TAX AND VIOLINS

Regular readers of these screeds know that I am following the story of a wealthy philanthropist who sold his $50 million collection of rare stringed instruments at half-price to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. A dozen Stradivari violins, three made by Guarneri del Gesù, and an Amati viola were sold to the struggling orchestra for the bargain-basement price of $18 million. In the first rant of this series, I sneered at the entire concept of antique instruments, but I've recently read that the story has taken an absurd turn, one which fills me with mirth.

How absurd? I invite the reader to guess which of the following was reported by the New York Times:

1. After six months, some, but not all, of the instruments turned out to be fakes constructed out of cardboard. Three of the fake Strads were cardboard, but the Amati viola was made of phenolic resin.
2. During a performance of Handel's Water Music a disgruntled union member caused the auditorium's sprinkler system to come on, thus ruining the treasured instruments.
3. Republican Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa charged that the instruments were overpriced.
4. The orchestra neglected to give the philanthropist, Herbert Axelrod, a receipt, and he subsequently ran off to Cuba.
5. Musicians have declared that a Stradivarius violin isn't as good as an instrument made in 2001.

As much as I wish that the correct answers were 1 and 2—I made those up, I'm still happy to report that 3, 4 and 5 are all true. Iowa, of course, was the home of heroic Republican stalwart H. R. Gross who, amidst all the breast-beating in the wake of the Kennedy assassination, demanded to know who was going to pay the tab on the Eternal Flame which graces the Kennedy tomb, and his congressional heir, Charles E. Grassley, is making sure that there are no similar such shenanigans in the sale of musical instruments. He has thus scheduled hearings to investigate such charitable donations.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service has also questioned the value of violins Herbert Axelrod donated, both those now in the hands of the Joisey Symphony, and an earlier donation made to the Smithsonian Institute, a government agency. The wealthy publisher of pet-care books was indicted on tax evasion, became a fugitive, and is now on his yacht, moored in the Marina Hemingway in Havana, safely out of the clutches of the U.S. government.

All of this can be read in various articles in the Times, and the Sunday, May 2, 2004 report concludes with the opinion of noted German violinist Christian Tetzlaff, who once played a Stradivarius but traded it in on a new model made in 2001 by Peter Greiner. He praises the superiority of the Greiner violin, saying that with it, "I can play very loud and very soft. With the Strad, I just couldn't give as much, especially in the upper range....People don't know how many bad-sounding Stradivaris are out there, how many I've tried that just don't work."

Spouting such blasphemy will undoubtedly cause Mr. Tetzlaff to be shunned by the community of classical votaries. How could anything new possibly be superior to anything old? Certainly not in classical music, which is the refuge of all those for whom the modern world is too upsetting and bewildering. Old things and old music must be better, because they are respectable and hence safe.