The Case for Conservation

With some frequency one can hear musicians disparage collectors who stockpile numbers of the finest string instruments. Musicians privately chastise collectors for unfairly hording wonderful musical treasures and denying the instruments and the performing artists a voice. Quite naturally, musicians intuit that string instruments are built to be used for making music, not for being kept in bank vaults, unused for decades. The two ideas are not necessarily totally incompatible. String instruments were built to be played and heard. The question is, "In which generation?"

The sophisticated American violin collector, David Fulton has been quoted as saying, "Violins are long-lived, not immortal." The finest string instruments are a finite resource. With each generation much of the world inventory of masterpieces by the greatest makers is subjected to the wear and tear, deterioration, and risk of loss through acts of god, hard use on the concert stages, and the travel that is a part of concert touring. If one were to measure the quantity and condition of the world inventory of the output of Stradivari from 100 years ago it would be easy to see that much erosion has actually occurred. Instruments that were in pure condition have been subjected to the wear and tear that accompanies hard use as well as to restorations, which are at times helpful, at other times terribly destructive. Many of the most desirable instruments are now a pale shadow of their former selves from a century ago. Still other instruments have been lost to the ravages of time through accidents on land, in the air, at sea and through acts of war.

An apt analogy for the deterioration of the world supply of the finest Italian string instruments is the deterioration of the earth’s eco-system. It is inevitable that the health of the planet will be eroded, through destructive changes or even due to natural evolution. By working as vigilantly as possible the best we can hope for is to stem the tide of destruction to habitat, while we restore or protect what we can. The situation is at least as bad (if not as profound) with fine string instruments. There can be no reversal of the process of deterioration; all we can hope to do is stem the tide and leave these wonderful relics to subsequent generations as intact as possible. If one considers the perspective of future concert artists and concertgoers, it is easy to see that some of these artifacts will be needed for the future. But one should also consider the perspective of makers: even the most careful artists cannot help but subject their instrument to wear and tear that requires cleaning, polishing and restoration to prevent more serious deterioration. Every time a violin is restored, polished or repaired some original details of the maker’s work are disturbed or eliminated. Multiply that by years of use and polishing, sound post adjustments, and infrequent but necessary top re-arching, re-edging etc. and it becomes clear that a substantial amount of original detail is being lost in the world inventory of the greatest instruments on a constant basis. In these details may lie keys to unlocking the mysteries of how well these instruments function, mysteries that have captivated so many for centuries.

Some claim that fine string instruments will lose their tonal qualities and go "mute" if they are not played. In the over 25 years since I first played on a Stradivari violin I have seen no evidence to support this. When a violin undergoes a major restoration, or is not in steady use, it will sometimes need to be played for a period of time before it "warms up." Sometimes the adjustment can be a tricky matter as well, and the combination of these things can make the search for the tonal sweet spot a frustrating experience. But in the end there is always a reason why a fine instrument doesn't sound. In my experience the reason has never been that the violin had simply been out of service for too long to ever sound again.

All of this is not to say that the finest string instruments should necessarily not be played, but only that it is appropriate that some of the most glamorous, and best preserved examples of the classical Italian makers should remain in relative hibernation and off of the concert stage. That way they will be available, in some cases for new generations of concert artists, and in other cases to serve as a reference guide for new generations of makers. We should not loathe collectors who store their cache of instruments in a bank vault. They may not be doing a direct service to the current crop of performing artists or concertgoers, but they are in fact performing a critically important service for posterity. ### 

Ralph Wolin   

Ralph Wolin is a violinist who contributes frequently to Soundpost Online.