given the poor quality, my personal opinion is a classical musician would not use it.
they were commonly used on recordings of Irish music (Michael Coleman).
lots of hits via google:
  http://historywired.si.edu/object.cfm?ID=46
  http://www.digitalviolin.com/StrohViolin1.html
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroh_violin
  http://www.answers.com/topic/stroh-violin       
  http://www.jonroseweb.com/f_projects_stroh_violins.html
  http://www.floraberlin.de/soundbag/index145.html
Best wishes, thomas

-----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
>