Letter from London: Quality comes at a price

By JOE HARROP

Chefs have their knives, farmers have their tractors and barbers have their chairs. But string players get a raw deal. Buying a quality violin or cello is so costly it can get to the point where musos have to choose to buy an instrument or a house.

Antique Italian instruments are revered throughout the string world for their sound quality, and by dealers and investors for their value. An instrument by a reputable French or German maker in good condition can cost $30,000, which is a problem for a young musician.

A good violinist needs a good violin, but any old five-figure fiddle won't do. A soloist needs one that will project in a big hall, while an orchestral violinist needs one that will blend with fellow players.

After the first round of auditions, a candidate may be told to find another fiddle. Likewise, entrants in an international competition will borrow a valuable instrument to increase their chances. The Queen Elizabeth Violin Competition in Belgium offers a Stradivarius as a prize.

It is true that the player makes the music, but good hardware helps. I have attended master classes where students play their best, only to be asked, "What is that violin you are playing?" When offered the instrument the master sniffs and inevitably says, "It's awful".

A good stringed instrument can help you play better. In many institutions, promising students are lent a better violin or cello, which provides a wide range of tone colour, greater contrast and clarity.

The Royal Academy of Music has an enviable collection of stringed instruments. Custodian David Rattray says it is unfair that students need a valuable instrument to have a winning chance at top-level competitions. "But playing on a good instrument makes a difference with judges."

The academy often lends its students one of its best instruments, in some cases a Stradivarius. Rattray says having these instruments available makes a big difference to the quality of music-making.

There are other ways in which instruments and instrumentalists "find" each other, as violinist Fritz Kreisler once said. Some banks buy violins for promising violinists, and the Stradivari Society buys fine instruments for world-class soloists.

Russian violinist Vadim Repin benefits from the society and the latest violin protege, Chloe Hanslip, is also on their waiting list. Comparing themselves to the Medici family, the Stradivari Society appears almost offensively elitist but the fact that most of the artists under their patronage eventually buy the instrument on loan demonstrates they are simply trying to help good players find good instruments.

But for those string players who don't enjoy such patronage, buying a good instrument is a struggle. Many players acquire one towards the end of their career, arguably when they don't really need it.

However, to say this would be to ignore the allure of antique Italian varnish, the tantalising woodwork of Nicolo Amati, Rugeri, and Guadagnini. A wise violinist once told me, "You never own a violin, you only pay a lot of money to hold on to it for a while."