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. 

Ruben Gonzalez

Ruben Gonzalez (Ruben De Artagnan Gonzalez) is an Argentinian (most people would say American) violinist, composer, teacher, and conductor born (in Viale, Argentina) on May 4, 1939.  He is best known for having been the concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony from 1986 to 1996.  He is also known for having played the Kreisler Bergonzi violin.  Fritz Kreisler played that instrument for about ten years (1939 to 1949.)  A usually reliable source says that Kreisler used the instrument after he gave up his Guarnerius to the Library of Congress but that is obviously not true since Kreisler gave up his Guarnerius in 1952.  From Kreisler, the (Carlo) Bergonzi went to Angel Reyes (in 1949) then to Itzhak Perlman then to Ruben Gonzalez then to a collector.  According to one source, it is now in the hands of violinist Guro Hagen, though it is not owned by her.  Gonzalez studied with Osvaldo Pessina in Argentina and then with other teachers in Europe who are not exactly household names.  In 1965, Gonzalez won the top prize in a well-known competition in Barcelona, Spain.  He then played in an ensemble in Italy from which he returned to Buenos Aires, Argentina to begin his career as an orchestral player.  From Argentina, he went to Hamburg, Germany where he was concertmaster with the North German Radio Orchestra.  Returning to the U.S., he joined the Minnesota Orchestra as associate concertmaster in 1977.  From 1981 to 1986 he was concertmaster of the Houston Symphony.  In 1986, George Solti named him concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony – actually, one of two concertmasters, in the style of most German orchestras.  Among other schools, Gonzalez has taught at Rice University in Texas.  Here is a very popular video on YouTube in which Gonzalez is at the very end of the Dvorak concerto when something totally unexpected happens.  Gonzalez continues to play but he now devotes most of his time to conducting and composition.  

Angel Reyes

Angel Reyes was a Cuban violinist and teacher born on February 14, 1919.  There is little information about him readily available and this blog post is one I had very little time to write so I will conduct further research and expand it later in the week.  His first teacher was Juan Torroella in Cuba and he made his first public appearance at age 12. Reyes then studied in Europe at the Paris Conservatory from which most sources say he graduated at age 16.  His main teacher there was Firmin Touche (1875-1957), concertmaster of the Paris Opera as well as the Edouard Colonne Orchestra.  Touche also had his own quite successful string quartet - the Firmin Touche Quartet.  Reyes had a brief concertizing career before settling down to a teaching career at the University of Texas (1947 to 1955), Northwestern University  (1955 to 1965), and the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), from which he retired in 1985. He was appointed Chairman of the String Department at Michigan in December of 1977.  Reyes was also first violinist with the quartet-in-residence at the University of Texas.  The quartet probably had a name but I do not yet know what it was.  He made his U.S. orchestral debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra on January 7, 1944.  Eugene Ormandy conducted that concert and Reyes played the Brahms concerto on that occasion.  He again appeared with Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra on April 16, 1948, playing Karol Szymanowski's second concerto.  Reyes first performed with the New York Philharmonic on March 23, 1946, playing the Mendelssohn concerto at Carnegie Hall with Artur Rodzinski on the podium.  The performance was recorded and the recording is still available from the Richard Rodzinski collection. On June 6, 1946, he again played with the Philharmonic - he performed the first movement of Lalo's Symphonie Espagnol at a pops concert on which a variety of works (and several artists) were on the program.  He was 27 years old.  He later soloed with the Havana Philharmonic (pre-Fidel Castro days, of course) and many other orchestras in Europe, Canada, and Latin America many times.  He played, among other violins, the Lipinski Stradivarius (1715) and the Kreisler (Carlo) Bergonzi violins.  It has been said that the Lipinski Strad was first owned by none other than Giuseppe Tartini.  It is now played (and has been for a while) by Frank Almond, concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony.  Among Reyes' many students are Barbara Barber, Tyrone Greive, Joseph Sylvan, Laura Hammes Black, Michael Goldman, and Marilyn McDonald.  Reyes died on November 17, 1988, at age 69. 

Giuseppe Tartini

Giuseppe Tartini was an Italian violinist and composer born on April 8, 1692 (J.S. Bach was 7 years old.) Though he early on began the general study of music, he actually began his violin studies at a comparatively late age (in his late teens). A story is told that when Tartini heard Francesco Veracini’s playing in 1716, he was so impressed by it and so dissatisfied with his own skill, that he fled to Ancona and locked himself away in a room to practice. Thereafter, Tartini's playing improved greatly and in 1721 he was appointed Maestro De Capella at the Church of San Antonio in Padua. Tartini was the first owner of what today is known as the Lipinski Stradivarius.  (In his day, Polish violinist Karol Lipinski was considered by many to be Paganini's chief rival.)  Though he wrote hundreds of concertos and sonatas (as did Antonio Vivaldi) for the violin (as well as music theory books), as a composer, Tartini is best known for his Devil’s Trill Sonata, a piece which has been much recorded. You can see several performances of it on YouTube as well. One of the better ones is by Anne-Sophie Mutter. Tartini died in February of 1770, at age 77 (Mozart was 13 years old.)