FORTUNE FOR A FIDDLE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 287, 7 November 1925, Page 14

FORTUNE FOR A FIDDLE.

FINEST "STEAD” IN WORLD. SOLD IN PAULS FOR £IO,OOO The finest fiddle iu the world has changed hands in Paris. It has been bought by AI. Alischa Elman lor 3JJ.U,UOO. An instrument that could licicllo a fortune out of someone’s pocket, says a London writer, must be a marvel. And so it is. It is the best Stradivarius in existence, and has a history, for it'passed through various hands to come into the possession of one of the most charming and brilliant of women, Aladame Itecamier. There are many reasons why people remember Aladame Recamier. Louis David, the leader of the classical school of painting, made ail exquisite portrait of this Frenchwoman. It is now in the Louvre. For this alone Aladame Recamier would be famous. She was memorable on her own account. She was born in Lyons just before the revolution, and while only in her ’teens she married and became the mistress of a large house to which all the learning and wit of Paris flocked. She had the art of drawing out genius in the people about her. and was the friend of famous men and women of letters. Her reminiscences mirror a remarkable period in French history. The fiddle must have already been a hundred years old before it passed into the hands of Aladame Recamier. Antonio Stradivarius, of Cremona, lived from 1044 to 17157, and spent most of his life making stfinged instruments. His master, Amati, whose fame is generally swallowed up in that of the gifted pupil, had brought fiddlemaking extremely near perfection. Stradivarius achieved that perfection. For 200 years before his time instrument makers of Cremona had been developing and improving the violin. After Stradivarius there could bo nothing but imitations.

Two hundred more years have passed, and still the world can only copy Stradivarius. He was a quaint figure of a man, tall and thin, earing for little except his home life and his work. In winter he wore a white woollen cap and a white leather apron; in summer a white cotton cap and leather apron, llis industry was like that of a great many of the world’s geniuses, stupendous. He was frugal to a degree. Rut one must not think the fiddles from the Stradivarius workshops sold for £IO,OOO then, or even £2OOO, which was a record price in 1800. Far from it. Sometimes the maker got a fair sum when lie was working for great patrons like the King of Spain or the Duke of Tuscany. Generally speaking, his instruments had a very ordinary market price. The fiddles from the Cremona workshop came as from a factory to the chief towns of Europe. It is stated that in London in the eighteenth century there was a musician who was also a music dealer called Ceryetto. To him arrived in the way of trade a consignment of Stradivarius violins. He returned the greater number of them, as ho could not dispose of them at the price asked, which was £4 apiece. Stradivarius had no idea he was a genius. He looked upon himself ns a maker of as good a fiddle as could ho produced. How amazed he would ho could lie return from the land of ghosts and hear about the £IO,OOO just paid in Laris-I