Fungi-Infested Violin Beats Strad

The five instruments played during a sound test in Germany, including two made from wood treated with fungi and a stradivarius. (Visually, there is very little difference between them.) Credit: Egmont Seiler.

A violin made of wood treated with a fungus just bested the real McCoy — a Stradivarius crafted by the great master himself in 1711 — in a sound test in front of 180 people.

The fungi-infested violins were created by Francis Schwarze of the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research and the Swiss violin maker Michael Rhonheimer.

In the test, which took place at a conference on forest husbandry in Germany (called “Osnabrücker Baumpflegetagen"), British violinist Matthew Trusler played five different instruments behind a curtain to keep the audience blinded.

Trusler played his own strad (worth $2 million) and four violins made by Rhonheimer, two of which were made with fungally-treated wood. A jury of experts, together with the conference participants, judged the tone quality of the violins.

Out of the more than 180 attendees, 90 indicated the tone of the fungally treated violin, Opus 58, to be the best. Trusler's stradivarius snagged second place with 39 votes. And surprisingly, 113 attendees thought the Opus 58 was actually the strad.

The Opus 58 had been treated with fungus for the longest time, nine months. (The scientists let fungus grow on slabs of wood that would later be morphed into instruments for six to nine months, according to Discovery News.)

Here's how the scientists think it works: Fungi don't produce their own food, but instead degrade rotting tree trunks and leaf material to obtain energy and nutrients. The fungal attack actually changes the cell structure of the wood, reducing its density and simultaneously increasing its homogeneity. "Compared to a conventional instrument, a violin made of wood treated with the fungus has a warmer, more rounded sound,” Schwarze said.

This isn't the first time someone has tried to recreate a strad's sound. Violins made by the Italian master Antonio Giacomo Stradivarius are regarded as being of unparalleled quality even today. And so, researchers and music enthusiasts alike have tried to decipher the source of its smooth sound. In fact, studies have suggested strads were made from chemically treated wood.

Read the full story at Discovery News.

• Legendary Violins Were Chemically Treated
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