I wrote about these in some depth in my article, "Which Amercian Orchestra
Recorded First When" in Classic Record Collector.  It appeared retitled as
"Strohs in the Wind."  

Short answer to this specific question is that the Strohs were mostly used
in the ensemble and that real instruments were used by soloists.  Exceptions
were the D'Almaine records that demoed the instrument as the "viol-horn"
and, perhaps others of equally less-than-virtuoso rank, Stroh-identified on
the label or not.

Steve Smolian




-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Maurice Mengel
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 7:21 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Stroh violins

I heard somewhere (but this might not be reliable) that these "violins with
horn" were made especially for recording since a normal violin was a) not
loud enough to record them conveniently together with an ensemble and b)
they sounded differently on an old recording; the argument b) implies that
the Stroh violin had a better sound when recorded than a normal violin.

By the way, in Romanian folklore this violin is used until recently or even
up to this day and is known for a specfic region (Bihor).

----------------------------------------------
Maurice Mengel
Music Archive
Ethnological Museum
National Museums in Berlin
http://www.ilkar.de
---------------------------------------------


On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 12:20 PM, Paul Charosh <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> A query passed on from another list:
>
> Stroh violins were commonly used in orchestras during the acoustic  era.
> But when celebrities recorded (e.g., Maud Powell, Fritz Kreisler) as  the
> featured artists on a disc, did they also use them?
>
> Paul Charosh
>
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