Dear Alma, I am losing my special sound
OrchestrasFrom our agony aunt’s mailbag:
Dear Alma,
I have been playing a pedigree Cremona viola on loan from a private benefactor.
My patron has died and his kids want the instrument back, probably to sell it. The asking price would be at least a million dollars beyond my dreams.
I am 32 years old. I have been playing this beauty since I was 24. I cannot imagine myself playing another. My husband says it would be like me taking a lover.
I am thinking of giving up a rewarding chamber music career and retraining as a therapist.
What’s your advice?
Losing my Voice
Dear Losing my Voice,
Find a quiet moment. One when you know you will not be disturbed. It could be an early morning amble, an afternoon tea in a quiet shop, or a late evening close to the fire. Close your eyes and imagine the opening of the Smetana String Quartet, or Dvořák’s 9th Cypress. Let your fingers find the notes, your heart find the timing, the color, the desperation of the Smetana and the rich comfort of the Cypress. Find your deepest desires, the turns of a phrase which brought you to your love of the viola, and which sustained you through the years of hard work, the sacrifice that your family must have made for you, all of the times you said “no” to an invitation because you wanted to stay home to practice, to prepare for school, a competition or performance.
The sound you have in your head is your sound. The Cremona viola is no more your voice than the still and silent wedding dress of Princess Diana defines inherently the person who was Diana Frances Spencer. It is an outfit, a beautifully tailored outfit which makes you feel like a princess. But it is you, the person inside, who is the star. It is not the shell which makes the person, but rather the creature which lives and breaths inside of it.
I could tell you to not give up, to talk to the family about a payment plan, to find an investor or contact your university or any number of private organizations which specialize in investing in these instruments and then loaning them out. Of course you can do all of this.
What I want for you is for you to believe in your own voice. This is the message which calls to us, Losing my Voice, from your query. Believe in the love of your craft, and in your own personal vision and voice. If it were that specific Cremona viola, anyone who would play it would sound like you, or you would sound like anyone who has played it in the past 300 years. It would be a curse, not a liberation. Like a horror film called “Viola Zombies of Cremona”. With or without that viola, with or without hands, arms, or body, your voice is yours. Your craft is within you. Believe in that.
Questions for Alma? Please put them in the comments section or send to DearAlmaQuery@gmail.com
Crying. It’s beautiful. And true.
Sometimes it’s nice to just remember why we love playing. I wish I did that more often. Thank you for the reminder.
Dear Alma,
This is Trying to Look Away, the musician consumed by envy https://slippedisc.com/2023/09/dear-alma-i-am-a-musician-consumed-by-envy/
Thank you for your words of advice. I have begun to go to a therapist, and am feeling much improved. I have begin to enjoy my life again, and am beginning to feel a sense of release.
Please keep writing, even this post helped me find a better place.
Thank you.
Our imagination is what makes our sound.
Dear Mr. Rosen,
I am the former bass student who stopped in the middle of a Marcello sonata at CMU some forty years ago. You told me it was my first jury and wouldn’t be my last. I instead became a violin maker and have had a life of never ending fascination with instruments and will always have music as a driving force. Starting over isn’t easy!
Regards,
Chris White
Boston
This is wise advice, but let’s also not forget the fact that an instrument laying on a table or chair, doesn’t make on its own…
Sometimes those investment companies just keep them in the vault. That’s tragic.
Which is why this player will find another instrument to carry her voice.
doesn’t make music on its own…
What a wonderful story. So true.
This is wise and true. When I commissioned and received my second violin I mentioned to a colleague my surprise that, though very different in architecture and of course age from my main instrument, it sounded remarkably similar. He looked at me almost with pity. “It’s still you playing it, isn’t it?” he said.
Perhaps some encouragement and hope can also be taken from the experiences of so many of the great violinists who after long allegiance to one instrument for a long period of time, switched instruments, often more than once, although admittedly not involuntarily as in this case. Heifetz is a good example, and needless to say, he always still sounded like Heifetz on the next one. Even on the one made of aluminum!
And some have made the switch from fine Cremona violins to the best of the modern day makers and have not regretted the move, although playing on a “million dollar” violin is always good PR fodder for official bios.
Steven Staryk told me he went through dozens of fine Cremona violins over the years. Some he regretted moving on from, some he was relieved that he did. But he never felt constrained in doing so by the greatness of the violin he was playing on at the time.
Dear Alma,
This is Trying to Look Away, the musician consumed by envy https://slippedisc.com/2023/09/dear-alma-i-am-a-musician-consumed-by-envy/
Thank you for your words of advice. I have begun to go to a therapist, and am feeling much improved. I have begin to enjoy my life again, and am beginning to feel a sense of release.
Please keep writing, even this post helped me find a better place.
Before handing it back get it copied by a fine contemporary maker. In the UK such as David Rattray or Melvin Goldsmith…
Contact HMRC, or the American equivalent, and ask them to waive the inheritance tax so long as the instrument is out on loan.
I can’t stand that you feel like you have to sell your house anda kidney to play a stringed instrument.
You have had the good fortune to have the use of that instrument for longer than most will ever have.. Be grateful for that, express your gratitude to the owners and move on! Accept that change is constant inevitable.