Monday, February 2, 2009

A little speculation

Okay this is a little speculative but as I mentioned in class some recent papers have speculated that the so called 'little ice age' of the 1600's and 1700's might have been caused by climate change caused by trees replacing crops in abandoned fields following outbreaks of bubonic plague.

In a totally different discipline recent studies have suggested that the cold weather of the little ice age led to slow tree growth and some very dense wood - creating the perfect materials with which Stradivarius crafted his instruments. Instruments considered so perfect that the very term 'Stradivarius' has become a synonym for the highest quality.

So it's just possible that one of the most unimaginably horrific periods of history led, indirectly, to some of the most sublime music known to man.

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