Sujet Editorial du 7 janvier 2012 : commentaires

Mais 2012 sera en revanche une bonne année pour les violonistes n'ayant pas des millions à investir dans leur copain à 4 cordes, si l'on en croit Claudia Fritz, chargée de recherches en acoustique musicale au CNRS. Pourquoi ? Parce que dans le sillage de ses nombreuses recherches autour du son des violons, la dame s'est amusée à faire tester en double aveugle six instruments à une vingtaine de violonistes de haut niveau : trois neufs et trois vintage, dont un stradivarius numéroté 01 valant la peau des yeux des bras de la tête. Résultat ? Dans l'ensemble, les musiciens auraient eu toutes les peines du monde à distinguer le neuf du vieux, pour généralement préférer les violons récents, au grand dam du fameux stradivarius qui aurait reçu le moins de suffrages de tous les instruments…

Most violinists believe that instruments by Stradivari and Guarneri “del Gesu” are tonally superior to other violins—and to new violins in particular. Many mechanical and acoustical factors have been proposed to account for this superiority; however, the fundamental premise of tonal superiority has not yet been properly investigated. Player's judgments about a Stradivari's sound may be biased by the violin's extraordinary monetary value and historical importance, but no studies designed to preclude such biasing factors have yet been published.

We asked 21 experienced violinists to compare violins by Stradivari and Guarneri del Gesu with high-quality new instruments. The resulting preferences were based on the violinists’ individual experiences of playing the instruments under double-blind conditions in a room with relatively dry acoustics.

We found that (i) the most-preferred violin was new; (ii) the least-preferred was by Stradivari; (iii) there was scant correlation between an instrument's age and monetary value and its perceived quality; and (iv) most players seemed unable to tell whether their most-preferred instrument was new or old.

These results present a striking challenge to conventional wisdom. Differences in taste among individual players, along with differences in playing qualities among individual instruments, appear more important than any general differences between new and old violins. Rather than searching for the “secret” of Stradivari, future research might best focused on how violinists evaluate instruments, on which specific playing qualities are most important to them, and on how these qualities relate to measurable attributes of the instruments, whether old or new.

vous sentirez immanquablement l'odeur de la Regina mi-cuite et de sa coupe de glace deux boules dans la formule à 9,90 €

Dans le second exercice, deux violons leur étaient confiés, avec une question simple : distinguer l'instrument d'époque.

A ce deuxième exercice, la plupart des instrumentistes ont échoué. Profondeur du son, subtilité, projection, égalité des registres, rapidité de réaction... L'ensemble de ces critères, censés caractériser les pièces d'exception, n'a pas permis de faire la différence. Mieux, à l'heure du choix du "meilleur", seuls huit des vingt et un cobayes ont opté pour un violon d'époque. L'instrument le plus cité sortait d'un atelier contemporain, le moins apprécié avait été réalisé par Antonio Stradivari vers 1700.

John Soloninka Says:
January 3rd, 2012 at 11:32 am

I was one of the playing participants. It was fascinating. I too, expected to be able to tell the difference, but could not. Claudia sent me my comments about the instruments that I made while I was playing them, and it was hilarious how wrong my impressions were at the time!

In response to comments above:
1. In addition to the test in the hotel room (which was expertly conducted!), Zack DePuy, Concertmaster of the Symphony also did side-by-side comparisons of 8 instruments on stage before the final announcements were made for the IVCI. Although a Strad was eventually chosen, in short, the audience in the concert hall were essentially equivocal on which instruments were better in each of the pair-wise instrument comparisons…with Zack playing the same excerpts from Ein Helden Leben and Bruch G minor. Listening to Zack…I could tell slight differences in the instruments…but overall they were all great. None of them sounded substantially weaker than the others.
2. Yes bows make a huge difference, but not changing a bad instrument into a good one. The bow was constant. If you are telling me that a $1M instrument with a high-quality, but sub optimally matched bow will sound worse than a $30K instrument with a matched bow…I would still say the experiment proved the relative value of new instruments.
3. I agree with the writer who said the modern instruments were by the best makers…and not all new violins are by the best makers! But the goal is just to say that the best modern makers are as good as the best old makers…and that sound is what counts.

It was a privilege to be involved and fascinating. If, after this, you cling to picayune critiques and dismiss the study, then I think you are in denial. If 21 of us could not tell in controlled circumstances and 1500 people could not tell any differences in a hall, and this is consistent with past studies…then it is time to put the myths out to pasture.

Mais s'il y avait une "énorme supériorité", elle se verrait en 5 minutes, voire beaucoup moins. On pourrait au mieux parler d'une "petit supériorité qui se découvre au bout d'un usage assez long", mais si on attache du sens aux mots, et pas seulement un effet de frime ou de snobisme, on ne devrait pas parler de supériorité "énorme" ni "évidente"...

Faudrait faire les mêmes tests en hifi maintenant (lecteurs CD ou câbles à 20.000€...) mais ça ferait grincer des dents... !