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Two of Yehudi
Menuhin's violins, to be sold Auctions Ahead November is traditionally a month filled with major instrument auctions, and 1999 is no exception. Skinner will hold a sale of fine musical instruments in Boston on November 7. Buyers in London will have their week cut out for them, with a Phillips auction on November 15, a sale at Sotheby’s on November 16, and sales at both Christie’s and Bonhams on November 17. Phillips will also be holding its popular Music in Art sale on November 15, in which a wide variety of paintings, sculptures, and other artworks related to music will be uctioned; past items have included everything from contemporaneous sketches of famous musicians to set designs for operas. Finally, Sotheby’s will finish up the year with its annual sale of early musical instruments on December 7. The Menuhin Collection The highlight of Sotheby’s November 16 auction will be the sale of fine instruments and bows from the collection of the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin. Menuhin, an influential and highly respected musician and humanitarian, built up his collection over more than 60 years. Many of the instruments and bows to be offered for sale are dedicated to Menuhin and accompanied by letters from their makers. A number of items include Menuhin’s handwritten labels, such as a gold-mounted Voirin bow annotated, "Voirin—acquired early 1930s in Paris. Enesco approved. My most used bow." The collection is wide-ranging, including both great historic examples and modern works. Highlights include a violin by Santo Seraphin, made in Venice in 1739, and another by Giovanni Maria del Bussetto, made in Cremona ca. 1680; each is expected to bring £70,000–£100,000 ($120,000–$170,000). Bows for sale include three by François Tourte—one of which was made for French virtuoso Rudolphe Kreutzer and engraved with his name—three by rare Russian maker Nicolaus Kittel, another three by François Nicolas Voirin, and one by Dominique Peccatte. For more information or to purchase a catalog of the sale, contact Sotheby’s at (44) 171-493-8080 or www.sothebys.com. New Heads of Houses Christie’s, the well-known London-based auction house, has announced Kerry Keane’s appointment as head of the Musical Instrument Department. Keane will be responsible for the two sales per year currently held at Christie’s South Kensington rooms, as well as future sales planned for Christie’s East in New York City starting in 2000. Keane is also a violin maker and restorer, and you may know him from frequent appearances on PBS’ Antiques Roadshow. He has been with Skinner, in Boston, Massachusetts, since 1986, where he created and developed the Musical Instrument Department. Keane has been replaced at Skinner by David Bonsey, a violin maker and musician who has spent two decades working in the instrument market. In 1987 he joined Johnson String Instrument in Newton, Massachusetts; there he established The Violin Workshop, which buys, sells, and appraises professional-quality instruments and bows. Bonsey also participates in the Oberlin Violin Making Workshop every year and went to Providence, Rhode Island, with the Antiques Roadshow this summer. He is a member of the Violin Society of America and an associate member of the American Federation of Violin and Bow Makers. Color Your World Viva Shoulder Rests are now available in five bright colors, each with contrasting feet, from Knilling. Like all Viva rests, these feature an 18-point adjustment system and are particularly useful for students with extra-wide or narrow shoulders. The grooved rubber feet minimize sound dampening while maintaining a secure grip; the ergonomically designed body is made of a reinforced synthetic material and is densely cushioned. Available in various sizes, the rests retail for $29.95. For more information, contact Knilling at 1400 Ferguson Ave., St. Louis, MO 63133, or visit www.knilling.com. If colored shoulder rests don’t do it for you, how about a colored bow? CodaBow International, a maker of graphite-fiber bows, has introduced the CodaBow Colours Series. Designed for "advanced preprofessional" players, the bows feature a new, light-activated finish that changes color as they are played. At first the bows appear to be a pernambuco-like reddish brown hue, but when used they change color to emerald green, gold, blue, and a fiery yellow. The brighter the light, the more vibrant the color becomes. Look for the bows at shops nationwide, or get more information by calling (888) CODABOW or visiting www.codabow.com. Puzzled for Presents Ever wish you could put a Strad on your Christmas list? Now you can—sort of. Wrebbit, the manufacturer of Puzz-3D, the popular jigsaw puzzles that make up into three-dimensional models of landmarks such as Big Ben and St. Paul’s Cathedral, has come out with a puzzle version of a violin. And not just any violin: it’s a Stradivari with a decorated edge. Unlike typical flat jigsaw puzzles, Puzz-3D puzzles are mounted on ¼-inch-thick foam and connect not just edge-to-edge but at odd angles, to create fairly true-to-scale replicas of real objects. The Puzz-3D violin is life-size and sturdy enough for gentle handling. It comes with a cardboard stand and bow, puzzle pieces for a metronome, and a brief history of the development of the violin, finishing with Stradivari, whose name "has become synonymous with that of the instrument itself." Look for the Puzz-3D Violin in toy and hobby stores near you or contact the manufacturer at 400 Stinson St., St-Laurent, PQ H4N 2E9, Canada, or at www.wrebbit.com. Buying Classical On-Line The Internet is a terrific resource for general and music-specific research, participating in news groups, and staying in touch with faraway friends via e-mail. But for me—and anyone who doesn’t live near a major city—it is also the best place to find and buy classical CDs and sheet music. Many on-line music stores specialize in popular music and offer only a token selection of classical CDs (just like regular record stores!). But many others are committed to the classics, and those are the ones I have included in this review. I have rated the stores on three criteria (see chart below). First is how easy the sites are to search. Second is selection—all have the latest Yo-Yo Ma release, but how many different recordings of the Kodály duo for violin and cello are available? The third criterion is price. One of the most important features of Web-based stores, assuming they carry the products you want, is ease in finding what you are looking for. While price is important, all of the stores offer discounts; the cost of a given CD rarely varies by more than a dollar or two among sites. It is the searching capability that distinguishes one on-line store from another, and for me that is the most important criterion when shopping for music this way. Most stores offer a separate classical area, so you won’t waste time browsing the huge number of pop-music releases. Most also let you search by any combination of composer, performer, conductor, and work title. The better stores also provide cross links, so when a composer search returns a CD performed by, say, Heifetz, you can click on his name and find all of the other CDs by him that the site offers. A few stores also provide RealAudio clips for some tracks on the CDs they sell, letting you hear the first 10–20 seconds of a piece to be sure it’s what you expect. To judge selection, I searched for both the Brahms Cello Sonata in E-Minor, Op. 38, and the Kodály Duo for Cello and Violin, Op. 7, and noted how many separate recordings were available for each in the Versions Available column. Ease of searching is rated from one to five stars, with five the best. Note that even if a site has no match for the Brahms Sonata, it doesn’t necessarily mean that store doesn’t carry it; it could be a shortcoming in the search program. For instance, CDNow’s searching is all but useless: when I specified "Brahms" for the composer and "Op. 38" for the work, the site returned 44 pages of CD listings—everything by Brahms available on the site. Mass Music and MusicOnSale.com were even worse; I gave up trying to find anything there and they’re not included on the chart below.
Although there are dozens of on-line sheet-music stores, I found only three that carry a usable range of classical titles. Furthermore, these shops are generally not up to the quality level (of either search function or content) of the CD stores. But two—Shar Products and Sheet Music Plus—stand out. The ratings for these stores is for the Brahms Op. 38, since there were generally more editions of this work than the Kodály Duo.
A final note: finding on-line music shops can be like shooting at a moving target. New stores appear almost daily, and the best way to stay current is to use the various Web search engines, such as my favorites, www.google.com and www.metacrawler.com, or www.yahoo.com. —Ethan Winer Samuel Kolstein Dies Samuel Kolstein, who founded Kolstein Music in New York City, died on May 23, 1999, at the age of 83. Almost entirely self-taught, Kolstein opened the Samuel Kolstein Violin Shop in Brooklyn in 1943, selling violins and bows, and was the primary bow restorer for Wurlitzer from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. In 1958 the shop was relocated to Long Island, and in 1971 Kolstein’s son Barrie joined the business. A reorganization in 1974 resulted in a division of the business into Kolstein Music, Inc., which specializes in product development, manufacturing, and worldwide distribution of Kolstein products, and Samuel Kolstein & Son, Ltd., which sells, makes, and restores instruments and bows. In 1980 Barrie took over the business and relocated to the present address at 795 Foxhurst Road in Baldwin, New York. However, Samuel Kolstein continued to make and restore bows until his death. Early Music Exhibition In June of 1999 I attended the biannual Boston Early Music Festival and Exhibition, an event that attracts people from many corners of the globe. Judging from the abundance of master classes and concerts (which started in the morning and continued late into the night), the quantity and variety of exhibitors, and the beauty and opulence of the centerpiece opera, music from earlier times performed on original instruments is thriving. The festival took place throughout the city of Boston, with an exhibition that sprawled through two hotels and performances in churches, conservatories, libraries, and a theater. There were dozens of concurrent concerts and while I could not go to many, I did bring my kids to a Family Day program, which introduced children to the sounds and instruments of the Middle Ages. And I was fortunate to attend Ernesto Cavalli’s rarely heard opera, Ercole Amante (Hercules in Love). Cavalli was one of the foremost 18th-century Venetian opera composers; with his wonderfully evocative vocal music and dance music by the French composer Lully, Ercole Amante is utterly charming, though the plot is even more nonsensical and convoluted than that of most operas. The festival performance was superb, with a marvelous cast of vocalists, skilled dancers, and sumptuous costumes; the King’s Noyse teamed up with the BEMF Violin Band to provide the able accompaniment. Hats off to the organizers for staging the work. Another highlight of the festivities was the exhibition, which featured more than 100 craftspeople from the world over. I spent the better part of two days there and didn’t have nearly enough time to see all that I wanted. It was such a treat to have so many makers gathered in one place, all eager to share their expertise. You could try out and compare bows and instruments—particularly if you could sneak off to a quiet corner. There was quite a cacophony of sounds at times; early clarinets blended with gambas, shawms, violins, and historic percussion. I have purchased period bows by Louis Begin and Ralph Ashmead at earlier music festivals, and this time, I borrowed a Baroque bow made by H.F. Grabenstein (179 Walker Hill Rd., Williston, VT 05495; [802] 872-8923) for a few days, performed on it, and finally bought it. There was also so much to learn! William Monical (288 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301; [718] 816-7878), who sells, restores, and appraises bowed instruments, patiently examined an endless stream of instruments. He studied my newly restored English cello (see "A Jewel in the Rough," July/August 1998), dating it as a bit more recent than I had hoped, but affirming that it was perfectly suited to life as a Baroque instrument. He also looked at my other Baroque cello, which now doesn’t get much use, and suggested ways to improve it by replacing its rather unwieldy neck. While he does do such work himself, he suggested that I find a repairperson closer to home. So I zipped over to the table of Karl Dennis (48 Beach St., Warren, RI 02885; [401] 247-0159), who had several good ideas; I left the cello with him. There were interesting things to see and hear all over the exhibition hall. Dan Larson (26 N. 28th Ave. E., Duluth, MN 55812; [218] 343-6676; www.daniellarson.com) makes instruments and strings, and he showed me some of his recent developments. He has added marble dust to one variety of strings, in search of greater stability (early strings, made from gut, are notoriously unstable). There were makers new to the exhibition, including violinist Trevor Ewert (RR3, Wellesley, ON N0B2T0 Canada; [519] 699-5748), who has been making bows for the past three years. He also offered handmade, slip-on leather violin mutes; I’ve often been amused at the number of early-music specialists who have all 18th-century instrument fittings but modern plastic mutes. German-born maker Steffen Nowak (12 Windsor Terrace, Totterdown, Bristol BS3 4UF, England; [44] 117-97-77141; www.nowakviolins.free-online.co.uk) had some beautiful Baroque instruments on display. He also had pictures of an unusual cutaway modern viola that he’d been commissioned to make, complete with a gold-winged honeybee for a scroll. Most of the keyboard instruments were shown in a different hotel than the stringed instruments, but Monical’s room was in the hotel housing the harpsichords, as was a room shared by Grabenstein, viol maker Dominik Zuchowicz (35 Kenora St., Ottawa, ON K1Y 3K7 Canada; [613] 729-8965; zuchowicz.viols@sympatico.ca), and violin maker Warren Ellison (2A Depot St., Underhill, VT 05489; [802] 899-3441). This seemed like an ideal situation—if, for example, a player wanted to try Grabenstein’s bows but hadn’t brought an instrument along, there were Zuchowicz’s and Ellison’s to use. Players took advantage of the opportunity; I watched one teenager try a Zuchowicz gamba and realize with utter delight that physical problems she’d experienced at home disappeared when she had a smaller instrument. I also had a lovely time browsing through music at the exhibition and adding to my music library (all of the music publishers offered a substantial exhibition discount). I will have to find more time to spend at the next exhibition, two years hence, because I can’t wait to go back! —Sarah Freiberg VSA Convenes in D.C. The 27th annual convention of the Violin Society of America is being held in Washington, D.C., November 4–7, 1999. Although this is not a competition year (the VSA holds violin-making competitions biannually), the convention includes many interesting events, lectures and panels, musical performances, and more. A day of special events is planned for Friday, November 5, beginning with a visit to the Library of Congress to examine resident instruments by Antonio Stradivari, Nicolò Amati, and Guarneri del Gesù. In the afternoon members will meet at the nearby Smithsonian Institution for another instrument orgy; the Smithsonian is particularly rich in quartets, including the Axelrod Quartet (made up entirely of Stradivaris), a quartet by Jacob Stainer, and a Baroque ensemble acquired from collector Lawrence Witten. Present at the museum at the time of the convention will also be an Amati ensemble on loan from the nearby Corcoran Museum of Art. Many other individual instruments and bows will be examined as well. For more information, write to 48 Academy St., Poughkeepsie, NY 12601; call (914) 452-7557; or go to www.vsa.to. Market-related news items and information on new products, from the U.S. or abroad, are always welcome. Please mail to Jessamyn Reeves-Brown, Market Report, Strings, PO Box 151049, San Rafael, CA 94915; fax to (415) 485-0831; or e-mail to jessamyn@stringletter.com.
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