In 2008 violinist Philippe Quint was flying back to New York from a concert
in Dallas. He took a taxi from the Newark Airport
to Manhattan and before he could take his violin out, the car pulled away.
It probably the scariest and most devastating experience of my life.
The cab driver returned the instrument a few hours later, but the incident scarred
Philippe for good reason. This wasn't just any violin he left in the cab. This
was a Stradivarius violin worth over four million dollars that's on loan to
him. It's like losing part of yourself, you know. It's like somebody cut off your
hand and especially given the fact it's not your hand.
This hand already was
belonging to someone else.
Even if you're not a musician like me, you've probably
still heard of a Stradivarius violin.
Stradivarius. Stradivarius. Stradivarius.
There's some of the most famous string
instruments in the world. And some of the most renowned musicians have declared
their love for them.
This instrument has a soul and it has an imagination. It's not
a tool. It is a part -- it's a total extension of me.
Strads, as they're sometimes called,
are incredibly valuable and can be worth up to 16 million
dollars. But are they actually worth it?
I headed up to Lincoln Center to meet
Michelle Kim to find out.
I am the assistant concert master of the
New York Philharmonic.
The characteristic of a Strad in general is that it has a silvery tone. And it
creates this incredibly sweet tone, so if you were...
For me the Strad has a sweet quality to it, but also able to take some blows. So
if I were to play something really hard...
and versus you know something...
By playing on my daughter's instrument I would have had to...
press kind of hard to to make that sound come out, but you would lose the quality
that you're actually looking for.
The source of the Strad's brilliant sound
can be traced back to its maker artisan Antonio Stradivari was a luthier or
violin maker who lived in Cremona, Italy in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
He crafted these string instruments for most of his life and
produced an estimated 1,100 instruments in his lifetime.
But only about 650
survived today.
These instruments are rare and there's a long tradition of
nicknaming them.
The 310 year-old violin that Philippe plays
is called Ruby.
I have to admit, I'm a little nervous to be around that.
My god, please don't do that.
I googled the gemstone the ruby and the description, I think was
that it's a stone of passion and mystery.
And immediately I attributed these
qualities to this violin and to this day I really feel that it's true. For
generations, musicians have claimed that Strads have a superior sound to modern
violins, but can most people actually tell the difference?
Researchers in Paris
performed a double-blind study with professional violinists, to see if they
could tell the difference between old Italian violins like Strads
and new violins.
They had musicians wear very cool sunglasses while they played
multiple instruments from each era.
The study found that even elite musicians couldn't reliably tell which
violins were old and which were new.
And maybe more surprisingly, most of them
actually preferred the sound of the new violins over the Strads.
One measure of
This is Joseph Curtin, one of the researchers behind the study
and a violin maker himself.
But maybe the worth of a Strad isn't wrapped up in its sound alone.
Michelle's violin has been passed down through generations of violinists for
almost 300 years, from the Duke of Cambridge, to the German composer Louis Spohr,
to Ureli Corelli, the founder of the New York Philharmonic.
It is literally a link to the past.
It is a piece of history that you are holding.
I feel like this violin is the New York Philharmonic, because it has existed as
long as the New York Philharmonic has.
It's been amazing to be a part of this Strad's life.