The story of the long-missing, now found, Stradivarius

[KTJ]

from The Washington Post....

Missing for 35 years, the stunning discovery of a stolen Stradivarius

By GEOFF EDGERS | 5:38AM EDT - Thursday, August 06, 2015


Roman Totenberg performs with the Stradivarius in the 1950s. The violin disappeared after a performance by Totenberg in 1980
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. — Photograph courtesy of the Totenberg family via NPR.

A RARE, 281-year-old Stradivarius violin stolen in 1980 from a beloved musician and teacher has been found, according to Nina Totenberg, the National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent and daughter of the late violinist Roman Totenberg.

The prized Strad, crafted by the famed Italian luthier in 1734, disappeared after a performance by Totenberg in 1980 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Later today, at the U.S. Attorney's office in New York City, the instrument will be returned to his three daughters. Nina Totenberg declined to speculate on its value, though a Stradivarius violin sold for more than $15 million in 2011.

Roman Totenberg, a Polish-American violinist who played with major orchestras and became a leading teacher in the Boston area, died in 2012 at the age of 101.

“The agent said to me, that's his one regret, that they didn't get it back in time for him to see it and play it again,” said Nina Totenberg. “He was practicing two weeks before he died in 2012. But you know, I like to think that somewhere, somehow, he and my mother know about this. And who knows, maybe they made this happen.”


Totenberg, the Polish born violinist and influential teacher continued to teach until his death at the age of 101.
— Photograph: Bill Greene/The Boston Globe.


The Ames Stradivarius was recovered by the FBI in June. — Photograph courtesy of the FBI, New York.

Totenberg rarely, if ever, spoke about the Strad, his daughter says. It had been stolen from his office on a Thursday night after a concert on May 15th, 1980.

“It was like a death in the family,” said Totenberg, who will accompany her sisters, Jill and Amy, to today's ceremony. “You just move on. But I'm sure he thought about it.”

The story of the Strad's disappearance and recovery, as told by Totenberg in an interview, is a surreal tale that sounds like a cross between “The Thomas Crown Affair” and a Robert Ludlum novel. That night, Totenberg, 69 at the time, had performed a concert at the Longy School of Music, where he served as director. The instrument was taken from his office during a post-show reception. Totenberg's suspicions centered on a young musician, Philip Johnson, who he saw milling about after the performance. But Totenberg never had enough solid evidence to convince legal authorities to search the musician's home.

It took 35 years, but in the end, he was right. Johnson, who moved to California in the 1980s, died of cancer in 2011 at the age of 58. He left his ex-wife an instrument in a locked case. It wasn't until earlier this year, Totenberg said, that Johnson’s ex finally cracked the combination lock. She found the Stradivarius and sought an appraisal from an expert. The appraiser examined the violin, contacted the FBI Art Theft team and it was seized. The Totenbergs repaid the insurance company the $101,000 doled out back in 1980 so they could reclaim their father's violin. The sisters will sell the Strad, but not to just anybody.

“What we know is that we're not selling to somebody who is a collector unless it's with a specific purpose of being played by somebody,” Totenberg said. “We all agreed it has to be sold for the purpose of performance.”


A valuable Stradivarius violin, just recovered after being stolen in 1980 from Roman Totenberg, is on display as it is
presented to its late owner's daughters Jill, left, Nina and Amy Totenberg, at the Department of Justice in New York,
on Thursday. The antique Ames Stradivarius violin of 1734 was made by the Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari
of Cremona. — Photograph: Yana Paskova/The Washington Post.


Jason Masimore, assistant U.S. prosecutor and violinist, plays a violin as another valuable violin, a Stradivarius, just
recovered after being stolen in 1980 from Roman Totenberg, is prepared before it is presented to its late owner's
daughters at the Department of Justice in New York. — Photograph: Yana Paskova/The Washington Post.

Nobody knows how much the instrument will fetch. Totenberg bought it for about $15,000 in 1943.

To celebrate the recovery, the Totenberg sisters plan to meet for lunch after today's presentation. Every evening, around 6 p.m., Roman Totenberg would have a shot of vodka along with cheese and crackers.

“We drank a shot of vodka to him when we buried his ashes,” said Totenberg, “and we're going to do the same at lunch.”

• Geoff Edgers joined The Washington Post staff as national arts reporter in 2014. Before that, he worked as an arts reporter at The Boston Globe.

__________________________________________________________________________

Read more on this topic:

• Roman Totenberg, world-renowned violinist and teacher, saw students until the day before his death

www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/missing-for-35-years-the-stunning-discovery-of-stolen-stradivarius/2015/08/06/c458be58-3bf4-11e5-b3ac-8a79bc44e5e2_story.html

[KTJ]

from The Washington Post....

Roman Totenberg's stolen Stradivarius was once lost forever.
Now, it plays again.

The restored instrument was unveiled at a New York concert featuring former student Mira Wang.

By GEOFF EDGERS | 12:10PM EDT - Tuesday, March 14, 2017


Violinist Mira Wang prepares to play the Stradivarius that was stolen from her teacher, Roman Totenberg, at her home on March 7th.
— Photograph: Jesse Dittmar/The Washington Post.

NEW YORK — No two Strads are alike, they say, but the violin that Mira Wang reintroduced to the world on Monday night is truly special. It was gone for decades, stolen after a concert in 1980, and its owner, Roman Totenberg, died in 2012 thinking it would never be seen again.

At a few minutes after 8 p.m., Wang proved her beloved teacher wrong.

“May he hear the violin tonight,” she told an audience of 200 people at a private club in Manhattan, and then launched into the Ysaÿe Violin Sonata No.2.

Wang, 49, a masterful soloist who emigrated from China in the 1980s to study with Totenberg, performed a movement that seemed scripted for the instrument, the moment and the player, with shifting tempos, dashing runs and delicate, crying notes. It's not a piece you can hide behind — and she didn't.

When Wang was done, she declared, “I'm holding the Totenberg Ames Stradivarius in my hands.”

Such a declaration would have seemed unthinkable as recently as two years ago. Philip Johnson, a talented but erratic younger player, stole the violin after a performance by Totenberg in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He seemed to have gotten away with the crime. For the remainder of Totenberg's life, memories of the Stradivarius — sparked by old recordings or concert posters — would bring sadness to the normally ebullient master.


Violinist Mira Wang plays Roman Totenberg's Stradivarius at home in New York. — Photograph: Jesse Dittmar/The Washington Post.

Wang's performance marked perhaps the final chapter in a stunning musical mystery. (As is standard in high-society Manhattan, the private club in which she performed allowed The Washington Post to witness the moment only on the condition that it not be named.) Among the 200 people at the concert were many of the central characters in the happy ending. Christopher McKeough, the FBI agent who helped recover the Strad in 2015, sat on the left side of the room. Bruno Price, the rare-instrument dealer whose shop restored it, took his place across the room. Then there were the three sisters in the second row: Nina, Jill and Amy Totenberg last watched their father perform on the Stradivarius during the waning days of the Carter administration.

They were thrilled to hear the violin reclaimed.

“I think it was better than we expected,” Jill Totenberg said. “Remember, she's only been with that instrument for a month.”

The Stradivarius, built in 1734, is considered quite rare, as only 500 or so of the 1,000 violins dating before Antonio Stradivari's death in 1737 have survived. Johnson stole it on May 13th, 1980, at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after Totenberg played an all-Mozart recital. He was a suspect at the time, but Johnson was never caught. It wasn't until 2015, four years after his death of cancer in California, that his ex-wife took the instrument to a dealer to be appraised. It was immediately identified as Totenberg's violin.

The sisters plan to sell the Stradivarius, but want to make sure that it ends up in the hands of a player instead of tucked away by a wealthy collector. And first, they wanted it to be heard in public again. They knew exactly who should unveil it.

Wang met Totenberg in 1986 at a competition in Poland. With the help of a translator, she wrote Totenberg a letter that led to her being awarded a scholarship to Boston University, where he taught. Wang showed up in the United States speaking no English and with a rickety violin. Totenberg lent her another instrument, and he and his wife, Melanie, gave her a place to stay. At some point, he told her about the stolen Stradivarius.

“He told me of the suspicions, of who took it,” Wang said before the concert. “But of course, it had been so many years, he thought probably it was long gone. He didn't like to talk about that. Because it would bring him pain, for sure. So we didn't talk about it too many times.”


Roman and Melanie Totenberg with Mira Wang in New Zealand, where Wang won first prize in an international competition in 1992.
— Photograph: Courtesy of Mira Wang.

Over the years, she remained close, seeing Totenberg every few months and talking to him often. A few days before he died in 2012, she made the trip to Newton, Massachusetts, to sit by his bed and play Bach and Brahms.

“I just wanted him to listen to some music and bring him peace,” Wang said. “There were so many visitors by then. When I first started playing, I saw it in his face.”

The recovery of the Stradivarius has been emotional for the sisters. Amy, a federal judge, found herself moved by the many cards of congratulations from the countless students devoted to her parents. Jill, who runs a public relations firm, joyously toasted along with her sisters with a shot of vodka — Roman's drink of choice — when the FBI returned the Strad in 2015. Nina, the NPR legal affairs correspondent, found herself having dreams about her father and waking up crying. The Stradivarius brought her back to another time, when they were all so much younger.

“When he died, I was ready for him to die,” she said. “I was very sad, but he got so frail in that last year. And suddenly, I was mourning the death of somebody who was like 50- or 60-something.”

On Monday night, the shift from looking back to looking forward began.


Violinist Mira Wang displays the recovered Stradivarius at her home in New York. — Photograph: Jesse Dittmar/The Washington Post.

First, Wang played her solo opening. The audience cheered her, but her husband, cellist Jan Vogler, could tell that the moment had been difficult.

“She was very emotional, because of Roman,” he said. “I could see it in her face the first note.”

Then, at 8:15 p.m., she called the four other players from the back of the room to tackle a Mendelssohn string quintet. Together, they offered her mentor his greatest tribute.

When they were done, David Austin, a retired architect in the audience, didn't say a word about the fascinating mystery that led to the violin's rediscovery. He had a more important question.

“How could they play those triplets so fast?”

Just like that, Roman Totenberg's Stradivarius had been reborn as another working instrument. A prized, precious one, of course, but an instrument to be celebrated less for where it had been than for where it might be going.

• Geoff Edgers, The Washington Post's national arts reporter, covers everything from fine arts to popular culture. In the last year, he's profiled Bill Murray, the Eagles and told the story of the making of Run-DMC's version of Walk This Way.

__________________________________________________________________________

Related story:

• Philip Johnson was a promising musical prodigy. Then he stole a teacher's prized Stradivarius.

• Missing for 35 years, the stunning discovery of a stolen Stradivarius

www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/on-a-stormy-night-roman-totenbergs-stolen-stradivarius-is-reborn-in-public/2017/03/13/80c9b0c0-0821-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html

[jody]

I would love the opportunity to see one and to play it, no I am not great but I can at least make music come out of one