a lot of experimen tation and luck liave brought him very plose. “The varnish is the second key element in an instrument,” he says. “The varnish serves like a noise filter, the good varnish only filters out the noi se.” Nagyvaiy savs without a chemical analysis, he can only guess what the Italians put in their varnish. He is nothing if not creative in his theories, ex perimenting with a wide range • of finishes, including one made from the hair of a female lab assistant. “Right now, I make my own varnish from bee wings,” he says. “It takes about one pound of dead bees to get the varnish for one to two violins.” Nagyvaiy says an extensive chemical analysis could tell him exactly what the Italians used. “With chemical methods vou could tell what was in it for $100,000,” he says. “We could reproduce it pretty well." But the funds and facilities just aren’t there. Nagyvarv, who has financed most of his work himself, says that to get it exactly right he would need an accoustical laboratoiy, which doesn’t exist at A&>M. “It’s time that a big school like ours got one,” he savs. “From the recruiting budget at Texas A&>M we could set up an accoustics lab.” Nagyvaiy, who makes about 10 violins eveiy year, says he doesn’t have to solicit buyers for his violins. He says several well-known violinists have ex pressed interest in his instru ments. He will sell them to per formers and students for the price he is offered, usuallv be tween $2,000 and $5,000. Nagyvaiy doesn’t build his violins for the money. He says he builds them to provide high quality violins without a pro hibitively high price, especially for students. And he builds them less for the audiences who will hear concerts played on his instru ments than for those who will play them. The average ear couldn’t hear the difference be tween the Stradivari and a fid dle, he says, but that doesn’t matter to him. “It’s not the Aggie audience who could tell the difference,” he says. “It is not the average person who could tell the dif ference at a concert. It is the plaver who needs a good violin, not the audience. It is much easier to play.” \