Antonio Stradivari: His Life and Work

by Alfred Ebsworth Hill, Arthur Frederick Hill, William Henry Hill, et al.

Book Overview

Leading appraisers of fine musical instruments agree that in the art of making violins, no one has ever gone beyond the achievement of Antonio Stradivari. The incomparable visual beauty of his instruments and the infinite variety and magnificence of tone of which they are capable have by this time passed into the realm of legend. Collectors have paid many thousands of dollars for one of Stradivari's violins. It is strange, but true, that only one...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486204251
• ISBN13: 9780486204253
• Release Date: June 1963
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

It remains the definitive text a century later

The style may seem quaint, but if you have spent any time at all reading scholarly works from this time period, you will find that Hill's prose is far from unreadable. By and large, I continue to find Hill's style to be readily approachable after 3 decades worth of repeated readings. In any case, the prose is not what makes this work invaluable. Like another reviewer stated, you cannot do any study of Stradivari instruments without first consulting Hill, and Hill remains the foundation of all scholarly work concerning Stradivari, even a century later. While not exactly for laymen, nonetheless this book is relatively accessible to those who have only a passing knowledge in stringed instruments. For those more expert, Hill remains the essential starting point. If you have a young violinist in your family, I would recommend this book as a gift. I still have my decades-old book, received one Christmas long long ago, and I am glad that I got it.

One of the essential texts

This is perhaps the most important book ever published relating to the topics of violin making and the unchallenged greatest maker of all times. The Hills are the most respected scholars, ever, of the violin, and this was a landmark publication in 1902 and remains so. Under the quaint language is the information that subsequent scholars have used as the basis of their understanding of Stradivari's work (and stolen for the basis of many of their own articles and books), and almost everything written in the book is still considered accurate--an unprecedented event in violin publishing, where there's much more myth than fact in many books, especially those of the past, many of which are essentially fiction posing as non-fiction. There is simply no reason not to own this book if you are interested in violins.