The Violin Maker Part 6

Frances...o...b..ssolatti required no translation for that. "One secret," he responded immediately, holding up a finger. "The secret," he said, "is being able to do it."

This was as close as I would get to finding the spirit of Stradivari in Cremona. It was a spirit of practicality and practice. It was the spirit that propelled a man to labor for seven or eight decades at the same craft, every working day constricted by that craft's traditions, which, paradoxically, also meant being utterly free to experiment. Simone Sacconi wrote that "this craftsmanship had become a myth because it was not understood." But he hoped that his life's work, his book, would help violin makers to understand "the simple truth of a daily routine of work and of the use of techniques which contained nothing mysterious."

We said good-bye to all the Bissolattis and thanked them for their hospitality. We even said good-bye to the man who wasn't there. Marco led us out through the formal reception room, and we got one more look at the Master of Cremona, portrayed in bronze. I was going back to the shop in Brooklyn, where I knew Sam would soon be reaching the stage in making the Drucker violin that had always been the most mysterious of all.

Chapter 11.

VARNISHES AND VERY CURIOUS SECRETS.

FOR VIOLIN MAKERS, VARNISH IS LIKE s.e.x OR MONEY: A DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC OF ONE'S PERSONALITY THAT IS n.o.bODY ELSE'S BUSINESS.-Sam Zygmuntowicz By April, with a little more than a month until Gene Drucker's birthday and his promised delivery date, Sam had the Drucker violin nearly built. The "box"-ribs, belly, and back-was complete "in the white," the violin making term for a fiddle that is fully carved and sc.r.a.ped and has the light colored hue of new wood in a lumber yard because no varnish has been applied yet. Some more woodwork needed to be done. As he prepared to carve the neck and fingerboard, Sam e-mailed Gene to see if the violinist would like the neck made to the same specifications of his Stradivari, or if he could carve his standard Zygmuntowicz neck, which was very similar, but not an exact match. "We can always reshape the neck later," Sam wrote, "but I'd like to get it right the first time."

Drucker was touring Europe with the Emerson Quartet when he got the message. He responded that he was comfortable with his Strad neck but that he didn't normally pay a lot of attention to that detail. He did send Sam detailed information on what strings he was using, expressing a willingness to experiment with different strings on the new violin. Gene concluded his reply by writing, "I'm getting excited as the time approaches for a new violin-playing experience!"

So the violin maker got out his cutting tools and carved away everything that didn't look like a neck and fingerboard for this this fiddle. He attached the scroll and carved box that holds the pegs for string tuning to the top of the neck, and then put the whole apparatus onto the body of the violin. Now the new Drucker violin was ready to go through the process that has intrigued and confounded luthiers for centuries-varnishing. fiddle. He attached the scroll and carved box that holds the pegs for string tuning to the top of the neck, and then put the whole apparatus onto the body of the violin. Now the new Drucker violin was ready to go through the process that has intrigued and confounded luthiers for centuries-varnishing.

The Hill brothers, in their grand treatise on Stradivari, begin the chapter on varnish like this: "It is with considerable diffidence that we approach the much discussed subject.... We hope to place the matter before our readers in a truer light than that in which it has. .h.i.therto appeared, and thus to dispel much of the mystery in which the subject has been involved by the ever-ready pens and fluent tongues of the many self-const.i.tuted authorities."

I think what the brothers were trying to say in their polite Victorian diffidence was-Let's cut the bull. Though the Hills tried to dispel the long-held notion of some secret varnish recipe used by Stradivari, they couldn't stop themselves from intimating at its tantalizing possibility.

The Hills wrote of repeated discussions they'd had with a descendant of the master, one Giacomo Stradivari, who claimed that as a child he'd opened an old family Bible and found handwritten on a flyleaf a recipe for the perfect violin varnish and instructions on how to apply it. Giacomo said the date of the inscription was 1704, the beginning of Strad's Golden Period. He had copied it out of that Bible, which was later lost. Though a number of people-including Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume-offered Giacomo a lot of money to share the transcribed recipe, he always demurred, saying that he would keep it to himself in case anyone in the Stradivari family decided to take up the craft again. It would give his kin an immediate compet.i.tive advantage. Giacomo Stradivari died before the Hills completed their book, and no recipe was ever found. Perhaps Giacomo had just been having fun and the story of the recipe was a hoax; perhaps it was a great loss for luthiers.

Brushing aside their tantalizing brush with "the secret," the Hills concluded that Antonio Stradivari simply did with varnish what he did in all other aspects of his craft: practiced the traditional techniques that had been handed down to him, but did it with such single-minded devotion and skill that the final result was, as the Hills liked to say, ne plus ultra. Even for the cautious and conservative Englishmen, Strad's varnish inspired some paroxysms of prototypical fiddle p.o.r.n. Like this pa.s.sage from their book describing the varnish of Stradivari's best instruments: "Lightness of texture, and transparency combined with brilliant yet subdued coloring...picturesque and attractive in the highest degree."

It was commonly accepted, though, that something something was lost within a generation or so after Stradivari's death. The Cremonese way of varnishing disappeared for several reasons. Primary was the fact that the master-apprentice chain was broken in the town where the trade had reached its apotheosis. The Hills believed that within that Cremonese tradition, each pract.i.tioner had his preferences and tricks. They could be called secrets, but they were open secrets. The real problem in matching the work of the masters was that "the spirit of artistic emulation which existed in Cremona...had died out." To revive it would require historical detective work, retracing steps back to the original techniques. was lost within a generation or so after Stradivari's death. The Cremonese way of varnishing disappeared for several reasons. Primary was the fact that the master-apprentice chain was broken in the town where the trade had reached its apotheosis. The Hills believed that within that Cremonese tradition, each pract.i.tioner had his preferences and tricks. They could be called secrets, but they were open secrets. The real problem in matching the work of the masters was that "the spirit of artistic emulation which existed in Cremona...had died out." To revive it would require historical detective work, retracing steps back to the original techniques.

That is exactly what Simone Sacconi did relentlessly for six decades of the twentieth century. When Sacconi was writing his his treatise, the subject of varnish still attracted as many "ever-ready pens and fluent tongues." Much had been written and discussed and guessed at in those hundred years that pa.s.sed between the two great studies of Stradivari. The depth and complexity of the research was greatly expanded by modern chemical a.n.a.lyses, which yielded lots of data but no definitive answers. Lingering still was a sense that when it came to varnishing, there was a holy grail just waiting to be found. treatise, the subject of varnish still attracted as many "ever-ready pens and fluent tongues." Much had been written and discussed and guessed at in those hundred years that pa.s.sed between the two great studies of Stradivari. The depth and complexity of the research was greatly expanded by modern chemical a.n.a.lyses, which yielded lots of data but no definitive answers. Lingering still was a sense that when it came to varnishing, there was a holy grail just waiting to be found.

Sacconi knew all this and seemed to understand the common human need to fill in blank s.p.a.ces with elaborate doodling. "Since the luthiers and the antique traders of the last century were unable to explain the quality of the sound of Stradivari's instruments," Sacconi wrote, "they told stories of unknowable secrets."

On the last day of April, which began as a gray spring morning with a strong damp wind, I showed up at Sam's workshop to find the chair at his workbench empty. Wiltrud was working at her spot nearby with her usual concentration. When she finally noticed me she pointed toward the small room at the far left corner of the shop-the varnishing room. In my many days at the workshop, I'd only stuck my head inside that room once, on my initial tour of the place. As much as I'd studied the Hills' and Sacconi's books and accepted their debunking of the legends and mysteries surrounding Strad's varnish, as I tapped on the closed door it was difficult not to feel that I was asking to be let into a chamber full of secrets.

Sam was wearing his usual cool weather outfit-flannel shirt, dark chinos, and sandals on top of heavy socks. He had on a shop ap.r.o.n, which I'd only seen him wear a few times before. The room was bright but cramped, with shelves and tables loaded with jars of different colored liquids. There was a small worktable with the requisite architect's lamp clamped on the corner. Two large cabinets loomed on either side of where Sam was perched on a stool. One was an old mahogany armoire; the other a homemade beech-veneered plywood cabinet of similar size. The door of the old armoire was cracked open a few inches, and I could see that the cabinet was filled with long fluorescent light tubes and silver reflective Mylar. Violins hung from wires strung inside. These were light boxes, where Sam could speed along the natural aging and coloring and drying for which poor old Strad would have had to rely on low-tech sunlight. I thought back to that famous letter I'd looked at in the stultifying Museo di Stradivari in Cremona: "I beg you will forgive the delay with the violin, occasioned by the varnishing of the large cracks, that the sun may not re-open them." Sam did not depend solely on the sunlight of the Lombardy plain, nor did he have a sacred napping cot with a polar bear blanky so that he could take an afternoon siesta and impart his spirit into the drying violins. Considering the weight of tradition in his craft, these light boxes seemed a bold move toward modernity. Sam had to push his stool back to get the door open wide enough to let me into the varnish room. He got right to the point.

"I think I got the whole thing together on Friday," Sam told me. "Then I spent part of Sat.u.r.day finishing the neck. I think I got it done done done in the white sometime on Sat.u.r.day. Now it's in the light box. I washed it with a very light wash of pigment to seal it a little bit."

He opened the light box and pulled the Drucker fiddle down from where it hung. Sam held the violin out toward me, cradling the instrument like a baby, with one hand supporting the head of the scroll and another cupping the bottom. I'd seen a number of violins in the white around the shop. They were interesting and beautiful objects already, but there was a distinct blandness about them. An important character seemed to be missing. The violin, with just this early wash of pigment, had acquired a light cinnamon color, and a distinct shine. Sam rocked and turned the instrument.

"The wash put a texture right there in the channel," he said. "The ribs have a wave in them as well. And the spruce has a little bit of a corduroy texture now. Look at the scroll. Now you can see little tool marks."

He pointed to the twisting nautilus spirals cut into the wood, and sure enough, little stepped indentations were visible, giving evidence of how he'd worked his small wood chisel around the curve.

"These are not parts of the decoration," Sam said. "They're artifacts of the making process. I like to leave them. Some makers will sand them off or sc.r.a.pe them off. There's different styles. This is not intended to be a copy-copy of a specific instrument, but it's a Guarneri style, and I'm sort of letting myself go a little bit more in that direction. The scroll is a little more sculpted, and there's a little more tool marking than I might do on a Strad model. Lately I like to work that way better. It's a mix of highly finished surfaces and visible tool work.

"This is a cool moment to see a violin," Sam told me. "In fact, this is my favorite moment to see it. It goes from inanimate and quite dull-a nice matte and creamy-and then it's like when they turn the electricity on with Frankenstein. He jolts to life. With any luck this violin is going to wake up."

He stuck the violin back on the wire in the light box and turned back to the worktable. "I'm just going to get my brushes and tools together and start picking out the different sauces."

Before I'd left Cremona, while browsing in a bookstore dedicated to lutherie near the International Violin Making School, I'd found a little boxed paperback book called Varnishes and Very Curious Secrets: Cremona 1747 Varnishes and Very Curious Secrets: Cremona 1747. Even though it seemed absurdly expensive-forty euros-I bought it immediately. It turned out to be the translation of a text printed originally in Stradivari's hometown ten years after the master died, consisting of a series of recipes for varnishes for general use, like preparing paintings, or carved church pews, or, perhaps, finishing a violin. In an introduction to the original material, the book's twentieth-century editor, Vincenzo Gheroldi, describes a fact of eighteenth-century life of which I'd been completely unaware. People-for fun!-experimented with pigments and varnishes. The practice was a "cultural phenomenon," Gheroldi explains, that one priest of the day described as "virtuous entertainment."

How our notions of entertainment have changed. Maybe I'd gone a little native in the wilds of violin making, because it wasn't difficult for me to understand how, without television, someone would put away the dinner dishes, retire to the study, and mix up a batch of, say, a concoction called bistre. bistre. The recipe is as follows: The recipe is as follows: Refine as much as possible chimney soot, adding to it the urine of a child; put it into a gla.s.s, fill it with clear water, carefully mix using a stick, then let it rest. When most of the sediment has settled on the bottom, gently pour this liquid into another gla.s.s and let it rest for four days; what settles on the bottom of the gla.s.s is the best bistre. Repeat this procedure three times to remove sediment from any colour to be used on paper. the gla.s.s is the best bistre. Repeat this procedure three times to remove sediment from any colour to be used on paper.

Somehow, I could easily imagine Stradivari doing that. I asked Sam if he mixed his own varnishes, without mentioning the use of the urine of a child.

"It used to be that if you wanted decent varnish you had to make it yourself," he said. "Now there are people who are making some very useable varnishes, which I've used occasionally, at least as a subingredient. I still cook my own. It's kind of like making a caramel." Sam was reaching around the table, pushing aside gla.s.s jars with different-colored stuff inside. Some of the jars had labels on them with dates.

"There's different batches here made at different times with slightly different ingredients," he said. "I'm not even sure where the chart is that is the key to what they are, so I don't know anymore what the exact ingredients are. But it hasn't varied much. Basically, the base of it is stuff that comes out of pine trees. That's what they make turpentine from. That's what they make rosin from. Between those two products you can make a lot of things."

He picked up one jar with "93" written on it, then picked up another unmarked jar. Both held viscous stuff that looked a little like maple syrup. "These are from the same batch, but one was cooked for quite a while. One I call 'medium' and you can see that the one cooked longer is darker." He held the jars up toward the weak gray light coming through the windows. "Even though the stuff is thick," Sam said, "it's still very transparent, very clear, very glow-ey."

So, I asked Sam, is this the kind of varnish that all violin makers use? It turned out that what I was about to see was one of three steps in the varnishing process. varnishing process. What laymen thought of as the varnish on a violin actually consisted of a first coat that soaked into the wood, called the ground; a second layer of something that was impervious; then coats of actual varnish. What laymen thought of as the varnish on a violin actually consisted of a first coat that soaked into the wood, called the ground; a second layer of something that was impervious; then coats of actual varnish.

When Sam realized that, like most people, I was not aware of the stages of the process, he put the jars down and was quiet for a moment, like he was collecting his thoughts.

"We have to back up and go through the whole subject of ground," he began. "The ground is the most disputed and, I think, the most critical aspect, both for appearance and sound. I've done a few things to the wood already in terms of getting a patina on it. There's a little bit of natural oxidation on the surface. I washed on a little bit of natural pigment to get a little bit of color going. Now the fiddle is more or less like a prepared canvas. Whatever it is that goes on there first is what gets absorbed into the wood. So you kind of have one main go at getting it right." I could tell that this was another of those times where I was going to speak little and listen a lot.

"The first thing to understand," Sam continued, "is that if there is something to this whole mystery of the varnish thing, actually a lot of old fiddles-Strads as well as Guarneris and lots of others-have virtually none-none-of what we would normally call varnish left on them. Very, very often on old violins the varnish is just gone gone. It's been worn off and thinned down.

"So, if the varnish proper varnish proper had that much to do with the sound you would say that a more worn violin wouldn't sound as good because it doesn't have that much varnish. But that's not the case. Even when the varnish wears off, what you would think you'd be looking at is bare wood. But what you're looking at has quite a lot of depth and fire visually-and color. So there's something on there that has penetrated the wood and doesn't come off easily. had that much to do with the sound you would say that a more worn violin wouldn't sound as good because it doesn't have that much varnish. But that's not the case. Even when the varnish wears off, what you would think you'd be looking at is bare wood. But what you're looking at has quite a lot of depth and fire visually-and color. So there's something on there that has penetrated the wood and doesn't come off easily.

"That's really the main thing I know about the ground. It penetrates into the wood. There's a quality that good instruments have, of having a shine when you turn the instrument in the light. The wood is reflective and also very refractive. When it works really well you can look through the wood almost like you've got a magnifying gla.s.s and it's like there's a lightbulb inside of it. That's a look I like."

Sam reached across his table and grabbed a jar full of an amber, waxy-looking stuff. He twisted off the lid and pushed it toward my nose. I sniffed, and it smelled a little flowery.

"Isn't that nice?" he asked. "That's propylis. It's something bees use to seal the hive. When beekeepers clean the hive they throw it away. Sacconi popularized it. I used to use it. You'd get this crud and soak it in alcohol, and a lot of wax and c.r.a.p sinks to the bottom and you decant off this very pure material. It is a lovely color. It made a lovely ground. But it's actually very slow drying and I don't think it ever gets really crisp. So I don't use it anymore.

"Now, in Germany, in Mittenwald, they put pure linseed oil on the whole instrument and soak it on-quite a lot! And then you're supposed to let the instrument hang, for like a year, supposedly, is what they recommend. It's gorgeous, a very lovely finish. And it's very protected.

"But one of the characteristics of linseed oil is that it dries kind of leathery. So from the point of view of use it's good-you could sweat on the violin directly without hurting anything-but in terms of improving the vibration it actually does the opposite. It m.u.f.fles things. The fiddle might sound very sweet, but it would lack a little of that sizzle."

Sam kept talking as he reached back into the light box to retrieve the Drucker fiddle. He talked of his mentor Rene Morel, who told Sam tales of his early days in America, working under Sacconi in the restoration and repair shop at the famous House of Wurlitzer shop on Forty-second Street in Manhattan, and how the other craftsmen there would hide their varnishes at night to keep their coworkers from discovering any secrets. During Sam's time with the Frenchman, he and Morel discussed varnishing a lot. Morel would talk about the best character of a ground and what it should do. He had cooked up what he considered a perfect "sauce." And there the sharing stopped. Morel refused to tell Sam exactly what was in it.

"I do believe what I'm doing here was inspired by Rene," Sam said as he reached around the table for his own sauce, pushing jars back and forth with increasing frustration. Finally, he found it. "Here it was right in front of me the whole time," he said, picking up a jar. I chose that moment to interrupt his disquisition and ask what was in the sauce. And in keeping with Morel's tradition-what by now was a centuries-old tradition-Sam refused to tell me.

I felt I didn't need to remind him that he'd written an article for the trade magazine called Strings Strings in which he had described attending a gathering of violin makers in Puerto Rico that was dedicated to the idea of sharing varnishing "secrets," and creating a new world where, as Sam wrote, the "closed door atmosphere is starting to yield." For a few minutes I tried gently to get the closed-door atmosphere in our little closed-door room to yield, to no avail. in which he had described attending a gathering of violin makers in Puerto Rico that was dedicated to the idea of sharing varnishing "secrets," and creating a new world where, as Sam wrote, the "closed door atmosphere is starting to yield." For a few minutes I tried gently to get the closed-door atmosphere in our little closed-door room to yield, to no avail.

"It's just one of those things," Sam said finally, letting me know that the discussion would go no further. "A good magician never tells all his tricks."

I can report this: the jar of sauce he used was labeled 13B MEDIUM D DARK.

Sam rubbed 13B Medium Dark onto the unfinished Drucker violin with a cloth, at first using very light strokes and putting on just a fine layer of color.

"This wood is quite interesting," he said at one point. "It was soft when I was working with it and I was worried I could overstain it. But that's not happening at all. I could whack this thing even harder. It's not particularly absorbent." Eventually he switched to using a brush. It was a small brush with short dark bristles made from the hair of a squirrel. It looked as if it had seen a lot of fiddles.

"I've had this for about twenty years," Sam said. "Which shows you how cheap I am."

Soon he cast aside the squirrel-hair brush and started smearing 13B Medium Dark onto the fiddle with his fingers. "I'm not sure OSHA would approve of my material-handling techniques," he told me, "but I'm a ravening beast when I varnish." He switched on the architect's lamp, revealing that it contained not a normal lightbulb but a heat lamp. It quickly got so hot being near it that I had to move my stool back from the worktable. Sam put on a big pair of tinted safety gla.s.ses that looked as if OSHA would approve. He moved in closer to the lamp.

"I'm kind of melting it into the violin," he said. "This needs to happen with time, but you can get a little head start with this lamp. I'm almost cooking it in, really impregnating the wood." As he worked, little wisps of smoke floated out of the violin through the f-holes. I wondered if he'd ever had a fiddle burst into flames but didn't think it was the proper time to ask.

I did ask Sam if he ever changed the nature or substance of what he used for the ground coat to try to achieve some different kind of sound from one of his violins. He kept stroking on "varnish" with his now completely stained fingers.

"This particular operation I don't vary much," he said. "I don't know if it's true, but I started using this sauce and I have a belief that this in part has something to do with the tone that I achieve with my instruments and I'm kind of scared to change it.

"I think I've tried to convey this to you in a lot of different ways," he continued. "But one doesn't always know why something works, and it's spooky. You keep asking yourself, Shouldn't I know? Shouldn't I know? But you don't know But you don't know which which ingredient is the active ingredient in all this. And without extensive testing of every little aspect on and on and on, keeping all other factors the same-which never happens-you never really do know. ingredient is the active ingredient in all this. And without extensive testing of every little aspect on and on and on, keeping all other factors the same-which never happens-you never really do know.

"So, I have a feeling for the way these instruments tend to vibrate. When I apply this ground I can squeeze the instrument, and there's this little snap-crackle-pop. It just sounds crisp.

"This material that I'm using, I feel like it just crawls into the wood and becomes one with the wood. This spruce was so soft and powdery when I worked on it-this ground is going to glue all those fibers together. It's not glue per se, but it'll have that effect. It's going to make the surface of the wood feel stronger, and hopefully that will make the material even more responsive to the tiny little vibrations. It'll have more of that sizzle-y kind of vibration when it's played, which gives a more complex, shaped sound."

Sam stopped rubbing ground into the violin, wiped his hands on a rag and on his ap.r.o.n. A little over an hour had pa.s.sed since he'd started, and sure enough, the fiddle had awakened, Frankenstein-like. There was a life and character to it. The surface was still a little wet, and as Sam cradled it in his hands again and rocked it back and forth the light bounced off its various surfaces, making the flamed maple of the back seem almost three-dimensional, showing a depth and texture in the parallel grain of the spruce belly. Sam hung the Drucker violin back in the light box.

"All right," he said. "Now you have gone where few have gone before you."

I felt both privileged and stymied. Going anywhere anywhere in this topsy-turvy world of violin making seemed so often like going down the proverbial rabbit hole. It wasn't any different with "varnish." Today I had learned that in this important process, as with so many other parts of building a fiddle, the real secret was that there was no secret. I was getting accustomed to that revelation. Yes, these varnish secrets were very curious indeed. All along in this topsy-turvy world of violin making seemed so often like going down the proverbial rabbit hole. It wasn't any different with "varnish." Today I had learned that in this important process, as with so many other parts of building a fiddle, the real secret was that there was no secret. I was getting accustomed to that revelation. Yes, these varnish secrets were very curious indeed. All along this this secret had been hiding in plain sight. What people had for centuries thought of as varnish was really just a kind of makeup that covered the skin underneath. And the important part of the beauty of a violin, both in sight and sound, really was skin deep, in the pores of the wood. secret had been hiding in plain sight. What people had for centuries thought of as varnish was really just a kind of makeup that covered the skin underneath. And the important part of the beauty of a violin, both in sight and sound, really was skin deep, in the pores of the wood.

I would go home that night and reread Sir James Beament's chapter on varnish in The Violin Explained The Violin Explained. He had become my clear-eyed, no-nonsense go-to guy. Beament's a.n.a.lysis of varnish went all the way down to the chemical level, describing chains of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen molecules. But I always returned to the Cambridge don for a knowing, skeptical global view.

The cla.s.sical makers of Cremona, Beament wrote, "can have known no more about why varnish worked than why their wooden boxes did." Varnish, Beament concluded, since it was the most cosmetic part of a fiddle, had provoked a phenomenon that is still being used by the cosmetics industry-convincing people that there must be a secret ingredient that enhanced physical beauty, or, in the case of the violin, created a beautiful sound.

Before I left Sam's shop that day, we talked about the end run toward finishing the Drucker fiddle. With the ground on, he would leave it in the light box to dry for a week or more. Then he would apply several layers of what he had called varnish proper varnish proper, maybe three or four coats total. They would also need to dry. Then he'd go over the brand-new fiddle to make it look like it was a few hundred years old. Gene Drucker had ordered-and was willing to pay extra for-an "antiqued" violin. In the top echelons of the cla.s.sical music world, no fiddle player wanted an instrument that looked new, even if a top living maker crafted it. Such was the strength of the cult of old age.

"If I finish the varnishing and get it dry by Mother's Day," Sam said, "I'm prepared to be gonzo about it and do a marathon antiquing session. Really go at it. I could have the fiddle ready for Gene by his birthday party. It's doable."

Chapter 12.

DELIVERY.

He did it.

The next time I went to Brooklyn, as I trudged up the now-familiar four flights of stairs to Sam's shop, I could hear the sound of a violin-beautifully played-get louder and louder. On the top landing, I stood behind the door for a moment before walking in, listening to a pa.s.sage from one of the Bach part.i.tas. I'd heard Sam test violins many times, and though he is a very competent fiddler, it certainly was not him playing. The music stopped and a voice inside said, "Wow. Wow! That's really great." I went in.

Sam was leaning against the baby grand piano, where two violins rested on their backs. Wiltrud was perched on the arm of one of the worn sofas. In the middle of the room stood a neatly but casually dressed middle-aged Asian man, a violin in his hand. This was Cho-Liang Lin, whom nearly everyone calls Jimmy. He is one of the top violin soloists in the world. Strings Strings magazine described him as a "splendid Taiwan-born virtuoso, renowned for his soulful expression of emotion in cla.s.sic, romantic, and modern music." Like Gene Drucker, he was trained at Juilliard, where he worked with Dorothy DeLay, one of the most famous and respected violin teachers of this century. magazine described him as a "splendid Taiwan-born virtuoso, renowned for his soulful expression of emotion in cla.s.sic, romantic, and modern music." Like Gene Drucker, he was trained at Juilliard, where he worked with Dorothy DeLay, one of the most famous and respected violin teachers of this century.

Early in his career, Lin had played on several Stradivari instruments. None of them completely satisfied his needs. Then, as he told Strings Strings, "I saw the 1734 'Duc de Camposelice' Guarneri 'del Gesu' in the Charles Beare shop in London and fell in love with it." He managed to buy it. But the violinist was not so in love with his del Gesu that he didn't realize that it, like many old fiddles, was p.r.o.ne to getting out of sorts when subjected to the demands of quick international travel. I had met Lin in Sam's shop once before, and he'd told me of going from a concert in frigid and snowy Montreal to another in hot, humid San Antonio. After nursing his 250-year-old fiddle through the harsh changes, Lin decided to commission a modern instrument from Sam, and he began to entrust Sam with maintenance of his del Gesu.

Sam had told Strings Strings, "As a person he's extremely gracious-when you meet him, you feel he's an almost natural aristocrat, with an old-fashioned graciousness. The new violin he's commissioned from me was designed in terms of his playing style, the personal way a player has of drawing out sound from a string. I don't rely on recordings for that kind of thing. When he comes to my studio, he plays for me. I wouldn't rely on electronic equipment for that."

Today, Jimmy Lin was in Brooklyn to pick up his Guarneri, which had been in the shop for some maintenance. Sam took the opportunity to have him test the just-finished Drucker fiddle. It was just a few days before Gene's birthday party, where the violin would be ceremoniously delivered.

The Drucker violin looked quite different from the last time I'd seen it, when Sam finished his brush-and-fingertip application of the ground coat and stuck it into the light box to dry. Before applying the "varnish proper," he'd put on a coat of amber, which is a very tough resin. The purpose was to create what he called an "isolating layer" on the fiddle, so that subsequent coats of varnish could not impregnate the pores of the wood.

Then, Sam reported, "I used an oil varnish with a resin component, and cooked it to make it dryer and more colorful." The color was an orange-brown, with more of the golden brown color coming through. "I figured that would look nice," Sam said.

As he applied the varnish proper, Sam simultaneously started to "antique" the instrument, trying to make the brand-new fiddle appear to have hundreds of years of use and wear. It is not as controversial as the tension in a ba.s.s-bar, but luthiers argue over the propriety of antiquing a new violin. Some violin makers refuse to antique a new instrument, arguing that, at the least, it perpetuates the cult of old age that permeates their world; some go as far as to say it is dishonest to make a new instrument look old.

Sam Zygmuntowicz is a very practical craftsman who realizes that his clients want instruments that appear old, and in the tradition of his father, the laundryman, he gives customers what they want. Besides, he told me, the antiqued instrument had more character and was more interesting to look at than a pristine, perfectly varnished new instrument. "Once you've worked with old fiddles," Sam said, "it's hard to get used to working with new, straight varnish. One of the things that makes old instruments look so interesting is the few little nicks and the added contrast."

To achieve the result of making new look old, Sam developed a technique of taking the pristine fiddle and giving it decades worth of wear in a day-sort of like time-lapse photography.

"To the extent possible," he told me, "I try to emulate the real wear that happens. While I'm varnishing it I start to wear it in realistic ways-hand abrasion, thumbnail chips, scratches, a lot of handling. Then I'll put a film over it, a light wash of rosin that has a yellow, brown, and gray in it naturally.

"I'll add a little lampblack from a candle to that, a very thin wash that you're almost not aware of. I used to just burn a candle on a hot plate and dip my brush in it. Because that's where a lot of contrast in the old fiddles actually came from: being in houses lit by lamps and candles and heated with fireplaces. Soot was in the air."

Now, in the studio, Jimmy Lin held the Drucker fiddle against his neck and played a bit of a violin concerto. I could recognize the melody but couldn't name it offhand. He put down the Drucker and picked up his Guarneri and played the same pa.s.sage.

"I don't know," Lin said.

"Which one was that?" Wiltrud asked.

"It was the Guarneri," Sam told her.

"Does it sound like it's worth four million dollars more?" Jimmy Lin asked.

n.o.body in the room dared to answer the question.

A few days later, I snuck into the upstairs club called Fez at a restaurant called Time Cafe on Broadway on the Upper West Side. Gene Drucker's wife, Roberta, had planned a surprise party for her husband's fiftieth birthday, and I knew that if Gene saw me, he'd really know something was up. The room was already crowded with people, and I recognized the other three players from the Emerson, and Sam and his wife, Liza, over in the corner.

Gene arrived with Roberta a few moments later and seemed genuinely surprised. There was singing and applause and congratulations. And then Sam stood up and called for the room to hush. He walked with a violin case to the front of the room, near the bar, opened the case, and pulled out the new violin. Later, he would tell me that he was very nervous preparing to play a violin solo in front of a big group of top-level cla.s.sical musicians.

Sam tucked the violin under his chin, raised the bow, and performed a fiddle tune called "West Virginia Gals." He received warm applause from the crowd while Gene strode to where Sam stood and received the fiddle. He turned the fiddle around to see it himself and show it to the crowd. He played a few short pa.s.sages and then put it back in the case. Through the rest of the party many of his friends would take a chance at playing the new instrument. In fact, the violin moved around the room like a brilliant and attractive party guest, and every time I looked there was a small knot of people around it, giving the fiddle their undivided attention.

Now the Drucker violin belonged to Drucker. n.o.body, least of all the violinist or the violin maker, knew how he would react to it. As I was leaving the party, I stopped to look at the new fiddle one last time. It was momentarily alone, lying on a table near the door, and even in the murky light of the nightclub it was beautiful; its glowing brown varnish had a patina of age, and when I rocked it a bit, the light hit on the facets of tool work that Sam had left on the carved spiral of the scroll. How I wished I could pick up this violin and throw off a pa.s.sage from the Bach part.i.tas. I'd spent so many hours with the pieces of wood that made up this finished fiddle. Silly as it seemed, I couldn't help feeling a pang of regret and nostalgia, now that it was finished, as if it were a child going off to college.

The case sat nearby, and it was then that I noticed Sam had made a b.u.mper sticker and stuck it onto the side. It read: MY MY OTHER OTHER FIDDLE IS A STRAD FIDDLE IS A STRAD.