About Stradivarius

Tipaporn Sihaboonnak-Cellier

Frédéric Cellier

The genius of a man

• Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737) was not only the most illustrious violin maker of the Cremona school, but also of the entire history of music.
• His hard work, exacting standards, perfectionism and exceptional technical mastery, combined with his tireless curiosity, imagination and intuition, enabled him to elevate his craft to the level of an art.
• Over the course of his very long career (71 years), it is estimated that Antonio Stradivari made more than a thousand instruments, violins of course, but also violas, cellos, double basses, harps, violas da gamba, pochettes, lutes, theorboes, guitars, mandolins…

The magic of a name

• This beautiful, mysterious-sounding, ancient, learned name was originally nothing more than the Latinised patronymic of the luthier, as it appeared on the labels of his instruments: "Antonius Stradivarius Cremoneneis facebat".
• As a result of the unanimous recognition of his work and by antonomasia, it has now become the name of all superlatives and is synonymous with excellence and exceptional craftsmanship.
• While the switch to Latin gives it a timeless, universal dimension, the magic of its sound has the power to evoke the world of music immediately and internationally.

Symbolism of the logo

• The logo is made up of 5 parallel horizontal black lines which, joined together in a perfect square, represent a fragment of a musical staff.
  A very pure staff, without keys because it's open to all keys, without musical notes because it's open to all the music in the world.
• To the right of this square graph are two words, one in black, the other in red: STRADIVARIUS Editions.
• They are written in the Theano Didot font, chosen for its legibility, its classic, elegant and eco-responsible style thanks to its fine strokes and serifs.
• Sobriety of text, graphic and colours, minimalism aimed at clarity, beauty and universal communication.

We have chosen to include a handwritten score in the background of certain STRADIVARIUS Editions communication elements, its calligraphic staves developing, as it were, the logo.

It is taken from Le Petit Prince for clarinet and strings (1996) by Jean FRANÇAIX, written in memory of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and dedicated to the clarinettist Frédéric Cellier.

If the manuscript is the first, moving and sensitive trace of a work, printing - since the Renaissance and the successive improvements of Johannes GUTENBERG (c.1400-1468) and, for the music, of Ottaviano PETRUCCI (1466-1539) - has made it possible to extend it.

By making it easily legible, removing erasures, dispelling doubts and establishing its development and form, the edition has not only affirmed this miracle but also preserved it by ensuring its multiplication and distribution.

The layout has been completely redesigned to combine intelligibility, functionality, readability and eco-responsibility.

Rethink

• The traditional musical layout has always been dictated solely by the publisher's need to save paper. But using a maximum number of bars per staff and staves per page literally deconstructs the composition, masking its form, logical structure and phrasing. This seriously hampers comprehension, as a recapitulation, for example, is only dimly perceived.

Intelligibility

• We know that in the vast majority of cases, whatever the style, music is organised in 4-bar phrases, with each part made up of 16 (4x4) or 32 bars.
• Respecting this compositional structure and making it visible in the page layout makes the music even more intelligible, an intelligibility that is further enhanced by the markers, the framed letters that are systematically placed at the section joints.

Functionality

• Positioned in the most immediately recognisable places, the repetitions are also more functional, as they are usually within the same page.
• This layout combines clarity and efficiency, limiting page turns - which can also be facilitated by a common hands-free page-turning system.

Readability

• In order to optimise readability on tablets with a format slightly smaller than standard A4, the score and texts are slightly larger than in most traditional editions.
• Since A4 is a narrow format, we have chosen to significantly reduce the side margins in order to correct this width problem. And this is all the more appropriate given that all the tablets already have a frame that acts as a margin.

Eco-responsibility

• If you choose to print your downloaded files, you should know that the musical Petrucci script and Theano Didot text fonts offer the advantage of combining classic graphic elegance with economy/ecology. In fact, the fineness of their strokes and serifs means substantial savings in ink, making them more durable and practical (less handling).

STRADIVARIUS Editions chose digital because it allows us to be :

• fast
  Instant dispatch of your files, 24/7
• visible
  Anywhere in the world, in a wide choice of languages, currencies and payment methods.
• available
  No risk of stock-outs or reprint delays.
• complete
  Supplying scores as well as audio and video recordings, etc.
• readable
  Thanks to an exclusive optimised layout that combines musical logic and compatibility with computer screens, tablets and mobile phones.
• secure
  Secure payment via the Stripe payment platform.
• functional
  Virtually unlimited storage capacity and annotation functions but also search, bookmark, magnification, hands-free turning, sound playback ones, etc.
• environmentally friendly
  No unnecessary transport or printing
• economical
  Reduction of the traditional publishing costs (printing, storage, postage) which implies reduction of your purchase price
• dynamic
  STRADIVARIUS Editions reaches an international clientele and is rapidly expanding its catalogue and collections.