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. 

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. 

Karol Lipinski

Karol Lipinski was a Polish violinist, composer, and teacher born on October 30, 1790 (Beethoven was 20 years old.) He is famous for having been Paganini's rival and for the Stradivarius and Guarnerius violins which bear his name. From a very early age, he studied with his father, Felix Lipinski. In Vienna in 1814, he met Louis Spohr and was inspired to study further. He much later (1818) studied with a pupil of Tartini - a forgotten musician by the name of Mazzurana. By 1810, Lipinski was concertmaster of the opera orchestra in Lviv, Ukraine (a town about 250 miles southeast of Warsaw.) Two years later, he became its conductor. In 1817, he traveled to Italy and subsequently met Paganini in Milan. In April of 1818, he and Paganini gave two joint concerts, whereupon (of course) Lipinski's reputation soared. He went to Berlin and Russia in 1820. In Warsaw in 1829, he again played a series of concerts with Paganini, after which the two became rivals. Paganini later said "I don't know who the greatest violinist is, but Lipinski is certainly the second greatest." 1836 found him in England, where he played his second violin concerto (the Military) with the Royal Philharmonic. He more or less retired from touring after his appoinment to the posts of concertmaster and conductor of both, the Royal Oratory and the court chapel in Dresden in July of 1839. At least one source has stated that Lipinski was jealous of Richard Wagner when the composer conducted the Dresden orchestra. Supposedly, Wagner himself also spoke dismissively of Lipinski, describing him as a virtuoso of a bygone era. Several composers dedicated works to him, including Paganini, Schumann (Carnaval), and Wieniawski (Polonaise Brilliant.) Among Lipinski's compositions are four violin concertos, three symphonies, rondos, polonaises, caprices, chamber music, and variations - all of his output now forgotten, though some has been recorded. His Stradivarius (1715) is now played (though not owned) by Frank Almond, concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony. After setting up a music academy for young students, Lipinski died on December 16, 1861, at age 71.

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.)