The Ukranian-American virtuoso played four priceless instruments in his career. But one Strad was his favorite, and he renamed it for his wife.

The virtuoso violinist Nathan Mironovich Milstein (1903-1992) had a remarkable career by many indicators – his training, his colleagues, his interpretations of works from the Romantic period, and his own life journey from the Ukraine to America during a tumultuous era. Among his many distinctions is the fact he performed in concert up to the…

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Neither a musician nor a maker of musical instruments, this deeply shy writer traversed America to meet luthiers face-to-face and describe their work.



It was published more than 30 years ago, and all copies sit within a fine Moroccan goatskin cover. It’s available through the standard (today) online booksellers, starting at $180 per copy from its limited run. And somewhat like the 3,500 luthiers it documents in an encyclopedic format, “The Violin Makers of the United States” by… Continue

Great violins last hundreds of years, so perhaps a ten-year wait for wood to age isn’t so bad for violinmakers. But scientists hope to speed things up.



The nature of violinmaking is that the mastery thereof is part science, part art – and lots of patience. Just looking at one aspect of the process, determining if the raw wood has sufficiently aged, illustrates this point.



The reason wood – spruce for the soundboard and maple for the bridge (ebony and rosewood are typically… Continue