Music

Violin Made of 16,000 Matchsticks Is 80-Years-Old and Still Sounds Sublime

by Matthew Hart
Apr 15 2017 • 12:00 AM

How do you expect to hold up in about 80 years time? Fairly weathered? Perhaps with some type of in-cranium cyborg implant? If you do end up getting lucky well, well into your autumn years, you’ll stand the test of time the way Hubert Gwiżdż’s violin made of 16,000 matchsticks has stood the test of time: beautifully, and without combusting into sudden flames even once.

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The story of Gwiżdż’s matchstick violin, which comes via Boing Boing, begins in 1937 with Polish bricklayer Jan Gwiżdż, Hubert’s grandfather. Jan made the matchstick violin — it’s not exactly clear for what reason, but everybody knows that sometimes you just need to MacGyver an instrument — and consequently received media attention for the strange creation. Ultimately however, “it was viewed as an object of curiosity rather than something to actually play,” and ended up on display beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris while Jan traveled around Europe.

But the matchstick violin needed to be played! It’s little brittle matchstick bones may have been frail, but Jan’s violin had something special on its side: destiny. The matchstick violin eventually traveled back to Poland while Jan remained in France, and there, after some time, it was finally exposed to the orchestral world thanks to efforts from Hubert.

The matchstick violin has now been played by musicians in professional orchestras, as well as by Zbigniew Wodecki, a polish entertainment polymath who simply has the hair of a God:

Zbigniew Wodecki, being a boss. Image: Wikimedia / Mateusz Włodarczyk

What do you think about this 16,000-matchstick violin? Play or nah? Let us know in the comments below!

Images: YouTube / itvwrzesnia