The Violins of Itzhak Perlman

 

Every fine violin from the Italian luthiers has a story. But in the case of those played by Itzhak Perlman, the life stories of these instruments are bigger.

 

It’s an understatement to say that Itzhak Perlman has a storied career. And it’s erroneous to say that in the past tense – the 76-year-old virtuoso has a full tour schedule for 2022. He began winning competitions as a child prodigy, has performed with some of the greatest orchestras in the world and before Queen Elizabeth, at the 2009 Obama inauguration, and even shared the stage at the 150^th anniversary celebration of Tchaikovsky in Leningrad in 1990 with Yo-Yo Ma, Jessye Norman, Isaac Stern, and Pinchas Zukerman.

 

But both Perlman and at least one of his fine Italian violins have stepped off the classical stages and are present in the parts of culture not typically associated with fine stringed instruments. At the age of 23, Perlman performed not once but twice on The Ed Sullivan Show, reaching one of the widest mass audiences possible in 1958. Perlman’s other performances outside of concert halls include playing the American national anthem at Citi Field in New York in 2016, on the Sesame Street children’s television show, and in jazz and klezmer arrangements.

 

Perlman owned and played three of the greatest instruments ever crafted by three renowned makers of fine stringed instruments. They are the Guarneri del Gesu 1743 “Sauret,” the Carlo Bergonzi 1735 “ex-Kreisler,” and the 1714 Soil Stradivarius.

 

It is the Strad that might be among the most famous outside of classical music, but in an entirely unexpected way. It’s well known to gamers who play Fallout 3, the 2008 action role-play game. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, this lone violin is stored (fictionally) in an underground bunker to save it from nuclear holocaust. In real life, its provenance (prior to Perlman) includes renowned violinist Yehudi Menuhin, Viennese collector Oscar Bondy, and the French luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume.

 

The Bergonzi was made in the Cremonese studio in 1735. Named for violinist Fritz Kreisler, it was literally the second fiddle of the Venetian musician as he was forced to “donate” his Guarneri violin to the United States Library of Congress to settle a tax liability. Still, the Kreisler Bergonzi served him the last decade of his performing years, after which it was acquired by Cuban violinist Angel Reyes, who played it before selling it to Perlman. It was since acquired by the concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony, Ruben Gonzales, later to violin collector David Fulton – and since 2006 has been in the possession of Dextra Musica Foundation and played by Guro Kleven Hagen of Norway.

 

The Guarneri del Gesu Sauret remains in Perlman’s possession, even if his Stradivarius is his primary violin. But known for its beauty, with the flames grain ascending from the edges to the center joint, it was featured in a 1994 exhibit in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York titled, “The Violin Masterpieces of Guarneri del Gesu.”

 

Perlman survived childhood polio and has his entire life been unable to walk unassisted. Perhaps it was these fine instruments that not only helped him get around, but to fly.

The History of the Nyckelharpa

 

The “Swedish fiddle” is not purely a product of this Scandinavian country. But its biggest fans are probably in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo and Uppsala.

 

To understand the history of the Nyckelharpa – referred to in some circles as the Swedish fiddle – actually requires digging into the history of all stringed instruments.

 

The Nyckelharpa has existed in one form or another format least 600 years, and is generally considered an instrument of Swedes. Given how Christianity came later to Sweden, its earliest iterations can easily be associated with Norse gods and secular life in the Nordic lands. There were multiple versions of the stringed instrument, as it has evolved over time, to today where it could be mistaken for an instrumental marriage between a bowed instrument (violin, viola, cello, bass) and a keyboard such as a piano, harpsichord or perhaps an accordion.

 

It’s unclear exactly what the earliest versions of Nyckelharpa looked like. There are just three surviving instruments from the 16^th century, but there are earlier depictions of an instrument that resembles the boxy, oblong contraption. Church paintings in Denmark, Sweden and Italy, dating to the early 1400s, and later (about 1590) in a church in Hildesheim, Germany, seem to show the instrument. An even older example in ecclesiastical art dates from about 1350 on a carved relief on a gate into Kallunge Church in Gotland, Sweden, which shows what might be two Nyckelharpa players in what we are to assume is a performance of pre-Reformation sacred music (academics stop short of declaring these to be definitively Nyckelharpa).

 

The physical instrument evolved in various iterations over time, as evidenced by the addition of strings, now in three rows: the three melody strings, a drone C, and 12 resonance (sympathetic) strings, which were the more modern addition (16^th century). The keys, played with the left hand while the right hand bows the strings, serve as frets when a key is depressed. This changes the pitch of the string, similar to what the violinists’ hands do on a violin.

 

Modern use of the Nyckelharpa is still a niche interest, with a concentration of about 10,000 players in Sweden (population 10.3 million), and smatterings of clubs and performers on the folk music scene in the US and elsewhere. The popular rock group Tillian, which often covers work by the Icelandic artist Bjork, frequently uses a Nickelharpa in contemporary arrangements, including on its recently released album Lotus Graveyard.

 

But where exactly did the instrument, which is fairly complex in its construction, come from? The specifics are lost to history, but it begs a bigger topic, which is how stringed instruments are practically universal to humankind. Examples of strings that are variously struck, plucked, or bowed existed on every inhabited continent in the archeological records. Be it a harp, a zither, a lyre, a lute, tambura, via, sitar or sarod (they are technically all referred to as chordaphones), which later gave birth to keyboard instruments (pianos, hurdy-gurdies, clavichords), sounds from the vibration of strings have been understood for millennia. As trade developed between cultures of the East and West, with Africa and eventually the Americas and Australia, types of stringed instruments were discovered and traded just as were spices, fabrics, and ideas.

 

As to the instruments themselves, they’re rare. Only a few luthiers specialize in the making of Nyckelharpas.  You won’t typically find one in the shop of the local violin maker, nor will you likely find one featured in a catalog of fine stringed instruments.

 

The Nyckelharpa, an amalgamation of physics that a skilled musician can play as nimbly as any fiddle, might be considered a smorgasbord unto itself, and perhaps just as rich in musical flavor.