THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 20, 1995 TAG: 9511180077
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARK MORRISON, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
LENGTH: Long : 153 lines
NATURAL BRIDGE STATION
THE BOTTLED concoctions percolating behind his shop like something out of a mad scientist's laboratory offer the first clue that Sam Compton is no ordinary mountain fiddle maker.
And that his quest is no ordinary quest.
But this story doesn't really start with Sam Compton and his bubbling brews. It dates to 1644, Cremona, Italy, and the birth of Antonio Stradivari, who would become the greatest violin maker the world ever produced - and who would leave behind a mystery that has perplexed mankind since the Renaissance.
What was his secret?
The mystery involves unknown varnish recipes, lumber from the Alps, ammonia fumes, ozone chambers, a rocket scientist and something called Eigenmode patterns.
A seemingly unsolvable mystery.
That is, until now.
Well, maybe.
Enter Sam Compton. Compton runs a little-known violin shop in Rockbridge County, and he believes he is on the brink of duplicating something extraordinarily close to a Stradivarius violin.
Logically, Compton, 40, shouldn't be in this position. He was raised in Tulsa, Okla., the only child of an oil executive and a school teacher, neither of whom were musical. Brainy in school, Compton took only one year of shop class, and never imagined that someday he might work with his hands, the drill presses and band saws that are now his stock in trade.
In college, he double majored in biology and bio-medical chemistry. After college, he worked for seven discontented years in a hospital neuro-trauma unit.
The only real prelude to Compton's obsession were the violin lessons he took in his youth, and a later stint in the Tulsa Pops.
Compton has been a luthier - a person who makes stringed instruments - for more than 15 years. At first, it was a calling he chose because the lifestyle appealed to him. He had visited a mandolin maker who seemed so satisfied toiling away the hours with sawdust underfoot and musical beauty on his mind. Compton enjoys the luxury of an inheritance from his late father so he doesn't share the money worries of other violin makers.
The design of his first violin was drawn from his readings from among the hundreds of books on violin making. It's the only one of his own violins that he has kept, as a reminder of how far he has come.
He built other violins, but none would ever measure up after he had his first chance to play one of the famed Stradivarius instruments. It happened at a violin makers convention in Minneapolis.
``I figured all the fillings were going to fall out of my teeth,'' he says.
They didn't. What he discovered instead was that, as sweet and wonderful as that Stradivarius sounded, it wasn't really anything magical. It was just a violin, made of wood and glue like any violin - like something he might build himself. Attainable, he thought.
Then he read an article in the October 1981 issue of Scientific American about a device that measures something called Eigenmode patterns on violins. The device helps violin makers match the frequency of their violin tops and bottoms to that of a Stradivarius. It was a real step forward in trying to duplicate that unique Stradivarius tone.
For Compton, it also meant that science - something he understood - had a place in violin making. But the Eigenmode patterns were only the beginning.
He took an 18-month apprenticeship with a violin maker in Boiling Springs, Pa. He took trips to the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution and elsewhere to examine every Stradivarius he could get his hands on - more than 25 in all.
Then, five years ago, he moved with his wife, Susan, and his mother to Rockbridge County, not far from Natural Bridge and quietly set up shop without even a shingle to mark it.
Inside, however, are all the signs: a room full of lumber, various pieces of machinery, work benches cluttered with tools, a dehumidifier humming in the corner.
And books. Lots of books. ``Antonio Stradivari - His Life and Work: 1644-1737,'' ``Masterpieces of Italian Violin Making 1620-1850,'' and ``The Violin Forms of Antonio Stradivari'' are just a few of the volumes.
A pair of Stradivari posters hang on the wall, and there is a print of a Vincent Van Gogh painting for inspiration.
``He worked all his life and knew that what he was doing was significant,'' Compton says, looking at the Van Gogh print. ``But he was never recognized in his lifetime.''
After 15 years, Compton is now working on only his 29th violin - an admittedly slow pace, but one well-suited to his methods.
``The truth is, I'm a research scientist. That's first and foremost what I do,'' he explains. ``In my spare time, I occasionally construct violins to test my theories.''
Or, put another way, to solve a mystery.
Nobody knows for sure what made a Stradivarius a Stradivarius. Some say it was the wood. The way it was logged. The way it was stored. Others say it was the varnish. That it contained some secret ingredient. Or maybe it was some trick in Stradivari's craftsmanship.
Compton knows all of the theories. Some he embraces. Others he rejects.
One theory is that the Stradivarius gets its rich sound from the strength and uniformity of the wood. Compton imports silver spruce and curly maple from the Alps, the same as Stradivari used. Alps wood is unique because it grows at about the same rate every year, creating consistency in the grain, and making it exceptionally dense and strong.
Compton says he doubts there was a secret recipe for the varnish. His homemade concoction, he says, is just super-refined. He makes it by mixing pure gum spirits of turpentine with the highest grade of linseed oil, both of which he brews for months.
It's worth it, he says, peering into a jug of linseed oil that's almost as clear as water. ``That's the stuff dreams are made of.''
The theory Compton puts the most faith in came from a rocket scientist who makes violins as a hobby. His idea is that Stradivari somehow bent the top and bottom pieces of wood on his violins before he carved them. This was how he was able to make such thin, yet strong, violins.
For years, modern violin makers have tried carving out their wood tops and bottoms to the same thinness as Stradivari, only to see them crack and split. ``We spent years chasing our tails,'' Compton says.
By bending the wood first, the theory goes, the wood's natural strength is better preserved, and it can be carved more thinly.
After the wood is bent and the violin is constructed, Compton tests those Eigenmode patterns. ``To me, that's as acceptable as using a ruler,'' Compton says, ``but there are people who believe it's weird voodoo.'' Then he hangs the violin in a specially made ozone chamber to brown the wood slightly before it's varnished. Stradivari browned his violins by hanging them in the sunlight for a few months. Compton gets the same results with his ozone chamber in two or three hours.
``I could stick mine out in the sun, but grasshoppers would eat them, birds would poop on them, or I would forget them and it would rain on them,'' he says.
Still, it takes Compton about six months and up to 400 man hours to finish one violin, which he prices at $3,000. And he admits that he may be as many as 20 or more violins away from that perfect creation.
``I'm like a donkey chasing a carrot dangling from a stick in front of my nose.''
He thinks he's getting there. ``A good violin, that will make people cry when it's played by someone who knows how to play it, it's a big deal. It can change somebody's life. I think it's a noble quest.' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by Keith Graham\Landmark News Service
Luthier Sam Compton runs a small violin shop in Virginia 's
Rockbridge County where he is trying to duplicate something close to
a Stradivarius violin.
Compton's second attempt at a viola sits next to a book showing the
oldest known violin.
Compton uses a percolating process to produce the varnish.
Compton uses a band saw to cut willow blocks for his next violin.
by CNB