Christopher Livesay:

It's rare to play an unfinished cello. But that's exactly what Maddalena Waldner is doing, to show us the very special wood of her instrument, made right here in the Italian Alps, in a place called the Fiemme Valley, prized over the centuries for its exceptional lumber. But before it sounded like this, this cello sounded more like this.

This spruce is ripe for becoming an instrument, says Marcello Mazzucchi, the former director of the local forest service. It's no accident that we're in the same corner of the Alps where famed Renaissance luthiers Stradivari, Guarneri, and Amati handpicked the trees that would become some of the world's finest instruments. Thanks to a serendipitous combination of the altitude and climate, these have come to be called Il Bosco Che Suona, the Musical Woods.