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Pipe Dreams That Come True

Wendelin Eberle at Vienna's University of Music and Performing Arts, where his firm is currently installing a new instrument.
credit: Severin Koller for
The Wall Street Journal

The new pipe organ for the Great Hall of Vienna’s Musikverein, home of the Vienna Philharmonic, stands 36 feet high and weighs about 28 tons, with 6,138 pipes and tens of thousands of pieces. Operated both mechanically and electronically, it is as complicated as a small airplane.

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Date: May 3rd, 2013
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A Violin Once Owned by Goebbels Keeps Its Secrets

The Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, presenting a violin, said to be a Stradivarius, to Nejiko Suwa in 1943.
credit: Cegesoma Bruxelles

JOSEPH GOEBBELS, in a pinstripe suit, his hair slicked back, gave a simple but philosophical speech about the importance of music. Then, smiling, he handed over the violin to a young woman.

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Date: April 19th, 2013
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Flying with a cello is one traveler’s nightmare

Cellist Paul Katz

In a state of panic and fearing catastrophe, I am writing this midflight as I travel from Calgary, Alberta, to Los Angeles on American Airlines.

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Date: March 15th, 2013
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Concerto on the fly: Can classical musicians learn to improvise?

(Courtesy of The Birchmere) - Hilary Hahn and Hauschka.

Improvisation is supposed to be spontaneous. So it’s fitting that when Hilary Hahn did it for the first time, it was pretty much by accident.

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Date: November 16th, 2012
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Flute’s Revised Age Dates the Sound of Music Earlier

LOST AND FOUND Scientists say that this bone flute, found at Hohle Fels Cave in Germany, is at least 42,000 years old.
Credit : Jensen/University of Tubingen

In hillside caves of southwestern Germany, archaeologists in recent years have uncovered the beginnings of music and art by early modern humans migrating into Europe from Africa. New dating evidence shows that these oldest known musical instruments in the world, flutes made of bird bone and mammoth ivory, are even older than first thought.

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Date: October 10th, 2012
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Spider silk spun into violin strings

More than 300 spiders were used to generate the thousands of strands of silk making up each string

A Japanese researcher has used thousands of strands of spider silk to spin a set of violin strings.

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Date: June 20th, 2012
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Why Is It So Hard for New Musical Instruments to Catch On?

Composer and inventor Tod Machover poses with a Beatbug, a percussive instrument,
in a 2003 AP photo.

The turntable, invented 36 years ago, ranks as the most recently created music-making device with staying power. Have computers replaced the need for the next guitar?

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Date: May 9th, 2012
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Not Everyone’s in Tune Over Precious Violins

credit : Dave Yoder for The New York Times

IN a dimly lighted hotel room, violinists blinking through vision-obscuring welder’s goggles picked up six violins. One was a Guarnerius and two were Stradivariuses, among the most storied names in instrument making and considered the epitome of violins; three were modern.

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Date: April 25th, 2012
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In Classic vs. Modern Violins, Beauty Is in Ear of the Beholder

Christie’s/European Pressphoto Agency

What gives a violin made by Stradivari or Guarneri del Gesù its remarkable sound? Researchers have examined the wood preservatives, varnish, even the effects of the Little Ice Age on the density of wood, for anything that might explain the instruments’ almost magical properties.

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Date: March 28th, 2012
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Antique Stradivarius violin ‘replicated’ by radiologist

Dr Sirr's team have made three copies of Stradivarius violins so far

A Stradivarius violin has been “recreated” using an X-ray scanner normally used to detect cancers and injuries, according to researchers.

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Date: March 7th, 2012
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