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Thread: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

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    Registered User Josh Kaplan's Avatar
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    Default "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    No mandolin content, but might be of interest nonetheless, this article from the Chicago Tribune's series, "My Instrument," features the Guarneri cello owned by the principle cellist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The article traces the instrument's interesting history, and also its rehab by a luthier, and the owner's comments on how the sound of the instrument has changed, and how it took him several years to adapt to it. The article includes a video and a few photos.

    "It took me quite a while to decide to buy it, because the cello was not sounding at its best, you could say. For various reasons it had an unusual setup. It wasn't really vibrating in a proper way, so the cello had some problems, but I sensed there was something very good in the sound.

    "Rene Morel, a well-known luthier (that is, string instrument repairer/maker) examined the cello. 'He started looking at it and looking at it and looking at it, and he got more and more excited, and after half an hour he was saying, 'You have to buy this cello. Everything about this cello is right.' It's from Cremona, the period and the place of the golden age of instrument making. Everything was right about the instrument, the arching, the varnish. It was in, for a cello of that age, impeccable condition. It has no major cracks. So it took me a long time to take the plunge and actually buy the instrument, because usually you play it, and you love it, and it sounds wonderful. This cello took quite a while to sort of come into its own sound wise."

    "Coming to love it: 'It was a matter of years, and it was very difficult. As a player you have to adapt to many of these old instruments. You can't play them the way you play other instruments. They really don't respond in that way. That took me a long time to figure out. Also, a bow that suited the cello made a very big difference. Bows can have their own characteristics, and I had a bow that was very unsuited to the cello for a long time.'"

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    Registered User rubydubyr's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    Quote Originally Posted by Josh Kaplan View Post
    Also, a bow that suited the cello made a very big difference. Bows can have their own characteristics, and I had a bow that was very unsuited to the cello for a long time.'"
    Sounds like my search for a pick that won't slip in my hands, is thin enough to have the sound I like, but won't bend, and is small enough I'm not inadvertently hitting other strings.
    If I miss one day’s practice, I notice it. If I miss two days’ practice, the critics notice it. If I miss three days’ practice, the public notices it.
    Franz Liszt, 1894

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    Registered User sunburst's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    Quote Originally Posted by Josh Kaplan View Post
    "Coming to love it: 'It was a matter of years, and it was very difficult. As a player you have to adapt to many of these old instruments. You can't play them the way you play other instruments. They really don't respond in that way. That took me a long time to figure out. Also, a bow that suited the cello made a very big difference. Bows can have their own characteristics, and I had a bow that was very unsuited to the cello for a long time.'"
    So, he found a cello that he didn't like, I assume was expensive (not sure because I can't read the article without submitting my zip code and signing up), it was hard to play, he had to spend many difficult years learning to play it, had to change his bow... Hmmm, easy to see why he bought that one!

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    Registered User Josh Kaplan's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    Sorry about the limited access through the link. I hope this one works better. http://www.chicagotribune.com/entert...29-column.html

    In case it doesn't, here's a little more of the article, which does not mention the actual price:

    "John Sharp joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as its principal cellist in the 1986-87 season, toward the end of which he bought the instrument he currently plays on stage. This cello had lived quite a life before he got his bow on it — but and finding it wasn't a case of love at first play.

    "Instrument: A 1694 cello made by Giuseppe filius Andrea Guarneri, a member of the famed Guarneri instrument-making family of Cremona, Italy. "I got it from (dealer) Jacques Francais in New York, because I came to the symphony, and I could begin to feel that I needed a better instrument."

    "History: A letter by one of the cello's previous owners, Hans Bottermund, traced much of its history from the 1780s onward as it went from the Northern Italian city of Bolzano to Prague to Dresden, Germany, before Bottermund bought it in 1912 and played it as principal cellist of the Berlin Philharmonic. But with the half-Jewish Bottermund facing persecution in Germany during World War II, he stashed the instrument in a bank safe in Copenhagen, Denmark, his wife's native country.

    "Surviving World War II: "Just about two years ago," Sharp says, "I received an email from a Danish lawyer who was working for the Danish government, and they were investigating old cases of World War II because Denmark was occupied by the Nazis, and when the Nazis left Denmark, the Danish government passed a law saying that any German property that was in Denmark could be confiscated by the government as war reparations." Bottermund survived the war but died a few years later, and his wife, who had relinquished her Danish citizenship when she married Bottermund and settled in Germany, faced a dilemma upon returning to live in Denmark.

    "For legal purposes they were considered German, and the cello was considered German property, and she was afraid to take it out of the bank vault because she thought it would be taken from her as German property. Finally a couple of years later, she regained her Danish citizenship, and she decided to bring the cello to the authorities and explain what had happened and just see what could be done. So apparently a court of judges ruled in her favor, that they couldn't take the cello away because Hans Bottermund himself had been persecuted for being Jewish."

    "Post war: "His wife sold the instrument through a Danish dealer who had connections with Emil Herrmann, who was a dealer in New York. So the cello made its way overseas, probably in the early '50s, and was purchased by a student of (New York Philharmonic principal cellist) Leonard Rose, who played in Mexico City for about 30 years. … He sold the cello in the '80s, and that's when I bought it. The cello went to Jacques Francais' shop in New York."

    "The suitable bow: "It's by (Jacob) Eury. He's a French maker from the 1700s and an extremely fine maker. So it was a very long process to get to know the cello. It's not easy, but it has a wonderful sound and wonderful characteristics."

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    Registered User Josh Kaplan's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    Quote Originally Posted by sunburst View Post
    Hmmm, easy to see why he bought that one!
    I wondered the same thing. I guess, among other things, it's an example of the power of the mystique of vintage instruments. But he likes it now!
    Last edited by Josh Kaplan; Feb-01-2015 at 5:26pm.

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    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    I don't know, I tend to bristle when someone tells me "You MUST" do anything! I dig in my heels and push back.
    Timothy F. Lewis
    "If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett

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    NY Naturalist BradKlein's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    Quote Originally Posted by sunburst View Post
    Hmmm, easy to see why he bought that one!
    Well, that's the point, isn't it? He found an instrument, recognized its potential, and worked to bring out that potential. I suppose that the story could have had a different ending, where he was never happy with it, and moved on to the next cello.
    BradKlein
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    Registered User sunburst's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    Quote Originally Posted by BradKlein View Post
    Well, that's the point, isn't it? He found an instrument, recognized its potential, and worked to bring out that potential. I suppose that the story could have had a different ending, where he was never happy with it, and moved on to the next cello.
    Maybe, but the way I see it (admittedly possibly biased, being an instrument builder) is: he had a good instruments that he liked and could play with considerably less effort, and he could have saved a lot of money and time by being happy with what he had instead of succumbing to the allure of an ancient instrument, simply because it is an ancient instrument with all the reputed superiority attached to that... superiority that, according to double blind testing, may in fact be mostly imagined. Add to that the fact that he didn't even recognize the instruments as anything special until the luthier convinced him.

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    NY Naturalist BradKlein's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    A reasonable point of view, Mr Hamlett. I suppose the heart wants what it wants!
    BradKlein
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    Registered User mtucker's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    Even the greatest players get caught by the bug…. If you happened to catch the 60 Minutes report over the weekend on the city of Cremona and the top violins makers of the world... the snippets with Perlman discussing his Strad and his love, infatuation and even his struggle with descriptive terms regarding his prized violin were a very very familiar theme.

    I believe that significant instruments can summons great things out of great players like Perlman, Thile and others who are at the top of their game! There's a real connection with the soul of those instruments that is difficult to translate into worldly terms .. and that connection elevates everything to a different level for a great player.

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/memories...nd-of-violins/
    Last edited by mtucker; Feb-06-2015 at 10:00am.

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    Registered User mtucker's Avatar
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    Default Re: "Like 'The Red Violin' but true"

    Sorry CBS chopped this into several segments…here's more of Perlman. There's more somewhere..

    http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minut...varius-violin/

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