At 04:42 PM 5/23/2005, Alexander Batov wrote: >My information on the third (in our thread) Strad guitar is entirely based >on this book: Gianpaolo Gregori, La Chitarra "Giustiniani" Antonio >Stradivari 1681, Cremona 1998. It is a fairly thorough study with lots of >photographs and x-rays and the guitar appears to be of similar size to the >Ashmolean Strad; in author's opinion made on the same mould (body >measurements are really close). I would find it hard to question his >attribution of this guitar to anybody else but Stradivari. Moreover he >mentions the following: "Over the last eighteen years I have studied the >Stradivari guitars still in existence, and I have been able to ascertain the >existence of six instruments that are without doubt Stradivari's, in >addition to the fragment of a seventh, ...etc"
Marvelous. Do you have the publisher of this text on hand? Do you know if it's still available? Interesting that Gregori is so certain that the other three are authentic. Interesting that so few have joined him in this position or acknowledged that this may be so. I suppose if one is a curator/conservator charged with a Stradivari guitar, it's much more exciting to inform the world of the status quo, that yours is "one of two" rather than "one of six." While I don't have basis to doubt Sig. Gregori's attribution, it would be nice to have another set of eyes or few assess the instruments and weigh in with opinion. >There is also reference to his article (which I haven't got): "La harpe et >les guitares d'Antonio Stradivarius" in 'Musique Image Instruments. Nouveaux >timbres, nouvelles sensibilites au XVIII siecle (I-re partie), revue >francaise d'organologie et d'iconographie musicale', No 3, 1997 Is this the >one you had in mind? It is. >I do apologise if you know of this all already. No apology is ever required for so informed a post. Your opening paragraph is familiar now that you mention it, but only in part and it had retreated to somewhere in the back shelves of my cognition. ...And I have only read that Gregori's text exists (or, I think, was pending at the time); I haven't seen the book in person, but am very keen to. Thank you, Alexander. Best, Eugene To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
