No Strings Attached

I’ve always been amazed at how some string players can be both attached and detached from their instruments. They may love their fiddles and bows as if they were family members. Sometimes I think of Nicodemus’s cello as his wooden wife. But on the other hand, the same players will casually hand over a valuable violin or cello or bow to another player, saying “Try it for a while.”

Case in point: N has made about 15 cello bows. Materials are expensive; the pernambuco wood alone costs about $300 a pop, and the hours he spends planing, sanding, polishing and bending are uncountable. He doesn’t do the hair, so he has to pay someone to put that in. He has sold a few of these bows, has kept a couple, and the rest he has just given away.

We had a nice violin on which I had a few lessons before I gave up. Someone had almost ruined it with polyurethane and gave it to N in a fit of pique. He refinished it and sent it up to Carlos to fit it out with bridge, sound post, tail piece and new strings. Then he handed it over to one of the Coastside Community Orchestra scholars, saying “Use this for a while.” So that scholar gave his own violin to a younger player, who returned his loaner.

Another orchestra member had an extra violin. Still another violinist saw it at our house and traded it for his old Sears violin. The Sears violin—intended to be “my” violin if I ever get back to Go Tell Aunt Rhody—sits, partly sanded, in a battered wooden case left over from when N assembled the Frankenfiddle for yet another young player.

This is small-time trading. In the big-time string world, there are few major orchestras which don’t have players using borrowed instruments, instruments often valued in the millions of dollars. Jascha Heifetz’s priceless Guarneri violin has been regularly played by concertmasters of the San Francisco Symphony. In the off-season, you can see the beautiful “David” in its glass case at the Legion of Honor Museum and listen to a recording of Mendelssohn’s violin concerto, which had its premiere on that same violin in the nineteenth century.

I only know of one instance where someone took advantage of the no-strings-attached trust. Eventually, Interpol was called in and the instrument was found and returned to the person who had lent it. The owner was so disgusted by the theft that he said he didn’t even want to look at the violin.

The yogi Subramunya used to urge his students to practice affectionate detachment, and string players, I think, are past masters in detachment of a high order. But I am no string player, and I was attached to that violin N gave away, even if I couldn’t play it.

Orphan, Ready for Strings

This violin once belonged to the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania School District, but wound up in a garage sale, covered with red paint. The school district, contacted by telephone, said they hadn't had a string program in many years and that they didn't want the violin back. The label inside says "Antonio Curatoli" and "copy of Amati".

No Strings Attached

The world of violins is a strange obsessive place where costly instruments are borrowed, lent, given away, pondered, played and discussed. The 1742 Guarneri del Gesu violin called the "David" was donated by Jascha Heifetz to the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, but is presently being played by the San Francisco Symphony's concert master, Alexander Barantschik. Many instruments played in orchestras across the world are borrowed instruments.

Our house as well has been full of bows and violins lately, many of them garage sale items, some of them in pieces. It all started with the resurrection of Violin Number 1, which had been painted with polyurethane, soaked in paint thinner, taken apart, and finally given to Nicodemus as a hopeless and possibly bad-luck case.

In the months-long process of stripping, sanding, scraping and revarnishing the violin, N acquired something of a reputation as an amateur luthier or instrument repairer. Two more violins with minor dings came his way with pleas for first aid. Another person gave him a violin she didn't want any more, and another passing violinist liked it, took it, and left his own old Sears fiddle in its place.

Then came the Frankenfiddle, assembled from parts by N for a young violinist who was playing on a half-size instrument and needed something larger. A second garage-sale violin found by the young violinist's father has been freed of its paint (yes, some wicked person painted over ebony and birdseye maple). Beautifully revarnished with amber, it is ready to go to the City to be restrung.

N began making cello bows for himself, since he can barely play the violins he has been repairing. The wood blanks and the fittings are costly. When the bow is finished (and it takes weeks of patient sanding, bending, and drilling), it has to go elsewhere to be haired. I estimate that these handmade bows cost $500 and upward for materials alone.

In String World, players will hand bows and instruments around without a mention of money: "Try this for a while. Tell me if you like it." Although these are not usually million-dollar instruments like the David, a good Brazil wood bow could still cost two thousand dollars or more, and a decent (as opposed to plywood, carbon fiber, or "student") violin would probably be that much and more.

I only know of one lent violin which went astray. It wound up in Mexico, painted yellow, but was retrieved by InterPol. Its maker was very disappointed that the Violin Code of Honor had been broken. He put the violin away in a closet because he didn't want to see it any more.

N was looking at the Sears fiddle the other day. "I think I'll fix that one up for Quinn (a student member of our community orchestra)" he said. It is a strange place, the world of violins: No strings attached.