EUROPE TO-DAY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 81, 4 March 1938, Page 2

EUROPE TO-DAY

HE MADE VIOLINS. That was all—but what violins 1 We will come—-if you please—to the Piazza di Roma in Cremona —thm Italian town under blue skies. I am sorry to have to ask you to come upstairs to his workroom —an attic where Stradivari worked 200 years ago. Born in 1644, Antonio spent all his long life in Cremona, one of Italy’s old walled towns with many churches that have stood for centuries. It was here in this house, long a place of pilgrimage for all music lovers, that he spent the rest of his days. Here his children grew up. tw r o of his boys learning their father’s trade, though they never acquired his amazing skill. Here he worked,without haste and without rest, nothing interrupting the tenor of his life. Wo may picture him in those years as a master craftsman thinking of nothing but his art. working from early morning till the light faded. His workshop was this attic with abundant light and air, its heavy rafters supporting a roof on which the Italian sun beat fiercely most days in the year. There is nothing pretentious about his workshop. A simple place from which he could look out over much of the town, it had the sun to help him, for it was the sun which distilled his oils and varnish. To-day few craftsmen would have patience to wait as Stradivari waited for his varnish to mature to a rich yellow or red, but Stradivari had time. His varnish dried go hard that even to-dav it is perfect, the tone of his finest violins being largely due to the quality of the varnish. The wind blew freely about bis workshop, and it was tlie wind and the sun together which dried and seasoned Ins instruments. After be bad shaped them and put the parts together, he would hang the bodies from nails in the massive beams over bis head. He never took a violin down too soon. He worked all day, bearing ihe church bells ring for matins and vespers, and he was too wise to make haste. (G)