You might remember this classic commercial...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk71h2CQ_xM&nohtml5=False
In the violin world, something similar goes on on a regular basis. Is it really a Strad, or is it a well-crafted copy? If it WAS made by Stradivari, how much has it been changed structurally? Would the man who made it even recognize it as one of his own?
In the world of these rare instruments, fakes are not uncommon. Someone trying to pass off an instrument as a Strad, Guarneri, or Del Gesu doesn't have to build a copy. Rather, a ploy which is as old as some of the violins is fake labels affixed to the instrument.
I read occasional stories of people who have found a "Stradivarius" in Grandad's attic and prepare to retire on the proceeds, only to find that the proceeds might not even buy them a decent meal.
In an article entitled The Greatest Violin No One's Ever Heard, Quincy Whitney, author of American Luthier, explores the subject. The conversation begins with a Stradivarius, dubbed The Messiah, which sits behind glass at the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford. The violin is in pristine condition, because it has rarely been played. It has become a work of art, rather than an instrument.
It makes me think a bit of someone who collects cars, buying them when they're brand new, then parking it in a garage to be looked at, but not driven. Yes, they're beautiful, but without at least occasional use, some components begin to deteriorate, eventually rendering the engine unusable without a lot of work.
According to most musicians I speak with, stringed instruments need to be played. They were built to be played. I find myself wondering how that instrument sounds, especially next to other similar violins which have gone through extensive restoration. We may never know.
Whitney went on to quote from a publication in the book The Violin World. It was written by Norman Pickering, who is quite familiar to audiophiles as a designer of high-fidelity equipment. He was also an electrical engineer, Juilliard-trained musician, and acoustics professor. He wrote about French master luthier Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, who saw the coming market for these instruments in the 19th century and began to collect them. He also had a habit of putting fake labels in his own instruments and was delighted when no one could tell the difference. Apparently, Vuillaume modified "The Messiah" before putting it on display. Jon Whiteley, who curated a Stradivarius exhibition a few years ago at the Ashmolean, told Mark Brown, Arts Correspondent for the Guardian, that, "In the late 19th century its owner Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume gave it a new fingerboard, pegs, bass bar and tailpiece to bring it up to modern playing standards. "I wish he hadn't done it," said Whiteley. "If he had only left it as it was this would have been the one single Stradivari violin that would have survived in an intact condition, the way it had left its workshop."
Of Vuillaume’s actions, Pickering said: “If this was to be preserved as an original Stradivari, that amounts nearly to an act of vandalism.”
So does anyone have a 100% complete, unaltered Strad? Doubtful...though I have read of one, the Lady Blunt, which is one of the least altered.
While most of us will never get to hear the Lady Blunt or The Messiah played, I can offer you a chance to hear one of the finest violins in use today, the ex-Napoleon/Molitor Stradivarius, played by Anne Akiko Meyers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQYyy-co_Uw&nohtml5=False