Sunday, April 16, 2000

By Barbara Zuck
Dispatch Arts Columnist and Senior Critic

The following story is complicated, mysterious and could qualify as a sequel to the intriguing movie The Red Violin.

Among the highlights of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra gala concert Tuesday were two solos by concertmaster Charles Wetherbee.

Wetherbee is good on any night, but in these works he was spectacular.

What happened?

He was playing a different violin.

Houston owner Darlene Rubinoff brought the instrument, which had been her husband's, famed violinist David Rubinoff. Rubinoff died in Columbus in 1986 at the age of 89.

Mrs. Rubinoff learned of Wetherbee from a mutual acquaintance, Paula Akbar, a violinist with the National Symphony in Washington, who recommended Wetherbee.

Mrs. Rubinoff and two family members brought the Romanoff Stradivarius, which Mr. Rubinoff had named, to Columbus the day of the gala. A week earlier, Akbar, Wetherbee and Mrs. Rubinoff were able to piece together the score and orchestral parts to one of David Rubinoff's most popular works, Danse Russe.

Wetherbee picked up the fiddle at about noon Tuesday, played the rehearsal at 1 p.m. and performed the Rubinoff work as well as the Meditation from Massenet's Thais at the concert.

It is a testament to Wetherbee's fortitude that he dared to play an unfamiliar instrument and an unfamiliar virtuosic showpiece with so little time to prepare.

It is a testament to his artistry that he played both works with consummate skill and style. And, with all due respect to Wetherbee's own fiddle, the quality of his playing was incomparable.

Which leads to the subject of the violin itself.

The real Strad

The Tuesday concert prompted some interesting "what-ifs"?

What if Darlene Rubinoff wanted to sell the Strad?

What if the Columbus Symphony could somehow buy it for its concertmaster to play?

What if a symphony patron, inspired by Wetherbee's performance, an available Stradivarius and interest as a collector, bought it and loaned it to the orchestra?

Then again, what if the instrument isn't really a Strad?

Perhaps, the violin's lack of power, especially in the middle-to-mid-high range, could be attributed to its less-than-pristine condition, including cracks leading from the chin rest.

The Stradivari Society in Chicago, the 15-year-old institution that acquires, maintains and loans Strads and other valuable instruments to worthy players who cannot afford them, may have some answers to the puzzle.

Antonio Stradivari, by the way, is the proper Italian name of the luthier from Cremona, Italy, who lived from 1644 to 1737. A convention of the time was for instrument builders and others to Latinize their names in formal use: hence, Antonius Stradivarius.

Today a Strad typically fetches $2.5 million to $3.5 million with the most costly, once owned by Jascha Heifitz, bringing $6 million. There are 630 remaining violins made by Stradivarius. Cellos are rarer and command higher prices. Strad violas are rarer still and even more costly.

[a Chicago violin dealer], president of the Stradivari Society and a partner in the rare instrument dealership [a Chicago violin dealer], also of Chicago, said he knew David Rubinoff and has seen his Stradivarius. He remembered it as the "Maurin" Strad, which had been extensively damaged and repaired, and, as such, would be worth between $1 million and $1.2 million today.

Mrs. Rubinoff had said in an earlier conversation that she would sell the violin for $3 million to Wetherbee because he was such a wonderful artist and because she would like to see the instrument return to Columbus. However, she thought it was worth between $2 million and $12 million, in part because it had been owned by Rubinoff.

Rubinoff acquired the "Maurin" Stradivarius, built in 1731, in the late 1920s or 1930s from the Wurlitzer Co., acting as an agent for instrument collector Nathan E. Posner. According to the book How Many Strads? by Ernest Doring, recently republished by [a Chicago violin dealer], Posner bought the violin from a woman in Paris. It was known as the "Maurin," presumably named after a famous late 19th-century French violinist, Jean Pierre Maurin.

Mrs. Rubinoff recalled that the violin had been carried out of Russia before the 1917 revolution by the czar's family, hence the name by which Rubinoff called it, the "Romanoff" Strad. Neither [a Chicago violin dealer]nor the book mentions a Russian history, however. Mrs. Rubinoff said the czar's family sold it to a French courtesan. This part of the story meshes with that in the Doring book, though the timing may not.

The worth of a glorious sound

[a Chicago violin dealer] believes that Rubinoff had two copies of the original made, that the copies were good, and that the actual Strad may have been sold about 25 years ago to someone in Japan. He offered to authenticate and appraise the violin Mrs. Rubinoff has.

The intrigue does not end here, however.

[a Chicago violin dealer] and his partner, [a Chicago violin dealer] are defendants in a lawsuit charging them of collusion with other art dealers. They are specifically accused of buying violins for below-market value and raising the prices for unwarranted profits.

"Basically we bought violins from someone we have always bought violins from and now we are going to have to spend a lot of money proving that," [a Chicago violin dealer] said Wednesday.

Even the occasional antiques dealer knows the perils of authenticating old objects. When the subject is something as rare and as valuable as an almost 400-year-old Italian violin, the possibilities are considerable.

And if the violin Wetherbee was playing Tuesday wasn't made by Stradivarius, who did make it?

Based on the sound of the violin in Wetherbee's hands, a lot of violinists probably would like to give the maker a call.

In the meantime, the mystery surrounding the Rubinoff violin continues.

Maybe someday it will even make a movie.

Barbara Zuck -- bzuck@dispatch.com -- is Dispatch arts columnist and senior critic.