Transcript
Speaker: Okay, I think that's enough of that.
Speaker: Welcome back to Curious Objects and the Stories Behind Them, brought to you by the magazine Antiques.
Speaker: I'm Ben Miller, and today's Curious Object is one of the oldest violins in the world.
Speaker: not the viola you just heard me a total amateur playing, but there is a connection because both instruments actually pass through the hands of my guest for today's interview.
Speaker: There's something I want to do before we get to him though.
Speaker: On this program I've talked with people who have all kinds of fascinating old objects, but how many people can say they have a relationship with an antique that's as intimate as that of a musician and her instrument?
Speaker: I wanted to hear from a real live musician about what that relationship is like.
Speaker: Is your instrument more like a tool for you or is it like a pet or a friend or a lover?
Speaker: How would you characterize that?
Speaker: I don't want to anthropomorphize it.
Speaker: I don't have a name for my violin.
Speaker: Some people do.
Speaker: I don't think of it that way.
Speaker: It's less demanding than a pet.
Speaker: But it is something just, it's a deeply beloved object.
Speaker: I should introduce the violinist for you.
Speaker: That's Katie Lehman, executive director of the Boulder Philharmonic.
Speaker: She also happens to be my mother.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I could say all sorts of great things about me and my son.
Speaker: That really won't be necessary.
Speaker: Your instrument actually came from my guest for this episode, Paul Becker.
Speaker: What was it like to search for that instrument?
Speaker: How many violins did you try before you settled on this one?
Speaker: Well, it was actually a somewhat unusual search because I had just started to think about getting a much better instrument.
Speaker: And of course, that's an extraordinary financial outlay, so I hadn't yet figured out quite how all of that was going to work.
Speaker: So I reached out to Paul and said, Paul, you know, I'm looking for an instrument, and he knows my playing, he knows my personality.
Speaker: And he said, fine, I'll keep my eye out.
Speaker: And then literally, I don't know if it was a week or two later, he called me and said, I have your violin.
Speaker: Just exactly like that.
Speaker: I said, but wait, Paul, I don't have my financing in order.
Speaker: I'm just starting.
Speaker: This is supposed to be a many months or possibly years process.
Speaker: What do you mean you have my violin?
Speaker: He says, this can't wait.
Speaker: I have your violin.
Speaker: And he's not just being a salesman.
Speaker: He just, he really, he knew.
Speaker: I wish there were a matchmaking service as effective as Paul.
Speaker: If there were, he would be a multi-billionaire, I'm sure, by now.
Speaker: This is one of the ideas I really wanted to try and unpack in today's episode.
Speaker: What does it really take to build that relationship between a person and, well, for branding's sake, let's call it a curious object?
Speaker: Do you think that there are...
Speaker: personality traits that correspond to different qualities in a musician or in an instrument that's right for a particular musician?
Speaker: Is someone who's disposed to make a lot of jokes likely to like an instrument that sounds a particular way or is it more subtle than that?
Speaker: Is there something deeper rooted?
Speaker: I would say that it's very difficult to figure out a personality trait that matches a style.
Speaker: That's Paul Becker of the Chicago firm Carl Becker and Son.
Speaker: But the right instrument exposes the person's inner emotions.
Speaker: And it doesn't always match their outer, what they put out there.
Speaker: And if you think this all sounds pretty abstract, well, Paul at least thinks it makes a big difference.
Speaker: Oh, it's amazing.
Speaker: You hear it across the hall or down the room.
Speaker: I can tell when someone really attaches to something.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I'll just stop there.
Speaker: That'll give you a little bit of a sample.
Speaker: Oh, well, thanks, Mom.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: A top-tier orchestra might well have tens of millions of dollars worth of instruments on the stage.
Speaker: Many of them are antiques, and there are few people who know these instruments more intimately than Paul Becker.
Speaker: He's the fifth generation of a 150-year-old business.
Speaker: He and his family have restored the most expensive instruments in the world, and they've put violins, violas, and cellos in the hands of many of the world's best musicians.
Speaker: not to mention my mother and me.
Speaker: I wanted to learn what Paul was so excited about, so I took a little trip to the exotic land of Chicago.
Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen, Delta Shadow will like to welcome you to Chicago.
Speaker: The local time is approximately 9.30am.
Speaker: For your safety and safety of the
Speaker: First things first, I want to say a quick word about our sponsor, America's oldest auction house, Freeman's.
Speaker: Located in Center City, Philadelphia, Freeman's has been telling the stories of valued objects and collections since 1805.
Speaker: On April 29, Freeman's will bring to auction the collection of Doran's Dodo H. Hamilton.
Speaker: The venerable philanthropist's collection features fine European and American paintings, including works by Paul Cezanne, Daniel Garber, and John James Audubon, as well as furniture and decorative objects and jewelry.
Speaker: For more information, please visit Freeman's online at www.freemansauction.com.
Speaker: I went to Paul's shop in the Fine Arts Building, one of Chicago's great Art Nouveau icons.
Speaker: It's a block from the Art Institute, and the building itself has some pretty interesting history behind it.
Speaker: This used to be a restaurant all the way around here but they've been restoring all the brickwork in here.
Speaker: Gorgeous.
Speaker: This was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright as he had to do the ceiling because he lost a bet.
Speaker: It's a cool building.
Speaker: That is very cool.
Speaker: I'm gonna do a sound check here so just keep talking.
Speaker: Yeah so Herman Macklett was the the first of our our family.
Speaker: He
Speaker: moved here from Germany and he started a music store up on Wabash Avenue in Chicago back in 1850 something.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Old enough.
Speaker: But in the 1850s he started a violin shop.
Speaker: Sometime before the Civil War.
Speaker: I took over from my dad who died in 2013.
Speaker: So I continued the business and continue making and
Speaker: It's funny, because I remember when, you know, I have a viola from you, and you had brought a number of instruments down to Tennessee, where I was living.
Speaker: And so I was able to try out a handful of different violas and bows.
Speaker: And I remember at a certain point you were, I think, talking with my mother.
Speaker: She was trying an instrument, and you had told me to play around, pick up whatever I wanted, play it.
Speaker: And so I was going through instruments one after another, and then I picked up a viola and a bow and started playing.
Speaker: And after about a quarter of a second, I stopped.
Speaker: And I started again, and I stopped, and I thought, this is amazing.
Speaker: Because the sound that it was producing was completely unlike anything that I had...
Speaker: experienced.
Speaker: And so I started playing around on it a bit and after 20 or 30 seconds you came over and you said, what are you playing?
Speaker: And then you took a look at it and you said, oh, you can't have that.
Speaker: So it was a little above my budget.
Speaker: It was a little above my parents' budget.
Speaker: But I still remember the experience of playing that.
Speaker: It was really amazing.
Speaker: And I wanted to start out there, actually, because you have a...
Speaker: Very interesting violin here for us to talk about.
Speaker: But to kick things off, I just want to try to get a better sense about the relationship between the musician and the instrument.
Speaker: Most of the people that I talk with for this podcast are buying and selling or handling in some capacity or other antique furniture, antique paintings, antique jewelry.
Speaker: pieces that certainly people might develop an attachment to, but maybe it's not the same level of intimacy as the relationship between a violinist and a violin.
Speaker: That is a very special connection.
Speaker: I want to dive into that and see if I can better understand, if my listeners can better understand what that relationship really looks like.
Speaker: And so I just wanted to start out by asking, how do you go about matching a musician with the right instrument?
Speaker: I mean, there's price, of course, but aside from that, how do you find the right qualities and the right features for the right player?
Speaker: very basic.
Speaker: It's done by listening and by opening up how I feel because music affects your emotions.
Speaker: So you have to be open in your emotions to create connections with your with the players that you're working with and with the items that they're using.
Speaker: So there's a depth of knowledge for inventory to understand how each item works
Speaker: Our business and our family has always tried to make each instrument play at its best, not play according to what we wanted to hear.
Speaker: So we've always worked so that I have this array of how instruments work and how fast they play, how quickly they respond to vibrato, how clean their sound is compared to how dirty their sound is.
Speaker: And then I listen to that player play an example of an instrument that I'll start out with.
Speaker: And usually it will be an instrument we made so that I know the instrument very well.
Speaker: It'll be a Becker.
Speaker: These qualities you're talking about, the response to vibrato, is that sort of an implicit idea, or do you have charts?
Speaker: Do you have graphs?
Speaker: To what extent is that just something you're intuiting versus something that you're really sort of grading or measuring?
Speaker: Well, I like to say that measurements are the blood for inspiration.
Speaker: So we do an intense amount of measurements,
Speaker: But it is still the educated guess at the end.
Speaker: But the ones that are right make my heart swell.
Speaker: You can't help but hear it instantly when someone has the right item.
Speaker: And everybody in the room will know instantly that it's the right item.
Speaker: It just plucks the right emotional strings and it creates a sound that everybody wants to listen to, whether it be a scale or a phrase or a masterpiece that was written.
Speaker: It really doesn't matter because there is a connection to the person's soul that loves that exercise.
Speaker: And does it always work that way, that when it clicks for the musician, everyone can hear it?
Speaker: Yeah, it almost... It's like we have a tecla cello that is being purchased by the...
Speaker: Mr. Lee who was buying it for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for the principal cellist.
Speaker: They were right in the middle of that.
Speaker: It's just finishing off.
Speaker: But when the principal cellist came in, he was looking for a cello that would sell for maybe $300,000 to $400,000.
Speaker: This was his budget.
Speaker: and he was looking at things and he already played on a Galliano cello which is probably the same price but he wanted something that would project out in a principal position way.
Speaker: So we showed him what we had and then
Speaker: My salesman had played this wonderful David Teckler cello that was made in 1700 and he said, that's the cello for this guy.
Speaker: I said, yes, but that cello sells for $1.35 million.
Speaker: It's a little bit out of his budget.
Speaker: And my salesman, against my wishes, took that cello and showed it to him.
Speaker: and made me pretty angry because how can this person quadruple his price range?
Speaker: It's a bit of a tease, isn't it?
Speaker: Of course, but the cello was not a nice sounding cello.
Speaker: The cello was a little, it's a little mean is the way to put it.
Speaker: It has a little edge to it and it's Hans Jensen said that it sounded like a monster.
Speaker: A monster.
Speaker: And the player is one of the sweetest personality
Speaker: people the kindest in every respect that you could ever meet.
Speaker: The cello we played on was a very sweet sounding voice.
Speaker: I would never have guessed that to be exactly right, but he showed it, he played it, and I was up against myself saying, what am I going to do about this?
Speaker: And that was last October.
Speaker: And now today,
Speaker: We've gone through a cycle of letting him play an instrument.
Speaker: That instrument, he played the All Guard for the orchestra.
Speaker: He practiced on that cello for two weeks.
Speaker: And he got one of these performances.
Speaker: It just made everybody jump out of their seats.
Speaker: Playing the All Guard.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And just in two weeks of practice, the cello was his.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: It was not pretty.
Speaker: He struggled to understand it.
Speaker: But that fight that took place created an emotional volcano that came out of that place.
Speaker: I listened to this.
Speaker: I went to the first rehearsal because I was very concerned he was going to try and play this piece in two weeks.
Speaker: And that's just, no, no, that's too fast.
Speaker: And so I sat there to see if I needed to do an adjustment or something.
Speaker: And he came out, and it was their first rehearsal.
Speaker: They were in their jeans and t-shirts and very loose.
Speaker: he started to play and the A string sounded a little bit weak and the C string sounded really big and powerful and I met him during the break we were supposed to go to lunch and he said well I love the cello it sounds fantastic on the A but the C sounds a little stiff and I said well
Speaker: That's the opposite of what I heard.
Speaker: That's so funny.
Speaker: And the audience, the A was very weak.
Speaker: He definitely goes, well, I've been holding back on the A because it's so strong.
Speaker: And I said, well, I can hardly hear it.
Speaker: And the C string was booming everywhere.
Speaker: It was filling the hall.
Speaker: And that made him really concerned.
Speaker: He goes, you know, I've been practicing in a practice room and in my house.
Speaker: This is the first time I played it in the hall.
Speaker: So he said, I don't want to go to lunch.
Speaker: He decided to practice through lunch.
Speaker: came back for the second half of the rehearsal and he played this, he started to play and play the A string and it was coming out stronger and stronger and stronger and the C string was just the same but all of a sudden it felt like it was blowing my hair back.
Speaker: It just screamed out in that hall and they played through the all guard and
Speaker: the orchestra stood up and gave them a standing ovation in their t-shirts and jeans and the conductor was tapping his baton.
Speaker: That's not a common thing for an orchestra.
Speaker: No, that's not where you get your standing ovation.
Speaker: It's not during a first practice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I met him after that performance.
Speaker: He goes, you know that cello, as I pushed on it and as I played this, it just helped me.
Speaker: This cello helps me.
Speaker: And he goes, it's...
Speaker: it's not my personality, but it brings something out of me.
Speaker: And everybody recognized it.
Speaker: And so he had to have that cello.
Speaker: So the orchestra went through a fundraising thing for their nonprofit to try and buy this cello for him.
Speaker: We got the time from the owners to allow this to happen.
Speaker: And finally a gentleman came through and was buying this cello for him.
Speaker: So in the end,
Speaker: he's ending up with this cello despite all the barriers that we ran into and every time he gives a performance he's getting these overwhelming responses for his play.
Speaker: Paul and his colleagues don't just buy and sell instruments, they also make new ones.
Speaker: And they use some of the great instruments they've worked on over the years as models for their own creations.
Speaker: Why don't we take a little wander around?
Speaker: You can show me some of your tools, some of your setups.
Speaker: Maybe I'll snap a couple of pictures if you don't mind.
Speaker: No problem.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So I'm just going to carry this around in case someone says something interesting.
Speaker: Here's something.
Speaker: So I feel like I've just stepped into a safe deposit vault in a bank.
Speaker: Paul took me on a walk around his shop, which is full of instruments in various states of construction and restoration.
Speaker: So you have, it looks like there are a dozen or so cellos in here, probably 50 violins.
Speaker: There's more like about 200 violins.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: And those are violas down there.
Speaker: Paul showed me some of the firm's files, generations worth of precise diagrams of incredibly rare and valuable instruments.
Speaker: There were blueprints showing the thickness of the wood of a violin at every point across its surface.
Speaker: They actually looked a lot like navigational maps, which makes sense when you consider that Paul's father was a pilot in World War II.
Speaker: He also showed me their off-site workshop.
Speaker: That's where they do the rough cuttings.
Speaker: It's the Garpenters Workshop.
Speaker: Well, I like making furniture so I also have some of those tools.
Speaker: Oh yeah?
Speaker: So I just have fun with that.
Speaker: It's mostly stringed instruments of course, but given Paul's expertise with wood, maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise to see him meddling with some very old furniture.
Speaker: Those are pretty valuable.
Speaker: Henry VIII, huh?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: You don't see too much furniture from the 15th century.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I've heard, is it true that some of the old violin makers were using wood that had been chopped many years before?
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: I've got some wood from 1480.
Speaker: It comes out of an old church.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I mean, we're wood collectors.
Speaker: We go way back.
Speaker: Yeah, we've collected wood.
Speaker: Paul was moving things around the workshop while we talked.
Speaker: I was asking him about how different woods affect the instrument and why very old woods are often sought after by luthiers.
Speaker: I mean, what is physically happening to the wood over time?
Speaker: Why is it useful to have old wood?
Speaker: It's like the walnut.
Speaker: When they cut walnut these days, they kiln dry it because they want to get it ready for the market quickly.
Speaker: So they steam it.
Speaker: And it does two things.
Speaker: It gets the sap out of the wood quickly, but it also makes all the colors steam through so it turns into one color.
Speaker: Okay, so walnut doesn't really grow that way.
Speaker: Walnut looks a lot like rosewood where you have white next to dark and there you have streaks through it and these purples and reds and when you think about walnut you're thinking of brown color but that's not true in a walnut.
Speaker: Like if you look at that, that has the streaks like mahogany and old rolled walnut.
Speaker: Paul has accumulated a collection of multiple tons of wood over the years, enough, he says, to make 3,000 violins.
Speaker: Some of it is extremely old.
Speaker: But the way he works the wood is different from the old masters.
Speaker: Paul actually incorporates a computer-guided router to form the rough shape of each piece.
Speaker: This is what I machine a scroll to before I carve it.
Speaker: It just gets rid of some of the rough wood.
Speaker: but he still relies on his own hands for the more sensitive parts of the process.
Speaker: Tell me about hand crafting versus mass production.
Speaker: Well, mass production could work just fine if the person behind the design understands.
Speaker: And you can bring it down to a very small window of what works, but still it's never going to have that...
Speaker: that perfect refinement to get that last bit of human voice in it, regardless to what you do, you can get it close, you can get it to respond well, you can get it to be stable if you use the right materials that are aged long enough and
Speaker: you can go a long way with modern technology.
Speaker: I mean you can make exact copies of things but still not the same piece of wood and still not the same varnish.
Speaker: Little differences can make a huge amount of difference.
Speaker: We are very very good at measuring
Speaker: our instruments.
Speaker: Right now I'm working to tighter tolerance than Dad did and he used to work to a half a tenth of a millimeter.
Speaker: Half of a tenth of a millimeter?
Speaker: Yeah, half a tenth of a millimeter was his tolerance.
Speaker: That's what... For wood thickness, for modeling, oh it's less than a human hair.
Speaker: Less than a human hair?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Grandpa used to use his fingers but he didn't even have a caliper to use.
Speaker: He used his fingers but
Speaker: When we measure some of his older instruments, he's within one-tenth of a millimeter.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: In all his measurements.
Speaker: He was incredibly accurate because of how sensitive his touch and his eye-hand coordination was.
Speaker: No kidding.
Speaker: He was very, very good with the way it felt.
Speaker: So I was taught how to measure, how to feel, how to see.
Speaker: and how things sounded as you were cutting on them as to what to do.
Speaker: So it's you have to use all of your senses to create a violin that works.
Speaker: unfortunately no matter what I do something sound great then another one will sound not as great and it's on the same wood same bass bar a little bit of difference in spring and what you think is going to happen doesn't always happen it's somewhat predictable you can get close
Speaker: but you cannot achieve 100%.
Speaker: So you're not afraid that robots are going to take your job?
Speaker: I'm not worried about that.
Speaker: People think because I use these machines to start off that mine can't be as good in certain respects, but that is not accurate.
Speaker: Without the intuition in the end, they wouldn't have a voice that they have.
Speaker: And so they're still made entirely by hand.
Speaker: So automation will take you to a point, but it will never finish the product.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is maybe an impossible question, but how many hours, start to finish, do you put into an instrument?
Speaker: When I was learning, it took me 200 hours, start to finish for a violin.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Now that I'm much experienced, I get it done in about 80.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's still quite a lot of time.
Speaker: It's still a lot of time.
Speaker: You're going to have to ramp it up if you want to hit strides right there.
Speaker: Let's take a quick break.
Speaker: Coming up, we'll hear about one of the great old instruments Paul has been restoring and how it's different from modern violins.
Speaker: We'll also talk a bit about the sensitive subject of fakes and forgeries.
Speaker: And my mom might even squeeze in another word.
Speaker: Stay with us.
Speaker: Once again, I'd like to thank our sponsor for this episode, America's oldest auction house, Freeman's.
Speaker: Located in Center City, Philadelphia, Freemans has been telling the stories of valued objects and collections since 1805.
Speaker: With international experience and comprehensive knowledge of market conditions, the specialists at Freemans work closely with consignors and collectors to offer unparalleled assistance in the sale and purchase of fine art, furniture, decorative arts, jewelry, books, and more.
Speaker: On April 29th, Freemans will bring to auction the collection of Dorrance Dodo H. Hamilton.
Speaker: Upcoming auctions in May include Modern and Contemporary Art on May 8th, Fine Jewelry on May 9th, British and European Furniture and Decorative Arts on May 22nd, and on May 23rd, a special sale entitled Gentleman Collectors, the Lucas Family of Baltimore.
Speaker: For more information, please visit Freeman's online at www.freemansauction.com.
Speaker: I also really want to thank you for listening and for sending me your feedback.
Speaker: I'm always looking for new ideas and suggestions.
Speaker: So send me an email at podcast at themagazineantiques.com.
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Speaker: Let's get these stories out there in the world.
Speaker: Okay, let's get back to Paul.
Speaker: You have a very interesting violin here for us to talk about.
Speaker: So this is Amadi.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: It's a violin that's made in 1720.
Speaker: I'm sorry, 1620?
Speaker: 1620.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He was the son of Andre Amati, who was the grandfather of violins.
Speaker: Right, because the modern violin really was just coming into being around this time, right?
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: So these are the earliest examples of the modern violin.
Speaker: This instrument's made by Antonio and Hieronymus, which are the sons of Andre.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And Andre is the one you're referring to as the grandfather of the violin.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: He worked in Brescia and was thought to work for Gaspar de Salo.
Speaker: He made the first violin-sized instruments.
Speaker: Before that, he was making their violas.
Speaker: Violas are actually before violins.
Speaker: And when you say viola, are you talking about a viola da gamba, or what kind of instrument are you describing?
Speaker: Yes, a lute is one, which our name comes from, luthiers.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: I never put that together.
Speaker: Yeah, so a lute is the predecessor to the viola, if you will, and from there came the violin by Andre Almaty, and then
Speaker: came his two sons, Antonio and Hieronymus, who made these instruments.
Speaker: The one I hold in my hand is one that traveled to Russia and was played there for most of its life.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yup.
Speaker: It has a great deal of its originality.
Speaker: It's original in all its parts.
Speaker: Does that include the neck?
Speaker: The neck is replaced because it was a Baroque style neck.
Speaker: Right, which are short.
Speaker: So they're shorter and a steeper angle and as a result it had a different projection to its sound.
Speaker: Ah, right.
Speaker: And they call that a modern setup which is basically something that started in 1780.
Speaker: was the modern violin.
Speaker: Modern being a relative term.
Speaker: So this was a baroque setup though.
Speaker: It had traveled to Russia and was involved very interestingly in a stagecoach accident where it had run over the case and
Speaker: and put a series of about the stagecoach ran over the violin case and broke the instrument into smithereens on the lower end.
Speaker: Oh, no.
Speaker: And so it went through a huge restoration job, which... And what are we talking about here?
Speaker: I can show there's a whole series and it ran across right here.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And so it has a series on the top that matched the back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: and otherwise it survived quite well.
Speaker: So it has this like track of cracks from a stagecoach that was restarted.
Speaker: You know it's funny, I mean we sometimes have
Speaker: In the silver trade, of course, you see damaged pieces all the time that have been repaired, and usually that detracts from the value.
Speaker: But sometimes if the damage has a story behind it, like the tankard that had a hole shot through it by a musket ball during the Revolutionary War, that actually can add value.
Speaker: to the piece.
Speaker: I don't know in this case.
Speaker: It doesn't add value but it is a neat story.
Speaker: I don't have any other instruments that were run over by a stagecoach.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: This is the only one?
Speaker: The only one I know of.
Speaker: So it's great.
Speaker: I love saying it.
Speaker: And the instruments have gone through a tremendous restoration.
Speaker: So the restoration was done skillfully I assume.
Speaker: It was done in Russia at the time.
Speaker: And how long ago was that done do you think?
Speaker: That was done, I believe, in the late 1800s.
Speaker: Oh, right.
Speaker: You know, the 1870s, 60s, somewhere in there.
Speaker: So even at that time, this would have been considered a valuable enough instrument to warrant a really significant amount of labor to restore it.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And I certainly respect the work they did.
Speaker: So I had the opportunity to do some work on this instrument myself that basically restored about three or four open cracks, but I was able to really review the work that was done, and it was perfectly fine.
Speaker: There was nothing wrong with it.
Speaker: So I was able to really study this instrument inside and out.
Speaker: And what a tremendous, you know, I just loved working on it.
Speaker: It was, I made patterns of it so that I could make a copy of it like my grandfather did.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Just as a bench copy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, the whole thing is, I mean, it's, I don't look at enough violins on a daily basis to, you know, to be able to point to exactly what differentiates this, but it's certainly an attractive and proportional piece and the color of it is spectacular.
Speaker: Yeah, and that's one thing.
Speaker: I mean, it looks like an old piece of furniture, like a really excellent piece of 17th century furniture.
Speaker: The patina, the color, it's wonderful just as a visual object.
Speaker: Right, I mean, it's got a tremendous amount of original varnish and the finish has really survived.
Speaker: What does it sound like?
Speaker: It sounds fantastic.
Speaker: It has a full open voice, responds very quickly.
Speaker: Tonally, it deserves a great reputation.
Speaker: Do you have a bow around?
Speaker: I'm not a player.
Speaker: So that's not going to happen.
Speaker: Oh, that's a shame.
Speaker: So I need to cut in here and say that sadly we don't get to hear the Amadi being played today.
Speaker: I talked about that with Paul and he made the point that without time for a professional violinist to grow accustomed to it and a studio recording environment, it just wouldn't sound its best.
Speaker: And I get it.
Speaker: Perfectionism is a pretty important part of the business.
Speaker: And that goes for a lot of dealers.
Speaker: What are some common misconceptions that people have about your business or your industry?
Speaker: That older is better.
Speaker: That's not true.
Speaker: I've proven that over and over again.
Speaker: You do not have to play things in to get them to sound better.
Speaker: I think that's a big misconception.
Speaker: The modern instruments do take on a voice.
Speaker: The complexity is difficult to understand.
Speaker: Some of these old instruments, they've achieved that complexity.
Speaker: You can get that in modern instruments, but people don't come in droves to see a Becker violin being played as a solo instrument.
Speaker: They will come in droves to see an Antonio Stradivari.
Speaker: being played for people to witness.
Speaker: It's half the instrument and half the player in many instances that draw the crowd.
Speaker: And I wonder, should people be coming in droves to see a Becker?
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: They sound terrific.
Speaker: They work.
Speaker: They fill a hall.
Speaker: they can create all these complexities in sound that you get from the old Italians, because that's who we learned from.
Speaker: My grandfather learned from restoring old fine instruments.
Speaker: And there was an Amati cello that he restored, and he made a cello alongside that Amati cello.
Speaker: A copy.
Speaker: Yeah, a copy of that cello.
Speaker: That's how he learned how to make
Speaker: his instruments.
Speaker: Someone from the Chicago Symphony came in and saw the cello that Grandpa had made and left.
Speaker: And that had come back the next day and Grandpa was actually delivering the real Amati to the member of the Chicago Symphony that was playing it.
Speaker: And he was playing it and
Speaker: He called out to that man that walked in and said, hey, how does the cello sound?
Speaker: He goes, well, it sounds fantastic, but you can tell it's new.
Speaker: That was a great moment for my grandfather.
Speaker: This made it seem like it might not be too difficult to trick someone into thinking that a new instrument was actually an extremely valuable old one.
Speaker: I wanted to ask Paul about fakes and forgeries.
Speaker: This next part was recorded in the workshop, so the sound quality is a little rough.
Speaker: But Paul had some pretty interesting thoughts about the issue, so bear with me.
Speaker: What kind of a market is there for fakes and forgeries in the instrument world?
Speaker: I mean, are there a lot out there?
Speaker: Are they hard to identify?
Speaker: Well, some people, that's how they make their living.
Speaker: A violin maker will...
Speaker: Like Douglas Cox from Vermont, he does that regularly, copies instruments, puts that label in, a facsimile of the original label along with his label, that this is the violin he copied.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And he tries to match the wood, the antique marks, everything.
Speaker: Uh-huh.
Speaker: Um, would I ever get fooled by it?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I mean, it just does not have the patina that you have in these old instruments.
Speaker: It's fake, and you know it.
Speaker: I mean, someone else might get fooled by it.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Not anyone that has any level of expertise.
Speaker: It's not what it's meant for.
Speaker: So they make copies, basically, for the modern musician, and he sells his stuff for $20,000 compared to...
Speaker: two to six million.
Speaker: But they don't sound the same.
Speaker: It is not an exact copy.
Speaker: So you would say it would be more or less impossible to make a really convincing... No, it's been done.
Speaker: It's like Fent did it.
Speaker: He took a Strad cello and took the top off, made a new top for the ribs and back and then made a back and ribs for the new top and made two strads out of one.
Speaker: And that's an easy answer.
Speaker: And it was convincing.
Speaker: He did it and sold it.
Speaker: How did it get discovered?
Speaker: It got, because both cellos got put together at the same time.
Speaker: Yeah, right.
Speaker: And then they figured it out, Charles Beer figured it out actually.
Speaker: So it was kind of, the Wohler brothers would copy instruments so well that was their downfall because they copied every imperfection in every instrument when it's really only a number of imperfections per instrument and they just
Speaker: put it all in each instrument, that's how they got figured out.
Speaker: And there's a few other, those are the most famous.
Speaker: Those are the great ones.
Speaker: When you realize that if you have a German copy of a Guarneri compared to a Guarneri, I mean that's an eight million dollar mistake.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's scary.
Speaker: I don't need the business that unsure.
Speaker: Yeah, and as you say, I mean, who's to say?
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: I started out in this episode trying to understand the relationship between a musician and an instrument, but it's becoming clear that the relationship isn't really a duet.
Speaker: It's a trio.
Speaker: The musician uses the instrument to create something wonderful, but the instrument itself is something wonderful on its own terms, a work of art created by the luthier.
Speaker: And of course, there is even another partner in this relationship, you and me, the audience.
Speaker: The ultimate craftsmanship of a person like Paul consists in his ability to tie it all together, from the wood and the measurements to the mood and the sound and the personality, and
Speaker: to bring about a moment of beauty and wonder?
Speaker: I think we have a unique business in this respect.
Speaker: Violins in their construction are considered art, sculpture work or artwork.
Speaker: However, true art can't be used.
Speaker: So it's the only artwork that is usable that creates another art.
Speaker: Well, I will say as a silver dealer, I take exception to that because I would say that a lot of what we buy and sell is sort of in a similar category.
Speaker: And when we see a coffee pot, a silver coffee pot in a museum, it can be lovely and it's nice that people get to see it.
Speaker: But it can also feel like a bit of a shame that it's never going to have coffee in it again.
Speaker: What I mean by what I'm saying is that you get a violin construction is a beautiful piece of sculpture work.
Speaker: You can put it that way.
Speaker: Inside and out, and it has a function.
Speaker: Without a player and a luthier working together, they can't create the sound that turns into another art form.
Speaker: So a violin is then played to create...
Speaker: another art form that you can only hear.
Speaker: You can't keep.
Speaker: Even recordings don't capture what happens in a performance, which is the true art form.
Speaker: You get a fine musician, and you remember probably five great performances in your life that you've heard.
Speaker: where people just jump up and applause and are screaming out of their seats because it's such a fantastic performance.
Speaker: And everybody will remember that for the rest of their lives.
Speaker: But if you think about that, if you get to ten, you're amazing.
Speaker: But if you have five performances in your lifetime of those kinds of things, think of the musician, how many times they've played those pieces and they get those reactions
Speaker: very few times in their life and they have studied, they have practiced 8 to 10 hours a day, they have studied for 16 years and they've tried to pursue playing gigs and all kinds of situations to get into the situation to play a performance and then only have one out of 500 that create that.
Speaker: It's an amazing amount of effort that goes into that one performance.
Speaker: to get that one that everybody remembers.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And there's nothing else like it.
Speaker: Makes me think about an astronaut, you know, spending years of training to go around the earth a couple of times and come back down again.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: It's a pursuit for the wellness of your soul.
Speaker: It is all the sensory experience of being with that instrument.
Speaker: It's the vibration of holding it and playing it, the smell of the varnish and the wood, the beauty of it as a physical object.
Speaker: All of those things are just deeply meaningful to me.
Speaker: You're getting poetic on me.
Speaker: Oh dear.
Speaker: It's hard not to when you are literally holding a work of art.
Speaker: I think that's a good note to close on, so to speak.
Speaker: Thanks, Mom.
Speaker: I don't know about you, but I feel like I've been on a real journey, and I don't just mean to Chicago.
Speaker: I really hope you enjoyed being along for the ride.
Speaker: Again, you can email me at podcast at themagazineantique.com.
Speaker: Today's episode was produced and edited by Sammy Delati.
Speaker: Our music is by Trap Rabbit, and I'm your host, Ben Miller.
