Violin makers routinely finish their instruments with a thick coat of varnish, the better to protect and preserve the wood. Now Swiss scientists claim that this varnish also plays a role in the ...

One little trick and BAM, you’ve got yourself a brand-new string instrument. Violinist Esther Abrami has come up with a brilliant trick to make a violin sound like a cello: and literally all you have ...

The world’s best violins come with strings made from catgut—which isn’t typically from cats, but does definitely come from the inside of an animal. If you want a more vegetarian alternative, though, ...

SPIDERS can now give you goosebumps in a good way. This violin owes its thrilling sound to its strings – the first to be spun from spider silk. Shigeyoshi Osaki at Nara Medical University in Japan ...

A good violin depends on the expertise of the violin maker, but also on the quality of the wood that is used. Professor Francis W. M. R. Schwarze of th Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science ...

FRAN SCOTT: I love this piece. In fact I think it was the first bitof classical music that I ever heard. GREG FOOT: Ah yes Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It's got the best startto any piece of music ever ...