When Two Strads Aren't Enough

Well, it was my own damn fault, as it usually is. I had, after all, told Naïa that I was a relentless, an indefatigable, diagrammer of sentences, so I was really on the hook: I had to stop listening to some of the twentieth century’s greatest music and take a look at her three sentences.

She got them right, but couldn’t tell me why, nor what the seven parts of speech are.

“I guessed for most of them,” said Naïa, who has the open frankness of Lady, her mother.

I wanted to interfere further, but her tutor was sitting nearby, and it felt a little intrusive: would my intrusion be construed as silent criticism? But I did have to wonder—what good is doing something correctly if you have no idea why it’s correct?

What would I have done? Well, we could have started with the parts of speech, about which Naïa knew nothing.

“We haven’t gotten to that, yet,” said the tutor.

Hunh?

I didn’t say it, but it makes no sense to be diagramming sentences without knowing the parts of speech—it’s like swimming without water.

Well, it wasn’t my battle, so I went back to the question of Anne Akiko Meyers, the young American violinist who has two Strads and was recently given the use—for the rest of her life—of what’s sometimes called the “Mona Lisa” of violins: the 1741 “Vieuxtemps” Guarneri del Gesu.

The “Vieuxtemps” is unusual on several levels—it’s in fabulous shape, never having been cracked, never having had any extensive work on it. It also has a hefty price tag on it—they were asking 18 million bucks, though it was sold at auction for an undisclosed amount (though the auctioneer did note that it was the highest price ever paid for a violin). Lastly, it spent the last five decades lying under the bed of a rich London banker.

Understandably, Meyers was a happy lady, that day in January of 2013 when she was given the use of the Guarneri. Here’s what she said in her press release:

“I have never heard another violin with such a beautiful spectrum of color,” Anne said of the "Vieuxtemps” Guarneri del Gesu in a press release today. “I am honored and humbled to receive lifetime use of the instrument, and I look forward to taking the violin to audiences all over the world.”

Just as understandably, some people wondered what would be happening to the two Stradivarius violins that Meyers owns—would she be playing them, or would they be sitting at home, in their cases? And was it really fair…

It has to be said: not all in the world of classical music is quite as harmonious as the music that gets played. And though cellists are reputedly the nastiest of all instrumentalists, the violinists are no pikers, either. Here’s a sample of the comments on violinist.com:

I’m starting to think this is all a publicity stunt by Anne Meyers. I was told by a reliable source that she has a rich funder who purchased the Molitor strad for her. And now this Guarneri del Gesu too ?? If I was a private collector who owned the Vieuxtemps Guarneri del Gesu. [Sic.] Anne Meyers would NOT be the first artist that comes to my mind.

Whatever the merits of having two Strads and a Guarneri may be, there’s no question that the violin is better off than are many famous, and perhaps equally good, violins that are either in museums or—worse—being held by investors in a vault. Here’s what Time magazine had to say in 2009, at the pit of the recession:

Facing volatile equity markets, investors often look to gold and silver. But an updated study of classical-instrument valuations by Brandeis economist Kathryn Graddy shows that violins may be among the most stable of investments. Graddy's data indicate that between 1850 and April of this year, the value of professional-quality instruments rose in real terms (i.e., after inflation) about 3% annually. High-end violins have appreciated at much higher rates — particularly rare instruments made by Italian masters like Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri del Gesù.

There is, in fact, some good news in this gloomy picture. The first is that, at least in some double-blind tests (where neither player nor listener knew what they were playing or hearing), modern instruments were chosen above Strads or Guarneris for sound. So as glorious as a Strad may be, it’s not the only fiddle in the world.

Lastly, any reader out there with a million pounds lying about used might consider contacting Florian Leonhard, a London-based violin restorer who has made a specialty of authenticating old Italian instruments, advising institutions with money on the instrument, and then acting as a matchmaker between the musician and the institution. Here’s a description:

In addition to the pursuit of capital appreciation, the fund intends to loan the violins to young, up-and-coming musicians who are priced out of the market. The goal is to help exceptional musicians reach their full artistic potential and optimise the quality of classical performance at the highest level. This philanthropic enterprise will separate the fund from museums and institutions which kept fine instruments from the marketplace.

Be sure to tell them I sent you!

Music or Mystique?

It’s a curious thing—the relationship that string players have with their instruments. Yes, guitarists can rave about one “brand” of guitar, and pianists line up in favor of the Bösendorfer—which is now, by the way, owned by Yamaha—or the Steinway. But nobody seems to get as metaphysical, as enraptured, as enamored as string players with their instrument. It leads, at times, to extreme statements that are almost embarrassing. “I felt like my soul was disappearing,” said one violinist, who had his violin stolen. Another violinist takes his instrument to the luthier—the educated reader of this blog will not need to be told that that’s the repair guy; the computer, however, is another story—and gets paid this compliment. “I can tell you two are happy together,” says the luthier. And no, he hasn’t heard the two—just seen them.

Ummm?

Then there’s the widely held belief that an instrument not played “dies.” This, I can tell you, is not true. I know this because my own cello, at various points in my life, has gone untouched (in two senses, since the word for play in a musical sense is tocar or touch in Spanish) for years. In fact, I have just gotten my own luthier—everyone should have one, it adds a bit of class when speaking—to work on my cello. And the sound? Wonderful? Oh, and it had been five years.

“It’s male, I suppose?” said my luthier—OK, his name is Rodrigo, which is, come to think of it, every bit as classy as “my luthier.” Rodrigo met me and Mr. Fernández decades ago.

“Of course,” I said. And if I were on the opposite spectrum, it would be “she.”

So I’m prepared to go part of the way in this mysticism that we have with our violins, violas, celli and basses. I believe, for example, that the instrument makes or at least helps make the musician. Certainly, without having the instrument I have, I would never have created my own sound. But it’s more than that—it’s also true that some instruments let you explore easily: should I hold that note longer, elongate the appoggiatura, play the triplets more staccato? There are times the instrument is suggesting things.

What’s also true is that the instrument is my voice, and then, well, very close to my soul. So much so that when the principal cellist of the local orchestra raved about the sound of my cello, I was a little offended. ‘I created that sound, and if you played my cello, it wouldn’t sound the same. Maybe better, maybe worse. But not the same….’ That’s what I wanted to—but didn’t—tell him.

I tell you all this because I’ve just spent 50 minutes watching the video below. And for the benefit of people who actually have lives to live—I can recap for you.

There’s this mystique about Stradivarius and his instruments—1000 of them, of which 500 have been lost. They are the Himalayans of instruments, and they don’t come cheap. A “basic” Strad will set you back 1.4$ million Euros—a couple of million bucks. And yeah, that’s a lot of money for a young violinist….

Oh, and the great violins, from Stradivarius’ “gold period?” Here’s Wikipedia:

A Stradivarius made in the 1680s, or during Stradivari's 'Long Pattern' period from 1690 to 1700, could be worth hundreds of thousands to several million U.S. dollars at today's prices. The 1697 Molitor[4] Stradivarius, once rumored to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte (it did belong to a general in his army, Count Gabriel-Jean-Joseph Molitor), sold in 2010 at Tarisio Auctions to violinist Anne Akiko Meyers for $3,600,000, at the time a world record.[5][6]

Depending on condition, instruments made during Stradivari's "golden period" from 1700 to about 1725[7] can be worth millions of dollars. In 2011, his "Lady Blunt" violin from 1721, which is in pristine condition, was sold at Tarisio auctions for £9.8 million (it is named after Lord Byron's granddaughter Lady Anne Blunt, who owned it for 30 years). It was sold by the Nippon Music Foundation in aid of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami appeal.[8]

That’s 15 million dollars. And that should tell you something: these instruments have stopped being instruments and have become…investments.

Which means that two things can happen to them, both risky. The first is that the bank or foundation can stick the violin in a vault. There, it’s safe, protected and—duh!—unheard. Or, the bank can lend the instrument to a young, aspiring musician, who will fall in love with the instrument, cherish it, speak to it and…

…wait for the letter from the bank asking for it back. And this is—yes—traumatic; it’s every bit as bad as losing a spouse.

Right—so the absolutely best thing would be to find the “secret” to the Stradivarius. And the legend always was—if we could just get our hands on the family Bible, there we would find it: the recipe for the varnish, in the Master’s own hand!

The varnish is one theory—and it’s been studied. But in fact, most of the Strads have lost a lot of the original varnish, and been re-varnished. Oh—and some parts of the violins have lost their varnish completely. So nix that one.

OK—the wood. Spruce and maple—and in the time of Stradivarius, the wood used would have been exceptionally hard, since it from trees growing in a miniature ice age. But wait—that was the wood everybody was using, not just Stradivarius. So that’s not the secret.

OK—is it the shape? Stradivarius standardized the form of the violin, but in fact people have been playing with it for centuries after he died. And in the clip below, one luthier made a violin with a bigger top than bottom. And guess what? It sounded terrific—the low notes more mellow, the high notes more brilliant.

Lastly, there’s another, somewhat less appealing theory. It may all be just hype—since in double blind studies, the Strad has been picked out over similar or even modern instruments only as often as—statistically—you’d expect. And in the clip below, it was a modern instrument that everyone thought was the Strad.

In fact—it may be that there’s nothing special about a Strad. Other instruments compare favorably; it’s just that everyone decided that a Strad was a benchmark. And therefore, all the greats played them—which reinforced the legend.

And technology moves on. I’m seriously thinking of investing in a carbon fiber cello, since they are impervious to heat and—especially—humidity. And guess what? If they’re good enough for Yo-Yo Ma, they’re probably good enough for me….

Have a listen!