Me and my Violin
January 1, 2014
Marc Lifschey, one of the greatest oboists of his era, once told me that after retiring as a performer and teacher, he had sold his oboe. On the face of it, giving up an instrument you no longer use seems perfectly reasonable, but nevertheless I was taken aback. Marc was not merely an excellent oboist; he was a great artist. His teacher, the French oboist Marcel Tabuteau, would often say to his students as a way of challenging them to lift music out of the ordinary: “You must mount your white steed and charge.” Marc could do that. The way he shaped a phrase in Bach’s Cantata #82, Ich Habe Genug, or in Schubert’s Great C Major Symphony always gave me goose bumps. Still, Marc didn’t do it alone. He and his oboe did it together. Even in retirement, wouldn’t Marc have some sort of lasting relationship with his oboe that transcended performing on it? Wouldn’t he want to keep it if for no other reason than as a reminder of the magnificent music the two of them had made together?
On the other hand, Efrem Zimbalist, the internationally renowned violinist, kept his instrument for a good thirty years after retiring from the concert stage, until his death at ninety-four. Despite marked hearing loss, he continued to practice daily until the very end of his life. One wonders why, with no concerts in mind and with the likelihood that he would play well below his high standards due to hearing impairment, Zimbalist continued to practice.
Joseph Roisman, the distinguished first violinist of the Budapest String Quartet, seemed to be content giving up his beloved Lorenzo Storioni when he agreed to sell it to me after the Quartet retired. But when I finally met with Roisman, he had second thoughts. “Steinhardt,” he said to me plaintively, “I’ll sell the violin to you some day, but for now I’m enjoying playing chamber music with my friends every Friday night.” And that is exactly what he did until his death a year or two later.
Lifschey, Zimbalist, and Roisman dealt with retirement in different ways, but their stories set me wondering not only about what I’ll do with my violin if and when I retire, but also about the very nature of a musician’s day-to-day, year-to-year relationship with his instrument.
I began playing the violin when I was six years old and now I’m seventy-six. The violin has been an integral part of my life for the last seventy years. Does that make the violin my very close friend? Well, yes. Sometimes. The violin obviously can’t speak with words, but when I ask something of it, the instrument can respond with an astonishing range of substance and emotion. This is friendship on a most exalted level. Sometimes.
There are those other moments, however, when the violin stubbornly refuses to do my bidding, when it only reluctantly plays in tune, or makes the sound I want, or delivers the music’s essence I strive for. Then I have to cajole, bargain, or adjust to its every whim. Some friend. More like an adversary, you might say.
Or is the violin my partner? A woman once went backstage to congratulate the great violinist Jascha Heifetz after a concert he’d just given. “What a wonderful sound your violin has, Mr. Heifetz”, she enthused. Heifetz leaned over to his violin that lay in its open case, listened intently for a moment, and said, “Funny, I don’t hear a thing.” My violin also lies mute in its case without me, but on the other hand I stand mute on the concert stage without it. Call this either a severe case of co-dependence or a heavenly partnership; the fact is that, inextricably entwined, we need each other.
If the violin is indeed my partner, it’s one that demands intimacy. When I hold the violin, my left arm stretches lovingly around its neck, my right hand draws the bow across the strings like a caress, and the violin itself is tucked under my chin, a place halfway between my brain and my beating heart. Instruments that are played at arm’s length—the piano, the bassoon, the tympani—have a certain reserve built into the relationship. Touch me, hold me if you must, but don’t get too close, they seem to say. To play the violin, however, I must stroke the strings and embrace a delicate body with ample curves and a scroll like a perfect hairdo fresh from the beauty salon. This is an instrument I would never want to call Oscar or Albert, but what about Lola or Renata? Or maybe Serafina?
Am I getting carried away with all this talk about my relationship with a wooden box with four strings and some horsehair attached to a stick? After all, on some level the violin and bow I use to make music are merely my work tools and really no different from a carpenter’s hammer and saw or a plumber’s wrench. But whom am I trying to kid. I know of no plumber with a two-hundred-year-old wrench made by hand in Cremona, Italy. If my violin, made by Lorenzo Storioni in Cremona around 1785, is in fact a work tool, then it is a tool possessing the miraculous ability to touch the heart with its sound and excite the eye with its beauty.
What will I do with the Storioni—call it friend, adversary, partner, or work tool—if and when I’ve drawn the bow across its strings for the very last time in public? Will I take my violin out of its case from time to time and admire its beautiful shape and lustrous varnish? Will I hold it in my hands and think of the wonderful life we’ve had together, of those special performances that stand out in my memory: the late Beethoven quartet we played together in Chicago, or that Mozart concerto in Boston? Will I actually choose to practice—merely out of habit or for my own secret pleasure? Or will I decide that there is no point in having a violin I no longer play and that it is time to pass the instrument on to someone else?
Honestly, I just don’t know.
photo credit: Dorothea von Haeften
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Comments
Please keep on fiddlin’ Arnold. Great reflection on retirement. Happy New Year 2014 from Paris.
Once again your essay has given me great pleasure and something to think about: who will receive my clarinet and when? Thank you, and happy New Year!
thank you, again, for the beautiful writing about the in-side track of life.
Arnold
You will know when the time is right to pass it along to the next deserving artist. It is said that no one really owns a great instrument–they are just borrowing it,taking good care of it, and making great music until it is time for the next artist to make love with it.
At age 13 I took violin lessons for just one school year from a man* who was, as I recall, the first chair violinist for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. He found a violin for me, brought it to me at our house, and charged my parents only $50 for it. He taught at my school for only that one year, unfortunately, so I stopped playing.
But I kept my violin for 20 years or more, then finally sold it. I’ve been deeply sorry ever since. I miss my violin; it held the few fond memories I have of my teacher and it also represented my unfulfilled potential with the instrument. Years later I purchased an inexpensive violin in an attempt to fill the void left by MY violin. It didn’t work. I will always wish I still had my violin. At least I have one photo of me with it, which will have to do I guess.
So my advice is, don’t sell your violin, unless you are able to be totally and permanently unsentimental about it. It’s not just a wooden box with strings. If violins were only that, I would not be forever missing mine.
*Note: My teacher’s name was Keylor Noland. Recently I “googled” him and discovered that he was a very talented and accomplished violinist who performed with several orchestras and toured with the Albert Tipton Chamber Orchestra. All I knew as a kid was that he was a nice teacher who said I had a good ear. Ah, the opportunities we miss.
Thank you for a beautiful story and for your inspiring playing. I hope you will keep your violin in retirement. Parting with such a friend seems unimaginable; and there is a huge tax advantage to keeping it. If sold during your lifetime you will owe capital gains tax on the increase in value since you bought it (cost basis). However, when you pass, your heirs will inherit it based on the current value (stepped up cost basis). Hopefully this is decades into the future!!!
Really interesting piece — thanks for writing it.
My father was Marc Lifschey, and it was somewhat of a surprise to all of us when he sold his oboe..though not entirely. I think that – for him – it was a part of his life that was simply finished, and he wanted to devote his artistry to painting and pastels. Much like you stated, his attachment at that point in life was not to the instrument itself but more to the art of the music, if that makes sense.
When I was growing up I had no idea how famous he was until a conducting professor in college asked me if Marc was my dad. That is to say: He was massively modest, almost to a fault, and I believe that that also carried over to the selling of his precious Loree.
I can’t imagine selling any of my most precious instruments, much less ever to stop playing them. But I suppose we’ll see when I hit my seventies!
Cheers,
Noah
Dearb Arnold,although i am 11years younger than you,all those thoughts in your mind are also in mine. My viola,Mateo Goffriller,was played 16 years by the founder of the Bohemian Quartet(later Czech Q).this viola premiered Dvorak’s two last quartets,youncan call them Dvorak’s late quartets.the viola is my best friend,sometimes,to use your words…. Already 30 years.she is always loyal to me,always !!
I think i will choose the way J.Roisman choosed.
Hope you stay in good health and spirit,happy new year 2014.
Ron.
I finished school just before you arrived as a flutist, contemporary of Micky and John. At age 52 approx. I experienced a nerve entrapment that GREATLY affected my ability to manage my instrument. There was no cure, and although I managed to survive in my job for another ten years without a discussion about “My future in the orchestra.” I did retire as soon as retirement became an option.
I grieved for my loss and deeply appreciated the doctors (Dr. Charness and Dr. Markus, surgeon, who operated on my arm and never presented a bill!
Giving away my music and instruments was a logical and perhaps necessary action. I did discover that I was still a person (even though NOT a flutist) with things to learn, do and share. I was fortunate to have the opportunity for a retirement in a congenial atmosphere, rather than experiencing the loss of income that so many others have had with similar ailments! Life is full of surprises! My students still continue playing and teaching, so I can feel that may have left a legacy that continues to touch people through music.
Thanks for the wonderful post! In my opinion, you should keep your violin. You love it!
I understand that when Bernhard Greenhouse became bedridden at the end of his life he kept his Strad in bed with him…
This was a wonderful story, Mr. Steinhardt, and one that I’m sure a lot of musicians can relate to. I believe it is a difficult decision to sell an instrument because loving anything of beauty is, unfortunately, always paired with loss, be it by our own hand or that of destiny.
As an adult, I have come to value my instruments—my piano and my violin. Although I don’t play either of them proficiently, I find solace when I sit down and play the pieces I’ve learned. When I was young I had the opportunity to take piano lessons, which I never appreciated, and after five years, I quit. I had all the time in the world then and didn’t practice. Now that I don’t have that much time, I want to practice.
In the case of the violin, I purchased it at an auction a couple of years ago and decided to take lessons. It felt good to make simple tunes emanate from it. I knew that I would never be a virtuosic violinist, and again, had to take a hiatus from lessons since I didn’t have the time to practice. Such is life.
At the present time, I would not be able to give up these instruments. It’s nice to think that if I feel like banging the keys or plucking the strings, these instruments will be there waiting for me.
Not only a master of making music to move the heart, but he writes with such feeling an dclarity! Oh Arnold- that was a wonderful bit of ruminating and story-telling. And right to the heart,again.
Love Sonya
i can see it’s hard to part with something that has been giving you so much pleasure, it’s like an old friend so i hope you keep your Serafina :-) … Happy New Year!
Dear Arnold Keep making that beautiful music on your beautiful violin til you reach 100!!!!
I enjoyed your story very much, as it deals with a subject we who play music must eventually face. I recently read an article about a trumpet player who requested his Benge trumpet be buried with him. After reading this I felt very sad, since in my opinion an instrument like that would be better off in the hands of someone who would continue using it for what it was intended.
I appreciated the way in which you treated a violinist’s “relationship” with the instrument in this post. My son, age 8, has been playing since he was four, and last year he wrote a poem called, “My Violin Makes Me Angry.” That wooden box can be such a challenging partner some times. Thank you for this terrific piece.
Dear Mr. Steinhardt,
I read your beautiful essay in “Listen” (& also admired the marvelous St. Croix photo). As to your question:
“One wonders why, with no concerts in mind and with the likelihood that he would play well below his high standards due to hearing impairment, Zimbalist continued to practice.”
It almost answers itself. Any deep love transcends time. I think of my own still passionate love (at first sight!) for my wife of + 35 years, and am not surprised. The idea is what endures. It’s no matter that physical performance may not be optimal…
To quote Shakespeare,
“Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”
I was lucky enough to be Marc’s last student. I moved to Portland after Curtis . I can speak to his relationship with his oboe and the oboe in general. This was a man who had a complicated relationship with his craft. from our long discussions I got the distinct impression that he hated making reeds and was joyous to sell his oboe and get to painting. I would have to rearrange the furniture each week for my lessons and on a few occasions I asked him to hold my oboe while I dragged stuff around… his response was hysterical…he made a sour face and shook his hands and absolutely refused to hold the oboe. He was a musician who transcended his instrument but he had to work so incredibly hard to keep his craftsmanship of reeds in top form. John Symer the fantastic oboe repairman showed me a letter from Marc that read something like ” please fix my gouging machine as I have been cast into the great abyss”. He often referred to the craft in a mysterial, magical way and confided that the only way he got through it was coffee and cigarettes. he was a great guy and I am I proud to have known him.
A new friend of mine has just read all past issues, and he sent me this one, thinking I might not have seen it. As for Marc’s oboe, as you know it’s not like a violin — they play out, and by the time he retired he would have had to buy a new one. He
packed them up and stored them in our basement. After he died I found them and gave them to
Bill Bennett, who wanted them just for sentimental reasons, but he couldn’t play on them.
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