Stolen Lipinski Violin Found

News pages have recently been awash in stories about Frank Almond’s stolen Lipinski Stradivarius violin.  On the evening of January 27, 2014, he was attacked with a stun gun while leaving a concert venue near the city of Milwaukee and the thieves (a man and a woman, according to Almond) quickly ran off with the violin, which he dropped - due to the shock – at the very spot he was approached.  Almond was apparently not unduly physically injured.  The papers have been saturated with stories and the FBI and Interpol have become involved with the expected hope that the violin may become impossible to sell or even to show because of the publicity.  I predict it will not reappear for a very, very long time.  My own theory is as follows: This was a very deliberate theft and well-planned.  The attackers were merely hired guns who quickly turned over the violin to another person whom I shall call an intermediary – a professional smuggler, if you will.  The exchange probably took place within minutes of the actual theft – I’m guessing no more than thirty minutes.  The smuggler would have made a fast run (by car or truck or some other inconspicuous vehicle) for the Canadian border - the most likely crossing point being Detroit.  The smuggler would have driven during the night and been in Detroit before 7 a.m. on Tuesday.  He (or she) would have waited for the most opportune time to cross into Windsor but well before the news of the theft was broadcast.  Once in Canada, the most likely place to hide a violin like that would be Montreal.  The problem of getting it out of Canada would be someone else’s and not the smuggler’s – most likely a broker for a trusted ally of the end buyer.  I’m guessing that the buyer is known only to his (or her) trusted ally.  At this time, I’m guessing the violin is still in Montreal and will remain there until sometime in the spring or early summer.  It is unlikely the violin would be stashed in a small city because moving it from place to place presents further risk of being discovered.  If it’s not smuggled out of Montreal (or Toronto) by mid-June, it will have to wait until mid-September and beyond.  The reason for that is that the easiest way to transport an instrument without arousing curiosity is in the midst of traveling groups – most likely chamber ensembles of ten to fifteen players.  Most of these ensembles include violinists who carry their instruments as carry-ons or in luggage compartments.  Walking a violin into a plane under those conditions would be easy for someone pretending to be part of a touring group or even as an independent traveling musician traveling on the same plane as the group, especially if the broker is knowledgeable about classical music or is a violinist – I will assume an amateur violinist, of course.  Concert activities slow down considerably after June but pick up again after September – a person would have to be quite stupid to try to smuggle something like this during the off season.  By April, the attention being paid to this stolen violin would have died down a lot and the time for the broker to act would be ripe.  If I were Interpol, I would be watching every touring ensemble coming into and leaving Montreal (and Toronto as well) for the foreseeable future.  I would also be reviewing video of all border crossers into Windsor on that Tuesday morning.  The final destination of the Lipinski is probably Japan.  It could also be Russia.  The transit points would most likely be Berlin, London, or Paris.  Of course, all of this is pure conjecture on my part – for all I know, at this very moment, the Lipinski might be in somebody’s house in Milwaukee.  This newspaper article contradicts pretty nearly everything I have theorized here. 

Buy a New Violin

Back in 1989 or 1990, a couple of violinists from the New York Philharmonic (Richard and Fiona Simon) took the IRS to court over some deductions which had been disallowed.  That case, which they won in U.S. Tax Court in 1994, firmly established that a violinist is lawfully entitled to depreciate the cost of his instrument (over a number of years), be it a humble Roth, a copy of a Strad, or a Guarnerius, even if the instrument is actually appreciating in value.  In any number of metropolitan orchestras around the country, a typical violinist can spend $5 or $10 thousand on a violin.  In a major orchestra, the norm is closer to $100,000.  In a world class orchestra, perhaps $200,000 violins are not all that rare.  (I know five violinists in our own orchestra who own very pricy violins.)  Of course, if you’re a concert violinist, you don’t own your violin, you borrow it.  But if you can afford to, it would be wise to buy a new, expensive violin every five years or so just to be able to take the allowable depreciation against your earnings.  When you hear that so-and-so recently fell in love with a new Guadagnini or a new Stradivarius (or what-have-you) and just had to have it, this might be part of the reason. 

Bronislaw Huberman

Bronisław Huberman was a Polish violinist, teacher, and writer born on December 19, 1882 (Brahms was 49 years old.) He is best known for founding the Israel Philharmonic and for his individualistic style of playing. He is also the only concert violinist who had the same violin stolen from him twice – the 1713 Gibson Stradivarius – in 1919 and again in 1936. As Jacques Thibaud before him, he had to spend a year rebuilding his technique after a plane crash (in 1937.) (Thibaud’s hand injuries were suffered while he served in the armed forces in the First World War. His later plane crash in 1953 was fatal.) He also married an actress, just as Pinchas Zukerman did much later – not the same actress, of course. (Jascha Heifetz and Ivry Gitlis also married actresses.) He also advocated a United Europe, but mostly in his writings and lectures (though he did confer with some high-ranking political leaders.). Later, he had a public disagreement with a German conductor over his refusal to play in Germany after 1932. Violin pedagogue Carl Flesch had an intense dislike for him, though I don’t know why. It may have been because he simply didn't like his style of playing.  Huberman was known in his time for being nervous, intense, and having strong convictions about everything.  Those qualitites were probably reflected in his playing as well.  Huberman first studied with Mieczyslaw Michalowicz and Maurycy Rosen from the Warsaw Conservatory and with Isidor Lotto in Paris (the study with Lotto may have been in Warsaw as well.) He played a Spohr concerto in public at age 7. From age ten, 1892 until about 1896, he studied with Joseph Joachim in Berlin, although his lessons with Joachim were sporadic – Joachim was absent from Berlin quite often. Huberman later said that another teacher – Charles Gregorovitch (student of Wieniawski) - had taught him everything he (Huberman) knew. However, he also studied with Joachim’s assistant (Karl Markees), Hugo Heermann in Frankfurt, and Martin Marsick in Paris. By the time he was 12, he had already toured Holland and Belgium. When he played in London a little later on, he was not as successful as he had been elsewhere. Back in Germany, despite his growing reputation, there were few concerts to play and money became very scarce. He had become the sole provider for his family and things began to take a desperate turn. It has been stated that during this time (1894), in Paris, Count Andrzej Zamoyski presented the Gibson Stradivarius violin to him.  (This particular Count Zamoyski was the son of Count Stanislaw Kostka Andrzej Zamoyski – there are several Counts from this family named Andrzej. Other sources have him receiving the violin from either Count Jan Florian Zamoyski, Count Maurycy Klemens Zamoyski, or the Austrian Emperor in that same year - 1894. However, a respected violin site - Cozio - has him acquiring the violin in 1911, not 1894.  According to the Huberman Archives in Tel Aviv, Huberman himself bought the violin in 1911. Obviously, these discrepancies need to be reconciled and I am therefore pursuing a solution to this seemingly simple riddle.)  In that year also, Adelina Patti, a singer who was well-known back then, invited Huberman to play with her on her farewell tour coming up in 1895. Though he only played at her last concert (January 22, 1895), things went well for Huberman and his family after that - the concert was a huge and critical success for them. He was still only 12 years old. The following January (1896) turned out to be a memorable one, too. Everyone agreed that he was brilliant and unencumbered in his interpretations. At one of his concerts in Vienna (January 29, 1896), he played the Brahms concerto. Brahms was present (among other great musicians), sitting in the balcony, and was incredibly impressed. The critics called him a genius. After 1896, he had no need for further lessons. In November of that year, he toured the U.S., making his debut at Carnegie Hall (New York) with the Mendelssohn concerto on November 21. He was 13 years old. It would be 25 years before he would return (1921). His playing was often described as very original, authoritative, and impetuous, but his tone was said to be somewhat un-beautiful, lacking finesse, sweetness, and warmth. In Europe, he had performed for royalty – including the Austrian Emperor - in the U.S., he played for wealthy patrons. In 1897 and 1898 he toured Russia. After that tour, he took three years off to rest and practice some more – perhaps also to help care for his sick father (who died in 1902.) Though he disliked recording, he did some of that in 1900. He later recorded (among other things, for Columbia Records) the Tchaikovsky concerto (1928-1929), becoming, according to some sources, the first violinist to do so. He toured Italy in 1903 and even played a recital on Paganini’s Cannone Guarnerius – a replica of which luthier Daniel Houck has constructed for me. Up to that time, only Camillo Sivori (Paganini’s pupil) had played the famous violin – Ruggiero Ricci, Eugene Fodor, Salvatore Accardo, Regina Carter, Dmitri Berlinsky, In Mo Yang, Maxim Vengerov, Gerard Poulet, and Leonid Kogan have also played the Cannone since then. He continued to tour extensively and very successfully – including South America - for the rest of his life. After 1932 he did not play in Germany. In 1937, he left Vienna for Switzerland. A year after the airplane accident (1937), he returned to the stage with a concert in Egypt. In 1939, he moved to New York but returned to Switzerland after the end of the Second World War. YouTube has many sound recordings of his on its site. Here is a sample of one of them. Huberman died on June 16, 1947 at age 64. It has been suggested that he died in his sleep. Joshua Bell now plays the twice-stolen Gibson Strad.

Norbert Brainin

Norbert Brainin was an Austrian (some would say English) violinist born on March 12, 1923 (Heifetz was 22 years old.) He is remembered for having been the first violinist of the Amadeus String Quartet for forty years. He entered the Vienna Conservatory at age 10 and studied with Rosa Rosenfeld and Riccardo Odnoposoff, concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic. Five years later (1938), his family was forced to move out of Austria. They soon settled in London where Brainin initially had a hard time - he was put in prison - due to war protocols. Upon his release a few months later, he studied with Carl Flesch and then with Flesch's assistant, Max Rostal. Flesch had fled to Amsterdam to get away from the war's difficulties. Brainin entered and won the gold medal in the Carl Flesch violin competition in London in 1946. The following year, he formed the Brainin String Quartet which changed its name a year later. On April 10, 1948, the Amadeus String Quartet made its debut at Wigmore Hall. In the 40 years of its existence, the quartet never changed personnel and only disbanded because its violist passed away - he was deemed irreplaceable. In the late 1980s, Brainin became involved in an effort (which gained momentum in Italy in 1988) to lower the tuning of the concert "A" to 432 hz. (from 440 hz.) Unfortunately, the effort did not succeed. He also taught in Cologne (1971-2005) and in London (1986-2005) and gave master classes around the world. During his career, Brainin played several important violins, including the "Rode" Guarnerius (1734), the "Chaconne" Stradivarius (1725), and the famous "Gibson" Stradivarius (1713), formerly owned by (and twice stolen from) Bronislaw Huberman - now owned by Joshua Bell. Brainin died unexpectedly on April 10, 2005, at age 82.