La foresta di Paneveggio: la musica del bosco

Into the " foresta dei violini" (violins' forest) the great Antonio Stradivari used to personally choose the pieces of wood for the carving of his matchless violins.

The red spruce ( Picea excelsa) growing in this wood has special sound transmission capacities, its wood has regular rings, more narrow than usual, straight fibers, fine texture, lacking of knobs: it is also known as "resonance spruce.
Its growing is uneven: this characteristic is named "indentatura" and can be seen giving a look to the rings of the log, fromm inside to outside.

Recent studies of dendrochronology have related this peculiarity with the so named "Small ice era" i.e. the heavy cold period affecting the Europe from 1600 up to about 1850.

These special conditions changed the photosynthetic activity of the spruces and the minor inflow of nutritional materials slowed the growing facilitating the compactness and elasticity of the wood.

The producers of sounding boards and musical instruments come here from all over the world to choose the best trees, even an inexperienced can distinguish the high and smart red resonance spruces: a triangular crown, descending branches and the folds in the bark speak about the "indentatura".
Maybe someone, in the future, will understand if resonance spruce is an anomaly, a value, a fault or simply a different variety of the red spruce.

Here included some photos of lutists with their resonance spruce instruments.
links:
Parco naturale di Paneveggio
Il legno di risonanza della foresta di Paneveggio