One of the most wonderful people in this world was Rembert Wurlitzer, who came from the famous family that made organs. He also had a big violin shop. In fact, René Morel, the famous instrument restorer, worked in his shop with a man named Sacconi. I was desperate for a violin and so I went to Rembert and he helped me. He found for me what he believed to be an early Del Gesu Guarneri. It was a good instrument and I remember it cost either $12,000 or $14,000. He allowed me any number of years to pay for it. That’s how I got my first important instrument and I was quite happy with it. It didn’t have a very big tone but it had a beautiful sound.
The Strad
Tony Swarowsky was the son of Hans Swarowsky, who was a big conductor in Europe and also the conducting teacher of Zubin Mehta. He taught a lot of young conductors. Tony was not a musician. He could sort of conduct, he could play the cello, but most importantly, he was a dear friend. He married a French woman, settled in Paris and was studying to be a psychiatrist, although his passionate hobby was photography. At the time, he was treating Robin Lehman, the son of the man who gave many of the great paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Robin was training to be a musician and even studied composition. He was a very strange young man who kept busy collecting manuscripts and instruments. Tony also acted as Robin’s agent. One time they went to visit the daughter of Alma Mahler who lived in New York to see if they could buy the manuscript of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony.
Robin had composed a string quartet and I proposed to Tony that the Juilliard String Quartet play it. Robin was at loggerheads with his father, who was exceedingly wealthy. We ended up playing Robin’s quartet for his father and became quite friendly with Robin Lehman. One day, Tony called me up. I remember we were living on Morningside Drive. Tony was bickering with a famous engineer named Lewis who built bridges all over the world and owned a quartet of Stradivarius instruments. Robin wanted me to come to the Hampshire House on Central Park South where he was staying, and look at this violin collection. Of course, I went. I looked at all of the instruments. I couldn’t play the cello but I could still get a general idea of how it sounded. I thought the cello was beautiful. I told Robin not to buy the viola.
I thought that one of the violins was terrific. It was very famous and had been owned by an early Italian violinist. It had been played by Arnold Rosé, who was concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic for more than fifty years, so was known as the Rosé Strad. Rosé sold it to Lewis, the engineer. From my recommendations, Robin took out his checkbook and said he would buy the cello and one of the violins. He made out two separate checks, and I remember he made out a check for the violin for something like $36,000 or $37,000. Then Robin thanked me for helping him and said, “Wait a minute. Let’s go have a drink.” Finally he asked, “Would you like to play this instrument?” Well, I was thrilled and suggested that I would try to pay the instrument’s insurance. He said, “Oh, no, no. I have other Strads in Paris and other instruments. I want you just to play it.”
I played the Rosé Strad for about a year and was in heaven. I got a call from Tony and he asks, “How do you like the Strad?” I answered, “Are you kidding? It’s fantastic.” He said, “Well, why don’t you buy it? I’m sure that Robin would let you buy it.” I laughed and said, “You must be joking. How could I afford it?” Tony said, “I think he would sell it to you for $35,000.” I told him that I didn’t have that kind of money. Tony answered, “Now let’s be practical. First of all, I’ll bet you he would take the instrument you paid off, which is $12,000 or $13,000. He’ll take it as part of your payment. He doesn’t need the money.”
Tony also told me Robin was buying manuscripts. I had been given Webern’s own copy of his Piano Variations by a friend of Eugene Lehner, Dr. Rudy Kurtzman, who was an amateur pianist. Kurtzman had also been a friend of Anton Webern and he got this manuscript from the composer as a gift. So Tony said to me, “I’ll bet you that Robin would buy your copy of Anton Webern’s Piano Variations.” We called Robin up in Paris and he said, “Well, yes. I’m willing to sell the Strad if you can manage it.” He also wanted to know how good the instrument was for me. I called Isaac Stern and said, “You have got to help me.” Tony, Lucy and I met Isaac at Carnegie Hall, which he had just saved from demolition. The hall was empty and first Isaac got onstage and played my Guarneri. Then he played the Strad. I thought he sounded wonderful on both instruments, so that was not a problem. Now it was my turn to play both instruments on the Carnegie Hall stage. Everyone said, “You sound so much better on the Strad.” Isaac told me that I should buy it. Robin said he would take my instrument as partial payment but wanted to have the Strad evaluated by the top luthier in France. So Isaac called him for me and told him that Robin wanted him to evaluate the violin.
Lucy in Paris with Robin Lehman
PHOTO CREDIT: ANTON SWAROWSKY
Robin had one condition. He said, “I will take your violin as partial payment for the Strad only if you will let your beautiful wife Lucy bring it over to Paris. And, I will buy her ticket.” So, Lucy went over and stayed in one of Robin’s fantastic homes on the Right Bank. The French luthier gave Lucy an evaluation of $60,000 for the violin. Robin had agreed that I could buy the Strad for $36,000. He gave me five or six thousand for the Webern manuscript and my parents gave me six or seven thousand dollars. Lee Hambro gave me one or two thousand and even Hillyer loaned me a thousand. I somehow had the money for the violin and all of a sudden I was the owner of a beautiful Stradivarius.
There are two things about Strads. There are instruments that do what you try to have them do. And they are wonderful. There are also instruments that are wonderful but you have to play them a certain way. The Rosé Stradivarius is the kind of instrument that, if I played it the way that it wanted me to play it, sounded wonderful. It was a hard lesson to learn over the years, but I finally did learn it and I love the instrument and have played it for many, many years.