**There has been some discussion of late about the wood used to make
violins by the Italian Masters. One suggestion I ran across, concerned
the use of waterlogged wood
[for some reason which I forget...]
Today, I ran into this blind trial of another wood treatment - as
relayed from a paragraph in "World Science":
Francis Schwarze of EMPA, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for
Materials Testing and Research, developed the new violin by
treating it with specially selected fungus, which he says improves
the sound quality by making the wood lighter and more uniform.
In the test, the British star violinist Matthew Trusler played five
different instruments behind a curtain, so that the audience
didn’t know which was being played. One of the violins Trusler
played was his own “Strad,” or instrument made by the most storied
violin maker of history, Antonio Stradivari, in Italy in the
18th century.
The other four were all made by Swiss violin maker Michael
Rhonheimer—two with Schwarze’s fungally-treated wood, the other two
with untreated wood.
A jury of experts, together with the conference participants,
judged the tone quality of the violins. Of the more than 180
attendees, almost half, or 90, felt the tone of a fungally treated
violin dubbed “Opus 58” the best. The Strad reached second place with
39 votes, but 113 members of the audience thought that “Opus 58” was
actually the Strad.
“Opus 58” was the one made from wood that had been treated with fungus
for the longest time, nine months, Schwarze said.
/snip/ Schwarze claims the master received inadvertent help from a
“Little Ice Age” which occurred from 1645 to 1715. During this
period Central Europe suffered long winters and cool summers
which caused trees to grow slowly and uniformly – creating ideal
conditions for the fungus to attack.
For the new violins, Schwarze uses Norwegian spruce wood treated
with the fungus / Physiporinus vitrius/ and sycamore treated with
/ Xylaria longipes/. /snip/ "
*****
I wonder if strains of such fungi can be obtained commercially?