Antonio Strativari and His Magnificent Violin:

    Antonio Strativari: (1644-1737) was no musician, but he contributed more than most musicians to the production of  classical music. He made the most sought-after violins of all time. If we could compare the matter to the spiritual, great music could be likened to the Word, and the instrument (violin) to the gentle influences of the Holy Spirit. F.B. Meyer remarks of Stradivari's violin by writing:

UNITY OF A VIOLIN. — "Take the Stradivarius violin. He went out

in the forests, around about him, and selected more than forty different kinds of wood ; he had trained himself by the eye and touch so that he could detect the density of the wood, its age, and fiber, and estimate its resonant faculty, so that he knew just where to put each of those different kinds of wood in the violin. The belly and back, the sides, the bridge, the bottom, the neck and head, the keys, all made of different kinds of wood, so that the proper equilibrium might be maintained in all parts of the violin, and the most perfect harmony and responsiveness. I have no hesitation in saying that the violin is the most perfect instrument ever made." — F. B. Meyer.