EMPEROR OF MELODY

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1930, Page 1 (Supplement)

EMPEROR OF MELODY

KUBELIK’S OLD FIDDLE

(By

“Scriblerus.”)

The audience stilled. Softly the bow glided among the strings. It dwelt longingly on the full notes of the Andante from Mendelssohn’s Concerto in E. Minor. Kubelik was the maestro, but the violin wais the “Emperor.” Someone called the fiddle “the bright jewel in Stradivarius’ crown, the chef d’oeuyre of his life and wliat is said to be the most perfect violin .in existence.” It seemed -two masters made the sonorous singing. Kubelik played, but back in old Cremona, in days when Prince Charlie came down into / England, Antonins • Stradivarius moulded ■and shaped the “Emperor.” No one can deny the beauty ,of thoughts charmed into the presents of the mind’s eye by music. And when the rich melody of the Andante throbbed from the old violin, pictures from the past welled up and drifted with the singing of the strings. Oliver Wendell Holmes felt this brooding mystery behind an old fiddle; “Played on by the ancient maestro until the bow hand lost its power and .the playing fingers stiffened: bequeathed to the passionate young enthusiast, who made it whisper his hidden love and cry his inarticulate longings and scream his untold agonies, and wail his monotonous despair: passed from his hand to the cold virtuoso who let it slumber in its case for a generation, till, when his hoard was broken up, it came forth once more and rode the stormy symphony of royal” orchestras beneath the rushing bow of their lord and leader. , , ; . And so given into our, hands, pores all full of music, stained like the meerschaum through and-through with all the harmonies that have kindled and faded on its strings.” The “Emperor” fiddle is just-such another and its shape has dominated countless scenes. A' deep old gold, it seemed mellow in the floodlights; On the superb yellow varnishing there are remnants of deeper colour that appears at each side s of the back, while there is another triangle on the belly to- the right of the fingerboard. It is said 1 that the back is not all made in one,' but that two thin strips, typically Italian traits, are fixed on each side of the back at the tail end of the fiddle. ’A- broad purfling runs round the outlines and straight out to the corners. The “Emperor” is austere when con- • trasted with the dainty bowing corners of the “Rode” Strad. The sound holes are beautifully cut in the belly' of choicest pine. The “Emperor’s” crown, ds the graceful, Tull-designed scroll.’And on, this bld fiddle, Jan Kubelik played before an audience in Nev/ Plymouth in New Zealand this week. j’

’ The thrilling notes of Saint-Saens’ Rondo Capriccioso echoed theatre. It was summer iff old Cremona and the sun smote dojwn on the Piazza Roma from a sky of the deepest blue. But there was only shadow, in the attic room-where the tall,' old man stood idly handling the deep red violins. , Antonins ’ Stradivarius had passed the four score years and ten when’.he looked’ fils, last pn the. “Emperor” as it passed from his workshop.' ' ' - 1 . <

He wore a white cotton cap and a white leather apron and one might easily have mistaken him at first for an ordinary tradesman. But to look into his face awoke reminiscences of Michael Angelp. The greatest violin maker the world'has seen was surveying a masterpiece of his golden period. The “Emjie/or”.. glowed .red in his.hands.?lt was. a colour .of the. Renaissance artj a colour that no longer exists. It does not fade but it -years, and to-day there is scarce more than the deep yellow beneath the varnish left on the “Emperor.” Perhaps he dreamed of the maestro who would i one day draw mighty melodies from . the burnished gem. Did he dream two hundred years into the future?

And so the fiddle went into the world but for one. hundred years its history was unknown. Schubert’s Ave Maria swept- from the “Emperor’s”- strings in grand cadences, and thoughts travelled to life within a convent walls with the deep-throated violin crying above the voices of. the’ supplicants. The jiroud strains of Kubelik’s own Ballade suggested other scenes. It is possible that rich melodies flowed from the old Strad’ before kings and queens of the-grand courts of Europe. The violin alone, keeps its secret, but certain only is the fact that the “Emperor” was -treated carefully in its pilgrimage of sohg.-" ? One day- Luigi Tarisio, wandering fiddler and carpenter and the wprld’s greatest collector of . Cremona’s art, passed by and discovered the “Emperor.” His custom in his peregrinations was to carry a decoy violin or two, new and common. After cracking a bottle with some old priest, the pedlar would view with pity, the old Cremona brought out by the priest. Tariso ■ would whip out his common fiddle and play a few notes on each, so manifestly, to the disadvantage of the Cremona that an exchange would soon be effected.' . . . • •It was in this .manner that the “Emperor” came once more under the eye of the historian. The first recorded event in the violin’s history is its purphase at Brussels by Mr. Andrew Fountaine, of Norford Hall, a connoisseur and leading collector during the early part c£ last ce.ntury. The violin became the gem ..of ,■ his collection and remained With ; this owner for many •years. i ■

Another collector, Joseph Gillot—a steel pen manufacturer—became envious of Fountaine, and commissioned John Hart, the famous expert, to obtain the “Emperor” at any price. The offer was accepted and the goldenvoiced violin was absolutely shut off from the -world for about thirty years. The son of Hart, George Hart had kept it in mind, however, and when Gillot died lie secured the violin for Mr. Haddock in, whose collection it remained from 1875 until his death in 1907. On his father’s death, the ‘‘Emperor” came into the hands of Edgar Haddock who twice played it in public, once at Leeds and shortly after in London. ‘ ’ Twice only- in 100 years was the “Emperor”: played before public ’audiences. There was a period of waiting and at last the “Emperor” and the maestro Kubelik joined forces. Kubelik loves his old Strad and it never leaves him. .- , '

Triumph has been its i share when Kubelik’s fingers danced among ' the strings. There are times when a violin shows its soul. The violin whispered arid the ..muted notes ;of Schumann’s Abendlied seemed to drift across; a. purpl© dusk. There was a movement on the skyline and a tall, gaunt figure stood between the rifted clouds against the afterglow. .