With 40 years of experience in violin research, Joseph Nagyvary’s passion for the instrument began during his childhood in Hungary. Before getting the chance to conduct his research, Nagyvary spent his youth wanting to learn the violin. Eventually, his passion for playing took another path.
“I grew up during World War II in Hungary and as a child I wanted to learn the violin, but after the war there was a hunger in Hungary and my mother had to sell our violin for food,” Nagyvary said. “I had no chance to learn after that for many years. I had my first violin lesson in my escape from Hungary to Switzerland in 1966 after an uprising against the Russians. That’s when I had the first chance to learn the violin, but my teacher told me I was too old at 22, 23 to learn things. So then, I decided I would do some research and find out why the old Italian violins are so much better than the other violins.”
When he came to Texas A&M in 1967, Nagyvary worked as an associate professor of biochemistry. When he received a research grant through the Texas Advanced Technology Program in 1980, he started his scientific work on violins. Nagyvary studied the technology of preservation of violins made by legendary master craftsmen Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri. He also started researching the modification of violin fingerboards in 1989, which he picked up again two years ago to continue his work.
Currently, Nagyvary is looking to retrofit the material of fingerboards to improve the sound of the violin. He has concluded that the wood now used for violin fingerboards, like ebony, has a heavier weight and does not create the same sound of great violins like those of Stradivari and Guarneri, which are made of lighter woods like maple and poplar.
“Originally, the old Italian famous [violins] did not use ebony,” Nagyvary said. “The old Italians used old Italy wood like maple, and those woods are much lighter. So my theory was that one should really go back to the lighter woods because we know that weight is not good for the sound of the violin.”
Francis Leger, artist in residence and research at Texas A&M – Central Texas, collaborates with Nagyvary through the Music Performance Research Lab when evaluating instruments and collecting wood chips.
“At this point, there’s just any number of things that he has contributed to the field,” Leger said. “He’s done a lot of research with respect to varnishes for string instruments and the kind of woods and treatments that were used to preserve the wood for the violins or string instruments that were made.”
Violin maker and appraiser Charles Ervin was first introduced to Nagyvary through a local Cremonese newspaper while he was living in Cremona, Italy, enrolled in violin-making school and teaching English. After meeting in 1976, Ervin said their collaborative relationship has been of singular value throughout his violin-making career.
“Texas A&M’s support for Dr. Nagyvary’s violin research has been an important factor in his ability to persist in and expand his range of interests pertaining to the acoustic qualities of the classical violins,” Erwin said.
Nagyvary started making violin fingerboards with his associate Guang-Yue Chen, who joined him from Beijing in 1989. Violin dealers told Nagyvary that the violin business would never accept the kind of fingerboards he was creating because the lighter woods had a softer texture. To combat this issue, Nagyvary decided to work on two different methods to harden the surface of his fingerboards.
The first method was using the fat of the Urushi tree, which solidifies when ripe. The second method includes using super glue since it hardens quickly. Nagyvary said his research is getting attention due to current efforts to ban the use of ebony since it is a rainforest wood under environmental protection in many parts of the world.
“I know from experience that the violin business is very old fashioned and very conservative in many ways,” Nagyvary said. “Not much will happen for the next few months, but my prediction for the next five years [is] I will teach violin makers how to do this work. This will be a major business for all the violin shops of the world. I assume there will be enormous response in a few years worldwide. Eventually all the fingerboards will be changed back from current ebony to lighter wood for the single reason that the sound is more of Stradivari’s original violins.”