Stradivari's Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection

It is said that Antonio Stradivari’s single-minded pursuit of excellence changed the world of music. In the course of his long career in Cremona, Italy, he created more than a thousand stringed instruments, among which approximately six hundred survive. Their quality is unequalled by any subsequent violin maker. In this interesting book, Toby Faber traces the rich, multilayered stories of six of Stradivari’s creations: five violins and a cello. Blending history, biography, meticulous detective work, and an abiding passion for music, Faber takes us from the salons of Vienna to the concert halls of New York, and from the breakthroughs of Beethoven’s last quartets to the first phonographic recordings. This magnificent narrative invites us to share the life, the intrigue, and the incomparable beauty of the world’s most marvelous stringed instruments.

265 pages; 8 x 5 inches; paperbound