Ah, some books are well worth waiting for. This book was finally published this fall. And now I can say that it was definitely worth the wait! The Countess of Stanlein, subtitled ‘A History of The Countess of Stanlein Ex Paganini Stradivarius Cello of 1707′ is a slim volume that fit within me fiddle case for a week when I was gigging with Danse Macabre in the Nordic region for a few months. It’s a quick read, but oh so interesting.
It is generally acknowledged by musicians and historians alike that Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, who lived from 1644 to 1737, was the finest maker ever of bowed wooden string instruments. Centuries later, his instruments are still the standard for modern luthiers. Not that they can ever be as good; Stradivari has never been matched in his craftsmanship — hell, no luthier’s even come close.
There is a myriad number of every instrument he made in existence today except for violoncellos, which were not a common instrument in his era. (The name “violoncello” (or cello as they’re often called) was first used in the mid-17th century, but bass violins of one kind or another, which they are related to, are mentioned in literature some centuries earlier.) The Countess of Stanlein has been copied by other luthiers down the centuries. This cello has had a sometimes unkind history, including almost ending up in the rubbish bin!
Currently the ‘Stanlein’, as it’s commonly called, is in the loving hands of cellist Bernard Greenhouse, who’s in his eighties and semiretired — as if any of us truly retire from being musicians! A few years back, he decided that the Countess of Stanlein deserved to be restored to her original condition. That was a delicate proposition, as restoring a three-hundred-year-old instrument isn’t something that just any luthier can do. Near as I can tell from the narrative, there were virtually no luthiers who were deemed fit to even hold the Countess. The luthier who got the assignment was René Morel, whose workshop was not all that far from the New York City residence where Bernard had lived for decades. (This story has some overlaps with the story of concert pianist Katherine Forrester as depicted in two Madeleine L’Engle novels, A Severed Wasp and its sequel, A Small Rain. Go read them for an excellent look at the life of a master musician.) The craft of violin repair is rooted in the master and apprentice tradition that was centuries old before the Countess even existed. Not that the workshop of René is medieval in tone — they drink coffee, take smoke breaks, and listen to rock ‘n’ roll!
René himself began a tedious and exacting process of restoring this ever-so-rare instrument. This task — hell, labour of love — would take René some two years. But what’s two years when an instrument is almost three hundred years old? Not a lot of time if you think in those terms. The Countess of Stanlein in large part concerns the process of restoring that which cannot be changed, but can be brought back to what it was, i.e., how do you preserve the tone of it while removing centuries of dirt and varnish? Will it be ‘brighter’ in sound than it is now? Will it indeed still be the Countess? And imagine how nervous René must have been when his work was unveiled at the annual meeting of the World Cello Congress in June 2000!
Suffice it to say that the Countess was well-treated by René, and Bernard was more than pleased by what he heard — a restored Countess that was what Antonio Stradivari crafted so many centuries before, but whose sound was unaffected by the restoration. So if you’re a musician, read this volume for a look at both an instrument and a craft one rarely sees. And you lovers of music should read it for the sheer joy of seeing how good Nicholas Delbanco, a professor of English Language and Literature, is at telling a tale!
(Verso, 2001)
