life story of a stradivarius violin

Düsseldorf's street libraries never fail to provide me with amazing books I never knew of, so this week I discovered, among other things:

Die Meistergeige (the master violin)
Hans Werder
Otto Janke Verlag 1914

First, it turns out that the male pseudonym hides a female author I never heard of, Anna von Bonin (1856-1933). Although successful in her lifetime, her works fell into oblivion after 1945. You can see why, as the pathos overload typical of the Romantic period doesn't quite fit the reading habits of our times. If you can look past that, however, here is a rather interesting novel, representing the complete life story of a stradivarius violin, some real historic musicians as well as fictional ones.

As the book doesn't provide any years or biographical data, I'll try to conjure up a chronology by listing the owners/players of the violin and including historic events mentioned.

Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), obviously, made the violin, and sold it to:

Lorenzo de Medici allegedly the nephew of Cosimo (III) de Medici (1642-1723), Arch Duke of Tuscany, for whom Stradivari had made a violin before (so we're looking at a period when the luthier was already quite famous, maybe around 1700?). I still think this Lorenzo may be fictional though (seeing that Cosimo III appears to have had a sister but no brothers, so any nephew would have had a different surname). Corelli (1653-1713) is mentioned as his teacher and inspiration. After dramatic events involving a love triangle as well as a vision of the violin being played by a dead man, he sold it to an

unnamed musician who took it to the Franciscan friary of Assisi and died there, leaving it to

the prior of said monastery who gave it to

Guiseppe Tartini (1692-1770) when he sought refuge there in 1710-1713 and studied with Padre Boemo (aka Czech organist and composer Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský, 1684-1742). The author makes it explicit in a footnote that all biographical details of Tartini are historic. His baroque colleague Veracini (1690-1768) makes a brief appearance in 1716, as does the devil whom he credits for a sonata he wrote. Tartini left the violin to

Rinaldo Nazari, allegedly a pupil of his but probably fictional? After being saved from an untimely death by a pirate's daughter, Nazari took the violin to Germany and left it to

a woman who looked after him until he died. She later gave it to

Sdenek, a travelling gipsy musician (Zdenek being a Czech name, related to Zdeňka as in Zdeňka Černý), who reluctantly sold it to

the Earl of Konsbruch (fictional? although there was a Konsbruch branch in the descendance of the Goltz family), who left it to his nephew

Roderich who suffered injuries at the battles of Jena (1806) and Leipzig (1813). A young Paganini (1782-1840) also got to try out our violin in this chapter. After Roderich's death it was neglected for decades and eventually came down to his grandson:

Roderich the younger who wasn't a musician and died at the battle of Mars la Tour (1870), leaving it to his musically inclined cousin

Isabella who later gave it to

Harald Eginhardt, a celebrated soloist, who liked his Wagner. He took the stradivarius to the great concert halls and (spoiler alert) the violin died with him.

As for the violin itself, we have to assume it is fictional, as so many of its alleged owners are. While Tartini is known to have owned several stradivariuses, I don't think any of them could be made to fit this story. Although the author describes a specific decorative element, so maybe she had a specific instrument in mind?

So, across two centuries, this makes a dozen owners and eight players, with some having more soul in their playing than others, as the author discusses at length. It is fortunate that this was written before global fame catapulted Stradivari's instruments into the realm of investment bankers and safe vaults, from where only the more fortunate ones escape to play with globally celebrated stars.

The more down-to-earth stories appearing in this novel, with periods of neglect, danger, and a whole spectrum of musical talents are more like the life stories that some of the 19th century German violins that are still among us might also have witnessed. Only, without a famous name, nobody bothers to write them up (or imagine them).

Photo of my very lovely copy. (own photo)

Copies are available to buy here, very cheap too.

I am now making sure I systematically use the tag antiquarian for all books I review after I found them at street libraries. May have to think of a more specific tag later, but for now this will do.