Why You Can’t Easily Sell a Stolen Stradivarius Instrument

 

Rare stringed instruments have a chain of custody known as provenance. Without clear and legal ownership, the instrument is more a liability than asset.

 

In the world of very valuable things – think art, antiques, Stradivarius violins – there is a mix of beauty and threat that is ever present.

 

Fine art galleries have their works under 24/7 security. Antiques are heavily insured and protected, particularly if they have a connection to historical events. And when a virtuoso musician travels with a fine stringed instrument, it never gets checked with luggage: a violin might fit in overhead luggage, but when YoYo Ma flies with his cello (the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius), it goes strictly first class with its own seat and boarding pass.

 

Still, there are thefts of fine stringed instruments. And the irony is that the things of highest value – which of course include any violin, cello, viola, guitar, harp, mandolin or bow made by Antonio Stradivari – are of least value to thief. Why? There is far too much scrutiny of those instruments and their provenance. And, a thief of something such as a Strad is almost by definition unsophisticated and very bad at the crime business.

 

There are thefts of fine Italian violins, violas and cellos that seem to occur out of a love of the instrument and the music it can produce. But more often the thief is looking for a big payoff, or simply doesn’t realize the expensive looking instrument he just stole is as priceless as it is.

 

A recent example is the theft in a parking lot outside Wisconsin Lutheran College’s Schwan Concert Hall near Milwaukee in 2014. The Lipinski Strad was on loan to the concertmaster, who was attacked with a stun gun following a performance. The Milwaukee police chief, fortunately, was an avid concertgoer and understood the value of the instrument. It was recovered ten days later, and the suspects were arrested, charged, and convicted. They had no apparent plans for how to resell it, and one of the criminals had a prior rap sheet that included an unsuccessful fine art theft.

 

Another case illustrating a different kind of Strad theft was the 1734 Ames Totenberg Stradivari. It went missing from Roman Totenberg’s office as he greeted well-wishers after a concert at the Longy School of Music (Cambridge, Massachusetts) in 1980. It surfaced 35 years later in the belongings of the suspected thief, a violinist who had a mediocre career before dying at middle age.

 

One still-missing stolen Strad is the Davidoff, Morini 1727 that was taken in 1995 from the apartment of its owner, 91-year-old Erica Morini, as she was dying in a hospital. It has never (yet) resurfaced and is today on the FBI’s top Ten Art Crimes list of unsolved art thefts.

 

Many other Stradivarius thefts were solved eventually, with the perpetrators unable to gain financially. But several remain missing. They include the 1709 Mendelssohn (stolen in Berlin in the Nazi era in 1939), the 1709 King Maximilian (stolen in 1999 in Mexico City), and the 1714 Le Marien (taken from a consignment sale shop in 2002 in New York City). These and at least six more remain missing – and yet there are no known successful sales of any of them, likely because a buyer would be implicated in the crime if they were aware of the true provenance and value of the instrument.

Stringed Instruments of the Renaissance

 

Musical eras and the instruments that created them are on an historical, evolving continuum. But each era, the Renaissance period included, has its own instruments.

 

The Renaissance was a period so associated with the new, the creative, the break from the status quo, particularly in the arts, it’s no wonder there was an explosion of new stringed instruments used in the creation of music.

 

Consider first how musical instruments were largely banned in the church during the medieval era (500-1450 CE). The plainchants of male voices in the cavernous cathedrals of Europe were largely what had defined sacred music. Secular music of the homes and taverns and public squares were livelier, with dulcimers, citterns, harps, lutes, and the occasional hurdy-gurdy providing what had to have been more joyous enjoyment of melody and rhythm. The Renaissance period elevated those instruments and their sound – along with the development of newer fine stringed instruments.

 

What were the stringed instruments that defined the music of the Renaissance? These are the primary ones:

 

Lira da braccio: A bowed, seven stringed instrument, it resembles the modern violin, albeit larger with a wide fingerboard. Two of the strings are drones. “Braccio” is Italian for arm, referring to the limb that holds the instrument against the shoulder (akin to the violin positioning).

 

Rebec: Also considered a precursor to the violin, the rebec had a boat-like (or elongated teardrop) shape carved from a single piece of wood, with between one and five strings played with a bow. It has roots in Morocco and Islamic Spain going back to the 9th century, so it is not entirely an instrument of the Renaissance.

 

Citole: Historians debate the history of this instrument, as evidence of its origins exists in the first century AD. Carved largely from a single block of wood, the neck is so thick it has a thumbhole for the player to hold as one might a modern guitar. While very much an instrument used in medieval times, it played a key role in the evolution of stringed instruments as discussed (Dr. Emanuel Winternitz, et al.) in terms of how luthiers were constantly innovating upon these instruments, leading to what we have in modern violins, guitars, etc.

 

Viol/viola da gamba: “Gamba,” Italian for leg, describes the position with which this instrument was held, lending it to comparisons to the modern cello. But it has several differences, even if there is a historical lineage between the two. The viol has five to seven strings (vs. four in a cello), a flat back (vs. curved), sloped shoulders (vs. rounded), and c holes (vs. f holes). The bowing of the viola da gamba is with an underhand movement (vs. the French overhand bow grip). Of all these instruments, it isn’t uncommon to find a violin maker who still crafts and sells viols to modern viol players.

 

It was with these instruments – as well as the woodwinds (recorders, chalumeau, a precursor to the modern single-reed clarinet, shawm, a precursor to the oboe), brass (trumpet, cornet, natural horn, slide trumpet) keyboards (clavichord, harpsichord, organ), and percussion (drum, timpani, cymbals, bass drum) – that enabled a jauntier, harmonic, complex style of music that eventually led to the baroque, classical and eventually modern music eras.