The Stradivari Sabionari guitar

[Feynman]

There are very few Stradivari guitars left in existence, and only one that is playable (this one, from 1679), after an extensive project to bring it back to life.

Hopefully some of you may find it interesting to hear it. I think the guy made violins too.

Some good photos of it in this video:

And one more for good measure...

I still seem to have YouTube embedding issues when posting from work. Sorry to make you click. Perhaps another kind HFCer can embed it.

[coolfeel]

he looks bored...

[atquinn]

I put it in-line for you. Won't have a chance to listen to it until this evening unfortunately.

-

Austin

[Feynman]

Thanks Austin!

P.S. If any of you were thinking of a good belated birthday gift for me, I wouldn't mind owning that guitar.

[RichRS6]

The first clip is a Tarantela.

If I remember my music history thats named after the spider because after a bite people would twitch about wildly.

Great playing, he's not bored though just enjoying his lofty position at the top of the musical tree.

P.S. Mitch, I tried but my bid of $350 was rejected and now he says he's keeping it.

[specialk]

P.S. If any of you were thinking of a good belated birthday gift for me, I wouldn't mind owning that guitar.

But the guitar is so small! Couldn't the builder afford enough wood to make a normal sized one?

[gorch]

Thanks Austin!P.S. If any of you were thinking of a good belated birthday gift for me, I wouldn't mind owning that guitar.

We might find a loan copy to be sent around. Very nice posting. I ever wondered Stradivari made more than "just" violins.

[Montelovesco]

The first clip is a Tarantela.

If I remember my music history thats named after the spider because after a bite people would twitch about wildly.

Great playing, he's not bored though just enjoying his lofty position at the top of the musical tree.

P.S. Mitch, I tried but my bid of $350 was rejected and now he says he's keeping it.

Great piece of music! Didn't know that Stradivari made guitars, too.

Don't want to play the smart a$$ here, but it is Tarantella (two ll), and it is not sure where the name came from - the spider and the dance his bite caused or the city Taranto, located in southern Italy. Anyway, tarantellas are real great pieces of music from southern Italy, and if you listen closely you can hear where Yngwie amd his colleagues got the inspiration from, too: It was not only Bach and Vivaldi, but this old italian folk music too. BTW, there is at least one great Tarantella festival once a year in Italy blablabla.

Sorry. Just love that stuff.

[gorch]

Go to http://sabionari.com/Home.html to read more about the guitar.

[JohnnyB]

Go to http://sabionari.com/Home.html to read more about the guitar.

Now, if I could just get a flight to Cremona for Saturday. According to Gorch's link, Rolf Lislevand (the first player) and others are playing this guitar in recital in Cremona, Italy this Saturday.

Lislevand is also a killer lutenist and mandolinist. Based on hearing him on the radio about a year ago, I bought this collection of his lute and mandolin works of Vivaldi compositions. I have various recordings of the Vivaldi guitar concertos, but a lute in the hands of a skilled lutenist brings subtlety and nuanced expression to those pieces that I'd never heard in the 42 years I've been listening to them.

[gorch]

Go to http://sabionari.com/Home.html to read more about the guitar.

Now, if I could just get a flight to Cremona for Saturday. According to Gorch's link, Rolf Lislevand (the first player) and others are playing this guitar in recital in Cremona, Italy this Saturday.

Lislevand is also a killer lutenist and mandolinist. Based on hearing him on the radio about a year ago, I bought this collection of his lute and mandolin works of Vivaldi compositions. I have various recordings of the Vivaldi guitar concertos, but a lute in the hands of a skilled lutenist brings subtlety and nuanced expression to those pieces that I'd never heard in the 42 years I've been listening to them.

I think it all happenend last year. No need for a ticket JohnnyB.

Btw. I've immediately ordered the CD mentioned on the homepage. First recordings of the only one playable Strad (see the similarity in name giving?) is a must have to me. Especially, the recordings were made in recent times and are not 50 years old and dull sounding. I plan to ask the people at Avantgarde Acoustics if they are interested to the experiment listening to a Strad in perfection.

[HAMERMAN]

Doesn't sound quite right - I think it needs a touch of human skull to round out the sound. :-)

[tomteriffic]

Fascinating and a beautiful instrument. A couple of random observations:

It appears that, as might be expected, the guitar had not yet achieved it's current design of six single-string courses. The five double-strung courses are reminiscent of it's immediate ancestor, the vihuela.

The recordings are all in highly reverberant spaces (I'm assuming that nobody committed the sacrilege of adding reverb). It'd be nice to hear the guitar in a drier environment so as to hear more of the guitar and less of the room. As it is, the recordings are impressive-sounding at first but the overall, static tone of the reverb gets boring.

It's probably a function of having tied-on nylon/gut frets, but it doesn't seem to respond well to hammer-ons/pull-offs.

Still, it seems to be a sweet-toned guitar and it's good to see it functioning after all these centuries.

[tomteriffic]

Fascinating and a beautiful instrument. A couple of random observations:

It appears that, as might be expected, the guitar had not yet achieved it's current design of six single-string courses. The five double-strung courses are reminiscent of it's immediate ancestor, the vihuela.

The recordings are all in highly reverberant spaces (I'm assuming that nobody committed the sacrilege of adding reverb). It'd be nice to hear the guitar in a drier environment so as to hear more of the guitar and less of the room. As it is, the recordings are impressive-sounding at first but the overall, static tone of the reverb gets boring.

It's probably a function of having tied-on nylon/gut frets, but it doesn't seem to respond well to hammer-ons/pull-offs.

Still, it seems to be a sweet-toned guitar and it's good to see it functioning after all these centuries.

[gorch]

Meanwhile, CD arrived and I managed to listen various times. It's very interesting guitar playing. Sunday morning I went to visit a friend academically teaching classic guitar. I had ordered another copy of the CD for him as a present. He did not know about the Strad, but knew about the style of building and playing. It was interesting to hear that a lot of todays playing style like hammer-ons were developed at the time. Actually, notation weren't as exact as it is today and players were used to and forced to improvise or rather colorize their playing. Tuning of the instruments had a lot to do with tension capabilities of the organic strings. Some were made from sheep gut.

Again, many thanks for posting Feynman.

[BlueRedWhite]

I concur with Tom, is a fascinating instrument and my ears just got blown out with the sound of the only existing Stradivarius guitar (?)

It's impressive and beautiful, i do notice the quality of the sound. Would be great to have it at a real recording studio

And as much as i'm against animal cruelty, the real sound of that guitar is with gut strings, i don't think they should subject the old instrument to the tensions of a nylon guitar, and then again, the real sound would be with (cat) gut strings

thank you Mitch, what a beautiful post, thank you!!!

[sixesandsevens]

The recordings are all in highly reverberant spaces (I'm assuming that nobody committed the sacrilege of adding reverb).

It came standard on those models. It was much later they realized it belonged in the amp or in a pedal.

And as much as i'm against animal cruelty, ... the real sound would be with (cat) gut strings

I mean, there's animal animals and then there's cats...

[Crimsontider]

Quality.

With me, tone is either good or shite, there is no in between. You can find a good tone by accident, tapping on a piece of wood or even making a flute, but there are millions of guitars around the world that have zero tonal appeal. They were just made to look like a guitar. You have to put your heart into making an instrument. I really like my Hamer import, but it misses the soul of the USA guitars. I think a person has to build an instrument for it to truly be great. The stage of calibrating and tweaking is missed in the assembly line.

[gorch]

And as much as i'm against animal cruelty, ... the real sound would be with (cat) gut strings

What's the resulting cat gut string length actually? Neighbours cat is a ball cut dump. We call him stalker since usually he sits outside to watch in our windows.