Dance bands were the first to appreciate its potential. But it soon went global as Europe went global. Players from Northern Italy’s Guastalla to Southern India’s Goa discovered that it was as good for the gagliardo as it was right for the raga. In skilled as well as unskilled hands it could bring tears to people’s eyes.
In principle, all violins are created equal, endowed by their creators with backs, bellies, ribs, necks and heads. But within a generation of the instrument’s debut, it was clear that some were created more equal than others. Catherine de Medici, the Italian-born regent for her teenage son, King Charles IX of France, knew where to shop for the court band as early as 1560.
Andrea Amati was still the first and only maker in Cremona, a little town on the Po, when the order for 12 large and 12 small violins, six violas and eight cellos arrived from Paris. Over the next 200 years, five generations of Amatis, three of Guarneris and the redoubtable Antonio Stradivari would produce the instruments that made Cremona famous. Today, between them, the Library of Congress and Smithsonian Institution boast 11 precious Stradivarius instruments, a wealth of public goods practically unequaled in the world.
By the end of the 18th century, Stradivari led the market with a brand recognition Coca-Cola might envy. An estimated 250 violins by Giuseppe Guarneri, a younger contemporary, who called himself del Gesu, caught up about a generation later.
Hauling their peers and competitors behind them like kite tails, both Strads and del Gesus have been A-list collectibles, leading indicators of Western culture, and financial as well as musical instruments ever since. (Are you listening, Wall Street?)
Arnold Ehrlich, a leading German critic looked on in bafflement in 1899 as prices reached four digits in pounds sterling, and five in marks and francs. “Prices are absolutely bonkers,” Gary Sturm, curator of instrument collections at the Smithsonian, told the New York Times in 1984 as they flirted with seven figures in dollars.
A generation later, Sturm remembers the interview with an indulgent smile. About a thousand violins, mostly Italian, mostly 16th to 18th century, currently sell for $1 million to $2 million, according to Philip Margolis, whose www.cozio.com is the closest there is to a global database on fine stringed instruments. Two hundred more go for $3 million to $5 million. That leaves about 50 Strads and del Gesus that go for $10 million and up.
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