La Micología en los medios. World Science: Fungus-treated violin beats Stradivarius in blind test

A re­search­er has put a newly de­vel­oped, fun­gally treated vi­o­lin in a blind con­test against one made in 1711 by the most famed vi­o­lin mak­er of his­to­ry—and the newer fid­dle won.

The event took place Sept. 1 at an an­nu­al con­fer­ence on for­est hus­band­ry, the Os­na­brück­er Baum­p­fle­ge­ta­gen, in Os­na­brück, Ger­ma­ny.
Sci­ent­ist Fran­cis Schwar­ze of EMPA, the Swiss Fed­er­al Lab­o­r­a­to­ries for Ma­te­ri­als Test­ing and Re­search, de­vel­oped the new vi­o­lin by treat­ing it with spe­cially se­lected fun­gus, which he says im­proves the sound qual­ity by mak­ing the wood light­er and more un­iform.
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For the new vi­o­lins, Schwar­ze uses Nor­we­gian spruce wood treated with the fun­gus Physi­spor­i­nus vit­rius and syc­a­more treated with Xy­laria lon­gipes.
The re­sult means that “in the fu­ture even tal­ent­ed young mu­si­cians will be able to af­ford a vi­o­lin with the same ton­al qual­ity as an im­pos­sibly ex­pen­sive Strad­i­var­i­us,” said Horst Heger of the Os­na­brück City Con­serv­a­tory. Schwarze said the new in­stru­ments would probably run about $25,000. “Com­pared to a con­ven­tion­al in­stru­ment, a vi­o­lin made of wood treated with the fun­gus has a warm­er, more round­ed sound” he added.

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Swiss vio­lin maker Mi­chael Rhon­heim­er with one of his “bio­tech” vio­lins.
(Pho­to: Em­pa)