Julio de Caro

Julio De Caro and his Stroh Violin

Abstract. Starting in 1925, Julio De Caro used a Stroh violin for recordings and performances. The Stroh violin, or violín corneta, was an instrument designed in the early 20th century that provided an amplified sound for acoustical recordings. After the invention of electro-magnetical microphones (1925), the instrument became obsolete. Nevertheless, De Caro continued to play it for many years to come. It had become an attribute of the musician De Caro that was associated with him even long after he stopped using it. 

Sommario: Julio De Caro e il suo Violín Corneta. A partire dal 1925 Julio De Caro usò un violín corneta durante le incisioni in studio e le esecuzioni in pubblico. Il violin corneta, o violino di Stroh, era uno strumento dell'inizio del XX secolo che emetteva un suono amplificato adatto alle incisioni acustiche. Dopo l'invenzione del microfono elettromagnetico (1925), il violin corneta divenne obsoleto. Nonostante ciò, De Caro continuò a suonarlo ancora per molti anni. Era diventato infatti un elemento caratteristico di De Caro musicista, con il quale rimase associato per molto tempo dopo che smise di usarlo.

Zusammenfassung: Julio De Caro und seine Strohgeige. Von 1925 an benutzte Julio De Caro eine Strohgeige für Aufnahmen und Auftritte. Die Strohgeige (spanisch violín corneta) war ein Instrument, das zur Verstärkung des Geigentons bei akustischen Aufnahmen verwendet wurde. Mit der Erfindung des elektromagnetischen Mikrophons (1925) wurde die Strohgeige überflüßig. De Caro verwendete sie trotzdem noch jahrelang weiter. Das Instrument wurde zu einem Merkmal De Caros und wurde mit ihm, selbst nachdem er es schon lange aufgegeben hatte, weiterhin in Verbindung gebracht.

A distinguishing feature of Julio De Caro, renowned tango violinist, composer and orchestra leader, is an instrument that he adopted in the mid-1920s: the Stroh violin. De Caro is depicted with it in publicity photographs and performs it in films (for example, Las luces de Buenos Aires, 1931, with Carlos Gardel). He performed with the Stroh Violin for about ten years and continued to use it for recordings even after he had switched back to a conventional violin.

Julio De Caro playing his Stroh violin. (To his right: Pedro Laurenz)

With its striking horn used for sound amplification, the instrument is easily recognizable. It was developed and registered for patent in London by John Matthias Augustus Stroh in 1899. Rather than producing sound with a wooden box like a standard violin, the Stroh violin uses a metal resonator that is attached to a metal horn, which amplifies the sound. Thus, the instrument is louder and stronger than a conventional violin, yet still very close to the latter instrument and only slightly distorted (similar to a human voice being projected through a speaking tube).

Front and top view of a Stroh violin

Stroh violins were typically used for acoustical sound recordings, which predate the invention of the electro-magnetic microphones. Acoustical recordings, collected sound through a flared horn and transmitted it via a membrane to the recording medium. However, the range of pitches that could be recorded was limited, and not all instruments could be recorded equally well. Frequencies above 2,400 Hertz or below 200 Hertz registered poorly, if at all. String instruments like the violin or the double bass did not lend themselves to good sound reproduction. On play-back their tone was rather thin and easily overwhelmed by other instruments. For this reason, most early music recordings were done with brass and wind bands, and music scores were rearranged to keep the sound of the ensemble balanced. The Stroh violin bundled all its sound and forced it out through the horn, which then could be directed at the recording horn. This created a much stronger, though somewhat distorted, violin tone.

An acoustical recording session (about 1920): musicians are sitting tightly packed directly in front of the large recording horn. Note that the cellist’s seat has been elevated and wind and brass players have been placed in the back. The violin section has been augmented by a Stroh violin to strengthen the sound.

De Caro, it is sometimes said, was introduced to the Stroh violin by violinist and dance orchestra leader Paul Whiteman while traveling in the US. It seems unlikely, however, that he had never heard of the instrument before that year. A few musicians in Buenos Aires had been and were at the time using the instrument as well. More likely, the RCA Victor recording studio, with which he had just signed a contract, was responsible for his adoption of the instrument. The recording engineers would have been just the right people to suggest it in order to improve the sound quality of the recordings.

Be it as it may, from 1925 on De Caro performed with his Stroh violin also on stage. It is a curious historical fact that this occurred just at the time when the electro-magnetic microphone was invented (1925). The new microphones proved to be a great advancement in recording technology: they were able to register a larger range of frequencies and thus to render instruments and voices much more realistically. A whole new spectrum of instruments, voices, and ensembles could be recorded and played back in a quality closely resembling their original sound. This changed not only the conditions in the studios—no more need to squeeze musicians together in tight spaces—, but all kinds of music performed by soloists, small ensembles, or large symphonic orchestras could now be recorded without rearranging musical scores to compensate for the shortcomings of the acoustical recording horn. Therefore, from a technological perspective, the Stroh violin had become obsolete almost as soon as De Caro adopted it.

The orchestra in 1924/25, Pedro Laurenz playing the second bandoneon.

However, De Caro continued to perform and record with the Stroh violin for many years to come. For example, there exist three recordings of the tango Flores negras. The first one was made in 1927 (Julio De Caro, “Recuerdo”  1926 - 1928,  Coleccion 78 RPM, Sony 2009), the second in 1942 (Julio De Caro, “Bien jaileife”, EMI 2002), and the third in 1952 (Julio De Caro y su Orquesta Típica, “From Argentina To The World”, EMI 2006). In the first two recordings, De Caro plays the Stroh violin. RCA Victor had contracted De Caro in 1924, when the technology of electric recordings had just been mastered. In the following year the company dumped its remaining acoustical Victrolas at bargain prices and installed in its studios a modern electrical recording system, Westrex, developed by the Western Electric Company. By September 1925, RCA had stopped to produce acoustical recordings. We assume that De Caro made his recordings at the RCA factory in Camden, New Jersey. (The company maintained an extensive factory complex in Camden that covered all aspects of its music entertainment production from recording and record production to phonographs and radios.) The Stroh violin thus was an instrument of the past at the time the records were released. This is even more true for the recording made 15 years later in 1942, when the technical difficulties of recording a violin had long been resolved. Therefore, the choice of this instrument at that time was surely an aesthetic one.

In the 1952 recording, however, the Stroh violin is no longer used. The sound quality of this recording suggests that it was made on tape, a technology that became a standard during the 1950s. The dynamic range is larger and the sound richer than the old recordings made with wax disks. Also, De Caro used a larger orchestra with two solo violins (one in the higher register, presumably played by De Caro himself, the other playing a lower counterpoint) in the foreground and more violins in the background section. Both microphones and recording technique at this point were capable of registering the standard violin in fore- and background levels. An instrument like the Stroh violin, designed to have a strong and penetrating sound, would not have blended well with the other string instruments.

Julio De Caro was the most prominent musician to use the Stroh violin in the tango world but he was not the only one. It is said that José “Pepino” Bonano, a violinist playing with Juan Maglio, used a Stroh violin around 1912. It is possible that Bonano played the instrument in recordings made in 1912 (Juan Maglio: El Bandoneón de Pacho, El Bandoneón, 1994; Juan Maglio “Pacho” y su Cuarteto, El Bandoneón, 2002). However, the poor sound quality of the recording makes it difficult to distinguish between bandoneon, flute, and violin in the melody.

An undated photograph of the quartet: Luciano Ríos (guitar) , Juan Maglio "Pacho" (bandoneon), José Bonano "Pepino" (Stroh violin), Carlos Hernani Macchi (flute).

The violinist and band leader Juan Pedro Castillo (1899-1961) founded an orchestra in 1924, in which he played the Stroh violin as well. The same is said of violinist and band leader Eugenio Nóbile (1903-1977). Antonio Archirey, José De Caro, and Learte Carroll were also mentioned as performers of the Stroh violin, but no further details have come to our attention. 

In the recording studio the Stroh violin was used for practical reasons of sound amplification, but most violinists and orchestra leaders obviously did not feel that this was an advantage to be taken to the concert stage. A single Stroh violin in a small orchestra would change the balance of sound. In another kind of ensemble, for example, a jazz orchestra, this could prove to be an advantage. In fact, the Orquesta González, which performed at the Parque-Hotel in Montevideo in 1927-28, featured a Stroh violin in its instrumentation. Playing without any amplification aid in an orchestra consisting mainly of louder instruments, the sound produced by the Stroh violin must have been strong enough even to be featured as a solo instrument.

Orquesta Gonzalez, 1927/28. (Foto: Museo y Centro de documentación AGADU, Centro de Fotografía de Montevideo) 

It has been suggested that his adoption of the instrument was met with some criticism. De Caro at the time responded that it was a gift from the Prince of Wales, for whom De Caro had performed in 1925. Later he conceded, however, that it was imposed on him by an RCA victor engineer for acoustic purposes. (Jorge H. Andrés, “El regreso del violín corneta de De Caro”, La Nación (Buenos Aires) 2006-02-13)* We may assume that it was precisely the acoustic strength of the Stroh violin that attracted De Caro to playing it on stage. It made his instrument clearly audible in the high register as well as on the lower strings and he, the orchestra leader, also became the first soloist. De Caro's style of playing in many recordings of many recordings of the 1920s is perhaps best described as “soloistic”. Embellishments, double stops, counterpoints above and below the melody—tricks of the trade of any virtuoso violinist—were all part of his repertory, and the Stroh violin brought it to the foreground. After 1932, De Caro performed with a larger ensemble: 5 violins, 5 bandoneons (one played by the young Aníbal Troilo), 2 double basses, and 2 pianos. The orchestral sound in the recordings of this period is, of course, considerably fuller than in those made with the sextet in the preceding years. But here, too, there is one violin that stands out from section: the Stroh played by Julio De Caro. Even if it is not used as a solo instrument, it gives strength to the voice it plays and sets it off against the other voices in the orchestra, thus highlighting the polyphonic character of the music. Polyphonic style—using not just a melody and accompaniment, but more than one melody simultaneously—was a hallmark of the “De Caro revolution”, the new musical style that De Caro introduced into tango in the mid-1920s. The Stroh violin, it stands to reason, was a means to bring out this character, to make it clearly audible that there was not just one melody, but other melodic voices as well.

* In a television interview (unknown date, most likely late 1970s), De Caro stated that his Stroh violin was a present from an RCA Victor official visiting South America. It was given to him so that he could be heard by the audience sitting in the last row of a concert hall. A recording studio was not mentioned.

De Caro was, surely, an outstanding musician and his fame was not founded on the Stroh violin, but on his skill as a composer and orchestra director. The instrument, however, made him immediately recognizable. It became a visible attribute associated with him even long after he had stopped using it. Cátulo Castillo (1906-1975), poet and composer of tangos such as El organito de la tarde, El aguacero, and Tinta roja wrote a poem entitled A mi violín corneta. The subject is, of course, the Stroh violin of Julio De Caro, who is referenced through the tangos Copacabana, Buen amigo, and Todo corazón mentioned in the text. The poem is a sentimental farewell to the world, which De Caro eventually set to music. It was recorded by the Orquesta Luis Stazo with the singer Marcelo Biondini in 1975, the year of the poet’s death—the Stroh violin bidding farewell to an esteemed poet and composer.